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Hindustan Times
15 hours ago
- Climate
- Hindustan Times
Barsaat in the times of battery of apps
It's that time of year again when the rainy season is at the doorstep and one is not sure whether it's going to rain cats and dogs, or whether one has saved enough for the rainy day. In these times of artificial rain, a la Dubai's fake cloud fiasco, not sure whether we should be saving for a rainy day or saving for a fake rainy day. (Instagram/Soumarup Ghosh) Come monsoon, and these are just some of the rain idioms one ends up pondering about. How digital life has perhaps even rendered redundant some monsoon proverbs and rain ditties. How technology has even transformed the ways in which we get rain ready. In these times of artificial rain, a la Dubai's fake cloud fiasco, not sure whether we should be saving for a rainy day or saving for a fake rainy day. Or take 'My Fair Lady's' fabled rain ditty. Were Hollywood's late diva Audrey Hepburn to do an Eliza Doolittle in this digital era, she may have had to croon tweaked lyrics: 'The fake rain in Bahrain, stays mainly in the plain...' Rain readiness As for being rain ready, in pre-digital times, it entailed a huge flurry of preparations. The rainy season saw people bustling about busy to bring on the three S's : Stocking. Sealing. Saving. Stocking: It entailed stocking up on provisions lest the Rain God and team decided to play a Test match up in the clouds rather than a sort of quick half-day IPL. The stocking meant piling up mostly daily provisions --- dabbalroti to doodh, eggs to veggies and fruits --- lest the doodhwallah and pheriwallahs play truant in the Test match staged by the Rain God's franchise. Since the cup cakes and sweet buns that the dabbalroti-wallah ferried were a daily staple come rain or shine, they too were very much part of the monsoon stockpile building. Digital life has changed all that, even our exertions to be rain ready. No worry now of a dabbalroti-wallah not turning up, he has as it is been delivered a death-knell. No tension now of a doodhwallah, with clanking and clanging milk cans, playing truant in the barsaat. Blinkit, BB Now, Instamart & Co hain naa. Even on days when it's raining cats and dogs, Digital India is generally assured of the bloke with the brown paper bag banging the doorbell. Unless the roads are clogged like a heart patient's arteries or Trump's grey cells. Sealing: Rain readiness spelt all kinds of sealing and screening. Cracked windows, leaking crevices and nooks needed to be sealed. A major concern for booklovers of yore was how to protect shelves and cupboards, chock-a-block with tomes and texts, from dampness. Damp shelves or dripping roofs could ruin literature of a lifetime. Stumbling upon patches of mouldy greenishness while thumbing through a treasured tome are a dreaded sight for a book collector. Thus, earlier days would see manual exercises of rain-proofing the walls of damp book cupboards or bookshelves. The weapons of protection would be anything handy -- mammoth plastic sheets culled from discarded atta bags to even rolls and rolls of aluminium foil. Ditto for clothes closets housing treasured silks and delicate chiffons. Exquisite brocades and Banarsis needed to be stowed away in potli bags or damp-proof stout steel trunks, with silica gel pouches. Digital life has changed all that, too. Rain-ready your home now, just at the tap of an app. Urban Company, UrbanRoof, and dehumidifier contraptions hain naa. Saving: Strange how with time, phrases and idioms sometimes grow up to acquire more literal meanings, than the original figurative connotations. Take the phrase 'to save for a rainy day'. Given the contemporary scenario, it may now carry more a literal meaning. Saving for a rainy day may entail investing in insurance against false ceiling collapses in chandeliered condos, where Digital India's mushrooming builder brands parked material as cheap as a Sarojini Nagar faux vanity kit. Saving for a rainy day may now literally mean buying life jackets and personal customised speedboats, sporting 24x7 wi-fi, to survive flooded flyovers, swimming skyrises and clogged condos in metropolises or millennium cities such as Gurugram. This should suffice to give a drift of things, without flooding the reader with more monsoon imagery. The curious case of 'A Walk In The Faux Clouds'. chetnakeer@
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
India's quick commerce sector made two-thirds of all 2024 e-grocery orders, report says
(Reuters) - India's quick commerce sector accounted for over two-thirds of all e-grocery orders last year, with its total market share growing about five times to $6-7 billion from 2022, a report by consultancy firm Bain and e-commerce giant Flipkart showed. The industry, which is dominated by the likes of Zomato-owned Blinkit, also accounted for a tenth of overall e-retail dollars spent in 2024, according to the report released on Wednesday. These platforms deliver groceries to electronics within minutes, and its market share is expected to grow over 40% annually till 2030, driven by expansion across new categories, geographies and consumer segments, according to the report. "The dramatic rise of quick commerce (i.e., delivery in less than 30 minutes) has been one of the most defining hallmarks of India's e-retail market over the last two years," according to the report, which stated that the sector had over 20 million annual online shoppers and employed over 400,000 people. However, these platforms could face some immediate challenges in expanding profitability, as they may struggle to grow into markets beyond large cities and also face stiff competition from larger e-commerce players including Flipkart. To sustain profitable growth, "companies must adapt their business models for markets beyond major metros, manage rising competition, and optimize supply chains", it said. The report comes at a time when players such as Flipkart Minutes, Myntra's M-now, BigBasket's BB Now, and Amazon's Tez have forayed into the sector with their respective quick commerce platforms. However, some industry experts expect this boom to be short lived. Last month, a Blume Ventures' report said that the sector may struggle to maintain its current pace of growth. TVS Capital Funds Chairman Gopal Srinivasan told Reuters in an interview that the quick-commerce frenzy is a "passing fad" and unsustainable in the long run. (This story has been corrected to say e-grocery, not e-retail, in the headline and paragraph 1) Sign in to access your portfolio
Reuters
27-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
India's quick commerce sector made two-thirds of all 2024 e-retail orders, report says
March 27 (Reuters) - India's quick commerce sector accounted for over two-third of all e-retail orders last year, with its total market share growing about five times to $6-7 billion from 2022, a report by consultancy firm Bain and e-commerce giant Flipkart showed. The industry, which is dominated by the likes of Zomato-owned ( opens new tab Blinkit, also accounted for a tenth of overall e-retail dollars spent in 2024, according to the report released on Wednesday. These platforms deliver groceries to electronics within minutes, and its market share is expected to grow over 40% annually till 2030, driven by expansion across new categories, geographies and consumer segments, according to the report. "The dramatic rise of quick commerce (i.e., delivery in less than 30 minutes) has been one of the most defining hallmarks of India's e-retail market over the last two years," according to the report, which stated that the sector had over 20 million annual online shoppers and employed over 400,000 people. However, these platforms could face some immediate challenges in expanding profitability, as they may struggle to grow into markets beyond large cities and also face stiff competition from larger e-commerce players including Flipkart. To sustain profitable growth, "companies must adapt their business models for markets beyond major metros, manage rising competition, and optimize supply chains", it said. The report comes at a time when players such as Flipkart Minutes, Myntra's M-now, BigBasket's BB Now, and Amazon's Tez have forayed into the sector with their respective quick commerce platforms. However, some industry experts expect this boom to be short lived. Last month, a Blume Ventures' report said that the sector may struggle to maintain its current pace of growth. TVS Capital Funds Chairman Gopal Srinivasan told Reuters in an interview that the quick-commerce frenzy is a "passing fad" and unsustainable in the long run.
