Audio
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India's first space solar observatory Aditya-L1 launches Saturday — what you should know
India's first dedicated solar observatory in space, the Aditya-L1, will launch Sep. 2 at 11:50 a.m. The satellite is to be placed in an orbit around a point called the Lagrange Point 1 or L1, 1.5 million km from us on a straight line between the Earth and the Sun. The Sun itself is 150 million km away from us. Jagdev Singh, a professor at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the principal investigator of VELC (visible emission line coronagraph), the main payload on the satellite, unpacks what we might learn from the data it beams back
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Inside our Climate issue: Why it's always a good time to talk about climate change
In the run-up to the G20 meetings in New Delhi, where climate is a key issue, and COP28 in November, Divya J Shekhar puts together a ready reckoner on the prominent issues relating to climate change that we need to talk about. With deep dives and insights on GDP loss due to climatic events, job losses, ESG funds, and even a clutch of entrepreneurs who are using tech to solve for India, this issue is a packed one
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Decoding the next phase of Reliance Industries
At the Reliance Industries AGM, the Ambani family made a slew of announcements, including that Mukesh Ambani's children, Isha, Akash and Anant, would be appointed to the board of directors. JioAir Fibre will launch on September 19, and the company promised access to artificial intelligence to everyone, everywhere. Listen on to hear where Forbes India's Samar Srivastava and Nasrin Sultana, who join us on To The Point today, think the most exciting next phase of growth will come from
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Why we're still in the '1960s of cryptocurrency'
How do we create cryptocurrency regulations while also allowing entrepreneurs the freedom to create viable businesses? Speaking at the B20 Summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister Modi called for an integrated approach to cryptocurrency regulations globally. Our guest today, Hemant Mohapatra, partner at Lightspeed India, says that founders have been confused, even afraid, in the absence of a proper framework, and explains why we are still in the very early days of the crypto industry
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Behind Indian chess's big moves
Last week, the world watched as India's own 18-year-old R Praggnanandha took on World No 1 Magnus Carlsen, in a series of nail-biting finals that comprised two draws and a tie-breaker. The spotlight now is on a valiant, truly talented crop of new players, well-poised to take on the legend Viswanathan Anand's mantle. Can India produce a chess world champion in the next few years? Arjuna award winner and chess grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, the first Indian to win the Commonwealth Chess Championship, is confident that we could see one, even as soon as 2024
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Board exams twice in the year?
In a major overhaul to the education system, the NCERT has announced the new National Curriculum Framework, which includes many changes, among which one of the buzziest is that there will be two sets of board exams in the year, so students can take them whenever they feel ready—and the best scores will be considered. We discuss what this means for students, and whether some of these changes, aimed at making student life stress free, are counterproductive? Kamlesh Vyas, partner, Deloitte, who specializes in higher education and skills development, breaks down the key features for us
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India's Chandrayaan-3, a world-first feat for all humanity — what next?
"One Earth, One Family, One Future," India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, after the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3's lander module in the South Polar region of the Moon's surface yesterday — making India the first nation to achieve this feat. "This success belongs to all of humanity," he added. Narayan Prasad, co-founder and COO of Satsearch and co-founder of Spaceport SARABHAI, joins us to unpack the significance of what just happened, and to give us a sense of where India's deep space exploration efforts can go from here
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BRICS Summit: Will India and China hold talks, and will they end constructively?
All eyes on Johannesburg as PM Modi has landed for the BRICS summit, the first physical one since 2019. Amid geopolitical tensions, there is great anticipation over whether PM Modi will hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and if yes, whether that meeting ends constructively. What are India's goals at the summit? Ambassador Rajiv Bhatia, Distinguished Fellow for Foreign Policy Studies, Gateway House and former High Commissioner of India to South Africa, joins the dots for us today
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Deep Tech India: Karthee Madasamy on the role of the 'forcing function' in deep tech startups' success
As India readies its own deep tech startups policy, this is episode five in a short series of conversations with some of the entrepreneurs and VC investors who are building this ecosystem in the country. In this episode, Karthee Madasamy, founding managing partner at MFV Partners, an early-stage deep tech VC firm in the US, talks about why he thinks robotics is about to take off. He also talks about why, deep tech entrepreneurs must be aware of the state of the industry and how that will affect the adoption of their new technologies
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Firstcry, Softbank and the IPO resurgence
According to the Economic Times, Softbank has sold stake in ecommerce platform Firstcry to three Indian family offices, worth Rs435 crore. Firstcry, an online store dealing in baby products across categories, has raised close to a billion dollars in funding, and was valued at $2.7 billion post money, as of April 2023. It is expected go public next year. Forbes India's market trackers, Nasrin Sultana and Samar Srivastava, join us on ToThePoint today, to decode what Softbank's strategy is here, the comeback of the IPO cycle, and how retail investors should read into this phase
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2 billion phones made in India: Why this is a big deal
India is now the second-largest mobile phone producer, behind China, as per a report by global research firm Counterpoint. Tarun Pathak, research head at Counterpoint, takes us through the numbers, and breaks down what changed, and how India is attempting a phased strategy of moving from assembling to making. Also, a bit on how important Apple is to this play