Good morning. It’s Earlybird here, bringing you your daily bouquet of business news and insights, freshly trimmed for your convenience.

In this edition:

• 🚀 Blue Origin scouts India for space tourism

• 🛒 Meesho slapped with legal notice

• 🤖 Baidu sues Apple over fake Earnie bots

MARKETS: WEEK-TO-DATE

*Stock data as of market close. Source.

• Markets: All along the market watchtower: Brent crude surges to a seven-month high, crossing $67 per barrel. In other news, LIC acquires a 4.97% stake in Bata India, while auto sales show improvement with Maruti Suzuki registering a 92% YoY growth in domestic sales.

TOURISM

Blue Origin scouts India for space tourism

🚀 Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is reportedly in talks with the Indian government to explore potential opportunities in the country's space tourism sector. Here’s what we know so far:

India's potential for space tourism

• The Space Policy 2023, which was approved on Thursday, had opened the floodgate to private players who are looking to propel India’s space tourism to a living, breathing industry.

• ISRO Chairman S. Somnath said last month that India's space tourism might begin by 2030, with an estimated kick-off cost of about Rs 6 crore.

Blue Origin's Plans

• According to reports, Blue Origin is in early collaboration talks with India to explore the role its rockets could play in making the country a hotspot for space junkies chasing a novel experience.

• This could involve the development of new spacecraft, spaceports, and other infrastructure required to take tourists and locals alike to new heights. Literally.

COMMERCE

Meesho receives legal qualm over return policy

🛒 Meesho, the Bengaluru-based social commerce platform, has just been hit with a legal notice from one of its sellers over the company's return policy. Here’s what’s up:

Policy under fire

• The current policy allows buyers to return products within seven days of delivery, but puts the onus of the returns shipping cost on the seller.

• This is bad for sellers who have shipped out their products in pristine condition, only for buyers to be met with lost or physically damaged goods from transit.

• The notice filed toward Meesho, underscores this point, seeking either compensation or a liability adjustment to cut their loses.

Meesho’s response. In response, Meesho claimed that their return policies remain competitive, with sellers given agency to select their preferred courier service. The company also cited other technical details around standardized claim filing deadlines, and a 30% reduction in overall seller complaints in recent months.

ENERGY

Delhi and NCR reap ‘lowest in country’ gas prices

⛽️ Delhi's Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) has announced a significant price cut for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Piped Natural Gas (PNG) in Delhi and NCR. Here’s what you gas to know:

Rollback

• The price reduction comes after a historic two-year hike of more than 80%.

• It slashes a huge Rs. 6 per kg of CNG and Rs. 5 per standard cubic meter of PNG.

• This makes Delhi-NCR gas prices in this category "‘the lowest in the country’ according to a recent tweet from IGL.

Brand new gas math 

• Costs would have actually increased considerably if not for the government's Thursday adjustment to the price calculation of natural gas.

• The domestically produced fuel is now benchmarked to the cost of imported crude oil subject to a cap of USD 6.5 per million British thermal units rather than using prices in four international gas hubs.

• As part of the transition, the oil ministry is declaring a gas price of USD 7.92 per mmBtu for the remainder of the month.

INDIA EDITION: WHAT ELSE IS ON THE BIRDWATCH

• 📲 India is moving mobiles, and a lot of them. India has exported mobile phones worth over Rs. 85,000 crore in the current financial year, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

• 🦁 Singapore VC gains major slice of Manipal Health. Singapore-based investment company Temasek Holdings has taken a major cut in Manipal Health Enterprises, one of India leading healthcare chain, effectively reducing Ranjan Pai and his family’s stake from 52% to 30%.

• ✂️ Practo purges low performers. Practo, one of India's leading digital healthcare platforms, has shown the door to 41 employees over performance-related issues. Despite being in the midst of layoffs, Practo declared that it would be hiring 500 people in the next 12 months.

FUNDING DEALS

Catch up on the Indian funding flows from the past 24hrs:

• Ossus Biorenewables, a green energy startup known for its bioelectrolyzers, secured $2.4M in pre-Series A round led by Rainmatter and Gruhas, with the aim of accelerating its sustainable energy technology and expanding its reach.

• REC, a.k.a India's Rural Electrification Corporation, has raised $750M through green bonds, marking the largest ever issuance of such bonds in India, with the funds earmarked for financing the country's renewable energy projects and reducing carbon emissions.

• Huddle01, a decentralized conferencing platform, just raised $4.5M in funding across 19 investors, with the aim of boosting its real-time communication network.

WORLD

Headline Explorer

🤖 Baidu sues Apple & Co. over fake Ernie bots. Chinese search giant Baidu is suing Apple and associated app developers over fake versions of its popular AI chatbot, Ernie. On top of this, Baidu also shared a photo of the court filing publicly and stated that any version of the Ernie bot on the Apple Store is a counterfeit.

🥾 Is Germany giving ChatGPT das boot? Germany may soon follow Italy in banning OpenAI's ChatGPT due to data security concerns. German Commissioner of Data Protection Ulrich Kelber has stated that similar action may be taken against the chatbot, however, any official decision has yet to be finalized.

🔎 Hong Kong’s hunt for remote talent. Hong Kong tech companies are looking to expand their talent search to remote hires across Southeast Asia. This comes after the city's recent political turmoil, which has led to an exodus of professionals seeking job security and higher wages elsewhere.

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