뉴스

India's anti-dumping playbook comes under pressure

In Trump's crypto 'scrip', family always wins

It was January 2025, crypto fever was raging, and Donald Trump was preparing to return to the White House. So when Fatime Elrgdawy's friend told her about an online message from the United States president-elect hyping the launch of his own crypto coin-"GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW"-she thought: "Oh my God, this is brilliant."The 29-year-old software project engineer in California put $2,000 of her savings into the $TRUMP meme coin. All that remained, she thought, was to sit back and wait for the price to climb.Instead, the price plummeted. At the end of May, her $TRUMP holding was worth less than $120. Meanwhile, the Trump family pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars from the token sales after putting little to none of their own money into the project.Also read | Trump just got caught in a perfect storm. Can he survive it?Four bad bets for invetorsThe $TRUMP meme coin is one of four Trump family crypto projects that have turned into a financial jackpot for the Trumps and a very bad bet for buyers like Elrgdawy. Each of these ventures has followed the same playbook. The Trumps risked little up front. Trump family members-notably, the president's oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr-hyped the venture. They raked in money as investors piled in. And those buyers lost big when, for various reasons, the prices of their Trump-related crypto assets later tanked.A Reuters examination shows that Trump's family has used this template to generate at least $2.3 billion in profit from investors since he retook the presidency. On the other side of that cash bonanza for America's first family: over a million investors whose net losses totaled $2.3 billion at the end of April, as per a Reuters analysis.The Reuters analysis was based on a review of blockchain records, corporate filings, online disclosures by Trump companies, and public remarks by the Trumps and their projects' executives, as well as interviews with executives. The findings were reviewed by over a dozen accounting and crypto experts, all of whom found Reuters' estimates and analysis to be reasonable.The four crypto projects include World Liberty Financial, the Trumps' flagship crypto venture. It has brought the family over $1.4 billion from sales of its governance tokens. The tokens, which give holders a vote on some governance matters, have crashed in value.Also read | India's first class action case goes to arbitrationMeme coinThe Trump brothers have also heralded two publicly listed firms, American Bitcoin and AI Financial Corp, known as ALT5 Sigma until April, as convenient ways to gain exposure to crypto tokens through their shares. The companies' stock prices have collapsed. And there's the $TRUMP token, its poor performance typical of meme coins, whose value reflects the popularity of internet trends or celebrities linked to them.White House spokesperson Anna Kelly, in a statement, replied to Reuters' findings: "All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people." Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr did not respond to requests for comment.All but three of the 27 individual investors interviewed for this article said they knew of Donald Trump's history of bankruptcies, unpaid contractors and failed ventures. Still, most said they believed that his position at the apex of American political power ensured lucrative returns on their investments.

Water purifiers fuel a Rs 9,000 crore economy

You do the research, read lists of reviews, compare the filtration stages, and shell out a significant sum for the most promising, tech-savvy water purifier in the market. Then, just two months into installation, the machine starts throwing a series of confusing, flashing signals. The premium buying experience instantly evaporates, replaced by the sheer frustration of tracking down customer care and waiting at home for a technician to show up.In India’s competitive consumer durables sector, this exact friction point has transformed the landscape of water purifiers. The ultimate battle is no longer just about who can build and sell the best machine; it is increasingly about who can maintain trust after the hole has been drilled in the customer's kitchen wall.While the water purifier market is traditionally viewed through the lens of one-time appliance sales, companies like Eureka Forbes, the legacy player behind AquaGuard, are increasingly betting on a far larger opportunity hidden beneath the surface: the recurring service economy built around filters, annual maintenance contracts (AMCs) and nationwide technician networks.According to internal projections by Anurag Kumar, Chief Growth Officer at Eureka Forbes, the water purifier service market alone is on track to cross Rs 9,000 crore by FY30, nearly matching the projected Rs 10,000 crore size of the product market itself.131582773Also read: Beyond the room: Why India Inc's luxury hospitality bet is becoming an experience businessBreaking down the mathFor decades, the consumer durable playbook was simple: manufacture, distribute, sell, repeat. But water purification is far different from selling a television or a refrigerator; it is an active, evolving health product bound to the fluctuating quality of local municipal and groundwater supplies."The market for product categories for water purifiers is about Rs 3,800 crore today," Kumar says in an exclusive interview with ET Online. "I think you would add another, roughly about Rs 3,500 crore of service category as well to it."Citing independent industry reports, Kumar highlighted that by FY30, this parallel economy is set to explode. The product market will expand to over Rs 10,000 crore, while the service and aftermarket ecosystem will chase it tightly at more than Rs 9,000 crore, growing at a combined double-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11% to 12%.This shifting weight from hardware to service fundamentally changes corporate strategies. For an industry dealing with an urban penetration rate of just 14% (and a mere 7% nationally), the recurring revenue from existing households forms a highly resilient cash-flow cushion that protects margins even during macro-economic slowdowns.131582808Service scale becomes the biggest moatThe Rs 9,000 crore service opportunity explains why tech-first aggregators and rental startups are rushing into the service category. However, scaling an on-demand service infrastructure across India’s complex geography is entirely different from coding an app.For legacy companies like Eureka Forbes, this operational network has become a major competitive advantage."After sales service can make or break a brand," says Kumar. "I think a lot of the trust that AquaGuard has today is really thanks to the fact that people have trust in our service... It's a very, very important integral part of our business and a very, very crucial moat that we continue to nurture."To defend this moat against new-age tech startups, Eureka Forbes operates at a scale that resembles a logistics company more than an appliance manufacturer. The company has deployed more than 8,000 technicians mapping out an operational footprint across 19,500 PIN codes.Also read: Apple expected to unveil new AI features at last developers conference with CEO Tim CookThe push to reduce maintenance costs"Once you sell a product, then you have it for life and there's some revenue which comes with it," Kumar says, referring to filter replacements, AMCs and servicing requirements.Interestingly, the biggest threat to this recurring service revenue is not new-age competitors, it has been consumer fatigue over high maintenance costs. Historically, the dread of paying steep annual fees to replace purifier filters has acted as a primary barrier keeping the remaining 86% of urban Indian households from adopting organised water purifiers.To beat this, Eureka Forbes pulled off a counter-intuitive strategic gear: they disrupted their own short-term revenue model to secure long-term market share.Last year, the company introduced a range of purifiers featuring "long-life" filters extending the replacement cycle from the traditional 12 months to a full two years."We did that because we fundamentally heard from consumers that there was also a barrier to the category around maintenance cost being high," Kumar reveals. "What two-year filters actually did was they actually lowered the maintenance cost because now you don't have to change filters every year. You have to change once every two years."Digitising a 1980s direct-sales DNAEureka Forbes, a company historically known for its door-to-door service, and making Aquaguard synonymous with water purifiers in India, faced a new piece of necessary upgrade with building digitisation. The multi-billion dollar service landscape required a complete digital overhaul of consumer interactions. The brand that built its empire in the 1980s on the soles of direct-sales agents knocking on suburban doors has had to pivot entirely to an on-demand, algorithmic infrastructure.An army of thousands of field technicians is only as efficient as the software directing them. For modern consumers who manage their entire lives via smartphone screens, a bland "technician will visit tomorrow" promise no longer cuts it."We've digitised that service," notes Kumar.The long-term playAs water contamination concerns spike across rapidly expanding urban clusters, the structural demand for pure drinking water will continue to climb, and so for water purifiers.However, as the hardware itself faces gradual commoditisation and intense price competition from newer market entrants, the center of gravity has largely shifted. Where the growth moves nextCapturing a dominant share of the service market is only half the blueprint. As Kumar maps out the strategic trajectory for Eureka Forbes over the next three to five years, the company's growth engine eyes two distinct tracks: aggressive geographic widening and targeted product diversification. Geographically, Kumar notes, the company is bypassing deep rural pockets for the time being to focus heavily on India’s rapidly urbanising Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns. Instead, the company is doubling down on smaller towns where they can immediately deploy their signature localised service infrastructure without stretching their logistics network too thin.Simultaneously, the brand is attempting to de-risk its reliance on the kitchen wall by expanding into adjacent consumer durables. Kumar outlined a product pipeline anchored in high-growth, premium categories, including robotic vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, and household water softeners. The underlying playbook here is pure cross-selling. By utilising the same 8,000-strong technician network to service these newer household appliances, Eureka Forbes is betting that its aftermarket footprint can drastically lower its customer acquisition costs; positioning the legacy firm to evolve from a single-product manufacturer into a broader home-health ecosystem player.

D.K. Shivakumar with a Modi-style playbook?

Both the leaders have also paid attention to personal branding through distinctive attire and visual presentation

Nehru’s Non-Alignment To Modi’s Multi-Alignment: How India Rewrote Its Foreign Policy Playbook

The core aim remains strategic autonomy, but the method has changed: India no longer stays away from power centres, it engages them simultaneously.

Trump rewrites playbook in higher education fight

Inside HUL’s playbook for next growth phase

Yatra founders explore stake sale

New Delhi: Travel portal Yatra Online's founders have opened discussions to sell a controlling stake with feelers having been sent to competitors and other potential buyers, people aware of the development said.The companies they have approached include Makemytrip, Paytm Travel, Rapido, Ixigo and a private equity fund, the people said. Yatra is working with advisors on the sale, they said. Suitors could submit non-binding term sheets to formally document their interest next week. Any formal offers will be subject to due diligence, they said.Also Read: Yatra bets on corporate travel as India’s business travel market heads toward $20 billion by FY27Yatra's founders include Dhruv Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra. Shringi, also the chairman, said "there is no substance" to this information."We just reported record profits for the year, hence no reason for anyone to sell," Shringi said when ET sought his comment. "This would anyways not be the right time to do something in the travel industry," he said. The other two founders of Mumbai- and New York-listed Yatra could not be reached for comment. Emailed queries to the company did not elicit a response till press time Sunday.Ixigo and Paytm denied any interest in purchasing a controlling stake in Yatra. Makemytrip and Rapido said they would not comment on "market rumours"."That said, our inorganic growth playbook of investing in niche organisations across travel-adjacent categories has not changed," said a MakeMyTrip spokesperson.Also Read: Indians may be roaming closer to home because of a war far away"Online travel booking is becoming a crowded market. It looks ripe for consolidation," said a fund manager at an international investment firm on condition of anonymity.Yatra Online refers to itself as India's largest corporate travel services provider. The company reported consolidated total income from operations of ₹199.3 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2026, down from ₹228.5 crore a year earlier. Net profit for the quarter fell to ₹8.2 crore from ₹15.2 crore.On an annual basis, the company reported total income from operations of ₹1,032 crore for fiscal year 2026, and a net profit of ₹47 crore. Yatra said it reported its most profitable year in its history despite some "very significant" macro headwinds that impacted three months of the year.CEO Siddhartha Gupta said that its quarter four was affected by geopolitical disruptions and war-related uncertainty, which weighed on international travel demand, particularly in MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences & exhibitions).

Why 2026 Is Not 1990 - And Why Abhishek Cannot Play The Mamata Playbook

Turning personal injury into political capital has often been a part of Mamata Banerjee’s playbook. Is Abhishek Banerjee following his aunt's footsteps?

CBSE's damage control playbook: Board sent social media toolkit to principals to defend OSM, says report

CBSE circulated a scripted social media toolkit to school principals directing them to publicly defend its controversial on-screen marking system, with hundreds of schools posting videos echoing the board's talking points.

A page from arch rival’s playbook in Cong’s peaceful change of guard

Change of CMs ahead of elections isn’t the only aspect that the Congress seems to be borrowing from the BJP playbook.

AAP, TVK Playbook For Cockroach Janta Party? Haryana Lawyer Moves EC To Register CJP

Jakhar said that the organisers had approached Dipke to return to India and formally register the party, but he declined.