15 awesome stories you shouldn’t miss

Last year, I heard someone comparing Long Stories to a gourmet meal, eaten at a fine dining restaurant. The dishes here take time to cook, with attractive plating and a taste that stays with you for a long time. It’s hard to disagree with the assessment.

We report, write and publish over 200 such stories every year, blending research, domain expertise, facts and data with great narrative. This is a curation of 15 such stories, a collection that cuts across trade and investment to films and beer.

They are, in short, unmissable.

Why senior managers walk on eggshells around Gen Z at the workplace

Would you miss an official meeting because you had to walk your dog? Well, this happens. Managers across the board, across sectors, and across the world have been grappling with how GenZers think. With their basic needs taken care of, this generation of workers is perceived to have a sense of entitlement when it comes to adhering to policies, processes and standards. Devina Sengupta’s excellent narrative on new-age attitudes towards work will keep you engaged till the very end of the story.

Struck by Byju’s, General Atlantic’s India ship is in distress. Will it survive?

Around December 2023, our venture capital and startup sector writers, Ranjani Raghavan and Sneha Shah, picked up a buzz in the market about how contagious Byju’s had become for its backers—many venture firms had to write down their investments. The reportage on General Atlantic, which invested nearly $400 million in the edtech firm, took a few months. Where did the PE firm go wrong? An inside story packed with data and great perspective.

The curious case of UAE-based funds in India’s small-cap bubble

Earlier in 2024, Madhabi Puri Buch, chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, warned about a potential bubble forming in small-cap stocks. She pinned this on the role of some investors and the decisions some companies took. Varun Sood, Mint’s ace investigative reporter, took the hint and, with the help of two lawyers, scanned hundreds of registration documents of five firms headquartered in the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, the UAE’s free trade zone. The analysis unearthed obscure offshore funds that may have played a role in running up the share price of certain companies. And several of these funds had links with a certain Dubai-based ‘hawala operator’.

Urban slowdown: What happened to the Great Indian Middle Class?

In the second quarter of FY25, key urban-focused consumption companies reported weak performance. Demand had slowed due to persistent high food inflation, coupled with elevated interest rates and shifting consumer behaviour. But for investors, there were pockets of opportunity to make money, reported Abhishek Mukherjee. His analysis carried a caveat: “Ferreting out an investing opportunity in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis facing millions might not be the most redeeming feature of modern capitalism, but as most middle-class Indians know too well, morality is currently not an inflation-beating asset."

Quant Mutual Fund: The untold story behind Sandeep Tandon’s rise

This story shines a light on Sandeep Tandon’s path to entrepreneurial success—he turned Quant MF into an asset management company that matters. Beyond a handful of people in the mutual fund industry, few know of this winding trail, for it has lain obscured within the dense foliage of corporate filings. Varun Sood stitched up a compelling narrative of this trail as well as Tandon’s working style. Is he a lone wolf?

Mango: King in India, no kingdom abroad

Mangoes evoke a range of emotions—from pride in one’s regional cultivars (the scientific term for variety) to envy and heartburn. During India’s annual mango season, plump yellow Banaganapalles from Andhra Pradesh square off with firm green Malgovas from Tamil Nadu. Nonetheless, India cuts a sorry figure when it comes to exports. Less than 0.5% of its annual production of 20-22 million tonnes is exported. Sayantan Bera, our agri and climate writer, travelled to Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, renowned for Dasheri and Langda cultivars, to find out the reasons behind this underperformance.

How India turned into a trading nation

In 2023-24, 9.25 million unique individuals and proprietorship firms traded in the index derivatives segment of the NSE. And cumulatively, they incurred a trading loss of ₹51,689 crore. Approximately 85 out of 100 lost money. Trading in stocks isn’t safe either—on average, 71 out of 100 intraday traders in stocks lose money. But many investors feel their luck will soon change. Why is that? Master storyteller Vivek Kaul answers through the lens of a fictional couple, Mairaa and Vivaan.

Made in Bihar: How superfood makhana works its magic

The supermarkets are now stocked with makhanas, the gluten-free, protein-rich and low-fat snack. The business is worth millions. But the makhana is a product of intense manual labour, demanding precision, endurance, and skill. A hundred thousand mallah families from the Madhubani and Darbhanga districts in Bihar are the only ones engaged in this work, even though the crop is cultivated widely across Asia. Alisha Sachdev travelled to Purnia in Bihar to bring you this delightful story.

Frying pan, wetland, gas chamber: is it time for you to leave Delhi?

Delhi, India’s capital city, is unbearably hot in the first half of any year. The second half can usher in excess rains and floods. After the frying pan and the flood, comes the gas chamber. By the end of October, north India’s infamous winter smog sets in, turning the air unbreathable. In short, people in Delhi only get about 60 days of good weather. This is testing the limits of human endurance, writes Sayantan Bera. He also serves a warning: What has happened so far may only be a trailer of what is to come.

Deep in debt, Himachal Pradesh is a case study in how not to run a state

On 25 January 1971, Indira Gandhi, India’s former Prime Minister, announced Himachal Pradesh as the nation’s 18th state from Shimla’s The Ridge. Granting statehood, however, wasn’t sound economics—the mountain state has gone downhill since the 1990s. The state’s financial position today is such that it is struggling to manage its day-to-day operations. Salaries have been delayed; most contractual payments have been held up; its expenses far outstrip revenue. N. Madhavan, our macro and policy writer, travelled to Shimla to understand how populism has seeped deep inside people’s psyche. Unpopular decisions such as raising taxes, cutting expenses or even seeking private investment can invariably result in the government being voted out of power.

Hard lesson: The dark reality of Simplilearn’s job guarantee plan

Edtech firm Simplilearn, backed by Blackstone, ran a job guarantee programme between late 2021 and mid-2023. It guaranteed job placements after learners completed certain online courses. Over the course of many months, the company enrolled 900 learners. Samiksha Goel, our startup writer, investigated what happened next. A now familiar story from the edtech landscape unravelled—one of aggressive business projections and mis- selling. In one audio recording that Mint accessed, a sales executive from the company is heard convincing a learner: “If you go with the job guarantee programme, there is no risk involved. In case you don’t get a job, you are eligible for 100% refund."

Not just a cold play: How Zomato can make District a blockbuster

In 2024, we published three long stories on Zomato, including one on Blinkit. The reason? Among the cohort of consumer internet companies that hit the bourses around 2021, Zomato clearly stands out. “The company stayed maniacally focused on the evolving customer preferences by making timely strategic choices in terms of new offerings, capabilities, and markets. And above all, keeping a hawk-eye on the execution without being distracted," wrote T.N. Hari in a Long Story headlined Profits delivered: What Zomato’s sizzling results teach investors, VCs. The company has metamorphosed from food delivery to quick commerce and is now taking baby steps in an events business, District. Can this business, dominated by BookMyShow, give Zomato’s investors outsized returns? Soumya Gupta tried to answer in this compelling narrative.

Netflix needs another mid-stream change in India. Here’s why

Many people in India have taken to Netflix shows over the last couple of years, and that has helped the streaming platform add subscribers in India’s cluttered over-the-top (OTT) market. The growth has been a shot in the arm for Netflix, which had for long been floundering in the country like a rudderless ship, having drawn flak for its niche, upmarket and often confused strategy. Yet, its original content hasn’t been able to match the quality of its rivals’ shows. Lata Jha spoke to industry insiders such as film producers to piece together this story.

How Pirojsha Godrej changed India’s real estate business

Before the covid-19 pandemic, India’s real estate business was in a slump. Many developers defaulted and quit the market. Larger developers, meanwhile, gained share. Godrej Properties, whose shares jumped multiple times in the last five years, was among them. In 2023-24, the developer clocked ₹22,527 crore in sales bookings, an 84% jump from the previous year. In the process, it became the largest listed developer in terms of sales. Madhurima Nandy, our real-estate writer, narrates the inside story of the company’s rise—and how a young Pirojsha changed the company’s fortunes.

In pubs and homes, Bira’s craft beers were the toast of one and all. Then this happened…

Bira revolutionized India’s craft beer scene. Today, the company experiments just too much. Under the Bira 91 brand, it sells beer, cider ale and seltzers. It once sold hot sauce. Apart from Bira Taproom, its bar business also includes The Beer Cafe. Did it stretch itself too thin? The company is tight on funds. When Varuni Khosla and Sumant Banerji reported on the story mid-year, complaints from vendors were doing the rounds—Bira’s payments were increasingly getting erratic. The shortage of funds was taking a toll on the availability of its beers, distributors told the writers. Its premium wheat beer, particularly, was in short supply in the national capital region. This engrossing narrative explored what founder Ankur Jain was thinking.

Happy reading!