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India’s first data protection law is finally here. 

On Saturday, Union Minister Aswini Vaishnaw announced that the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) bill had received the President’s assent. This law aims to protect the privacy of Indian citizens while proposing a penalty of up to Rs 250 crore on entities for misusing or failing to protect the digital data of individuals. 

In other news, Servotech Power Systems will invest Rs 300 crore to set up an EV charger manufacturing plant in Uttar Pradesh as part of an MoU with the state government. The manufacturing facility is being set up under the Uttar Pradesh Electric Vehicle Manufacturing and Mobility Policy 2022.

Elsewhere, Foxconn’s board has approved the investment of $400 million in Telangana, in addition to the already committed $150 million earlier. The Taiwan-based company in May laid the foundation for a new electronics manufacturing facility in the state as part of its investment.

Lastly, here are 36 company logos with hidden messages and what they mean. 

How many did you know already?

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Women tea estate workers fight back
• Inside Bhumi Pednekar’s boutique hotel
• Education rescuing underprivileged kids

Here’s your trivia for today: In 2000, during the dot-com bubble, which company turned down the offer to buy Netflix for $50 million? Hint: The company in question had to file for bankruptcy just a decade later. 

Women’s Rights

Women tea estate workers fight back

India, the world’s second largest tea producer, is also one of the largest recruiters of women, who constitute almost 80% of tea pluckers. But despite dominating the industry, the women in the workforce are far from being empowered.  

Two years ago, IDH—The Sustainable Trade Initiative, decided to take a closer look at the status of women tea plantation workers, and found that almost no plantation had a female manager or grievance officer. 

Fighting for a better life:

• The Women’s Safety Accelerator Fund was launched in 2021 as a gender-transformative programme in 29 tea estates across Assam. It is a consortium of private actors that aim to promote women’s safety and address violence against women and girls in the tea industry. 
• The programme, which is funded by IDH, Ethical Tea Partnerships, Unilever, Tesco, Twinings, and Taylors, is creating awareness about gender-based violence in tea value chains.
• Today, more than 80% of the 350 tea gardens across Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, have a functioning Internal Committee with a woman president.

Travel and Leisure

Inside Bhumi Pednekar’s boutique hotel

Actor Bhumi Pednekar turned an investor to support Mumbai-based Chrome Asia Hospitality’s first boutique hotel, KAIA, in North Goa’s Ashwem beach. 

Founded by Pawan Shahri, Dhaval Udeshi, and Nikita Shahri, Chrome Asia Hospitality runs experience-driven restaurants like EVE!, Shy, Donna Deli, and Demy, among others in Mumbai. 

Slow and sustainable living:

• KAIA is divided into two areas–the KAIA village and the KAIA villa. The village area has a bar, a restaurant, a coffee shop, and 10 rooms that Chrome Asia Hospitality built from scratch.
• With KAIA, Chrome Asia Hospitality wanted to provide rooms and services that would give a premium vibe, but at an affordable price. 
• KAIA essentially caters to guests between ages 25 to 40 years who wish to escape the city hustle and experience a slow and peaceful life.

Education

Education rescuing underprivileged kids

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Than Singh teaching children near Red Fort

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Than Singh, a police constable, started a pathshala in 2015 with four children near Red Fort, Delhi. He is now educating 80 students, all of whom belong to underprivileged backgrounds, and whose parents don’t have enough money to send them to school.

Building competency: 

• He conducts classes from 3 pm to 5.30 pm every day and teaches alphabets, names of the days and months, numbers, and other such simple things. Children ranging from 1st to 8th grade participate in the class.
• So far, Singh has 50 volunteers and three full-time teachers. The nearby gurudwara provides langar every day to the pathshala. 
• Alongside, some e-rickshaw walas working in the area decided to pick up and drop off children coming from far-off areas for free.

News & updates

• Damaging records: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and other record labels on Friday sued the nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitised music from vintage records.
• Surprising gains: Huawei grew sales for a third straight quarter, after new businesses like cloud services and a resurgent smartphone unit helped mitigate the fallout from US sanctions. Revenue rose 4.8% to $24.7 billion in the three months ended June.
• The chip battle: In Texas, Amazon is designing two types of microchips for training and accelerating generative AI. These custom chips, Inferentia and Trainium, offer AWS customers an alternative to training their large language models on Nvidia.

In 2000, during the dot-com bubble, which company turned down the offer to buy Netflix for $50 million? Hint: The company in question had to file for bankruptcy just a decade later. 

Answer: Blockbuster Video. At the time, CEO John Antioco thought the offer was a joke and declined, saying, “The dot-com hysteria is completely overblown.”

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