PM Modi wants BRICS to help 100 startups scale yearly; Shuddh Swad turns Bihari thekua into a Rs 1 Cr D2C business

The useful part

The startup push is also finding its way into formal BRICS policy, with the New Delhi Declaration backing a startup incubator network and weighing an innovation fund. It also proposes deeper cooperation on DPI, AI, cross-border payments and MSME financing. Telecom giant Bharti Airtel has urged the government to enforce a uniform sovereign tech stack policy to process Indian data locally, citing current monthly consumer data consumption of 38–40 GB.

How it works

• At the Global Fintech Fest 2026, Rahul Vatts, Group CRO and Director of Corporate Affairs at Bharti Airtel, clarified that local data residency should not be conflated with data sovereignty.
• He emphasized that true data sovereignty is achieved by maintaining control over data through a sovereign technology stack.
• The company is currently building a series of 100-megawatt data centres over the next couple of years and is betting big on demand for sovereign cloud infrastructure required for strategic reasons in the...
• Speaking at GFF 2026, Navi founder Sachin Bansal highlighted how the company is deploying AI across its operations, focusing on credit risk and fraud-detection models, customer support, and software...
• However, Bansal stressed that AI access alone will not serve as a competitive moat as the technology becomes easier to use.

What to take from it

Navi prefers owning end-to-end decisioning and risk models rather than operating as a mere distribution platform. Food and Beverage Shuddh Swad turns Bihari thekua into a Rs 1 Cr D2C business West Bengal-based D2C food startup Shuddh Swad has reached Rs 1 crore in revenue within its first year of operations after starting with an initial capital of Rs 10,000. With AI models posing significant threats to banking and finance, companies are doubling down on their security.

Example or evidence

• The company grew 4X year-on-year and expanded to nearly 1,200 micro-fulfilment centres across more than 150 cities.
• Gen Z has emerged as the fastest-growing customer cohort, with the customer base growing nearly 5X y-o-y.
• Help 100 startups scale yearly Shuddh Swad turns Bihari thekua into a Rs 1 Cr D2C business Here's your trivia for today:
• Which two encoding standards are widely used to represent text as numbers in computers?

Details worth keeping

Speaking at the BRICS Business Forum in New Delhi, Modi tasked the BRICS Business Council with reviewing this target alongside identifying the top 10 trade barriers and facilitating 1,000 new business partnerships annually. Innovation Fund, alongside proposals around DPI, AI and cross-border payments. Key takeaways: PM Modi proposed an annual review to enable 100 startups to enter cross-border BRICS markets.

Related coverage

• Yourstory: Council to identify the grouping's top 10 trade barriers and facilitate 1,000 new business partnerships annually.
• Yourstory: Shuddh Swad makes preservative-free Bihari thekua using traditional recipes and crossed Rs 1 crore in revenue in its first year, fully bootstrapped.
• Businesstoday: BRICS Summit 2026: Huawei और Alibaba से Tata तक, PM Modi के बिजनेस फोरम में जुटेंगे ग्लोबल कारोबारी दिग्गज
• Yourstory: Interacting with CEOs and founders of 20 space startups, PM Modi hailed them for showing remarkable courage by entering a new and demanding domain, taking risks, trusting the reform process, and remaining...