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In today’s newsletter:

• BluSmart reels under Gensol crisis 
• Wipro guidance disappoints 
• The chink in NPCI that brought down UPI

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BluSmart, the EV ride-hailing service linked to Gensol Engineering, appears to have run out of juice—and has abruptly halted new ride bookings through its app in major cities.

The company, on April 16, abruptly halted cab bookings in most parts of Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru.

• While the app remained available on the Play Store, users weren’t able to select a time slot or even a date

In parallel, mounting operational challenges and regulatory scrutiny have cast a cloud of uncertainty above the startup’s future.

This comes a day after a SEBI probe into Gensol — which leased electric vehicles to BluSmart and had close financial ties with the company — found that promoters Anmol and Puneet Singh Jaggi had misused EV leasing funds.

• Anmol Jaggi allegedly used loans meant to finance EV purchases to buy a luxury apartment in DLF Camellias, among other extravagant expenses

Meanwhile, BluSmart's shareholders have approved a plan to begin the transition of its existing fleet to Uber over the next few weeks. 

Also read: Gensol Engineering shares in focus as promoters barred from accessing equity markets, stock split put on hold 

Dig deeper

Tariffs, uncertainties continue to ail Indian IT sector

India’s fourth-largest IT services player, Wipro, on April 16, forecast a weak sequential revenue decline of 1.5 to 3.5% in constant currency terms for Q1FY26.

• It said uncertainties have dramatically increased from FY25 to FY26

The trigger was the now stalled tariffs by US President Donald Trump on key regions where Wipro’s revenue originates, such as the US and Europe.

• Additionally, Wipro’s full-year revenue growth plunged for the second consecutive year

It’s not just the outlook, the Bengaluru-based company presented a weak set of numbers even in Q4FY25.

• The IT services revenue declined 1.2% sequentially and 2.3% YoY to $2.60 billion
  
  
• The Bengaluru-based company’s profit slipped almost 7% sequentially
  
  
• The IT major’s margin expanded 1.1 percentage points year-on-year to 17.5%

The company also missed out on analyst estimates on all metrics.

Following in the footsteps of its larger peer, Tata Consultancy Services, the Srinivas Pallia-led company said it will decide on wage hikes closer to the date.

• On the hiring front, Wipro said the number will be closer to FY25 numbers, i.e., 10,000-12,000
  
  
• For FY25, headcount addition turned net positive after declining for consecutive years

On the positive side, Wipro’s consulting subsidiary Capco has had a strong performance in Q4, growing 6% sequentially and 11% YoY.

On April 12, the UPI system went dark intermittently for nearly five hours. 

• For a country where people use UPI to buy everything from cutting chai to car insurance, it was a bummer

On April 15, NPCI released its root cause analysis. The culprit? Banks were hammering the system with status checks for failed transactions. 

But that’s not the full story.

Also read: Keep UPI free, keep it fair 

At the heart of the outage was a simple assumption: NPCI trusted banks to follow the rules.

• Banks were supposed to check the transaction status only three times, spaced 90 seconds apart

• But many didn’t stick to the playbook

• Worse, NPCI had no rate-limiting system to throttle excessive pings

In most digital ecosystems, a firewall system applies rate limits to prevent overloads. But UPI operates differently.

• Unlike card networks that "bunch" and process transactions in scheduled settlements, UPI is real-time and permission-based

Adding to the complexity: UPI cannot easily differentiate between a genuine follow-up and a flood of bot-like, automated pings.

Dig deeper

• India’s largest AI platform, 3AI, announced a collaboration with the UAE government to set up an AI hub in Dubai.
  
  
• OpenAI is reportedly working on a new social media platform, one that could rival X (formerly Twitter).

Still side-eyeing the world of code like it’s written in an alien language?  

• Check out the CodeNewbie podcast — for all things coding. 

The podcast brings beginners and seasoned pros together to share real stories, smart tips, and practical advice.

Check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

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