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In today’s newsletter:

• Govt drops mandatory Sanchar Saathi pre-installation 
• Meesho's Valmo edges past Delhivery in order volumes
• Yogi's semicon push: Highlights from UP Tech Next Summit

Also, ever wondered what you watched on YouTube the most this year? Scroll below for the deets!

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The controversy was instant, the backlash was fierce, and the rollback is now official

The Indian government has dropped its plan to mandate pre-installation of the Sanchar Saathi cybersecurity app on all new smartphones.

• The original goal behind the directive was to give all citizens easy access to cyber security tools, the government said. 

However, the mandate was no longer necessary since the app was already witnessing a sharp rise in citizen uptake and daily fraud reporting, it said.

The government stated that about 1.4 crore users have downloaded the app and are contributing to information on 2000 fraud incidents per day. 

• In just one day, 6 lakh citizens have downloaded the app, marking a 10x spike. 

Last week, the DoT directed all smartphone makers to preinstall Sanchar Saathi on every new device sold in India and push it to existing devices through a mandatory software update.

• Smartphone makers were given three months to include the app in the new devices.

The move was expected to trigger a fresh showdown with Apple, which has historically resisted such directives. 

• Apple has previously clashed with India’s telecom regulator over a government-developed anti-spam app.

The move had also triggered fresh alarm among public-policy experts and digital rights advocates, who argued that the mandate is disproportionate, opaque and risks normalising surveillance.

The government however countered this criticism, asserting that the mandate carries no privacy or surveillance risks.

"The app is secure and purely meant to help citizens from bad actors in the cyber world," it said.

If you assumed Meesho’s Valmo only enabled deliveries, think again. It is actually a full fledged logistics business.

Valmo is now delivering more e-commerce parcels than Delhivery, the largest logistics player in the country.

Valmo handled 399.7 million orders in Q2FY26 vs Delhivery’s 246 million shipments (Express Parcel shipment volumes) during the same period, filings showed.

• In Q1FY26, Delhivery shipped 208 million Express Parcel shipments, compared to Meesho’s Valmo which shipped 295.72 million shipments in the same quarter.

Valmo now fulfills 65% of Meesho’s total volumes, an increase from a 50% share earlier. This share should only increase if Meesho wishes to stay lean and affordable.

“For Meesho, the low-cost marketplace model only works with Valmo — without it, their logistics costs would shoot up,” Satish Meena, founder of e-commerce consultancy Datum Intelligence, told us.

Meanwhile, Meesho’s IPO opened today and was subscribed 2X by the end of day one, signalling strong demand for the issue. 

• The IPO values Meesho at Rs 50,096 crore or around $5.96 billion

Sources told us Meesho’s management decided to allot about 25% of the anchor book to just one mutual fund house: SBI Mutual Fund, the largest in the country.

While this does signal commitment, these negotiations and decisions are typically taken by the merchant bankers and not the management team of a company.

• Other MFs, like ICICI Prudential MF, and investors were unhappy about the preferential treatment SBI MF received from Meesho, instead of an uniform distribution 

While some bridges were burnt, SBI MF, sources said, has committed to fully building the book and support in the longer term. 

Read how the rules are being rewritten

When India’s chip dreams meet UP’s big pitch, the voltage suddenly rises.

Uttar Pradesh signalled it wants to be the hotspot in India’s semiconductor map, with IT and electronics minister Sunil Kumar Sharma announcing that the HCL-Foxconn joint venture is expected to go live by 2027-28.

• Speaking at the UP Tech Next Electronics and Semiconductor Summit in Lucknow, organised by CNBC-TV18 and Moneycontrol, Sharma told us the state has already allotted land and is putting 60% capital support behind the venture.

Sharma said investors once stayed away because of law-and-order concerns, but the narrative has flipped.

“Earlier UP had one district-one mafia, now it has one district-one product,” he said, adding that no investor can be troubled under the Yogi Adityanath government.

The Centre is also resetting the national playbook.

Sushil Pal, joint secretary at MeitY, said India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 will shift from a fab-first approach to a full-stack strategy covering chips, modules, design, and R&D.

• Pal said the sector needs sustained, long-term support, not one-off commitments

• He argued that mature nodes shouldn’t be dismissed as outdated because they make up most of global chip volume.

ISM 2.0, he said, is designed to capture this demand while building deeper domestic capabilities.

But shiny fabs and subsidies won’t run without the people who actually build chips.

• And that’s where industry leaders said India’s real differentiator can emerge: talent.

“We have so many technical universities. In Uttar Pradesh alone, there are more than 400 colleges,” said Ashok Chandak, President of the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA).

• Chandak added that IESA is already in talks with institutes to rewire how semiconductor education is delivered.

In a sector where nanometres decide winners, India’s edge may come from three macro pillars: talent, R&D, and startups.

• Panelists from Analog Devices, Micron India, and Kaynes Semicon agreed that India’s semiconductor rise will depend less on building “the next big fab” and more on building “the next big brain trust” that powers design, research, and innovation.

• UP may be making the loudest pitch today, but India’s semiconductor story will ultimately hinge on whether the ecosystem can align skill, science, and fragmented innovation into a single, scalable force.

More stories from UP Tech Next Electronics and Semiconductor Summit:

• 'Steps taken to make UP a semiconductor hub will lead to a digital revolution', says UP minister

• Technology will resolve skilling, language barriers in semiconductors, says UP principal secretary Yadav

• 'With 25 cr population, UP might as well compete with nations and not states': IT Principal Secretary says at UP Tech Next Summit

• UP Govt promises stronger investment pitch after industry flags lack of global outreach

• Jewar airport is going to be one of the largest airports of Asia, says UP CM advisor

• Uttar Pradesh will be a $6 trillion economy by 2047, says advisor to UP CM Awanish Awasthi

• 'US tariff issue will be resolved soon,' says MeitY Joint Secretary Sushil Pal

Prefer video? Check out the entire live stream

• Anthropic is reportedly preparing for an IPO that could take place as early as 2026. The company has also acquired developer tool startup Bun to further accelerate Claude Code that reached $1 billion in revenue run-rate in November.  

• Amazon has made a series of announcements as part of efforts to catch up in the AI race: A new custom AI chip, private ‘AI factories’, second-gen Nova AI models with the Nova Forge training service, and frontier AI agents.

It's that time of year again when tech companies start dropping their end-of-year recaps. 

And let’s be honest, nobody has nailed the formula quite like Spotify Wrapped, which gives you a peek into your listening habits while doubling as free marketing for the app.

• So now everyone from Apple to Amazon is rolling out their own take on it. The latest to jump on the trend is YouTube.

A new feature, Recap, highlights your most notable video habits from the past year, based on your watch history. Think top channels, your interests, and even how your viewing tastes have changed over time.

• The feature is US-only at the moment, but should be available globally later this week.

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