Good morning, Bengaluru!
🌞 Today’s weather: A sunny day with some gentle breeze.
🧐 Did you know? Wonderla is India’s largest chain of amusement parks. When inaugurated in Kochi, it was called Veegaland – but that changed after its Bengaluru launch. The Bengaluru amusement park ranks 1st in India and 7th in Asia.
🗳️ Freebies for voters
Restaurants are making verbal pleas and offering free food and movie tickets to improve voter turnout in the city.
Story so far: Bengaluru’s hospitality sector is hoping to turn around Bengaluru’s long-standing low voter turnout problem. Restaurants are offering various incentives like free food and movie tickets to induce people to vote.
- Nisarga Grand Hotel will offer free khali benne dose, juice, and Mysore Pak to voters who show their inked fingers as evidence. They plan to offer free tickets to a Kannada movie too.
- Wonderla Amusement Park will provide voters with a 15% discount on their tickets. Apart from this, many establishments have issued verbal pleas.
Tell me more? Nisarga Grand Hotel has been conducting voter drives since 2018, when 3,900 customers showed up with an inked finger. This number rose to 5,100 in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
🏭 Foxconn in Bengaluru
Foxconn buys a 300-acre site on the outskirts of the city.
Story so far: On Tuesday, Apple supplier Foxconn announced that it had bought a huge plot of land in Devanahalli, near the Bengaluru airport.
- Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development, its subsidiary, was paying ₹3 billion for the site.
- It made the 1.2 million square-metre acquisition declaration to the London Stock Exchange.
Why it matters? Both Foxconn and Apple want to diversify their manufacturing away from China. In March, Bloomberg reported that Foxconn plans to invest $700 million in a new factory in Karnataka.
🏙️ A budding corporate hub
A new report points to North-West Bengaluru as an emerging secondary corporate hub.
Story so far: On Monday, a report by Meraqi Research found that North-West Bengaluru is emerging as Bengaluru’s next secondary business district. This was made possible by robust infrastructure, metro connectivity, and low occupancy costs in the area.
- Land value is appreciating at 10% per annum. Commercial development has also grown.
- It has the potential to generate 45,000 more jobs by 2025. Currently, there are 5,50,000 workers employed in the area.
Contention: Some disagree with this finding, citing low real estate demands are in the area. As the lack of Grade A commercial development shows, it hasn’t shed its historical roots of being an industrial belt.
🍲 The Rameshwaram phenomenon
B2B platform Udaan’s co-founder dubbed Rameshwaram Cafe as a success story in a recent podcast.
Story so far: In a recent podcast episode by Nikhil Kamath, Sujeet Kumar, Udaan’s cofounder, shared the Rameshwaram Cafe as an example of one of the most successful Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) chains.
- It generates around ₹4.5 crore every month. Their margins are decent too, at 70%.
- The cafes are situated in areas with high footfall and serve a fairly limited menu.
Tell me more? Kumar has invested in companies like Third Wave Coffee and Unacademy. He began his journey at Flipkart, despite being unwilling to relocate to Bengaluru from Delhi.
📊 Today’s Poll
(Only subscribers can participate in the polls)
Do you like amusement parks?
- Yes, I like amusement parks.
- No, I don’t like amusement parks.
❓ Today’s Question
(Only subscribers can submit their answers)
Is there anything from your school life that made a lasting impact on you?
Reply to this email with your answers.
🗞️ In other news…
- Read about Oia, a new food and beverage destination in town.
- Bengaluru has 264 theme-based polling stations to attract voters.
- Here are gifting ideas for Mother’s Day, which is right around the corner on May 14.
- Heavy rains disrupt traffic and leave several areas flooded.
- Property registrations could soon be a breeze in the city.
🛋️ Local Lounge
Yesterday’s Poll:
- I’ve been to the Government Museum: 57.1%
- I haven’t been to the Government Museum: 42.9% 🏆
That’s it for today. Have a great day!