Our top reads of the week

Image: Shutterstock

Every week, catch up on the best long form stories from Forbes India. Often peppered with our binge-worthy podcasts, videos or infographics too.

1) Blame it on 19
A young mind is fueled by confidence and it runs towards ambition with lightning speed. Two such 19-year-olds, Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra are building their quick commerce venture Zepto at an astonishing speed. Zepto—a name derived from the smallest time unit ever measured: Zeptosecond—indeed seems to be defying physics for the time being. Check out this story about the guts and gusto of two young entrepreneurs. Read More


2) Up for an overhaul
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the inequality in access to medical care for the transgender community. One of the pressing consequences is challenges in Covid-19 vaccination, treatment and care. The difficulties of getting vaccinated faced by the community are branded as vaccine 'hesitancy', whereas the reality is steeped in systemic discrimination, historical marginalisation and negative experiences faced by transgender individuals from the health care system. Aqsa Shaikh, associate professor of community medicine at Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research; and Harikeerthan Raghuram, project coordinator, Sangath, shed light on this pertinent issue. Read More

3) The unicorn stable
2021 was the year of unicorns for the Indian startup ecosystem. 42 companies made the valuation leap beyond $1 billion, and gave the impression that the pandemic does not have the power to hold them back. Is this a validation of the tenacity, passion and vision of the startup ecosystem in India? Does it indicate that our startups have matured? Or do they underscore concerns around ‘valuation’? Are unicorns the actual benchmark? Ashish Dave, CEO of Mirae Asset Venture Investments India, has some answers. Read More

Discover

1) New perspective
"The climate economy today is where the internet economy was 20 years ago. And 20 years from now, the climate economy will be possibly bigger than the internet is now," writes Anshuman Bapna, founder and CEO of Terra.do. In this column for Forbes India's '22 for 2022' issue, Bapna is presenting a provocative thought. He is calling out the ancient ways of stashing climate change initiatives with performative CSR activities. He is presenting an opportunity to make money and also be better with responsibility at the same time. Read More

2) Staying unique
Simply put, Tezos is a generic and self-amending crypto-ledger. A decentralised open-source blockchain, Tezos can execute peer-to-peer transactions and serves as a platform for creating smart contracts. Rarible, Pantone, Ubisoft have already entered the Tezos ecosystem and now it has set sights on India. On Forbes India Daily Tech Conversation, Om Malviya, President of Tezos India, talks about various initiatives to grow the Tezos ecosystem in India. Listen here


3) Growing pains
In this episode of Forbes India Daily Tech Conversation, Shrini Viswanath, co-founder at Upstox, one of India's most popular online brokerages, talks about the long haul of entrepreneurship. He shares the journey of taking the company from a proprietary trading outfit to a rapidly growing consumer-facing tech company used by millions of people to invest in the capital markets. Listen here



4) Going nuclear
Under our News By Numbers section, here's a look at the state of electricity generation from nuclear power around the world. Find out how many active nuclear reactors are fulfilling the power needs in various countries. Did you know how much electricity India generates from nuclear source? Do you know how much total capacity it has? Find out