🛫 Air India’s Sky-High Shopping Spree

🌞 Happy Monday, Masala Crew!

If the start of your week needs a little drama, a little dhamaaka, and a whole lot of chai—today’s brew has you covered. We’ve got India’s GDP flexing like it’s in beast mode 🏋️‍♀️, Zerodha quietly compounding cash, BigBasket sprinting into the food fight, and a juicy scandal where Builder.ai may have built…fiction 📉🕵️‍♂️

So sip up and dive in—this cup’s full of action 👇

☕ Chai Shots

• ✈️🛩️ Air India Eyes Another Mega Plane Deal: The Tata-owned airline is reportedly in advanced talks with Boeing and Airbus to order around 200 more narrow-body jets, on top of its record 2023 and 2024 orders. This could push Air India’s total aircraft order into the stratosphere. More in The Big Brew 👇

• 💸📈 Zerodha Capital’s Lending Game Levels Up: The lending arm of Zerodha notched a ₹12.5 crore profit in FY25, nearly doubling from the year before, thanks to a 3.2x jump in its loan portfolio. It runs lean and mean, riding on the infrastructure of its broking parent and sticking to a low-risk, fully digital model.

• 🍜⚡ BigBasket Joins 10-Minute Meal Race: BigBasket just piloted ultra-fast food delivery in Bengaluru with Starbucks and Qmin meals delivered in 10 minutes. The Tata-backed grocery giant is finally charging into the same space where Zomato, Blinkit, and Swiggy are already in a fierce face-off.

• 🕵️‍♂️💥 Builder.ai’s House of Cards?: The bankrupt AI startup allegedly engaged in fake invoicing with VerSe Innovation to inflate sales figures. Between 2021 and 2024, both sides reportedly exchanged matching bills without delivering any real services.

📈 Market Masala

• 🔮📉 Markets Brace for RBI Call and FII Drama: After two straight weeks of choppy trades and consolidation, Indian investors are gearing up for a big policy week. The RBI’s June 6 rate decision will be the main course, but there’s plenty more on the plate—auto sales data, FII-DII tug-of-war (FIIs dumped ₹6,450 crore on Friday!), and Nifty’s tightrope act between 24,500 and 25,200.

• 🏦📉 Rate Cut Buzz at RBI: Analysts are betting on a 25 bps repo rate cut at the RBI’s June 6 meeting—its third this year—as inflation cools and growth becomes the priority.

• 📈💸 GST Milestone: India’s May GST collections soared 16.4% YoY to ₹2.01 lakh crore, driven by a 25% jump in import-based taxes and solid domestic demand.

• 📲💥 UPI Bounces Back: Following April’s downtime, UPI surged in May with 18.68 billion transactions worth ₹25.14 lakh crore—up 4.4% in volume and 5% in value. With a 33% YoY jump, UPI now averages 602 million daily payments, solidifying its dominance in digital payments.

• 🛩️📦 IndiGo Doubles Down: IndiGo sealed a deal for 30 Airbus A350s, reinforcing its plan to have 900 aircraft flying by 2030. The carrier aims to add 10 global destinations this year. The A350s, fitted with Rolls-Royce engines, are built for that mission.

• 🛰️📡 Telcos v. Starlink—Round Two: After briefly playing nice, Airtel and Jio are once again squaring off against Elon Musk’s Starlink. The local telecom giants are slamming TRAI’s latest spectrum recommendations, calling them unfair and tilted in favour of satellite internet players.

🌍 Global Masala

• 🔮📉 Eyes on Jobs and Tariffs This Week: After the best May in 35 years for US markets (hello, Nasdaq +10%!), investors now turn their gaze to Friday’s jobs report. Wall Street is bracing for signs of cooling in the US labour market, while Trump’s tariff U-turns keep adding fuel to global trade jitters. CrowdStrike, Broadcom, and Lululemon also drop earnings this week, but all eyes are really on how sticky wage growth and job numbers look.

• 🌐🇺🇸 Trump Hits UK Steel with a Heavy Blow: The UK steel industry is reeling after US President Trump announced a steep hike in tariffs on British steel and aluminium—from 25% to a hefty 50%. Industry group UK Steel says the sudden move risks derailing transatlantic shipments mid-route and could lead to cancelled orders.

☕️ The Big Brew: Air India’s Sky-High Ambitions

✈️ Tata-owned Air India is in deep talks to snap up around 200 more narrow-body jets from Airbus and Boeing. If the deal goes through, it would build on its record-breaking 570-plane backlog and push its fleet overhaul into overdrive.

🛬 These single-aisle jets—perfect for domestic and short-haul international routes—are key to Air India’s growth plans while its long-haul fleet gets retrofitted.

📦 With aircraft makers struggling to meet global demand, Air India’s strategy is clear: order now, fly later—and stay ahead of delivery delays.

💡 The talks come just as the Indian aviation sector is heating up, with IndiGo also locking in a fresh Airbus order and expanding its global footprint.

💼 What does this mean for you?

• ✈️ More flight options on newer, fuel-efficient planes

• 🤑 Possible fare wars as fleet capacity soars

• 🗺️ Faster, smoother connections to tier-2 and tier-3 cities

The Maharaja isn’t just flying again—he’s gunning for sky supremacy.

🚀 Startup Scoop

• 💸🇮🇳 Razorpay’s ₹1,245 Cr Reverse Flip Tab: Razorpay will cough up around $150 million in taxes as it moves its legal base from the US back to India—a move dubbed a “reverse flip.” Following in the footsteps of PhonePe, Groww, and Dream11, the fintech unicorn is footing the bill using internal funds, even as it holds off on IPO plans.

• 🚫🥡 Zepto in Hot Water: The Maharashtra FDA has revoked Zepto’s food business license in Mumbai’s Dharavi after a surprise inspection revealed severe hygiene lapses—including moldy goods, unsanitary storage, and stagnant water near edible items.

🤓 Chai Break Trivia

🧐🏓 Did you know: Table tennis was once called “whiff-whaff”? The quirky name came from the sound of the ball bouncing back and forth, and it stuck around in 19th-century England before the sport went pro.

🔮 What’s Brewing Next?

• 🏦 RBI meets June 6—rate cut buzz is strong

• 📊 US May jobs report drops Friday

And that’s the tea (or rather, the masala chai) for today!

From economic glow-ups to startup blow-ups, India’s business scene is setting the pace—and we’re just getting warmed up. Catch you tomorrow for more headlines, hustle, and head-turners. Until then, stay curious and caffeinated ☕💬