The sharp rise in petrol and diesel prices has triggered concern among lakhs of delivery workers and app based drivers, with gig worker unions warning that many may be forced to leave the sector if earnings are not revised soon.

The Gig and Platform Service Workers Union (GIPSWU) on Friday demanded an immediate increase in per kilometre service rates from both the government and major digital platforms after fuel prices were raised by around Rs 3 per litre across the country. The union has also announced a temporary shutdown of app based services from 12 pm to 5 pm tomorrow in protest, according to a report by NDTV.

The union said the increase would directly affect nearly 1.2 crore gig and platform workers who depend on motorcycles and scooters for their daily income. Workers associated with companies such as Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit, Zepto, Ola, Uber, Rapido, Porter and Amazon Flex travel long distances every day while covering fuel, servicing and maintenance costs themselves.

GIPSWU President Seema Singh described the latest hike as a “direct blow" to workers already struggling with rising expenses and severe heatwave conditions. She urged both the government and companies to introduce a minimum service rate of Rs 20 per kilometre.

“Delivery workers for Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit and others simply cannot bear this," she said, warning that many workers could leave the sector if immediate relief is not provided.

National Coordinator Nirmal Gorana said gig workers were among the worst affected sections of India’s unorganised workforce. He pointed out that while fuel prices, vehicle costs and maintenance expenses have increased sharply, payments offered by digital platforms have not risen in proportion.

He added that women gig workers, delivery staff and drivers were facing particularly difficult working conditions, with many spending 10 to 14 hours a day on the road in heavy traffic and extreme weather to earn enough money.

According to NITI Aayog estimates, India had around 77 lakh gig workers in 2020 and 2021, a number expected to cross 2.3 crore by 2029 and 2030.

Source: News18

Now you can securely connect your financial accounts, see a dashboard of where your money is going, and ask ChatGPT questions grounded in your financial context – all while staying in control of your data.

To get started, open Finances from the sidebar in ChatGPT and select ‘Get started’ or start a conversation from anywhere in ChatGPT by saying ‘@Finances, connect my accounts’.

ChatGPT will then guide you through securely linking accounts through Plaid, with Intuit support coming soon. After you authenticate, ChatGPT will begin syncing and categorizing your data, which may take a few minutes.

Once your accounts are synced, you can see a dashboard that gives you an up-to-date view of where you stand across portfolio performance, spending, subscriptions, upcoming payments, and more.

Beyond connected accounts, you can share important context about your financial life, like a mortgage, a savings goal, or a major purchase you’re planning for. For example, you might tell ChatGPT: “I’m saving up to buy a car early next year” or “I still owe my parents [X amount] for the loan they gave me.” ChatGPT can save that context to your Financial memories to inform future conversations.

That broader context is part of what makes this experience useful – instead of treating each question in isolation, ChatGPT can help connect the dots across your accounts, your goals, and what you’ve already shared, so the guidance is more personal and complete.

The vision for ChatGPT is to go beyond answering questions to help users take action towards improving their financial lives, and we’re working with trusted ecosystem partners like Intuit to do this. For example, a user could go from getting a credit card recommendation to understanding their approval odds and submitting an application, or from asking about tax implications of a stock sale to getting a trusted tax estimate and scheduling a session with a live, local tax expert, powered by Intuit and all inside ChatGPT.

Source: OpenAI

Maharashtra bike taxi crackdown intensifies as the state seeks to block Ola, Uber and Rapido services over alleged transport law violations.

Maharashtra transport minister Pratap Sarnaik has sought an immediate shutdown of bike taxi services run by Ola, Uber and Rapido, along with FIRs against company owners and management. The state alleged that the platforms were operating without valid permissions and lacked adequate passenger safety safeguards.

In a letter dated May 12 to the Additional Director General of Police, Maharashtra Cyber, Sarnaik alleged that companies such as Ola, Uber and Rapido have been operating passenger transport services in Maharashtra without valid permissions, government approval or compliance with transport department regulations.

The minister stated that the increasing number of bike taxis, particularly those operated through Rapido, posed a serious threat to public safety. The letter alleged that the services lacked adequate safeguards such as driver verification, insurance protection, women’s safety measures and emergency response mechanisms.

Source: Indian Express

The investment comes as ONDC continues to strengthen its role in India’s digital public infrastructure push, aimed at making ecommerce more open and accessible for small businesses.

The network seeks to help MSMEs reach a wider customer base while reducing dependence on large tech platforms.

Zoho has been working closely with ONDC across multiple commerce and finance offerings, including Vikra, Zoho ERP, Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory, and Zoho Commerce. These tools enable MSMEs to digitise operations, manage inventory, streamline accounting, and connect with customers through the ONDC network.

Source: Inc42

Browsers get the page you already ship. AI agents get clean markdown; no JS, no nav, no cookie banner. Picked at the edge by HTTP content negotiation, no duplicate URLs.

Dualmark was built and battle-tested at Dodo Payments before it was open-sourced. After rolling it out across the marketing site, AI agent traffic 5×'d in 60 days — without changing a single page of content.

We treated AI search as an infrastructure problem, not a content problem. Dualmark gave every page a markdown twin our existing stack could keep shipping. The crawlers found it, started reading it, and our agent traffic compounded from there. - The Dodo Payments engineering team

One install. One config. Every page gets a markdown twin and a conformance score. No content rewrite. No vendor lock-in.

Source: Dualmark

So, there was this 31-year-old guy in India named Chirag Tomar who pulled off one of the craziest crypto heists ever. He basically stole $20 million just by buying a domain name.

He registered "CoinbasePro[dot]com" and built a fake login page that looked exactly like the real thing, down to the last pixel. He was a wizard at SEO, so when people searched for Coinbase Pro on Google, his fake site showed up as the very first result.

When people clicked on it, they’d type in their email, password, and 2FA code. While the victims were looking at a fake "loading" screen, Tomar’s crew was using those live codes to log into the real accounts and empty the wallets in seconds. If someone got confused, they’d call a "support" number on the page, and a scammer would actually pick up and talk them into giving away even more security codes.

He kept this up for over two years and scammed 542 people. He even kept a massive spreadsheet tracking every person he robbed. He used the money to live like a movie star—buying Lamborghinis, Porsches, Audemars Piguet watches, and taking huge trips to Dubai and Thailand.

But his luck ran out in December 2023. He flew into Atlanta for a vacation, thinking he was untouchable, but the Secret Service was literally waiting for him at the gate.

How they caught him is actually hilarious. This guy was smart enough to trick Google’s algorithm for years, but he was dumb enough to use the exact same email for his scamming business that he used on his official US visa application. When the feds looked at his search history, they found him googling stuff like "how to take money from coinbase without OTP" on the same browser.

He pleaded guilty and got 5 years in federal prison. On top of that, the authorities in India ended up seizing over $7 million worth of properties he’d bought for himself and his family. It just goes to show that you can be a genius at coding, but you can still get busted by a simple "forgot to switch emails" mistake.

Indian on-demand home services startup Pronto has raised an additional $20 million in its Series B round from venture ​capitalist Lachy Groom, doubling its valuation to $200 million in just ‌two months.

The fresh capital will be used primarily to scale worker supply, deepen operational infrastructure, and expand service density across existing markets, said founder Anjali Sardana

Source: X

Prior to joining Honasa, Yatish Bhargava held senior leadership roles at Flipkart and Hindustan Unilever Limited.

Source: Entrackr