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Intermission

The Ken 3 Episodes Aug 17, 2026

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India.

Episodes

ITC: The remaking of a giant | Intermission E04 | The Ken Aug 17, 2026 8816 ITC is the great paradox of Indian business: a tobacco company that spent decades trying to become something other than a tobacco company, and pulled it off. Getting there meant surviving a tax demand five times its net worth, the arrest of two former chairmen, and a long, bruising war with BAT for control of the company. It meant winning at atta when even Hindustan Unilever couldn't, rew

TRAILER - ITC: The remaking of a giant | Intermission E04 | The Ken Aug 13, 2026 69 Ask two generations of Indians what ITC is, and you'll get two completely different answers. That gap might be one of the most remarkable reinventions in Indian business.The story goes all the way back to 1910 — to a British tobacco company that taught India how to smoke — and follows ITC's journey into food, paper, hotels and agri, all without a founding family, and with more boardroom d

Intermission E03: Airtel Jun 29, 2026 15621 Stream a video, send a message, call a loved one. For nearly 474 million Indians, that connection runs through Bharti Airtel.Over three decades, the company has made it through price wars, near-bankruptcy, a botched overseas acquisition, and two incursions from Reliance. Each time, it weathered the crisis and came back stronger. Investors who held on through every crisis have been rewarde

TRAILER — How Bharti Airtel Refused to Die | Intermission E03 | The Ken Jun 27, 2026 61 Dozens of companies entered the Indian telecom market in 1994. Almost all of them are gone. One is still standing — and it's how a billion people connect today. Episode 3 of Intermission on Bharti Airtel goes live on June 29.

Intermission E02: Bajaj Finance May 11, 2026 15905 Sell a Bajaj scooter, finance their EMIs. For years, that was the entire purpose of Bajaj Auto Finance. But consumers in India wanted much more. They outfitted their homes with new television sets, refrigerators, and washing machines. They wanted iPhones, hair transplants, fitness equipment and more.Lending for those hinted at a much larger opportunity. And the Bajaj group seized it. Baja

Intermission E01 - Asian Paints (PART 1) Mar 23, 2026 10550 Asian Paints was founded in 1942 by four young Gujaratis in a Bombay garage. Today, it controls more than half of India's paint market. This is the story of how that happened. The company was among the first to tap into the rural market, become a technology company before most people understood what that meant, crack the supply chain, and bring about a new era of Indian advertising.Now, A

Intermission E01 - Asian Paints (PART 2) Mar 23, 2026 12353 This is Part 2 of Intermission's episode on Asian Paints. We'd urge you to listen to Part 1 first to get a full picture of the company's early history and main bets. —Asian Paints was founded in 1942 by four young Gujaratis in a Bombay garage. Today, it controls more than half of India's paint market. This is the story of how that happened. The company was among the first to tap into the

Intermission

Episodes

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