Bringing Harvard to Madurai; Top brokerages shed active users
On learning platform Kruu, students from Class 6 to 12 don’t sit through lectures. They work on projects that stretch over weeks, guided by faculty from Oxford, IIT Madras, NYU, and the National University of Singapore, among others.
Hello,
IT services company Wipro saw a 7% year-on-year drop in net profit for the third quarter of the current fiscal year impacted by the new labour code. However, the company is confident about its future growth prospects.
Net profit for the quarter was Rs 3,119 crore, compared to Rs 3,354 crore a year ago during the same quarter.
Meanwhile, Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh, and Goa have been ranked as 'the best performers' in developing startup ecosystems, according to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade's (DPIIT) annual state ranking released on Friday.
Gujarat secured the top position for the fifth consecutive year. Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh were categorised as 'top performers'.
In the world of technology, Anthropic has named former Microsoft India head Irina Ghose as managing director for the country, formalising a senior leadership presence in what the company says is its second-largest global market for usage of its Claude AI models.
Lastly, silver has been in the news for its recent price surge. Here’s its supply-demand imbalance, charted.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Bringing Harvard to Madurai
- Top brokerages shed active users
- SC ruling on Tiger Global
Here’s your trivia for today: Which stop-motion animated film by Tim Burton stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter?
Education
Bringing Harvard to Madurai
In a post-AI world, problem solving and critical thinking are going to be big. And creativity will be the overarching philosophy, and this is what Kruu is focused on, says Anil Srinivasan, Founder and CEO, Kruu.
On learning platform Kruu, students from Class 6 to 12 don’t sit through lectures. They work on projects that stretch over weeks, guided by faculty from Oxford, IIT Madras, NYU, and the National University of Singapore, among others. They build apps, design prototypes, analyse data, and develop policy proposals. Teachers join them not as supervisors but as fellow learners.
Key takeaways:
- Founded by Anil Srinivasan, Kruu has reached over 450 schools across India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Africa, and Vietnam.
- High-school kids from Dindigul, a dusty town in Tamil Nadu, are turning raw telescope data into visual maps of distant galaxies.
- Their guide sits 13,000 kilometres away, at the University of California. Students from Tanzania, Qatar, and Sri Lanka have teamed up with faculty from Syracuse University to study media bias.
<Top Funding Deals of the Week>
Startup: Pee Safe
Amount: $32M
Round: Series C
Startup: Sukino
Amount: $31M
Round: Series B
Startup: Emversity
Amount: $30M
Round: Series A
Insight
Top brokerages shed active users
Active client bases in India’s brokerage industry shrunk significantly in 2025, with the top 10 players collectively seeing a double-digit decline in activity.
According to NSE data, the top 10 stock brokerages, which together account for nearly 80% of the market, had 3.57 crore active users in December 2025.
Decline:
- The number of active users across brokerage platforms fell 10.7%, dropping from 5.02 crore in January 2025 to 4.48 crore by December.
- The data signals a cooling period for retail participation after a spell of exuberance, impacting even the most dominant market leaders.
- While the downturn was across the board, Upstox Securities emerged as the biggest loser among the top tier; its active user base eroded by 27.3%, falling from nearly 28.59 lakh in January to just over 20.78 lakh by year-end.
Explainer
SC ruling on Tiger Global
The Supreme Court of India has directed VC firm Tiger Global to pay $1.7 billion to the Indian Income Tax Department as capital gains tax on its exit from Flipkart in 2018. What does this mean and how can it impact past investments made from tax friendly jurisdictions?
The ruling cuts through the power of a Tax Residency Certificate and demands more substance to claims made by entities housed in tax friendly jurisdictions.
News & updates
- Acquisition: Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp will buy the U.S. shale production and infrastructure assets of Aethon Energy Management for $7.53 billion, it said on Friday, its largest deal yet as it seeks to strengthen its gas supply chain.
- Tariff slash: Canada and China have struck an initial trade deal that will slash tariffs on electric vehicles and canola, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Friday, as both nations promised to tear down trade barriers while forging new strategic ties.
- Trade deal: India’s trade deal with the European Union will include some agricultural products while excluding items that could harm domestic farmers, a senior official in New Delhi said, as the two sides inch closer to signing an agreement that has been under negotiation for years.
Which stop-motion animated film by Tim Burton stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter?
Answer: Corpse Bride
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