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Trust, Tech And The Streaming Reset
The Weekend Playlist
In partnership with
Good morning.
This week’s playlist begins with a tale of corporate rescue, ventures into India’s $100 billion tech opportunity, and then logs into the streaming wars.
Natarajan Srinivasan recounts how CG Power came back from fraud, debt and distrust. Rajesh Nambiar unpacks why India’s GCCs are becoming more important in a geopolitically uncertain world. And Tony Gunnarsson looks at why Netflix, Disney and others are betting on ads, bundles and sharper pricing.
Different industries, same reality check: trust is getting more valuable, and the smartest players need to rewrite the manual before the old one stops working.
WEEKEND EDITION
What It Took To Rescue CG Power
CG Power’s comeback was not just a balance-sheet repair. It was a test of whether a broken institution could be made credible again.
In this episode of Weekend Edition, Govindraj Ethiraj speaks with financial journalist Natarajan Srinivasan, author of The Great Revival and the Former MD and CEO of CG Power and Industrial Solutions Limited, about one of corporate India’s most dramatic turnarounds. CG Power had once been a respected engineering and manufacturing company. By 2019, it was facing fraud allegations, massive debt, shuttered factories, unpaid vendors, anxious employees, and customers who no longer knew whether the company could deliver.
Banks declared CG Power a fraud account. Liabilities ran into thousands of crores. The task was not just financial restructuring, the new leadership team had to rebuild the company almost from zero right in the middle of a pandemic.
Srinivasan explains how employees played a crucial role in keeping the company alive, how vendors were persuaded to return, and how major customers such as the Railways were won back. The episode also looks at Project Regain, CG Power’s effort to recover lost market share from global competitors, and how transformers, switchgear and industrial systems became key engines of growth after the turnaround.
Srinivasan reflects on the governance failures that led to the collapse, the legal and accounting clean-up that followed, and the warning signs troubled companies should confront before it is too late.
Why This Matters
For investors, lenders and business leaders, CG Power is a reminder that distress can spread quickly from the balance sheet to operations, markets and reputation. Recovery requires discipline across all of them.
SPECIAL EDITION
India’s $100 Billion GCC Opportunity Explained
India’s GCC boom is often described as a real estate and hiring story. But what if the bigger shift is that India is moving from back-office execution to the centre of global technology strategy?
In this episode of The Core Report Special Edition, Govindraj Ethiraj speaks with Rajesh Nambiar, President of Nasscom, at the GCC Summit 2026 about why multinational companies are rapidly expanding Global Capability Centres across India.
Nambiar explains how GCCs have moved far beyond their old identity as cost-efficient support centres. Many are now AI-first engineering hubs, building products, driving automation, and handling digital transformation for global enterprises. India’s depth of technology talent, especially in AI and software engineering, is becoming one of the strongest reasons companies are choosing to build here.
The episode also looks at how global firms decide where to locate new centres, what kinds of leaders they now want, and how geopolitics, enterprise tech spending and global uncertainty are influencing investment into India.
Why This Matters
GCCs could become one of India’s strongest geopolitical and economic advantages, turning talent depth into global influence, investment and high-value technology ownership.
THE CORE QUIZ
Which IPL franchise are Lakshmi Mittal and Adar Poonawalla reportedly set to acquire? |
THE MEDIA ROOM
The Shift In Streaming Monetisation
Streaming’s problem is often framed as a subscriber slowdown. But what if the deeper shift is that subscriptions alone can no longer deliver the growth the industry was built around?
In the latest episode of The Media Room, Vanita Kohli Khandekar speaks with Tony Gunnarsson, Senior Principal Analyst for Online Video at Omdia, about the reset underway in global streaming. Platforms such as Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max are moving beyond the old SVOD playbook of chasing subscriber additions at almost any cost.
The issue is not just saturation in mature markets. Gunnarsson argues that streaming is entering a more complex monetisation phase shaped by advertising tiers, price optimisation, bundling, telecom partnerships, and industry consolidation.
Netflix’s ad strategy is one sign of this change. Advertising is no longer a fallback for free platforms; it is becoming central to how premium streamers grow revenue without relying only on higher subscription prices.
Bundling is another part of the story. As streamers are packaged with broadband, telecom and other services, the battle shifts from acquiring users to reducing churn and increasing value per household.
Markets like India may be at a different stage of adoption, but they are beginning to reflect the same structural pressures.
Why This Matters
The streaming wars are no longer just about who has the biggest subscriber base. The next winners will be the platforms that can best price, bundle and monetise attention.
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