Tapping into luxury Ayurveda wellness; Bengaluru's first 'books and beers' club

Hello,

It’s round 2 of Bhavish Aggarwal vs LinkedIn.

Following the removal of Aggarwal's LinkedIn post on pronouns, the Ola founder has decided to move his company's entire workload out of LinkedIn-owner Microsoft's Azure to its AI company Krutrim's cloud infrastructure.

He also offered a full year of free cloud usage to any developer looking to move out of Azure to Krutrim.

Meanwhile, the EV momentum in India is picking up pace.

EV charging infrastructure company Relux Electric has raised Rs 250 crore from a group of private real estate and infrastructure investors. It plans to use the funds to set up 20 hyper-charging stations on South India's highways over the next eight months.

Also, for the first time, ISRO has successfully tested a 3D-printed rocket engine. The number of parts in the engine has been reduced from 14 made using traditional machining and welding to just one. 

ICYMI: Inside the world’s largest carbon capture plant.

Oh, and scientists are warning against the growing capacity of AI systems to deceive humans.

MIT researchers identified wide-ranging instances of AI systems double-crossing opponents, bluffing and pretending to be human. One system even altered its behaviour during mock safety tests. 

That sure looks like a red flag!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Luxury wellness and beauty brand, Qi Ayurveda
• Bengaluru's first 'books and beers' club
• BTS with Greater Than craft gin

Here’s your trivia for today: Which company is the sole supplier of indelible ink used in Lok Sabha elections?

Beauty

Luxury wellness and beauty brand, Qi Ayurveda

Two decades ago, Rajshree Pathy started Kama Ayurveda. Now, the Padma Shri awardee has started Qi Ayurveda—which brings together centuries-old traditions from India and scientific research from Switzerland. 

“I felt it was an opportune moment to integrate Ayurveda with botanical extracts and actives today,” she tells YS Life.

Natural beauty:

• Qi Ayurveda’s range of hair care formulations includes nourish, hydrate, wellness, and restore. These formulations are targeted at various concerns—from dryness to premature greying, breakage, and damaged hair.
• The brand’s packaging is 100% recyclable and biodegradable. The oil bottles are made of ergonomically designed glass as the liquid inside is corrosive.
• “We will be launching our skincare range later this year. The first launch will be a morning serum with a moisturiser and a night serum with a night moisturiser,” Pathy says.

Art & Culture

Bengaluru's first 'books and beers' club

The Biere Club—Bengaluru’s first microbrewery—is breaking new ground in the city’s vibrant brewery scene. Its founders and siblings Meenakshi and Arvind Raju have started the ‘Books and Brews’ initiative for the busy bibliophiles of the Silicon Valley of India.

The Biere Club started the silent book club on March 18, 2024, in an attempt to build a community of like-minded people.

Unusual escape:

• The weekly literary rendezvous hosts book lovers every Thursday, from 4 PM to 8 PM, to enjoy their favourite books, alongside a pint of craft beer. 
• “We put reminders on social media, but we don’t want to advertise and pull people to it…If there are 50-60 people, then the whole point of a ‘silent’ book club is lost…,” Arvind explains. 
• Unlike the usual traditional book clubs, there is no limitation in terms of the books and authors one reads during ‘Books and Brews’. 

Wine and food

BTS with Greater Than craft gin

The gin renaissance in India was spurred by one Goa-based homegrown brand under the stewardship of Anand Virmani. He, along with his wife Aparajita Ninan, who’s also an artist, launched India’s first craft gin brand, Greater Than, in 2017. 

In FY24, it sold one million bottles—a milestone for a homegrown gin brand. 

Staying relevant:

• During the COVID-19 lockdown, the team at Nao Spirits, the parent company of Greater Than, had a lot of time to experiment with different flavours and ingredients. One of the experiments that stood out was a coffee-infused gin.
• Broken Bat Gin was born in November 2022—a barrel-aged gin that tastes like whiskey. For this, the team shaved, cleaned and soaked cricket bats made with Kashmir willow in gin for six weeks. 
• Greater Than also hosts the annual Bar Wars, a bartending competition hosted across the country. In January this year, Nao Spirits entered the rum segment with the launch of Pipa–Rum de Goa, a premium spiced rum. 

News & updates

• Economic momentum: China’s consumer inflation quickened in April, holding above zero for a third month at, 0.3%, while industrial prices extended a long decline, with the producer price index sliding 2.5% in April from a year earlier. The numbers suggest that deflationary pressure remains a threat to China’s economy, despite green shoots in the manufacturing sector and robust exports.
• AI date: Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd says the woman-focused dating app is embracing AI. “You could, in the near future, be talking to your AI dating concierge and you could share your insecurities ... and then it could give you productive tips for communicating with other people,” she said at a conference.
• “Some new stuff”: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shot down reports claiming the company will soon be launching a search product. The only details provided by the official OpenAI post on the upcoming event on Monday are that the launch will have updates on ChatGPT and its latest model, GPT-4.

Which company is the sole supplier of indelible ink used in Lok Sabha elections?

Answer: Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited.

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