Good idea and worth revisiting. In the meantime, have you read our colleague's previous article on Gojek's Bangalore office? It talks about some of the challenges of this setup, but specific to Gojek: https://the-ken.com/story/gojeks-indian-engine-got-it-to-10-billion-now-it-wants-to-change-it/?searchTerm=Gojek

Nadine Freischlad

Thanks Vamshi. As a reporter based in Indonesia, I don't know the Indian landscape that well. As far as I can tell, the Indian government's programmes for startups seems to be focusing on the seed stage, with some funding and mostly non-monetary support. I'm not aware of a later-stage investment vehicle like MPF, but definitely interested to learn more if there's something I missed

Nadine Freischlad

Hi Piyush, thanks for your suggestions. Those are all interesting avenues. Some thoughts of the top off my mind, 1) Probably yes, I think GrabKitchens contribute a significant volume to Grab's food GMV and they are quite successful as the pioneer of that concept. 2) I think it's a natural progression, as their merchant network is already huge and contains many F&B brands as well. So food is (for now) just an expansion into instant-delivery and yes what you say about Meituan and O2O as the benchmark here probably makes sense. With on-demand delivery, e-commerce and food delivery converge... 3) I think the only real moat is fleet, which I talked about in the article. Grab/GoTo claim that there are advantages from having passenger rides+deliveries mixed. That this means better area coverage, more stable income for riders, better mapping/ETA etc. The other thing is, how specialised will Shopee get with food? Grab/GoTo already have many ancillary services for F&B, like consulting, even supplying ingredients and so on. My feeling is, ShopeeFood will focus on the delivery aspect, while Grab/GoTo embed themselves more with the merchants

Nadine Freischlad

Hi Rajesh, that's true, but not everyone subscribes to both our editions, so in some cases (when there's good reason) cross-over stories can make sense. The Southeast Asia readers also get stories from the India edition regularly. thank you for your comment

Nadine Freischlad

Hi Chris, thanks for reading. Hmm, not sure if I understand your question. Yin and yang is used as a metaphor here, to describe how two contrary forces (symbolized by the black and white) end up working in harmony with each other. The way this (we think) applies to Garena and Shopee is that the first is the profit-oriented unit while the latter the growth-oriented unit and together they make the Sea story so attractive.

Nadine Freischlad

Yes, such an interesting choice right. I'm curious to see the impact of the policies myself, especially the new assessment system that will replace the national exam from this year onward

Nadine Freischlad

you're right, thanks for pointing it out. It's fixed now

Nadine Freischlad

you're right, thanks for pointing it out. It's fixed now

Nadine Freischlad

Thank you Umang. Actually, I'm afraid I made a mistake there. BCA is THE largest listed company by market capitalisation. Thank you for drawing my attention to this. I've corrected.

Nadine Freischlad

Hi Sarajit. Thanks for your reading and your honest critique. You bring up good questions. This article does not address because it's not about the technical vulnerabilities of Aadhaar. It's about how the narrative of digital ID for development is taken up and being discussed within the Indonesian government and other stakeholders, an entirely different story.

Nadine Freischlad

Thanks for reading and for taking the time to comment RR, although I do not agree with some of your remarks. For instance, I do not believe at all that calling Nandan Nilekani a billionaire is an attempt to vilify him. Neither does “positioning it as a development tool,” suggests any other (negative) motivations. This is a description of how Aadhaar was first introduced via the Planning Commission, specifically as a tool to reduce welfare corruption. Several problems related to Aadhaar services during the pandemic have been documented, I don’t think I need to list them here. You are right to point out that the impact of technological progress is well known, and I do not imply that nothing should be done. The article argues that governments such as Indonesia’s, which grapple with planning and building a digital ID infrastructure now, do not necessarily have the capacity (yet) to implement such systems with all the potential risks in mind. Therefore, even within government agencies, there is some hesitance over going in a direction that would centralise authority over a digital ID with one agency.

Nadine Freischlad

Thanks for your comment Deepanshu. In my view it is helpful to bring up the example of quantum computing, to illustrate one way in which current encryption will eventually be challenged. In the article, this "potential threat" is mentioned by Randeep Sudan, who's been working in the digital identity space for many years and was leading the ID4D initiative within the World Bank. Governments like Indonesia's, planning their digital ID systems now, must develop the capacity to think ahead to anticipate these new challenges and solutions. It's not a given that this capacity exists within governments

Nadine Freischlad