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Good morning. On May 7, 1888, the first-ever White House Mother's Day Celebration took place, initiated by President Benjamin Harrison to recognise the vital role of mothers in society.
 
You, dear reader, have a couple more days to do the same. Mother’s Day - Sunday, May 12th.

Get shopping or forever hold your peace 🛍️ 

- Ruchrngd Sharma & Shatakshi Sharma

📊 Markets

🇮🇳 India

• BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty closed nearly unchanged on Monday with investors profit-booking in major stocks. IT, pharma, auto, and FMCG sectors saw gains, while PSU banks, metals, energy, and media traded lower due to concerns over valuations, profit-booking, and the impact of norms on state-owned banks.

🌍️ International

• Wall Street saw a third straight session of gains on Monday, buoyed by optimism for potential Federal Reserve interest rate cuts later this year. This optimism stemmed from weaker U.S. job growth data and Fed officials' comments about possible rate cuts if inflation cools.

💳️ NRI’s have UPI

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has been the greatest thing Indians have seen since delivery apps.

Until recently, however, those living outside India needed an Indian mobile number linked to their NRE/NRO accounts to use UPI, limiting payment convenience.

But that is about to change.

Yesterday, ICICI Bank launched a new facility that allows its Non-Resident Indian (NRI) customers to make UPI payments in India using their international mobile numbers.

Here’s the TL;DR: 

• The new feature enables NRI customers residing in 10 countries - USA, UK, UAE, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia - to use their international numbers registered with their NRE/NRO accounts for UPI transactions in India.

• Accessible through ICICI's iMobile Pay app, customers can scan QR codes, send money to UPI IDs, or transfer to Indian bank accounts without needing an Indian mobile number. The daily UPI transaction limit is ₹1 lakh with no charges.

Here’s the step-by-step guide on how to activate UPI on your international mobile number:

• Log in to the iMobile Pay app

• Click on UPI Payments

• Verify your mobile number

• Go to Manage and then My Profile

• Create a UPI ID

• Select your Account Number

• Hit submit

Overall: The launch enhances transaction convenience for NRIs, contributing to UPI's expanding international footprint. UPI is already accepted in Singapore and UAE, and may soon enter Ghana, Nigeria and other countries as part of its global expansion driven by NPCI International.

Read more: The Economic Times

💾 India’s first commercial MCU chip

Mindgrove Technologies, a fabless semiconductor startup based in Chennai, has achieved a significant milestone by launching Secure IoT - India's first commercial high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) designed specifically for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. 

Lots of big words here, so let’s break it down: 

• The Secure IoT chip is the only Indian-made chip currently available commercially in its product segment and costs 30% less than similar chips.

• The Secure IoT chip runs at 700 MHz.

• The chip's initial prototype version was created using 28nm semiconductor manufacturing technology. While not as small as the 3nm or 5nm nodes from companies like TSMC and Samsung, this chip is still very modern and capable.

• In the coming weeks, sample reference boards containing the Secure IoT chip will be provided to companies that make electronics products, so they can test and evaluate integrating this chip into their devices.

• In addition to just selling the chip itself, Mindgrove will also offer engineering support and services to Indian companies, helping them to design new innovative products using this chip and ramp up manufacturing within India.

Who’s in? Backed by Peak XV Partners (formerly known as Sequoia SEA), Speciale Invest, and Whiteboard Capital, and incubated at IIT-Madras, Mindgrove aims to cater to the growing demand for affordable yet high-performance chips in various sectors, including wearables, smart city devices, electric vehicle battery management systems, and connected home appliances.

Overall: This homegrown chip has the potential to replace 10 to 50 million chips currently imported, contributing to the government's vision of self-reliance in semiconductor manufacturing.

As India consumes over a billion chips annually, Mindgrove's Secure IoT chip could pave the way for a more robust and cost-effective domestic semiconductor industry.

Read more: Inc42 

P.S.: We previously wrote an article about the thriving semiconductor industry in India. Feel free to read it here!

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

🛫 Indian planes will take you places - Credit rating agency Crisil predicts that Indian airlines’ share in international passenger traffic to and from India will grow from 43% in fiscal 2024 to about 50% by fiscal 2028. Growth is expected due to fleet expansion, the addition of new international routes including direct long-haul flights, and their inherent advantage of superior domestic connectivity over foreign carriers. Their strategies, aided by India's geographic positioning as a potential hub for travel between Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, are expected to strengthen their business profiles as international operations are more profitable.

🗳️ Phase 3 begins today - Voting for 25 out of 26 Lok Sabha seats and by-polls to 5 assembly seats in Gujarat will be held today, with the ruling BJP hoping to repeat its sweep of the last two general elections in PM Modi and Amit Shah's home state. Around 4.97 crore Indians will vote at over 50,000 polling booths across the state. Key contestants include Shah from Gandhinagar, and Union ministers Mandaviya and Rupala. While the BJP's campaign banked on Modi's persona, the Congress-AAP alliance aimed to prevent a division of opposition votes. P.S. BJP has already secured one seat with its Surat candidate winning unopposed after the Congress nomination was rejected.

☕️ Starbucks needs a revamp - Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz believes the coffee chain needs to redesign its U.S. store experience to regain customers. This comes after a surprising decline in same-store sales and a cut in its full-year forecast in the most recent quarter. Although Schultz no longer has an official role at Starbucks, he suggested several improvements, including enhancing mobile ordering, concentrating on premium drink offerings, and prioritising the in-store customer experience from a merchant's viewpoint rather than solely relying on data. Ooh, and Schultz also encouraged the new CEO to display humility and confidence to rebuild trust and improve performance. Talk about backseat driving…

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

What’s happening in India (and around the world 🌍️)

• Sea Trials Begin Of China's New Aircraft Carrier. Here’s what it means for India.

• Cricketer Shikhar Dhawan invests in eyewear brand QUE.

• Gold, Silver rate today: Price of Yellow metal inches higher.

• Bank lending to businesses grows by 16.3% in March.

• KKR signs deal to acquire Healthium from Apax Partners.

• FirstCry's parent firm Brainbees Solutions re-files IPO papers; issue size remains unchanged.

• UK facing 'disaster' of hung Parliament, warns Rishi Sunak after local election debacle.

• Will Trump go to jail?

• The FAA continues to probe into Boeing.

🍿 Entertainment, Entertainment, Entertainment

• MI beats SRH by 7 wickets and moves up to number 9 on the table. IPL leaderboard here.

• Asha Sobhana and Harmanpreet Kaur shine as the Indian Women’s cricket team beats Bangladesh by 56 runs.

• Some of the looks from Met Gala Monday.

• Andrey Rublev beats Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 and wins the Madrid Open.

• China defeats Indonesia and wins its 16th Uber Cup title.

• Abhishek Bachchan joins the cast of the fifth instalment of the Housefull franchise, starring Akshay Kumar and Riteish Deshmukh.

• 2 new debuts: a new Superman and a new Superman suit.