In this week’s wrapup, we discuss if LIC can be India’s sovereign wealth fund, when ORS didn’t mean ORS, the new Labour codes, the first smell trademark and why Michael Burry is going short on AI.

And in this week’s Markets edition, we did an explainer on why the broader market feels oddly muted even as the headline stars — the NIFTY and the SENSEX, are busy breaking fresh all-time highs. Click here to read it.

But before we recap what we wrote over the week, here’s a quick reality check. Insurance matters only once in your life: the day your family needs to make a claim. And that’s usually when people realise they bought the wrong policy which don't fit their needs, missed a crucial detail, or trusted an agent who didn’t tell them the full story. But you shouldn’t have to learn this the hard way!

So, we’re hosting a free 2-day Insurance Masterclass built around real claim cases we’ve handled and simple, practical rules for shortlisting the right plan.

📅 Today, 29 Nov ⏰ 11 AM: Life Insurance
How to protect your family, choose the right cover amount, and understand what truly matters during a life claim.

📅 Tomorrow, 30 Nov ⏰ 11 AM: Health Insurance
How hospitals process claims, common deductions, the mistakes buyers usually make, and how to choose a policy that won’t disappoint you when you need it most.

If you want clarity, real-world insights, and simple steps you can apply immediately, you shouldn’t miss this one!

👉🏽 Click here to register, seats are filling fast.

Can LIC be India’s sovereign wealth fund?

A sovereign wealth fund is state-owned, and it can invest in a basket of assets, generating returns for a country’s economy and people. And in a lot of ways, LIC behaves like India’s own sovereign wealth fund, but still technically can’t be classified as one.

Yes, we have the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), but only 49% of it is owned by the government and the remaining 51% is held by institutional investors. Plus it also invests in infra projects for the country.

On the other hand, LIC already invests in government bonds, equities, PSUs and every time the government needs a bailout, investors for an IPO or even to stabilise our markets, guess who steps in to fill the gap?

LIC!

So in our Monday story, we wrote about how and if LIC can be India’s sovereign wealth fund. You can read about it here.

When ORS didn’t mean ORS

Every time you came down with an upset tummy or a bout of vomiting from dehydration, your parents would head over to the pharmacy and grab a custom care kit of medicines and aid, including sometimes, a quiet lookalike ‘ORS’ drink.

Except it wasn’t really ORS and for a long time, India was consuming and feeding these sugary drinks to treat dehydration, unaware that they weren’t really medicines. That’s why Dr. Shivaranjani Santosh started looking into it herself. She took it to court, to social media and fought against the companies that got away with it for years.

But why did it take so long for us to recognise the difference between ORS, the life saver, and ‘ORS Drink’, the sugary drink?

Find out in our Tuesday story here.

India’s new Labour Codes explained

It’s fair to say that a decent number of people make up the labour sector in India today. But despite that, we were still operating on outdated labour laws, with some even contradicting another. About 29 laws spread across different eras of India, companies scratching their heads figuring out which to follow, and employees who couldn’t access benefits.

All that was supposed to change with the Labour Codes, broken down into 4 primary codes:

1. The Code on Wages
2. The Industrial Relations Code
3. The Code on Social Security, and
4. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Code.

Four major codes that took a century of scattered laws, cleaned up for the new India: one that also counts gig workers.

So what do these labour codes mean for you, your employer and the country? We break it down in our Wednesday story here.

What's a smell trademark, anyway?

India’s perfume market has a whole shadow world hiding inside it — a ₹500–1,000 crore universe of copycat scents that survives because of one odd loophole in trademark law. You can trademark a logo, a jingle, even a shape… but not a smell. And that tiny detail explains why dupes thrive. And it’s not just India. Even globally, fragrance trademarks don’t fly because the scent is the product. You can’t separate a perfume from its smell. That’s why Chanel once lost a battle over No. 5 in the UK.

But a few days ago, a Japanese tyre company did the impossible. Sumitomo Rubber Industries actually secured a trademark for rose-scented tyres. How on earth did they pull that off?

Check out Thursday’s Finshots newsletter to find out.

Why Michael Burry is going short on AI

A few weeks after closing Scion Asset Management, Michael Burry is back in the spotlight — not with another sensational trade, but with a warning. He believes the world’s most celebrated investment theme is quietly repeating the mistakes of the dot-com era: hyper-spending, shaky profitability, and accounting assumptions that make earnings look far healthier than reality.

The numbers he lays out are staggering. The AI companies he’s pointing at are the biggest in the world. And this time, he’s not issuing his warnings through regulatory filings, he’s speaking directly. But Wall Street doesn’t seem convinced. Analysts are pushing back. Tech giants are defending their books. And investors are still pouring money in.

What does Burry see that the market doesn’t? And why did it take shutting down his own fund to say it? Find out in our Friday story here.

Liked this week’s wrapup?

Don’t forget to share it with your friends, family, or even strangers on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and X. And subscribe to Finshots, if you haven’t already. Plis!