Building an OS for the apple industry; Inner healing to build peace in conflict zones

Hello,

Even after 30 years, what makes people still go gaga over Pokemon?

The franchise, which comprises video games, playing cards, TV shows, films and merchandise, has managed to create a vibrant community across the globe, spanning generations. It is so huge that the Pokémon company is the world’s biggest media franchise, with revenues of $147 billion, according to Guinness World Records.

The language of Pokemon—which celebrated its 30th birthday in March—is universal, fans gush. 

Speaking of language, what makes good humour writing? 

A Pulitzer-winning author dives into the art of writing comedy—how to turn even an awful moment into comedic material, how to exploit the richness of words to make your writing zestier. He also recommends 10 novels that would make you laugh. 

Americans on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are headed for a wardrobe refresh. And they are more likely to shop in-store to find clothes that fit their new size, a survey shows. Retailers may want to take note of this and gear up to welcome this new crop of shoppers to their stores. 

ICYMI: Delhi EV Policy 2.0 took effect last month. But it is more than a state policy. Find out how it signals India’s transition from proving electric mobility works to building an ecosystem that can scale sustainably.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Building an OS for the apple industry
• Inner healing to build peace in conflict zones

Here’s your trivia for today: What did the original Apple logo depict?

Startup 

Building an OS for the apple industry

Orchardly is a bootstrapped Srinagar agritech startup combining farm intelligence, physical stores, soil testing and produce buyback. Now it must prove that a model built deep in Kashmir can scale across India.

The startup is often described as an advisory app; its founders insist it is not, and that the distinction is the difference between a feature and a business. What they say they are building is closer to an operating system for temperate horticulture: the layer of intelligence, inputs, services and market access that Kashmir’s orchards have never had, assembled into one connected stack. 

Key takeaways

• Ehsan Quddusi founded Orchardly in 2021 with his co-founders, Izhan and Uzair Javeed. Like most households in Kashmir all three grew up with a personal stake in horticulture. 
• Every orchard is different; two plots a few hundred metres apart can need entirely different decisions because of elevation, slope, microclimate, soil and canopy. So instead of generic software, they set out to build localised intelligence. As Quddusi puts it, technology is the medium; growers remain the greatest teachers.
• Orchardly’s ambition has the right shape. It starts from a real problem and builds value where value has been leaking. The startup is trying to give one of the world’s finest fruit-growing regions the infrastructure it never had. If Orchardly can make that model travel, Kashmir’s first agritech unicorn may indeed grow from an apple tree.

Inspiration

Inner healing to build peace in conflict zones

Working across Lebanon, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Mozambique, Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, and Congo convinced humanitarian Lena Lieberknecht that peacebuilding needs an inner dimension. Through the Art of Living, she is bringing stress-relief programmes to people living and working in conflict zones.

A life in humanitarian work

• Lieberknecht is from a small town in Germany. But her humanitarian work has taken her around the world: from Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon to conflict zones in Syria, Sudan, Mozambique, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo—some of the world’s most fragile frontiers.
• Somewhere along that journey, in a modest ashram tucked away in Black Forest, a mountain range in Germany, Lieberknecht encountered something that would fundamentally reshape the way she approached her life’s work: the Art of Living.
• “Violence cannot be stopped by the external interventions we design; nothing really changes unless there’s internal transformation as well. I felt strongly that we needed to connect the Art of Living with humanitarian organisations,” says Lieberknecht. 

News & updates

• Monetary policy: China’s central bank has pledged to adjust monetary policy tools in a ​timely manner. The People’s Bank of China will continue to implement an appropriately loose monetary policy and maintain ample liquidity, Reuters reported. 
• Yen slide: Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama will announce on Monday that Tokyo and Washington took joint action in the currency market to arrest the ‌yen’s slide to 40-year lows, two Japanese government officials told Reuters.

What you should watch out for

• Nykaa, Delhivery, Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India, Hero MotoCorp, and Titan Company are among the major Indian companies set to announce their quarterly financial results in the coming week.
• SpaceX is scheduled to release its first quarterly financial results as a public company for the second quarter of 2026 on August 4.
• Manipal Health Enterprises shares are tentatively scheduled to be listed on the NSE and BSE on Wednesday.

What did the original Apple logo depict?

Answer: Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree

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