The benefits of organic farming

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BYJU'S lenders have reportedly asked for up to $200 million in prepayment and a higher interest rate from the edtech firm as a precondition to restructure its $1.2-billion term loan B, The Economic Times reported. 

The edtech firm has offered to increase the interest rate by around 200 basis points, but it is yet to agree on the lenders' prepayment condition—a sticking point in discussions, with some lenders unwilling to play ball.

Meanwhile, a report by dYdX Foundation and GravityX found that, on average, Indian crypto investors allocate just 9.6% of their portfolio to DeFi tokens and protocols such as UNI, AAVE, CAKE, etc. 

About 60% of the report's 1,100+ respondents have a relatively small portion of their portfolio (5%-15%) allocated to DeFi. The rest, comprising more advanced investors and traders, have larger allocations towards DeFi tokens. 

In other news, the Reserve Bank of India has halted its plans for a high-profile project called New Umbrella Entity, or NUE, intended to rival the nation’s dominant payment system, Unified Payments Interface. 

It had initially invited bids in 2021 for licences to operate new retail payment and settlement systems across India. However, the project’s potential participants failed to propose “any innovative or infrastructural solutions,” said RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar.

Here’s something interesting!

While the four-day workweek is gaining momentum, nearly 33% say they’d quit their job with a shortened week, a Monster survey of 868 workers conducted in March revealed. On the other hand, a majority, 61% of workers, say they’d rather have a four-day workweek than the traditional five.

Can an AI model like ChatGPT even commit libel? Like so much surrounding the technology, it’s unknown and unprecedented—but upcoming legal challenges may change that. Check out more here.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• The benefits of organic farming
• A tête-à-tête with Jasleen Royal
• Reimagining Hindi cinema

Here’s your trivia for today: What popular spice can be used as a hallucinogen?

In-depth

The benefits of organic farming

Around 90% of the population of Kanjikuzhy panchayat in Kerala’s Alappuzha district engages in “good agricultural practices” and is well-known for its organic produce. SocialStory visits Kanjikuzhy to see how farmers are sowing the seeds of their own green revolution.

Sustainability:

• Most of the produce in Kanjikuzhy was grown on extremely dry land, considered unfit for farming until a group of resilient farmers decided in the mid-90s to take the challenge head-on and pursue organic farming.
• Around 90% of Kanjikuzhy's population engages in organic farming.
• Subhakesan, the recipient of many awards such as the Haritha Mithra Award and many more, credits former Kerala’s former state Finance Minister Thomas Isaac for his support to farmers in the region.

Upbeat

A tête-à-tête with Jasleen Royal

Jasleen Kaur Royal, popularly known as Jasleen Royal, is every girl next door. With no family background in the music industry, Royal taught herself and participated in the music reality show India’s Got Talent in 2009. Recently, YS Life caught up with Royal during the Royal Stag Boombox musical event to discuss the highlights of her career, regrets, and what it means to have the country marry to her compositions. 

Music is life:

• Starting with actor Anushka Sharma and cricketer Virat Kohli’s wedding song Din Shagna Da to recently composing Ranjha for actors Kiara Advani and Siddharth Malhotra’s wedding, Royal has been lending her voice to every Indian couple’s dream wedding. 
• She believes all songs are challenging, and they are close to her heart at that particular point when she is working on them. “Once a song is out, I forget about it and move on to the next work. And that is how I look at things,” she says.
• “I want to own my songs, and I want to sing for myself. And if someone likes it, I am more than happy for them to use it. It should just be a good project and has to be picturised well,” Royal says.

YS Reviews

Reimagining Hindi cinema

Cinema is magical. It is also an insulated and timeless metaverse that has inspired creative minds to make magnificent stories about its past. Jubilee, the 10-episode series from Amazon Prime Video, is a worthy and standout addition to the sub-genre of film lore-inspired content.

Nostalgic:

• To be released in two parts, the show captures the evolution of Hindi cinema’s golden era and its role in shaping a young, struggling, but ambitious nation’s dreams through the stories of three regular people.
• Creators Vikramaditya Motwane and Soumik Sen have built a sepia-tinged, dreamy world where characters deal with complicated situations that can bring unlimited possibilities for them.  
• While Jubilee opens its story with an adapted version of this well-documented love story, it expands the narrative to include the experiences of desperate and talented young folks who went on to impact Indian cinema. 

News & updates

• Rivals: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is inviting users to test the company’s in-house artificial intelligence tool, called “Tongyi Qianwen,” the latest attempt from a Chinese tech behemoth to rival OpenAI’s powerful ChatGPT.
• Cutdown: Samsung Electronics plans to cut back memory chip production as its operating profit in the first quarter of 2023 is expected to plummet about 96% from the previous year. This will be the lowest profit posted by the South Korean tech giant since Q1 2009.
• New models: Toyota Motor Corp will introduce 10 new battery-powered models and target sales of 1.5 million EVs a year by 2026, aiming for steep growth in a market where it has long been lapped by rivals. Toyota, including its Lexus luxury brand, now has three battery models, and last year sold fewer than 25,000 of those worldwide.

What popular spice can be used as a hallucinogen?

Answer: Nutmeg

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