What does the new pension scheme have to offer?

Top of the Morning

Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Monday, August 26, 2024. My name is Nelson John. Let's get started.

Set to roll out next year, the Unified Pension Scheme is a new government initiative that combines features of the Old Pension Scheme and the National Pension Scheme. It aims to offer government employees a guaranteed pension equivalent to 50% of their last salary, incorporating both employee and government contributions. N. Madhavan writes that the UPS also will try to address the sustainability concerns of OPS and the uncertainties of NPS pensions. Will it work better than its predecessors? Madhavan tries to answer.

Ola Electric's claim of being the biggest two-wheeler EV company in the world had a curious asterisk — that claim only stands if China is excluded. Currently, China dominates the global EV market. Chinese companies hold a combined 72% global market share for electric two-wheelers and lead in the electric four-wheeler segment as well, with a stock of 21.8 million units. Our partners at How India Lives explain how China's rapid shift towards electric mobility is significantly supported by the government, which contrasts with a more modest uptake in markets like the US.

Have you been coughing more due to bad air quality? It's going to affect your insurance payments. Health insurance premiums in India are expected to increase due to rising rates of diseases caused by extreme weather and polluted air, reports Puja Das. The number of claims for respiratory, vector-borne, gastric, and abdominal diseases has risen significantly leading to a potential hike in premiums. Additionally, waterlogging from heavy rains has caused a surge in water- and vector-borne diseases, which again worry the insurance companies.

AI is transforming print media advertising by generating human-like figures, raising industry concerns yet offering cost-effective production alternatives. Varuni Khosla and Pratishtha Bagai write that this shift could potentially eliminate the need for real models and expensive shoots. Technology and AI's ability to replicate human-like figures is evolving rapidly, and some believe it could reshape the advertising landscape.

In the 1970s, the FMCG sector in India changed because of a single product innovation: sachets. Selling smaller quantities of a product proved to be a game changer in a cost-conscious market like India. While that strategy worked for items like shampoo and detergents, Godrej Consumer Products is trying to replicate that phenomenon for mosquito repellents. Suneera Tandon writes about the company's CEO, Sudhir Sitapati, and his efforts to make Godrej's consumer goods arm at par with the other players in the market.