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In today’s newsletter:

• Hat-trick! Chandrayaan-3 lifts off
• Big Billion Day for Flipkart employees
• No salary hikes for HCLTech top brass

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In 2008, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) made history when its Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which cost Rs 386 crore, discovered water molecules on the Moon.

Since then, ISRO has been trying to build on this discovery by attempting to land a rover on the Moon's surface to learn more about it. However, its last attempt in 2018 was unsuccessful.

Today at 2:35 pm, the country launched the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, the third in its series of lunar missions, aboard the Launch Vehicle Mark - III (LVM3) from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

Well, we hope! Fifteen minutes after launch, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully separated from the LVM3 rocket and set course for the Moon.

• The D-Day for the landing has been set for August 23, when the Chandrayaan 3 lander and rover will attempt to touch down on the lunar surface

The landing is expected to take place on the South Pole region of the Moon, near the area where Chandrayaan 1 discovered water molecules, and where Chandrayaan 2 had attempted to land.

Equipped with four legs, the lander also has its own propulsion system, which will assist in landing on the surface of the Moon.

• Inside the lander rests a small rover, which will be deployed upon landing to carry out chemical analysis on the lunar surface

It’s a cheerful start to the weekend for Flipkart employees as the e-commerce giant has commenced $700 million ESOP payouts!

In December last year, Flipkart decided to hive off PhonePe as a separate business unit. This move resulted in a valuation change for Flipkart.

• After the demerger, Flipkart awarded shares to its employees to make up for the difference in valuation and to account for its growth 
  
  
• A total of 19,000 former and current employees will benefit from the decision
  
  
• Each share was valued at $43.67

Several former employees have told us that they received the money today. The rest will follow in the coming week.

"...I am delighted to inform you that the much-awaited compensation will be made today, July 14, 2023. You will receive the details of your individual payout by the following week,” Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart’s CEO said in an email to employees.

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In stark contrast to Flipkart's generous payouts, HCLTech, India's third-largest IT company, has announced that its top management will not receive salary hikes for FY24.

The cracks of a slowdown in the once-thriving IT sector appear to be deepening or at least peaking out in the current quarter. This was evident in the wage hike cycle trends among the top companies. 

The latest company to join the fray is HCLTech, the country’s third-largest IT services firm, which has decided to skip paying out salary hikes to its top management entirely.

HCLTech’s leadership told analysts that they will not be conducting a compensation review for management-level staff in FY24, which represents a significant portion of the firm’s wage bill.

• Salary hikes for junior to mid-level employees will be delayed by at least a quarter
  
  
• The company also avoided backfilling attrition in Q1, even as headcount declined

CEO C Vijayakumar added that the focus right now, amid uncertainty, is to improve utilisation rates and, in turn, the company’s margins.

HCLTech is not alone in delaying pay hikes, as industry peers Wipro and Infosys have also taken similar steps.

• Wipro has pushed its wage hike cycle from Q2 (September) to Q3. It has said that the variable pay for junior employees whose payout is linked to company performance will be 80% in Q1.

• While, Infosys didn’t roll out hikes between April and July, and no communication has been provided to employees 

TCS was an outlier among Indian IT companies, having started promotion cycles on April 1. Top performers received 12-15% salary hikes.

• The catch, however, was that TCS also deferred onboarding of over 200 lateral hires with 2-15 years of experience until October, citing project commencement delay issues.

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On July 14, 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew within 7,800 miles of Pluto, after a voyage of nearly 10 years and more than 3 billion miles. This was the first time that humans had ever seen the dwarf planet up close, and the images and data that New Horizons sent back were nothing short of spectacular.

The spacecraft's cameras revealed a world of ice and rock, with towering mountains, giant ice sheets, pits, scarps, and valleys. (Picture credit: NASA)

• OpenAI is looking for a seasoned venture capitalist to lead its second startup investment fund, which will be much larger than its first fund. Meanwhile, the US Federal Trade Commission has sent a request for information to OpenAI as part of an investigation into its ChatGPT bot for potential harm to consumers.
   
• Hugging Face, an AI startup that develops tools for natural language processing, is raising at least $200 million in a new funding round. The round is expected to value the company at $4 billion.

Are you looking for a new show to binge-watch? We've got you covered!

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But if you're craving an adrenaline-pumping, post-apocalyptic horror experience, look no further than Bird Box Barcelona. Step into a dystopian world where survival is a constant battle. Stream it on Netflix

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