💸 Free UPI might not stay free forever

Good morning.

Quick fact before we begin: India runs the world's largest real-time payment system. UPI handles nearly half of all instant digital payments made anywhere on earth.

That giant is in the news today. Let's get into it.

In the lanes of Chennai, a grassroots football league called Kaalpandhu is giving young players a stage, a jersey, and something to aim for.

Coaches tell them the stories of Ronaldo, Messi, and Mbappé, framing them as proof that a kid from anywhere can make it.

For children who may never see the inside of a proper academy, this is where it begins. A ball, a lane, and a coach who believes they could go far.

Sometimes that is enough to start a dream.  Read More →

Scroll to the end for the answer

What happened?
The government has tabled a bill in Parliament that would allow banks and payment companies to charge a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on some UPI transactions again.

MDR is the small fee a merchant pays for processing a digital payment. It was scrapped for UPI in January 2020 to drive mass adoption.

Who pays, and who doesn't?
Nothing changes for you or for small shops. The proposal targets only large merchants - early discussion points to a fee of 0.3-0.5% on transactions above ₹2,000, for businesses with annual turnover over ₹15 lakh. Consumers and small businesses stay free.

Why now?
UPI is enormous but expensive to run. It processed 24.1 billion transactions worth ₹314 lakh crore last year. Government subsidies have covered only 11-14% of the industry's actual infrastructure costs. A Parliamentary panel recently called the zero-MDR model unsustainable.

Why it matters:
Payment firms have argued for years that they cannot keep funding UPI while earning nothing on it. This keeps everyday users free while finally giving the system a way to pay for itself, though the fine print on future fees is worth watching. Read More →

(Technically a Union Territory, but too beautiful to leave out.)

Ladakh has unveiled a 200-km art trail winding across its high-altitude landscapes, turning one of the most dramatic terrains on earth into an open-air gallery.

The installations sit against mountains, rivers, and endless sky, made to be discovered on the road rather than inside a museum.

It is a fresh reason to visit a region already famous for its beauty. Art, altitude, and the kind of silence you can only find at the top of the world. Read More →

☀️ The PM Surya Ghar scheme has crossed 50 lakh rooftop solar installations - a milestone in India's push to put clean energy on household roofs.

⛽ Auto industry body SIAM has flagged E20 petrol contamination and fuel quality issues, prompting government checks on the ethanol-blended fuel now being rolled out.

🫀 India has crossed 20,000 organ transplants in a year for the first time - a quiet but significant marker for the country's healthcare system.

🎖️ Inside the Army Sports Institute, the high-performance centre that has quietly become one of India's biggest producers of world-class athletes.

💵 The rupee slipped 3 paise to close at 95.40 against the US dollar, pressured by rising crude prices and global cues.

🛫 Several passengers were injured after an Air India flight from Phuket to Delhi hit turbulence mid-air. The flight landed safely.

🏔️ An Arunachal mountaineer has entered the India Book of Records for performing a backflip atop Mount Yunam, over 6,000 metres high.

Remember when every startup wanted to IPO at a sky-high valuation?

That era is cooling off. New-age tech companies are now bracing for lower valuations and smaller fundraises as the market starts asking a simpler question: are you actually making money? A good read on where India's startup story goes next.

Would you invest in an Indian tech IPO right now? Reply - we're curious.