🚨
@besugarfit
, Cult.fit-backed startup, has lured 25,000+ users for a programme that’s more about diabetes management and nothing about what it claims.
In today’s
@TheKenWeb
story:
In many cases, India’s top food-delivery companies (
@zomato
and
@Swiggy
) are charging customers more for delivery than they actually pass on to their delivery partners.
In this week's Trade Tricks. Via
@TheKenWeb
Is online food delivery major
@zomato
exploiting its delivery partners on bicycle in the name of environment, social and governance (ESG)?
🧵Read on.
@MorningContext
(1/n)
Amul is known to create a major market when there was none. It transformed India from a milk-deficient nation into the world’s largest milk producer.
Now the behemoth wants to do the same with protein to a population that needs more of it
@TheKenWeb
Many customers may assume that the delivery-partner fees we’re charged go to the delivery partners fully. That’s what even
@zomato
claims.
But does it really?
I write in this week's Trade Tricks for
@TheKenWeb
.
Sign up for 🆓.
Work update: This was my last week
@MorningContext
.
Thank you,
@akm1410
for providing me with an opportunity to work with some of the best minds. Really grateful to everyone on the team who helped & guided me over the last two years.
And a big thanks to all the readers. :)
In 2020, Swiggy changed its vision after its core business, food delivery, took a hit. It was forced to diversify. Enter Instamart and Genie.
But a recent protest by its partners sparks tough questions for the food-and-grocery-delivery giant.
@TheKenWeb
🚨
#Breaking
Blinkit’s operations were hit on Tuesday in some parts of Delhi NCR after several delivery partners went on strike against a revised payout system, which will result in lower earnings, workers say.
@letsblinkit
@MorningContext
Food delivery partners run the risk, but can they count on the insurance coverage provided by
@Swiggy
and
@zomato
?
What exactly do these insurance policies cover?
🧵 A thread.
@MorningContext
Flexible working hours, fewer barriers to entry and extra income are why platform-based gig work seems like a viable option for women, whose participation in the country’s workforce was no more than 22% in 2021-22.
@MorningContext
🚨 Asia’s largest home-services marketplace,
@urbancompany_UC
is cutting costs to achieve profitability.
But its customers are angry. Partners? Angrier. Amid this, UC is also grappling with losses. This and more in my first longform for
@TheKenWeb
.
🚨Today's Big Story
@TheKenWeb
is a cautionary tale of a self-proclaimed integrated healthtech company.
Once IPO-bound and valued at over US$5 billion, Pharmeasy is now a tale of dubious business practices. At risk? its 3.9 mn annual transacting users:
E-grocers like
@letsblinkit
,
@SwiggyInstamart
, and
@ZeptoNow
are selling things you absolutely wouldn’t imagine them to.
Think iPhones. Kurtas. Toys. Thermals. Undergarments. Cosmetics. Party goods. Gifts. The list goes on.
@TheKenWeb
Fear sells. Period.
But such content becomes counterproductive for doctors and nutritionists who genuinely want to fight misinformation about food and health.
@TheKenWeb
The promise of social media: fame and fortune, even for those without experience or skills telling you what to do. The ones we’ve crowned as “influencers”.
But this story isn’t about them. It’s about the ones who tell us what NOT to do.
@TheKenWeb
IRCTC has tightly controlled passengers’ access to food in Indian railways for the past two and a half decades. But that is changing now.
It wants
@Swiggy
and
@zomato
to save train meals and its own e-catering business.
@TheKenWeb
Imp read: At-home blood tests are convenient and cheap but often unreliable.
🧵
@TheKenWeb
spoke to 19 home-collection users, 14 diagnostics professionals, and reviewed several reports. To go deeper into the process, six of us booked a routine test:
URGENT: anyone in Delhi/Gurgaon with B negative blood group and can donate? Please reach out to
@MahimaKapoor12
. 🙏 This is a bit urgent, please retweet for reach
What do band-aid, xerox, scotch tape, and jacuzzi have in common?
These aren’t just consumer goods but brands that became so popular that people use them as everyday words.
@TheKenWeb
Delhi recorded its worst air in November since 2015. There were 11 ‘severe’ air days during the month, higher than the nine in 2020, seven in 2019 and five in 2018. The data is important.
I met D last month when he came to deliver his sixth order of the day. He was tired, sweating and looked nervous. I offered him water and asked to relax for a bit.
It was his first day with
#Zomato
. This story is about what’s happened to him since delivering that order.
The idea behind the NMMS app, an online attendance system, was to bring greater transparency and accountability. But the government’s unwillingness to address the post-rollout issues and thoroughly test the app is telling.
🧵
@MorningContext
You need to download
#DigiYatra
again. But it’s less about a tech upgrade and more about a ‘scam’ involving Dataevolve - a Hyderabad-based company which built Digiyatra’s tech.
A very important story today
@TheKenWeb
by
@Rounak_T
. It's a free read:
Amul wants to do to protein what it did to milk.
My colleague and host,
@snigdhasharma9
explains it wonderfully in today's episode of Daybreak by
@TheKenWeb
.
Here:
The sales of psychiatric meds are on the rise. More people are seeking mental health help, but there's only one psychiatrist for 140K people in India.
So, who are they seeking help from, and who is prescribing these meds?
@TheKenWeb
[FREE READ]
@OfficialIGNOU
, a one-of-its-kind university run by the Centre, caters to 3 million-plus students. It has a network of 67 regional centres (RCs) and over 3,600 learner support centres (LSCs).
(2/n)
I hereby inform
@IndiGo6E
that my sister had traveled from Pune-Nagpur on July 29 (PNR- TP3STK). Today she has tested positive for COVID-19 and stays asymptomatic. I request you to inform the cabin crew and co-passengers.
“Maybe they don’t have resources or could conduct online examinations, but they weren’t able to pull it off. I don’t think IGNOU keeps their students in the centre amid all this. The students are bearing all the problems.”
(11/n)
If you have travelled via
#GoFirst
recently or come across several passenger complaints, here's everything you need to know to understand the chaos at the Wadia Group airline. There’s always more than what meets the eye.
@MorningContext
(1/n)🧵
Bicycle delivery partners like D are stuck in a vicious cycle literally. Low wages are coupled with no consistency in order pay or incentive structure + large, unexplained cuts in their payout.
Hi
@stripe
,
We've (
@newslaundry
) been requesting a team call since April 23. I had followed up on the support ticket 4 times, had a live chat with someone from your team as well. They assured me we'll receive call details via email but we haven't yet. Can you check, please?
"Relationship success has probably less to do with age and more to do with how responsibly we act with the differences we share with our partner.."
@nona_uppal
writes a good piece on age-gap relationships.
Delivery partners are also told not to tell customers when they are assigned two orders on a single trip. The order received 1st is supposed to be delivered 1st even if the drop location of the 2nd is on the way. The 2nd location is shared only after the first order is completed
It has rolled out a slew of whey-based products. The latest in line is its high-protein dahi (curd), launched in January. It also has a pricing edge over its competitors. Courtesy of its in-house whey production, it can offer more protein per rupee than its rivals.
We are glad to welcome
@AshwinM_
to The Morning Context. Ashwin joins us as a writer for financial technology and banking and elevate our fintech coverage.
While IGNOU is headquartered in Delhi and serves as the main campus, the RCs and LSCs act as an interface with students. But things have been going south lately, even as enrolments grow.
(3/n)
There is a pattern with the Adani group where promoter family members are seen on the boards of all listed entities.
Read if you haven't already: Decoding Gautam Adani’s inner circle
By
@aakriti_bhalla
Yesterday, the
@DGCAIndia
fined
@airindiain
Rs 30 lakh and suspended the licence of the pilot for three months over the urination incident on the New York-Delhi 26 November flight.
But why are Indian airlines bad at handling drunk, unruly passengers?
The conventional system it follows is in shambles, including administration, communication, support, providing timely resources with up-to-date technology to its students, teaching methods, etc.
(6/n)
A body created to flag violations of the programming and advertising code seems to have turned into the ruling party’s ‘media cell’, keeping tabs on critical coverage.
@sighyush
's debut in
@MorningContext
.
It is also a deep dive into the lives of other bicycle
#deliverypartners
, who are a fairly recent addition to Zomato’s 300k+ fleet of partners and an initiative through which it claims it is addressing its carbon emissions and moving towards sustainability.
Launched to make the claims process under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana easier, the glitch-prone 'Crop Insurance' app has actually made farmers’ lives a lot more difficult.
🧵 A thread.
@MorningContext
@pmfby
#CropInsurance
Besides the basic pay and medical insurance,
@zomato
doesn’t provide its cyclists any other perks. Or even any protective gear.
What Zomato does do is charge an onboarding fee of Rs 1,200 from every bicycle delivery partner. Rs 400 extra if one goes for an instalment option.
Interesting poll results- 61% of
@TheKenWeb
's subscribers visit a movie theatre less than once a month.
Sign up & subscribe to read how PVR Inox has stacked the odds against its own subscription service, which aims to lure more audience to its theatres:
According to Zomato’s ESG update, 18% of its orders in 2021-22 were delivered on bicycle, described as part of its push for “climate conscious deliveries.”
Zomato had 535 mn orders that year, implying that 96.3 mn orders, or 260,000 orders a day, were delivered on bicycles.
“You won’t believe it, but I don’t even have second-year books to study except for two. I am studying online from my laptop, as I appear for my exams.”
(9/n)
The partners and former employees
@TheKenWeb
spoke with said
@urbancompany_UC
enjoys a steady stream of partners, which enables it to reap multiple revenue streams with each new addition.
Read:
@TheKenWeb
has an interesting story about IRCTC joining hands with food delivery giants
@Swiggy
and
@zomato
for e-catering. But delivering food in trains ≠ home delivery. Do spare some time and read.
While onboarding
#bicycle
delivery partners in 2019, Zomato said they would be allotted shorter distances, averaging 2.5 km. And that it would limit the distance to 1.5 km during peak summer. But that’s not happening.
Apna wanted to build a Linkedin like platform for blue-collar workers, from networking to jobs to upskilling.
But now it welcomes all forms of labour. That’s what its website, which has several categories of jobs across departments, indicates.
@TheKenWeb
India made the 5G rollout a matter of national pride, but it's the 3G story all over again: all dressed up with nowhere to go, writes
@Singh10Seema
in today's story
@TheKenWeb
.
Here: