Markets Snap Four Day Losing Streak
Tariffs themselves are not moving markets much but flows and macro signals continue to as Tuesday's trade suggested
On Episode 634 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Naushad Forbes, Chancellor of Nayanta University and Co-Chairperson of Forbes Marshall. We also feature an excerpt from our extended discussion with Algorand’s Technical Lead for India, Nikhil Varma and Anil Kakani, VP and India Head at the Algorand Foundation in our ongoing “Build On Blockchain” Series.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) Stories of the Day
(01:00) Markets snap four day losing streak
(03:06) State owned telecom company defaults on loans with total debt over Rs 34,000 crore
(07:31) A Chinese invasion no one saw happen.
(08:57) Getting overseas student visas is tough but more options are opening up in India
(28:29) Build on Blockchain
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
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Good morning, it's Wednesday the 16th of July and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital, and our top stories and themes. Before we start, this is a longer edition with an interview with Nayantha University Chancellor Dr. Naushad Forbes coming up later. Do stay tuned for that and the top stories and themes.
The market snap of four-day losing streak.
A Chinese invasion that no one saw happen.
Getting overseas student visas is tough but more options are opening up in India and that's the interview as well.
And state-owned telecom company MTNL defaults on loans with total debt now over 34,000 crore rupees.
Market Snap Losses
Tariffs themselves are not moving markets much but flows and macro signals continue to as Tuesday's trade suggested.
In the commodity markets, for instance, oil prices barely reacted to President Trump's threats of secondary tariffs on Russian oil exports. For instance, oil prices barely reacted to US President Donald Trump's threats of secondary tariffs on Russian oil exports. And India and China are, of course, two very big consumers.
Trump had said that penalties would come in the form of secondary tariffs without providing details and would be implemented in 50 days if Russia does not end hostilities with Ukraine. Oil prices were mostly unchanged around $70 a barrel. Bloomberg reported the US ambassador to NATO saying that this action effectively represents sanctions on nations buying Russian oil that comes back to India and China.
Back home, the stock markets snapped a four-day losing streak on the back of falling inflation and foreign capital inflows. The Sensex was up 317 points to close at 82,570 and the Nifty was up 113 points to close at 25,195. The broader markets were also strong.
The Nifty mid-cap and the Nifty small-cap were up just under a percent each. Sectoral indices were also in the green like the Nifty Auto Index which did better than many others like Nifty Pharma and Healthcare which were also up. Elsewhere, for gold watchers, prices were up on Tuesday as concerns over the global trade war fuelled demand for safe-haven assets.
Spot gold was quoting around $3,361 per ounce and futures were at about $3,371 per ounce. The US dollar was down slightly making gold cheaper for buyers holding other currencies. Silver, meanwhile, is hitting new highs and people are making money off these spikes.
It gained again to about $38.28 per ounce after hitting its highest level since September 2011. A commodity strategist at WisdomTree told Reuters that if the current gold-to-silver ratio is maintained at gold prices above $3,440 per ounce, you could see silver above $40 an ounce.
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Meanwhile, Mahanaga Telephone Nigam Limited, a listed state-owned company that should have been wound down many years ago and its real estate sold, on Tuesday said it has defaulted on the payment of principal and interest on loans amounting to about 8,500 crores from seven public sector banks as of June 30, 2025.
MTNL is a once-upon-a-time telephone and telecom services company which has lost its pre-eminent position to private sector players in the cities of Mumbai and Delhi where it primarily operates. According to MTNL, the total overdue amount includes about 7,790 crores in principal and about 790 crores in interest. Its total debt stands at about 34,484 crores.
This is approaching what Air India used to be at about 40,000 crores in its peak days. This figure comprises bank loans of 8,500 crores, sovereign guarantee bonds worth about 24,000 crores, and a 1,800 crore loan from the Department of Telecommunications, according to a report in Business Standard. MTNL shares were still quoting high at about Rs.
49 on the BSC on Tuesday. The stock price quite likely reflects only the real estate value and there is very little chance of that debt being repaid unless the company were to sell assets. Trade is steady.
India's merchandise exports for the month of June stood at about $35 billion, nearly flat from the $35.16 billion in the same month last year. They were, however, 9% lower than the previous month and the lowest since November when exports were at about $32.1 billion. On the imports side, India saw a roughly 3.7% year-on-year decline, totalling to about $53.9 billion, or close to $54 billion.
India's trade deficit stood at about $18.7 billion in June, given those import and export figures, according to data released by the government on Tuesday, according to a report in Business Standard. This gap comes amidst fairly stagnant export growth and decline in imports.
Tesla Finally Lands
Tesla opened its Mumbai showroom today at Bandra Khurdla Complex or BKC, a much-anticipated event that saw heightened media speculation even on the day that's today and in the run-up, including focussing on potential real estate transactions on where the store's final location could be. The Mumbai showroom is termed an experience centre, which means you can go and enjoy and see things and not necessarily do much more. Tesla's Model Y launched here is starting at 60 lakh rupees with two variants offered.
Retail sales will be conducted through these imported units, with five Model Y vehicles already delivered to Mumbai from Tesla's Shanghai facility, according to a Business Standard report. Like any imported car, the prices are much higher in India right now, and it would be interesting to see how the India-US trade talks evolve, given that lower import duties, which is currently about 70% for cars above $40,000, could drop sharply. But then, if it were to happen, it would also open the car market for other carmakers like GM or Ford, if they did want to export cars into India.
Both GM and Ford have departed from India now, though Ford is contemplating a return for what looks like the third time. Sticking to cars, but driverless ones, Baidu has struck a partnership with Uber to deploy its autonomous cars on Uber's platform outside the US and mainland China, according to a report in the CNBC. The first deployments are expected to happen in Asia and the Middle East, and both companies said the multi-year partnership would see thousands of Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicles on Uber globally.
For Baidu, this move will help internationalise its driverless car business outside of China. Of course, that's also a renewed indicator of how companies who had no experience in car making are suddenly becoming giants in car making, or in this case, driverless cars. The company said that after the launch, a rider requesting a trip on Uber may be given the option to hail a driverless Apollo Go car.
In China, Baidu has been operating its own robo-taxi service since four years in cities like Beijing and letting users hail an Apollo Go car through the app.
A Chinese Invasion
It's of course getting tougher to predict what a lifestyle trend can be and from where it will come. Korean pop and now Chinese dolls.
Indeed, not the cheap variety very far from it, actually. In the latest invasion of the global culture marketplace, Chinese toy maker Popmart International Group has said the soaring global popularity of its Labubu plush toys will drive a threefold increase in first-half revenue and an even bigger boost to profit, according to a Bloomberg report. Labubu is defined as a pointy-eared, serrated-toothed monster and is taking the world by storm, and celebrities have been flaunting them all over.
Last month, a human-sized toy sold for $150,000 at an auction in Beijing. The company said on Tuesday that it expects at least a 350% gain in profits for the six months ended June 30 and a 200% increase in revenue. Interestingly, in yet another insight on how trends, brands, and products move or spread, it began as an obsession amongst young Chinese but has now since gone international, with fans lining up for hours to get their brands on these cult toys.
In India too, they're sold in stores which sell imported accessories, among other things. But the interesting part is this, the surging popularity of Labubu has turned Popmart into a more than $40 billion company and its Hong Kong-listed shares have jumped more than 588% in the last year.
New Education Initiatives
It's becoming tougher for students heading to countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia to get visas.
The good news is that there are newer universities that are opening up in India or expanding with blended education and the allure of strong internships that could potentially lead to jobs. For instance, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, who also serves as Chancellor of BITS Pilani, on Sunday unveiled a series of AI Plus campus in Amravati, an upgrade on existing campuses, and the launch of BITS Pilani Digital, a full-fledged edtech platform. All of this will involve an investment of over Rs 2,200 crore, according to the company, and will cover their campuses in Hyderabad and Goa with new research and academic blocks and hostels and faculty housing.
Another university launching shortly is Nayanta University, established under the Maharashtra State Private University Act and is set to begin classes in August 2025 in Pune. Admissions for the inaugural cohort, which could go up to 100 students, opened in February this year, and classes are scheduled to start next month. Nayanta is interesting and unique because it's set up by business leaders and is connected at the hip, so to speak, with the Confederation of Indian Industry or CII, which ought to create effective internship and job pathways.
I reached out to Dr. Naushad Forbes, Chancellor of Nayanta University and also co-chairman of Forbes Marshall, a steam engineering and control instrumentation firm based out of Pune as well, and I began by asking him what Nayanta was promising to students who are signing up or would sign up in coming months.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Naushad Forbes: Our original aspiration is to be one of India's great universities, and we have this belief that India needs a hundred great universities. So our goal is to be one of those great universities that we as a country must build in the longer run. In terms of Nayanta specifically, we have a few things that we feel we're different with, and maybe I can quickly run through those.
First, we really believe that if we can attract a class that reflects the talent of India, the diversity of talent, the geographical diversity, the economic diversity of India, we will have a class that is simply better in terms of the quality of students than over time not only any university in India, but any university I would argue in the world. If you can truly attract talent from a population of 1.4 billion, you've got the best student body in the world. That's our aspiration.
And the way we're trying to go about it is by working with students when they're younger. So to begin with, we're just working with students when they're 16, 17 years old to identify really talented students from all walks of life. Yes, from affluent urban backgrounds, but also from rural backgrounds, over time from backgrounds and cohorts of students that come from areas who don't today normally even think they can aspire to go to a great university.
So we're saying, listen, let's start working with people when they're young. And the way we're reaching them is through the CSR work that all of us as companies do together with various NGO partners who work with different disadvantaged groups. And by actually working with them, we can identify really bright students from different backgrounds.
So this is what we're doing. Even in this very first class, we have a significant portion, about half of our student body who will come from pretty disadvantaged backgrounds. If you didn't do that, you've got this really high talent cohort that's coming in.
That's the first thing. The second differentiator is the foundation programme itself. We believe that every student and every graduate of a good university should be able to deal with the world, not just the country, but the world in all its cultural richness and all its technical richness.
Both are important. So the foundation programme is meant to provide every student with a certain base of foundational knowledge of cultural literacy and technical literacy. This doesn't mean that they need to be able to produce technology, but they should be able to use it.
They should be able to integrate it into their own lives and their own careers. And they should be able to use culture and relate to culture in a way which is enriching as individuals and as human beings. The hope is that through the foundational programme, we give every student enough of a common language so that they can then spend the remaining three years on campus teaching each other with that common foundation of cultural and technical literacy.
That's the second differentiator, if you like. The third differentiator is to combine theory and practise. And the way we're doing that is to give students an internship experience for a short time.
So actually through coursework, an experience with an NGO, an experience with the government, and an experience with a company. Because we want students to first decide which of those three they find the most attractive for their own interests to pursue a longer-term, five-month internship in their sector of choice. But also so that every student comes out with a respect for all three sectors.
Because I think we should all see each government, companies, and NGOs as having a significant role to play in our long-term development needs. And given that, we need to respect each of those. And that's the intention of these three sectors.
So that's the third piece, to combine this theory and practise through these multiple sectors. And the last piece is that there are many reservations that parents especially, students lesser, but parents have, about humanities and social science, education, and job career and career prospects. So we're saying that as a result of this five-month internship, we think that many job offers will follow.
So we'll address the career prospects piece as well. So those are sort of the four differentiators that we're trying to deliver. And then there's a fifth one which has to do with research work, but we can maybe get to that a little later.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So when you talk about cultural and technical richness, or the blending of cultural and technical aspects, I mean, how would that manifest itself, let's say, in year one curriculum?
Naushad Forbes: So it manifests itself in terms of teaching some core disciplines. So for example, history, country history, but also world history. Also some specialised country histories that individual students might be interested in, which they can pursue also later on and through electives.
Second, music and the fine arts, literature and appreciation of literature, because an appreciation of literature teaches you to understand character and what it means to have character and to understand people, which is such an essential skill and human motivation, human drives and desires and so on, which is such an essential capability that we all need to have in our lives. Technical literacy through, for example, a familiarity with computers and IT, but even more with the history of science, with the scientific method, what does it mean to approach a subject with a scientific mindset? What does it mean to verify, to be able to conduct an experiment for an independent third party to do the same experiment again and get the same result as an essential aspect of verification so that we don't just make assertions and say, this is true.
We make those assertions on the basis of experimentation and reveal truths that get verified by independent experimentation. So that scientific mindset we think is very important. And then the technology that flows from that, the technology that means that we need to have an understanding of the world, both old technology and new technology.
We're not talking only about the latest technology and fad and so on. We're saying you should have a deeper appreciation of how technology has transformed the world, transformed the world economy, transformed the individual life experiences that the average person now lives. So that appreciation of the history of science, the history of technology is also an essential part of technical literacy in our view.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And if again, this is to a parent, let's say, or a student who is now weighing options between coming to Pune to join Nayanta versus some of the other universities in the humanities space in India and overseas, what would you say is in some ways distinctive about Nayanta beyond what you've told me already?
Naushad Forbes: You know, the first thing that I'd say is what we're trying to do with our faculty first, and that's the fifth differentiator, is to try to get relatively young faculty combined with visiting senior faculty. The reason we're getting relatively young faculty who are sort of fresh out of college is that we want to achieve a combination of research and teaching. We want them to be good researchers, you know, who work on subjects, and I'll mention which subjects in a bit, but who work on subjects where they can really also engage their students with the passion for that subject and to learn more and understand the field.
And when you have younger faculty, they tend to be able to engage with students quite deeply because there's simply a smaller age gap between them. You know, instead of someone like me teaching, it's much better if someone who's 30 years younger is doing the teaching. Second, we're saying that teaching is as important as research, so we don't want only wonderful researchers.
We want people who can do world-class research but who are interested in teaching students, are willing and keen to spend more time with students both in the classroom and outside, and who over time become part of that intellectual community where student and faculty are part of the wider thirst for knowledge and that wider thirst for understanding the world better. So, that's the hope, and the hope is to combine the research and teaching in a very balanced way from day one. One of the things that the head of the university, Ranjan Banerjee, is very keen on, and I think he's exactly right, he says that when we bring in our faculty, we will actually run faculty development programmes for them because it's possible.
Teaching well is a skill. It's something that can be learned, and how do I put it, someone who's been teaching for 25 years may not be a good teacher necessarily, but they don't think they need to learn how to teach at that point in their careers. Someone who's just starting off in their careers are much more receptive to getting input on what it takes to be a great teacher.
I think that's one of the advantages, and then the reason for the senior faculty is, well, there are many great teachers who are wonderful senior faculty, so we bring some of them in, and the senior faculty will be there to also attract and mentor the young fresh faculty that we're hiring. So, we're trying to balance that freshness and openness to doing things in a different way that the fresh faculty would bring in with the experience and reputation that the senior mentor faculty would bring in.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And I know you've had an early response already, and we are close to or two months away from the first term beginning, or maybe less than that, a month. So, what is that telling you from what you've seen or the kind of questions that you've got?
Naushad Forbes: So, what we're hearing from everyone that we engage with, whether it's student counselors, principals of schools, and especially from parents and students, potential students, is what we're talking about resonates very nicely with them. They have questions. They have questions around, look, so will my child be able to get a job if they study literature?
And we're trying to reassure them that, for example, the founding companies in Niantha are committing to hiring a certain number of humanities and social science graduates that will cover the first two graduating classes. Now, whether those graduates go to those companies or whether those companies like those graduates is up to the graduates in the companies later on, but at least they're committing to hiring those humanities and social science graduates for their own needs going forward. So, we're trying to reassure parents on those kinds of questions.
Second, there's an advantage to Pune. It's seen as a pretty attractive place to live. Parents feel reassured that it's an easy city to navigate.
Our campus is pretty central, so it's not in the middle of nowhere. These are attractions for parents as well. So, I think being in Pune is also an attraction.
We're hearing this from the parents who have been coming to visit campus and so on. And third, the campus itself. I mean, you know, most universities that start out, start out in office space, you know, in a building somewhere, and we're starting in a really, I mean, you must come and visit, Govind.
It's a really pleasant campus. It's six and a half acres of land. All the buildings are single-story, so it's nicely spread out.
It's a forested area. The buildings, the original campus buildings, were designed by Christopher Benninger, who's one of our great architects. Anita Benninger sort of individually planted pretty well every tree, which is a native to that part of our part of the world.
So, it's a really beautiful campus, and I think that campus environment is itself also an attraction.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And at this point of time, you know, things have changed in the last maybe six months or more. A lot of students from India who were trying to go overseas, for example, are not able to and may want to stay on in India or may have no choice to stay on in India.
But the problem in India is also that there is not enough supply for this kind of demand. So, maybe you will have more demand than you will have seats. So, how are you seeing that?
Naushad Forbes: From a university perspective, it's always very healthy if you have more demand than supply, because it means that you simply can get better quality of input. I'd make one comment about this, or two comments actually. First, we have many, I think, interesting starts now in our higher education space.
You know, many good new private institutions that have started that are, I mean, not a huge number, but there are five, six really good institutions. And I think those should be part of the consideration set of any really good student. Now, if you're comparing it with the world's top 10 universities, we still all have lots of work to do in India.
Right. If you're comparing it with Stanford, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and the University of Chicago, these are institutions that have been around for centuries. In many cases, they've built a wealth of talent in their faculty, in the quality of their student body, and so on.
If you have a student who's got into one of those places, President Trump willing, one should go and take advantage of it. If you're talking about one of the second ranks, the second tier of institutions, I don't mean to be demeaning in any way when I say second tier, but these are great institutions, excellent quality education, et cetera. I think there, I would ask the question, say, listen, include these Indian institutions, these new private institutions in your consideration set, because I think one can provide a quality of experience that might actually be better in some respects and equal in many other respects.
So include these new private institutions as part of the consideration set. And if you're looking at the third tier of institutions, you know, institutions that would be not in the world's top 500, right, or 300 even, then I think without question, look at the set of institutions as your primary set of institutions to apply to. That would be my specific comment.
By the way, if you were going to the US or to the UK with the intention of, you know, then getting work experience and settling there and so on, I've always felt that that was a bad reason to go. It's a good reason to go to the country. It's a bad reason to get an education.
One should want to get an education for much longer-term, life-changing, life-developing purposes. I would keep encouraging people to come back to that, you know, what is the purpose of your education? What is it that you seek?
And seek something that will help you as an individual find your passion, find what you're really good at, and pursue the options that will unfold for you instead of having a kind of transactional and instrumental view of education as I will go there because that education will give me the better life instead of the education developing me as a person and therefore I having a better life.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Last question. So, if there is a course that you would personally teach, what would that be?
And will you be teaching, if at all?
Naushad Forbes: It's up to the academic leadership of the institute to decide whether they want to invite me or anyone else who's not full-time academic to teach. I would love to give talks on campus and do a lot of discussions with students as they would like if the university academic leadership so chooses. If I teach a course, the course I used to teach was around technology in developing countries.
It's a good subject. It's a great subject, actually. I think it's a subject that's best taken by a student when they're in their third or fourth year, so it'll come up maybe then.
In the short run, I think doing something around economic history and giving people some sense of the economic history of the world is a subject that I would love to actually teach initial students and to do it in a small seminar discussion format where we read some of the leading sort of texts in the field and books in the field and then get into a discussion around that. So, I think that would be something that I would love to teach in the shorter run. I used to teach some of that as a part of my technology and development course and I'd like to expand on it.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Wonderful to hear and it's most tempting for whoever is listening. Thank you so much for joining me, Dr. Forbes.
Naushad Forbes: Thank you, Govind. Thank you very much.
Building on Blockchain
Welcome back to Build on Blockchain, as we explore how emerging technologies are reshaping access infrastructure and opportunity from the ground up. This week we look at how blockchain adoption is quietly but steadily making its way into real-world applications from smart contracts and tokenised assets to markets.
Nikhil Verma, Technical Lead for India at Algorand and Anil Kakani, Vice President and India Country Head together, tell us why India is on the edge of a blockchain shift, not at scale yet, but brimming with grassroots innovation, much like the early days of Web2.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Govindraj Ethiraj: What's the app universe looking like today for people like me to interface, to find these tokens and set up smart contracts in the areas that will open up sooner than later?
Nikhil Varma: So, see, a blockchain transformation does not require a big bank transformation, right? It's about for an organisation to identify areas which they want scalability, where they want to create more accessibility, and start with the pilot. Look at a particular solution that, you know, you think this can be…
this is where trust is my bottleneck. I want to keep my trust, but then if I'm able to kind of outsource that trust to technology, I will be able to have a solution which is much more accessible, right? So, that's how bigger organisations…
it's like, you know, you have a mall, yeah? And in your mall, you have stores, right? You define all the rules.
This is how you will have to turn off this, and the mall will close at this time. How about opening a small, you know, thing around your mall, which would be open for midnight? Of course, you have to go through the police clearance and everything, but that would create, you know, a different kind of a customer interaction, a different kind of accessibility to people, right?
And that's essentially what bigger organisations should look at, right? So, it's definitely a business model transformation, but it does not require a big bank approach. It could be, you know, one piece, and that could open up new markets for you as well.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right, but if I was a bank, for example, I mean, it's pretty clear that I have a bunch of things that I could address, including the overhead costs and distribution reach by using token-based technology.
Anil Kakani: I was just going to say, to answer your question, right? We have, you know, solutions that are scaling wildly in different parts of the world today, right? But it's still early days, right?
There's a lot of, you know, question marks around regulation, around, you know, confusion over, you know, crypto versus blockchain, right? I mean, Algorand, where we are, it's a utility token, right? It's a token used to enable a transaction, right?
And so, and, you know, obviously, everything has to be regulatory compliant, but people stay away because there's like, oh, public blockchain, or they're concerned that means that they're exposing, you know, information to parties that they don't want to see that information. We're still going through a learning curve. On the flip side, we have solutions like, you know, I'll take a TravelX.
It's a company on our chain that's doing millions of transactions. It's a secondary market. It turns your airline ticket into an NFT, right?
So large airlines all over, I think South America, I think they're coming into Europe now as well, are using the technology to, you know, turn your ticket into an NFT so you can actually sell it. You can create a secondary market. If Govind, you buy a ticket to go to, you know, Goa to spend wholly, and all of a sudden, you know, you decide, I don't feel like going to Goa this weekend, you can sell that ticket, right?
And in the current environment, we can't do that. But, you know, these solutions are popping up. But the airline would go along with that?
The airline, I mean, it's an airline that's actually initiating it, right? So I'm just saying that's one example where we're, you know, and we have many others.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Do you think create a secondary market, which perhaps did not exist earlier?
Anil Kakani: Right. Lofty, it's another company in our ecosystem that's a fractional ownership and tokenization of real estate assets, right? It's, you know, scaling, it's happening.
These are, you know, there are these solutions that are being built in certain markets that are, you know, that they're catching traction. We're seeing a huge amount of innovation here in India, but it's still pilot stage, right? We're still testing the market out.
I suspect, you know, over the coming years, as the developer base grows, the startup community grows. I mean, we're seeing a tremendous amount of innovation here in India, but at the entry point, right? Not yet at the scale massive point.
But again, watching, it's still early days. I mean, if you think about the journey, you know, even web two applications being built and adopted and people, you know, it wasn't that long ago, maybe a decade or two ago that we weren't comfortable putting our credit card, you know, onto a website. Now we don't even think twice about it, right?
It didn't happen overnight. Yeah. So I think likewise, we're going to see adoption grow, the worry about, you know, there's custodial, non-custodial wallets, there's private keys.
These things understandably scare people.
