One interesting thing: Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy says he is not comfortable visiting the national capital. The reason? He believes that Delhi is the one city where "indiscipline is highest."

"I came from the airport yesterday and so many cars and motorbikes violating the red light signal without a single care. If we can't even wait a minute or a day just to move forward, do you think those people will wait if there is money (involved)? Of course they won't wait," Murthy said.

In today’s newsletter:

• The albatross around Wipro’s neck
• WazirX bows out of NFTs
• Zomato's new recipe for growth

P.S: Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan says his Indian heritage helps him make tough life and professional decisions. Watch his exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18's managing editor Shereen Bhan to know why he values his grandparents' Yoga lessons and why Indian-origin CEOs are on the rise.

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From the frying pan to the fire

This phrase probably describes Wipro's current situation. The IT firm was already under fire from a set of freshers for cutting down their salary offers, but this move appears to have made matters worse for the Bengaluru-based company.

Freshers who were offered a salary of Rs 3.5 lakh per annum (LPA) are questioning why they are being made to wait while other candidates who initially had higher offers are being given the option to join the company at the same Rs 3.5 lakh package.

Candidates say they have completed unpaid internships, were given offer letters in January 2022, and some even got an onboarding date in June 2022. However, this has now been indefinitely delayed. 

“They gave us false hope that they are going to honour the OLs (offer letters) they issued…We kept on believing they are going to onboard one day or another and even after 8 months they still don't have any answer. They doomed us,” a candidate told us.

Hope has given way to despair as candidates' problems continue to mount: unpaid education loans, a gap in work experience as peers pull ahead, no jobs in the current market, and remorse over offers they had to turn down.

As more candidates face an uncertain future, a Pune-based IT employees union has also approached the Labour Ministry. It has claimed that this is unethical, a clear violation of the terms of the offer letter, and a breach of contract.

In less than two years of its launch, WazirX today shut down its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace citing low traction on the platform. 

This comes at a time when the virtual digital assets (VDA) sector is grappling with high taxes, market volatility, and regulatory uncertainty.

• WazirX said users can continue to hold their NFTs in wallets and sell them on other marketplaces like OpenSea

WazirX was the first Indian company to launch an NFT marketplace

The crypto and VDA sectors in India have suffered as a result of the implementation of a 30% tax on gains and a 1% TDS on all VDA transactions in India. This, combined with global crypto token price volatility and the FTX collapse, exacerbated investor sentiment.

Also read: Budget 2023: Non-payment of Crypto TDS will be penalised; industry upset over no mention in Budget speech

Indian crypto and NFT players are now hoping for some regulatory clarity and relief this year through India's G20 presidency, which has made crypto regulations one of its key focus areas.

Zomato is back with another iteration of its food delivery service. The company has launched a new feature to sell quick and affordable home-style meals to students and office-goers.

• These meals start at Rs 89 per serving, excluding delivery fees, and would be delivered in 10-15 minutes

• The company is piloting "Everyday" in Gurugram and plans to launch it in other cities soon

The company has piloted multiple new services over the past year even as industry experts have said that the growth of the food delivery sector – a metro city phenomenon – is expected to slow down.

• While Zomato's gross order value increased by 85% to Rs 5,500 crore between Q3 FY21 and Q3 FY22, it slowed to 21% between Q3 FY22 and Q3 FY23.

• Last year, Zomato launched 'Legends,' an inter-city food delivery service that allows customers to order from popular restaurants in other cities

• In January, Zomato reintroduced its 'Gold' loyalty programme with a focus on food delivery

In a separate development, FreshToHome, a Bengaluru-based fresh fish and meat retailer, has raised $104 million in a Series D funding round, making it one of the largest funding rounds in the last 12 months as startups grapple with the funding winter when capital is hard to come by.

• The company also said that it was operationally profitable, terming itself a 'proficorn'.

The Small Industries Development Bank of India's (SIDBI) Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) has become one of the most popular LP funding sources for AIFs. It started in 2016 with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crores, a part of which has since been invested in 791 startups as of December 31, 2021.

In an interview with us, SIDBI Chairman and Managing Director Sivasubramanian Ramann discusses the expected returns on the first FFS, sectors the bank is bullish on, its optimism about the India consumption story, and concerns about startup governance issues.

Read the full interview

On February 22, 1997, the Roslin Institute in Scotland made a significant announcement: scientists had successfully cloned an adult sheep. 

The first successfully cloned adult mammal, Dolly, was cloned using somatic cell nuclear transfer from the cell of a 6-year-old ewe. (Picture credit: Wikipedia)

• Crypto exchange Coinbase exceeded revenue expectations in Q4 2022. The exchange's net revenue for the quarter was $605 million, which surpassed the estimated revenue of $589 million by analysts. 
  
  
• After surpassing OpenSea as the most popular Ethereum NFT trading platform by trading volume, Blur announced it would airdrop $300 million worth of tokens to loyal users.

The latest e-book you bought from Amazon’s Kindle store might have been entirely written by the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT.

• As of mid-February, there were over 200 e-books listed on the store that ChatGPT had either authored or co-authored, and the number is growing. 

Some of these titles include How to Write and Create Content Using ChatGPT, The Power of Homework, and Echoes of the Universe, a poetry collection. 

There is even a new sub-genre on Amazon: Books about using ChatGPT, written entirely by ChatGPT. (Picture credit: DALL-E)

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