Episode Details

Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Tuesday, May 28, 2024. My name is Nelson John. Let's get started:

Indian benchmark equity indices touched their all-time highs intraday trading on Monday only to end the session on a muted note. The Sensex touched a new high of 76,009 points before climbing down and closing 0.03 per cent below its previous close. Similarly, the Nifty touched an all-time high of 23,110 points, only to close 0.11 per cent below its previous close. 

As the Lok Sabha election reaches its final stretch, with the last phase of polling scheduled for this Saturday, Mint’s Plain Facts series on the government’s schemes brings an overview of the PM Awas Yojana (Gramin) - a rural housing scheme. Originally evolving from the Congress-era Indira Awaas Yojana, PMAY-G has targeted 60% of its homes for SC/ST families, managing to reach about 11.4 million households. Launched in 2016, the scheme covers roughly 22% of India's rural SC/ST population, according to the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census. One standout feature of PMAY-G is the substantial ownership by women, who individually or jointly own nearly 72% of the houses constructed under the scheme—a stark contrast to the national rate of 43%. However, despite these impressive numbers, the implementation of PMAY-G has been uneven. Most houses were constructed in a concentrated period from 2019 to 2021, with recent years showing a slowdown. Moreover, the financial model supporting PMAY-G involves substantial central funding and a significant reliance on unskilled labour from the rural job guarantee scheme. Click on the link in the show notes to see the charts and interactive maps prepared by Mint’s data team and senior editor Nandita Venkatesan.

Markets too are reacting to the final leg of the Lok Sabha election. Signs of restored investor confidence are emerging in the equity markets. The net value of marketwide options' open position saw a drastic reduction, from ₹4.96 trillion on May 7 to ₹91,149 crore by May 24, reflecting a shift in market sentiment. This decrease is significant as it indicates a wave of short covering. This means investors are unwinding their bets against the market. Mint’s markets correspondent Ram Sahgal spoke to market insiders and mutual fund executives who see this as an expectation of political continuity at the centre. 

People for years have been getting intellectual property rights protected for their own innovations. Be it technological innovations or a brand symbol - IP or intellectual property rights cover all of them. However, recently, Bollywood bigwigs Jackie Shroff and Anil Kapoor won legal protections for their iconic phrases "bhidu" and "jhakaas," stirring quite the pot about creative freedom. Essentially, they've set a legal boundary that prevents anyone from using their catchphrases, or even their images and voices, without permission. This move is part of a trend where celebs are locking down their personal brand elements to control how they're used, especially in our digital world. Experts now warn that this aggressive enforcement of personality rights could stifle creative content and legitimate freedom of expression. Mint’s legal correspondent Krishna Yadav spoke to experts who pointed out that if celebrities push too hard on these rights, we might see a serious drop in the variety of creative content online. While there’s no specific law in India for personality rights, the courts recognize them under the right to privacy. And yes, celebs can trademark their names and unique attributes. With more celebrities likely to follow suit, digital content creators are in a tight spot.

India's highway building spree has hit a bit of a speed bump. Over the last decade, we've seen the construction pace shoot up from less than 12 km a day back in 2013-14 to a peak of 37 km per day in 2020-21. But now, it looks like