Not SIPs, here's what Edelweiss' Radhika Gupta thinks you should spend money on, ‘I always tell everyone, take time to…'
Writing on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), Radhika Gupta wrote in Hindi and English, emphasising that the fruits of hardwork are to be enjoyed, not only saved.
Radhika Gupta admitted that while it is her job to sell SIPs, she does advovate for people to 'enjoy the fruits of your hardwork' and find a good middle ground between spending and saving/investing.
'Started this journey with a dream, now a small joy fills my heart. The sweetness of hardwork is a different kind of joy.' (roughly translated from Hindi) she said on X, on July 23.
Adding, 'My job is to sell SIPs, but I always tell everyone — young and old — to take the time to enjoy the fruits of your hardwork. Save, but also spend, on things that give you joy, because it makes the journey worth it.'
'At the end of the day, life is not a race of who has the highest NAV of most rupees, but who has lived most joyfully. The middle path exists, and it is good one,' she noted.
A prominent figure on social media, interacting with everyday investors on X, Radhika Gupta often advices followers on various investment options and the potential market risks.
In June, she cautioned ordinary investors against looking for high returns without understanding the risks, noting that finfluencers use FOMO to push 'crazy investment opportunities' that are meant for more seasoned players.
She has also extensively batted for SIPs as a mode of investment that crores of common investors use to put their collective trust in the mutual funds market.
She said that it is this 'collective trust' in investment instruments that give the Indian capital markets its stability; and also praised SIPs as the 'accessible savings-cum-growth solution' for common retail investors.
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Hans India
13 minutes ago
- Hans India
Homegrown brand Tenali Double Horse rides the quick commerce wave to pan-India success with Instamart
For many younger, urban consumers, platforms like Instamart have become the gateway to discovering regional gems. One such story comes from a Bangalore-based software engineer who stumbled upon Tenali Double Horse while looking for premium-quality dals during a late-night grocery run on Instamart. 'I had never heard of the brand before, but the packaging looked authentic, and the reviews were great. I tried their Urad Gota—and now I don't buy anything else.' she shared. Stories like these reflect a growing trend where digital discovery is breathing new life into legacy brands, bridging the gap between tradition and convenience for a new generation of urban Indian consumers. With two decades of agricultural excellence, Tenali Double Horse, a premium pulses brand from Tenali in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district, is broadening its retail reach by tapping into India's fast-growing digital consumer base. Nearly 20% of its online business now comes through Instamart, supporting its growth into new markets. Today, Tenali Double Horse, a small brand born in the heart of Andhra Pradesh, is accessible across 12 Indian states - Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Delhi NCR, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Haryana, and Kerala on Instamart. This highlights how quick commerce platforms are enabling legacy and regional brands to reach wider geographies and new customer segments, particularly urban consumers seeking speed, quality, and convenience. Founded by Mr. Mohan Shyam Prasad in 2005, the brand's entry into quick commerce via Instamart demonstrates how traditional businesses are leveraging modern retail to meet the growing demand for accessible, high-quality food. Its flagship product, Urad Gota, has earned strong brand loyalty and drives repeat purchases, while other staples like Toor Dal, Moong Dal, Channa Dal, and Idly Ravva are emerging as top sellers in the Dals & Pulses category on Instamart. 'At Instamart, we're committed to enabling India's most trusted and promising brands to reach consumers with speed, quality, and ease. Tenali Double Horse represents the best of regional excellence, and our partnership showcases how traditional businesses can thrive in the quick commerce ecosystem. Consumers today are actively seeking high-quality, authentic products they can trust, and Tenali Double Horse's standout offerings like Urad Gota, Urad Ladoo, and Millets Ladoo are consistently becoming pantry essentials for users across India.' said Arjun Choudhary, VP Revenue & Growth, Instamart He added, 'By bridging deep-rooted legacy with modern convenience, we're not only expanding access to premium, homegrown products but also empowering heritage regional brands to scale rapidly and connect with a new generation of digital-first consumers.' "While our brand enjoys strong recognition and demand in the market, Instamart has helped us connect with time-crunched urban consumers across India who appreciate quality and seek convenience. It has helped us serve both our loyal customers more efficiently and introduce our products to first-time buyers beyond our geographical presence. We have also leveraged Instamart's platform insights to diversify and innovate our product range to meet the taste of modern consumers looking for authentic and high-quality traditional items like millet-based items, pickles, gunpowder, chocolates, and more." said Mohan Shyam Prasad, Founder of Tenali Double commerce has empowered Tenali Double Horse to not just streamline its sales and logistics but also fast-track product feedback and innovation cycles. Beyond their renowned pulses and dals, the brand has expanded its portfolio to high-demand items such as authentic pickles, gunpowders, spices, savouries, dry fruits, and chocolates. Catering to health-conscious consumers, Tenali Double Horse has also diversified from its core pulses business into millets, offering urban and conscious buyers an interesting range of offerings like millet laddus, millet noodles, millet cookies, millet-based ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat products, including six variants of whole grains and its hot-selling Urad Laddus, which will soon be available on Instamart. Maintaining its quality-first approach, Tenali Double Horse is positioning itself to capture the emerging health food market by combining its regional authenticity with the speed and convenience of quick commerce.
Indian Express
13 minutes ago
- Indian Express
What is driving rural distress in India?
— Ritwika Patgiri The Government has recently imposed a cap of 60 per cent on the spending under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for the first half of the financial year 2025-26. Until now, the scheme has operated as a demand-driven programme with no such spending limit. The capping has been seen as a challenge for rural communities relying on it, especially during the lean agricultural season. It has also been argued that around 20 per cent of the first half's budget is usually spent on clearing pending wages of the previous year. The mandate comes at a time when data from the Ministry of Rural Development has shown a 4.5 per cent rise in households demanding work under MGNREGS between June 2024 and June 2025. In June 2024, around 26.39 million households sought work under the scheme in June 2024, which rose to 27.59 million in June this year. The year 2025 marks two decades since the implementation of MGNREGS, which aimed to provide at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to one member of every Indian rural household. The scheme was implemented against the backdrop of declining real agricultural wages after the 1991 economic liberalisation. MGNREGS (based on MGNREG Act, 2005) also came against the backdrop of rural development policies shaped for poverty reduction and capital formation. The scheme sustained over the years, and notably during Covid-19 lockdown absorbed a large number of returning migrant workers. However, in recent years, the scheme faced issues such as inadequate budget allocation and delayed wage disbursement. As of 2018-19, only 7.4 per cent of rural households, on average, availed of 100 days of work. In 2023-24, an average MGNREGS household worked only for 52 days. Since the pandemic, there has been a rise in the number of people demanding MGNREGS work. However, the growing gap between the demand for work and its availability underlines a larger rural distress, where finding employment since the lockdown has become difficult. Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) highlights key indicators of this distress: — Rural wage contraction — High rural inflation — High demand for employment under MGNREGA, and — Sluggish rural consumption. These issues are closely linked to the developments in the agriculture sector. Agriculture remains India's largest sector for employment, accounting for 46 per cent in 2023-24, while contributing only 16 per cent to the country's GDP. During the last eight years, the real Gross Value Added (GVA) of agriculture has increased by 4.9 per cent. The projected growth rate of agriculture in FY 2025 is 4.6 per cent compared to 2.7 per cent in FY 2024. Nonetheless, despite this, real wages of agricultural workers have largely remained stagnant. The projections for growth are based on a good Kharif harvest and are contingent on an equally positive Rabi (winter) harvest, which is largely dependent on climatic conditions. In India, the agricultural workforce consists of cultivators and agricultural labourers. Agricultural labourers work on land owned by others in return of wages, paid in cash or kind. Cultivators, on the other hand, own land or operate land through lease or contracts. The stagnation in real wages of agricultural workers, along with an increase in agriculture's share of employment from 42.5 per cent in 2018-19 to 46.1 per cent in 2023-24, reveals issues within the sector and the broader Indian economy. The 'buffer' or 'fallback' nature of agriculture became evident during the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown. Studies have found how rural households went back to agriculture in the absence of other alternatives during the lockdown. Migrant workers returning to their respective areas also took up agricultural work as a 'fallback' option. This shows that agriculture remains important for rural labour. At the same time, sustained agricultural growth and rise in farmers' income are dependent on public investment and structural reforms in the sector. According to NABARD's All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (2021-22), the average monthly income of agricultural households was Rs 13,661 compared to Rs 11,438 of non-agricultural households. For agricultural households, income from cultivation forms one-third of the total income and is the primary source. Agricultural households have also shown more diversification into other income sources as compared to non-agricultural households. The story of the emergence of non-farm employment among rural households is closely related to the transformation of the rural economy post-Green Revolution. India's economic growth between the 1960s and 1980s has been termed by the late economist Raj Krishna as the 'Hindu rate of growth', referring to the low economic growth that averaged around 4 per cent. During the 1960s, the growth rate of agriculture was around 1 per cent annually, which increased slightly to 2.2 per cent between 1968-69 and 1975-76. The Green Revolution of the early 1970s helped the country achieve food sufficiency in foodgrains like rice and wheat. However, the impact of this revolution was uneven, evident in: — Rising regional disparities — Neglect of rainfed areas — Neglect of nutritional crops, like millets, and non-food grains, and — Exclusion of resource-poor farmers Moreover, it also raised concerns about issues of ecological degradation and long-term environmental sustainability. Another debate around the Green Revolution in India has been around its role in the emergence of the rural non-farm sector. The mainstream view holds that Green Revolution technologies, by boosting agricultural productivity and farmers' income, create consumption linkages that generate demand for goods and services produced by small-scale, labour-intensive rural entities. This, in turn, creates backward linkages and spurs demand for agro-processing goods. Studies indicate that states like Punjab, Haryana, and West Bengal have benefitted from such growth patterns. However, there's a flipside to it – a contrasting perspective suggests that because of rising input costs and uneven distribution of the benefits of the Green Revolution, many rural households were pushed to opt for alternative non-farm sources of income. Hence, it has been argued that rural non-farm employment was often driven by distress. In fact, the nature of the emergence of the rural non-farm economy is contentious. There is, however, evidence that a large number of farmers are increasingly relying on borrowing to manage their agricultural activities as a result of rising costs of cultivation, including the cost of labour, fertilizers, and machinery. The larger question on the current rural distress indicates that despite growth in the agricultural sector, rural workers struggle to find adequate employment. While supply side policies like easing credit access, reducing direct taxes (like corporate taxes), and promoting the ease of doing business are important, they fall short of addressing the basic concerns of job creation and the quality of employment available to rural workers. MGNREGS, for instance, was implemented on the basis of a legal right to employment. But the spending cap neglects the demand-driven nature of the scheme. Moreover, public investment in agriculture needs to be scaled up, particularly in areas like irrigation, storage, and climate-resilient farming practices. Both MGNREGA and agriculture acted as 'fallback' options during the pandemic-induced lockdown, a fact that cannot be overlooked in future policy decisions. Examine the impact of the recent cap 60 per cent on MGNREGS spending on rural employment and livelihoods. What do you think could be the possible implications of spending cap on the scheme? Despite growth in agriculture, rural workers continue to face employment challenges. Discuss the structural issues underlying this paradox. MGNREGS functioned as a safety net during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 lockdown. Comment. Discuss the role of MGNREGS and agriculture as 'fallback' options in the rural labour market. What does this indicate about the state of rural employment in India? (Ritwika Patgiri is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Economics, South Asian University.) Share your thoughts and ideas on UPSC Special articles with Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.
Time of India
13 minutes ago
- Time of India
With AI plan, Trump keeps chipping away at a foundational environmental law
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills When President Donald Trump rolled out a plan to boost artificial intelligence and data centers, a key goal was wiping away barriers to rapid that meant taking aim at the National Environmental Policy Act - a 55-year-old, bedrock law aimed at protecting the environment though a process that requires agencies to consider a project's possible impacts and allows the public to be heard before a project is approved. Data centers, demanding vast amounts of energy and water, have aroused strong opposition in some AI Action Plan Trump announced last week would seek to sweep aside NEPA, as it's commonly known, to streamline environmental reviews and permitting for data centers and related infrastructure. Republicans and business interests have long criticized NEPA for what they see as unreasonable slowing of development, and Trump's plan would give "categorical exclusions" to data centers for "maximum efficiency" in permitting.A spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality said the administration is "focused on driving meaningful NEPA reform to reduce the delays in federal permitting, unleashing the ability for America to strengthen its AI and manufacturing leadership."Trump's administration has been weakening the law for months."It's par for the course for this administration. The attitude is to clear the way for projects that harm communities and the environment," said Erin Doran, senior staff attorney at environmental nonprofit Food & Water is a foundational environmental law in the United States, "essentially our Magna Carta for the environment," said Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group, referring to the 13th century English legal text that formed the basis for constitutions into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, NEPA requires federal agencies proposing actions such as building roads, bridges or energy projects to study how their project will affect the environment. Private companies are also frequently subject to NEPA standards when they apply for a permit from a federal recent years, the law has become increasingly important in requiring consideration of a project's possible contributions to climate change."That's a really important function because otherwise we're just operating with blinders just to get the project done, without considering whether there are alternative solutions that might accomplish the same objective, but in a more environmentally friendly way," Park business groups say NEPA routinely blocks important projects that often taken five years or more to complete."Our broken permitting system has long been a national embarrassment,'' said Marty Durbin, president of the US Chamber's Global Energy Institute. He called NEPA "a blunt and haphazard tool" that too often is used to block investment and economic White House proposal comes as Congress is working on a permitting reform plan that would overhaul NEPA, addressing long-standing concerns from both parties that development projects -- including some for clean energy -- take too long to be strength - and usefulness - can depend on how it's interpreted by different a Republican, sought to weaken NEPA in his first term by limiting when environmental reviews are required and limiting the time for evaluation and public comment. Former Democratic President Joe Biden restored more rigorous his second term, Trump has again targeted the executive order that touched on environmental statutes has many agencies scrapping the requirement for a draft environmental impact statement. And the CEQ in May withdrew Biden-era guidance that federal agencies should consider the effects of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions when conducting NEPA the US Supreme Court in May narrowed the scope of environmental reviews required for major infrastructure projects. In a ruling involving a Utah railway expansion project aimed at quadrupling oil production, the court said NEPA wasn't designed "for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects.""It's been a rough eight months for NEPA," said Dinah Bear, a former general counsel at the Council on Environmental Quality under both Democratic and Republican Ruple, a research professor of law at the University of Utah, said sidelining NEPA could actually slow things down. Federal agencies still have to comply with other environmental laws, like the Endangered Species Act or Clean Air Act. NEPA has an often overlooked benefit of forcing coordination with those other laws, he examples of cases where NEPA has played a role A botanist by training, Mary O'Brien was working with a small organization in Oregon in the 1980s to propose alternative techniques to successfully replant Douglas fir trees that had been clear-cut on federal lands. Aerially sprayed herbicides aimed at helping the conifers grow have not only been linked to health problems in humans but were also killing another species of tree, red alders, that were beneficial to the fir saplings, O'Brien US Forest Service had maintained that the herbicides' impact on humans and red alders wasn't a problem. But under NEPA, a court required the agency to redo their analysis and they ultimately had to write a new environmental impact statement."It's a fundamental concept: 'Don't just roar ahead.' Think about your options," O'Brien said.O'Brien, who later worked at the Grand Canyon Trust, also co-chaired a working group that weighed in on a 2018 Forest Service proposal, finalized in 2016, for aspen restoration on Monroe Mountain in Utah. Hunters, landowners, loggers and ranchers all had different opinions on how the restoration should be handled. She said NEPA's requirement to get the public involved made for better research and a better plan."I think it's one of the laws that's the most often used by the public without the public being aware," said Stephen Schima, senior legislative counsel at environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice. "NEPA has long been the one opportunity for communities and impacted stakeholders and local governments to weigh in."Schima said rolling back the power of NEPA threatens the scientific integrity of examining projects' full impacts."Decisions are going to be less informed by scientific studies, and that is one of the major concerns here,'' he said uncertainty from NEPA changes and competing opinions on how to comply with the law's requirements may invite even more litigation."And all of this will fall on the shoulder of agencies that are losing the staff needed to lead them through these changes," he said.
