TMS Ep290: CCI fines Google, Delhi air pollution, markets, 'dirty' bomb

After two years of investigation, India’s anti-trust regulator has found that Google has been allegedly “abusing” its dominant position in the app store to impose its own payments methods on app developers. And for this violation, it has been told to pay a fine of 936 crore rupees. It comes within a week of CCI slapping a fine of 1,338 crore rupees on Google for abusing its dominant position in the Android mobile device ecosystem. So what do these two decisions mean for the internet giant, Indian app-developers and other stakeholders? 

Notwithstanding the ongoing troubles, Google CEO Sundar Pichai celebrated Diwali by watching the India-Pakistan match in the T20 World Cup. In Delhi and NCR, Diwali was celebrated with usual fervour. Cracker ban too went up into smoke, again. But, there was a pleasant break from the post-Diwali blues. The air around this time was cleanest in the last seven years. So what changed this time? 

A fog of uncertainty also looms large on financial markets. After a record 2021, the IPO market has turned moribund. The September 2022 quarter was the worst since the pandemic-hit July 2020 quarter. Last quarter, only four issues managed to raise a cumulative 2,965 crore rupees. However, as sentiment turns positive for India, around 10 firms are looking to raise nearly 9,000 crore rupees via initial public offerings over the next 45 days. So, will the revival in the primary market activity suck out liquidity from the secondary markets? 

The world, its economy and the financial markets are oscillating between hope and despair for quite a while now. Exchange of bombs and charges between Russia and Ukraine are keeping us all on the edge. And it is getting murkier. This week Russia shot off a letter to UN Security Council, claiming that Ukraine may detonate “dirty bomb” in its own territory, only to blame Moscow for it later. While Kiev has alleged that Russia is preparing the ground for use of the “dirty bomb”. But what exactly is a “dirty bomb”? Watch this episode of the podcast to find out more.