Hello there! We have a short, concise edition today with all the top stories of the day. We will be back with our regular edition on Monday (November 25)

Event alert: CNBC TV18 & Moneycontrol will be hosting the most definitive summit on Artificial Intelligence with top global and Indian voices tomorrow in Bengaluru. Can’t make it? Catch the live stream here.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? You can sign up for Tech3 here

• Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric is restructuring and may lay off over 500 employees in different roles, sources told us. The move is aimed at improving margins and working toward profitability. The firm undertook two restructuring exercises in September 2022 when it announced a raft of new hires, in a bid to centralise and unify operations across verticals.
  
  
• Former Minister of State of Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, told us in an interview that while Big Tech brings a lot to the table, these companies must also comply with established rules and regulations. Read the full interview
  
  
• Honasa Consumer refuted claims by the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF) about unsold inventory and unsettled credit notes. While the AICPDF alleged a financial burden of Rs 300 crore, Honasa said the actual inventory is Rs 40.69 crore. The company is transitioning to a single-layer distributor model, now implemented in 70% of the top 50 cities, and said concerns from the shift have been addressed.
  
  
• Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran allegedly attempted to use hidden loan proceeds to secretly buy back Epic, a US-based software company taken over by an American trustee, according to a court filing. Raveendran allegedly recruited a Nebraska businessman William R. Hailer, who is a former political consultant, to try to buy out US creditors owed more than $1.2 billion under a loan, according to the filing with the US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
  
  
• Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the country’s most used digital payments platform, is helping India reimagine financial products and how they are consumed or distributed, super.money founder and chief executive officer Prakash Sikaria told us. 

• About 30,000 Indians are working for Australian companies’ Global Capability Centre (GCCs) domiciled in India and if the subsidiaries of these companies were to be included, the number crosses over a lakh. “We think that there are about 30,000 Indians working full-time in GCCs for Australian companies in India,” Australia's high commissioner to India Philip Green told us.
  
  
• Alphabet’s Google must sell its Chrome browser, share data and search results with competitors and take a range of other measures to end its monopoly on searching the internet, the US Department of Justice said. In response, Kent Walker, chief legal officer, Google and Alphabet said that the DOJ is choosing to push a “radical interventionist agenda”that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership. “DOJ’s wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court’s decision. It would break a range of Google products — even beyond Search," he said. 

• Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it has signed an Implementation Agreement (IA) with Australian Space Agency (ASA) for further strengthening of cooperation in space activities between the two countries. The IA enables cooperation between both space agencies on crew and crew module recovery for Gaganyaan missions, the country’s first crewed spaceflight program, it said.
  
  
• Insurtech platform Zopper has raised $25 million in a Series D funding round co-led by Elevation Capital and Dharana Capital. Existing investor Blume Ventures also participated in the round, the firm said, without disclosing the valuation at which the funds were raised. The funds will be used to enhance Zopper’s technology infrastructure, focusing on strengthening its insurance distribution platform, expanding its data science and AI/ML capabilities, the firm said.
  
  
• Rupyy, the vehicle financing arm of IPO-bound CarDekho, has clocked in Rs 300 crore in loan disbursals for used commercial vehicle financing within seven months of launching the offering, and targets to close the financial year 2025 at Rs 900-1200 crore of disbursals, Co-founder and CEO Namit Jain told us. The fintech is a loan aggregator, which has been offering vehicle and used car loans for nearly a decade, and has a market share of about 15 percent in the Rs 60,000-crore used car financing industry.
  
  
• Playing on the front foot, cricketer Rishabh Pant is drawing all the attention both on the field as well as off it. The batsman and wicket-keeper who sports more than 15 brands in his endorsement portfolio, including the likes of Thums Up and Dream11, looks set for a sixer in the world of advertising. Standing at a brand value of $15 million, Pant is likely to see his endorsement fees zoom 30-40% from Rs 3.5-4 crore in the next six to 12 months.

Note: By subscribing to Tech3 you have already made the right choice. Top it up with a premium offering, the Moneycontrol Pro Panorama, a newsletter that gives you a sharp take on macros, markets, business and finance. Sign up for Pro from this link to get this newsletter in your inbox and also a host of content enjoyed by over a million subscribers.