Reuters Story: Zurich Insurance eyes $400 mln stake in general insurance arm of India's Kotak. Backed by Asia's richest banker Uday Kotak, the negotiations value the Indian firm at $800 mln & Zurich is interested in a 49% or 51% stake. By @followthemani

New: Lee Fixel's Addition is raising $1.5 billion for a new fund, its fifth in four years.

Four weeks old AI startup raises €105m in seed funding.

India Supreme Court effectively reinstated ban on bike taxis on Monday in Delhi, but Uber and Ola continue to offer services. Delhi city says will impound vehicles. Read -

New Delhi city to impound bike taxis if Uber, Ola do not comply with a ban that Supreme Court of India has backed this week, Ashish Kundra, Delhi's commissioner for transport says. Uber has legally challenged Delhi city's move

India threatened to shut Twitter down unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts critical of the govt's handling of farmer protests, Jack Dorsey said, an accusation India's deputy IT minister called an "outright lie". Latest in Big Tech vs Modi

Indian small-cap Urja Global jumps on Tesla-deal confusion. "Investors misinterpreted this deal with the real Tesla, leading Urja stock to rally," said Prashanth Tapse, vice president of research at Mehta Equities. @elonmusk

India's Supreme Court backs Delhi ban on bike taxis in setback for Uber. On Monday, after hearing the city government's arguments of violation of rules, the Supreme Court revoked a lower court's order, effectively resinstating the ban. By @arpanc_

Agra’s centuries-old footwear industry has a new challenge—quality control. In Agra, shoemakers fear the change in the old ways of doing things. Industry associations fear fallouts, while workers are worried that they’ll be laid off. via @theprintindia

13 Questions for Dynam Capital’s Craig Martin | Morningstar #vietnam

Vietnam’s inaugural ESG investor conference brings together diverse stakeholders to drive a better future - UK Investor Magazine #vietnam #esg #investing

Reuters Story: Indian agency body sends notices to Xiaomi and its three bankers - Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Citi - over alleged illegal remittances of $670 million made by the Chinese smartphone giant to foreign entities.

Reuters latest on Ola Electric's IPO plans by @followthemani - investor meets from next week by CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, starting early to explain India EV potential. Singapore+US+UK, meetings with BlackRock, GIC, T Rowe Price planned, sources say

Reuters Story: Netflix, Amazon, Disney, JioCinema backed group tells India new tobacco rules “onerous”, impossible to implement & will impinge on creators' freedom, in first formal pushback. It argued a survey showed viewers indifferent to smoking scenes

Reuters Story: Walt Disney's Hotstar will offer free mobile streaming of cricket tournaments, a move that follows JioCinema's similar strategy on IPL. Disney’s rivalry with Jio has been heating up -- both sides used ads to counter each other ahead of IPL.

Top seven posts on r/technology, the tech subreddit and one of the most popular:

Breaking News.

Should TikTok’s global e-commerce GMV achieve its target, it will stand toe-to-toe with GMV of Flipkart / Amazon India.

Anthony Albanese declares Vietnam a top-tier partner#vietnam

What an incredible feature that will ship to India in 2072.

AI and Indian TV news - seeing for the first time, took me two minutes to realise it was an AI anchor and not a real one. My mother still finds it hard to believe. Next segment when real anchor Sudhir Chaudhary appeared, she asked - Is he AI too?! #Future

I just uploaded “KEYNOTE 1- ESG Investment Criteria in Vietnam for Institutional Investors” to #Vimeo:

HalloApp, Global MAU (iOS+ Android) - Sensor Tower

Odisha train accident: Official flagged ‘serious flaws in signalling system’ in February. In a Feb letter, one zone raised concerns of signal failure with the subject “unsafe incident happened..leading to ..averted head-on collision with a goods train”

India vs other EMs, per GS

All set to protest. Netflix says consumer experience will be hit, global production houses will hesitate. Amazon and others say 3 months too short. Legal challenge and other lobbying planned. Millions of hours of content will need edits, they say

Smoking scenes all over on Netflix, Amazon, Disney, JioCinema. This from “Scoop” on Netflix. What India wants: static health warnings on scene + 20 sec “health spot” start + middle & 30 sec audio-visual warning start + middle - strictest globally. What firms think in next tweet

‘Had informed PM Modi in 2021 about repeated sexual harassment by WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan’: says female wrestler in FIR. One of the Olympians said Modi assured of action, FIR says

During the Friday meeting, Amazon and other companies made the point there was no way films can be edited in three months, said the second source, adding the industry decided to consult lawyers and write letters in protest. More details in story

EV sales in Ecuador are surging despite crippling power cuts

Everything you need to know about Xiaohongshu

Despite tensions, US-China AI research collaborations are alive and well

U.S. TikTokers flock to Xiaohongshu, baffling and bonding with Chinese users

Singapore is turning to AI to care for its rapidly aging population

Global fact-checkers were disappointed, not surprised, Meta ended its program

Starlink is now cheaper than leading internet provider in some African countries

Foxconn stops sending Chinese workers to India iPhone factories

The little ride-hailing app that could catch up to Uber and Bolt in Kenya

YouTube Shopping wants to unseat TikTok Shop in Southeast Asia 

Kenya’s bus fleets want to go electric, but manufacturers can’t meet demand

The Philippines is creating a ChatGPT rival that speaks Filipino and Taglish

After Mexico’s top streamer — the president — left office, YouTube creators hustle for views

Why so many influencers are running for election in Indonesia

China’s AI elite rethink their Silicon Valley dream jobs

Pakistan’s mass transit is failing. BusCaro thinks it has the solution

Demand for Starlink in Zimbabwe is overwhelming capacity

Malaysia tightens grip on internet, in blow to online freedom

Mexico is using an AI-powered app to prevent suicides

When disaster strikes, the world opens WhatsApp

Movie stars, matchmakers, and aunties: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force

How WhatsApp ate the world

The most surprising tech champions of 2024

Small-scale investors are building Vietnam’s EV charging network

Singapore-Based VC Firm Jungle Ventures Is On The Prowl To Tap New Frontiers

What we learned from reporting on global tech this year

Companies in Mexico embrace AI to resurrect the dead

Uber’s big plan for India: buses

How 2024’s tech trends changed our lives

Breaking down the world’s tariffs against China’s tech industry

India banned a Chinese app four years ago. Government agencies are still using it

AI is making Philippine call center work more efficient, for better and worse

How Singapore became the ideal testing ground for self-driving cars

Forbes Global CEO Conference 2024: Economists Predict That Globalization Is On Its Way Out, But It’s Not All Gloom And Doom

Courts in Buenos Aires are using ChatGPT to draft rulings

The Philippine army is recruiting young tech civilians to fight cyber attacks

New data shows the number of new mobile internet users is stalling

Mexico’s women gig workers are making a dangerous job safer

Chinese startups supported by Microsoft and Google incubator programs worked with police

Nigeria’s Ogun State wants to lead the country’s EV revolution

The U.S. Chinese immigrants running Temu shipping centers from their homes

Door-to-door saleswomen are fueling Shein’s rise in Mexico

Grab built its own map in Southeast Asia, and is now going after Google  

Amazon and Walmart couldn’t kill India’s mom-and-pop stores. But rapid delivery might

Phony X accounts are meddling in Ghana’s election

The legal showdown that could reshape online shopping in Argentina

Malaysia’s new data centers create thousands of jobs — and worries about power and water shortages

India’s ambitious lithium dreams have stalled

This Indian state wants to be a tech hub. But the government keeps shutting down the internet

No Tesla dealership? No problem. Uruguayans import the EVs from China