What day is it today? The woman on the other end of the phone asked, “How’s your day going?” “Oh, about the same as yesterday...” “Good one,” she says. At least I could inject a bit of humor. I don’t know about you, but for those of us quarantined at home, it seems as though every day is Sunday: one yawning day without very many milestones. I consider receiving the mail a major event. The governor’s daily address at 2:30 ish in the afternoon is another. At the beginning of this stay at home order I told myself that I would use noon as a cutoff: I had to be out of my pajamas by noon. Do I dare tell you that it is past 4:00 and I’m still in my nightgown? Let’s just say I’m getting in touch with my inner sloth. This order also breeds laziness. At one point I was counting out the number of underwear I had until I had to do laundry. What is wrong with me? I used to be a productive member of society: I read the newspaper daily. Now I collect the newspaper from the driveway every two days, I

Volume growth in India’s spirits industry was just 3% last year, compared to 10% a year earlier, impacted negatively by the national elections and subsequent sagging consumer demand. With two months of lockdown, about 16% of annual sales have literally vanished this year.

Searches for “grocery delivery near me”, “online grocery delivery” and “ration dukaan” were up 550%, 350% and 300% this year compared to the previous year.

Chief minister BS Yediyurappa has been exploring revenue opportunities, and plans to also auction off plots of land in and around Bengaluru to mobilise funds. The revised retail prices will take effect Thursday. The CM has, however, spared beer and wine.

Green Visor Capital backed-Simpl, that allows users to buy now and checkout with pay-later function, said the surge in the number of transactions done for daily essentials increased despite supply and workforce issues by merchant partners.

Assam finance minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “We had an informal discussion with these states and we may increase the tax on liquor. Tomorrow we are having a cabinet meeting in Assam and a decision in this regard will be taken.”

The five southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala together consume as much as 45 per cent of all liquor sold in the country, the report by Crisil said. While Tamil Nadu and Kerala top the list in revenue percentage terms at 15 per cent each, for Kerala the tax on liquor is its single largest revenue source.

The move came after Future group firms defaulted on loans taken against the pledged shares of Future Retail in March, which also impacted its share price.

Pernod Ricard, estimated to have revenues of Rs 21,000 crore in India in 2019-20 on sale of around 55 million cases, sells imported brands such as Chivas Regal, ABSOLUT, Glenlivet and Jameson, apart from the locally-made large-selling ones such as Royal Stag, Blenders Pride, and 100 Pipers.

Following instructions from Excise Minister Ram Naresh Agnihotri, principal secretary (excise) Sanjay R Bhoosreddy said that a rate higher than the fixed MRP cannot be charged by liquor vendors under any circumstances.

The Supreme Court refused to pass any orders to this effect, but suggested that it could be a better alternative than the chaos which has followed the government decision to open liquor shops during the lockdown.

Thousands of people standing outside the vends across the city said they had been trying to access the website since Thursday but decided come out and queue up for their turn when the online link didn't open. Delhi government officials confirmed the website crashed due to heavy rush and the glitch was being fixed.

Sharing the reasons for the slowdown in the shoe industry, shoe manufacturer Pradeep Kumar said: "The main cause is the flood that most part of the country is facing. Due to sluggish sales, we are also short of funds."

There is a lot of deal activity because businesses are looking for capital.

Bata has already identified 180 such markets in smaller cities pan-India.

Industry players say premium and luxury buying sees an uptick in two cases — purchase for occasions by the aspirational millennial and by a growing cohort of marathon runners.

"Similar to others in the marketplace, approximately half of Nike-owned stores have been temporarily closed," while it is "experiencing lower than planned retail traffic in stores that do remain open."

Every year, leather shoes worth over Rs 3,000 crore are exported to European countries from Agra. The US and several African countries are also important destinations for Agra footwear, say industry sources.

Dutch news agency ANP, citing an internal email, reported overnight that the office in Hilversum would be disinfected. The employee was staying home in isolation for 14 days, it said.

Founded in 2017 by Taran Chhabra and Amar Preet Singh, Neeman’s is a sustainable shoe brand that uses completely natural, renewable, recyclable and chemical-free materials to reduce the carbon footprint.

"The newly launched footwear range is available in 90 stores. We plan to further expand and make it accessible at more stores in the coming seasons," said Somdeb Basu, head of foot apparel and accessories at W.

The donation will impact a number of countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, including India.

Big brands have quit Amazon's platform due to sales of counterfeit products and unauthorised sellers which undermines the value of the original brands.

The brand will expand into Hyderabad, Goa, Kochi, Pune and Mysuru next year by introducing products through a mix of exclusive and multi-brand outlets, Xtep India director Vijay Chowdhary said at an event here organised in memory of US-born boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

French retailer Decathlon’s refusal to do business with customers who refuse to share their contact details has sparked a wave of protests on social media.

Campus Activewear is part of the Synergy Action Group that sells 100,000 pairs of shoes every day through more than 50,000, mostly third-party, outlets, according to Action Shoes’ website.

"Our business activity in Greater China has been around 85 percent below the prior year level since Chinese New Year on January 25," Adidas said in a statement.

“The Puma and First Mile programme has diverted about 40 tonnes of plastic waste from landfills and oceans, just for the products made for 2020. This roughly translates into 1,980,286 plastic bottles being reused,” said Stefan Seidel, head of corporate sustainability for Puma, in a press statement

According to the company, Puma's collaboration with the Indian cricket captain saw a massive rise in sales in FY2019 with sales through One8 accounting for almost 10 per cent of its overall sales, and cementing the leadership position by a wider margin.

Vatika has leased this space to French firm Decathlon, which is into retailing of sports goods, at its project 'Shopper's Village INXT' in New Gurugram, Haryana.

China accounted for 20% of Adidas sales in 2018. It sells its products from about 12,000 stores in China, most franchises plus fewer than 500 of its own stores. Almost a fifth of its shoes and apparel are produced in the country.

"We would like to wholeheartedly apologise. We have paid our landlords the rent for April." Adidas, which made a net profit of nearly two billion euros ($2.2 billion) in 2019, has been hard hit by a slump in Chinese sales and store closures around the world.

Puma said it expected all markets to recover by the end of the year and for growth to return in 2021, noting that the crisis has made many people do more sports than before and has strengthened the trend towards more casual dressing.

​​The Bluetooth-enabled smart sunglasses by Titan’s eyewear division will allow users to listen to music with 8-hour playtime. An in-built mic will give access to Siri and Google assistant and allow hands-free calling.

Analysts have largely cut their FY20 earnings forecast for the Tata Group firm by 4-10 per cent.

Our revenues were flat in a quarter where the industry consumption on gold was minus 32% in tonnes.

The growth of healthy lifestyle has added impetus to the athleisure trend.

“We certainly expect FY21 to better than FY20, because we are going to work smarter and harder on many things that we need to do. But at the same time, we are prepared for a situation which is going to be very-very tough.”

The watchmaker will form a development centre in Hyderabad with HUG in hardware, firmware, software and cloud technology and has appointed the company's founder Raj Neravati to head technology for wearables at Titan Company.

Vinyl – Mego

Peter Rehberg, the owner and founder of the label Editions Mego, is behind the moniker Pita. Since the mid nineties he has been a prolific composer but he is more moderate in his solo releases producing only →

The unpredictable resurgence of vinyl has rekindled an interest in physical sonic structures. Gilles Azzaro’s “Macrogroove” realises the idea of a three-dimensional sonogram. It is a 3D printed ‘audio coding’, which is played by a laser beam, scanning the form →

CD – 4AD

In her previous two albums – Movement and Platform – Holly Herndon has already demonstrated her vocal control in a very original and structured way, despite the use of distortions, effects and extreme edits. She was perfectly →

The elderly Viv notices our presence and invites us to sit in her kitchen, right there in front of her, where she can see us. Thus began the interactive video experience “The Visit“, born from the collaboration of the artist →

INTRO – If you like your country or acoustic music slick and highly produced, don’t buy the following CD by Raleigh’s Lynda Dawson and Greenville’s Pattie Hopkins. One guitar, one fiddle, two voices … that’s it … and the CD’s title tells you everything you need to know about the music inside. George Olsen talked with Lynda & Pattie and has this. When I receive music in the mail the first thing I might notice is the CDs title. In the case of Lynda Dawson & Pattie Hopkins CD “Traditional Duets” the first thing that popped into my head was “they certainly didn’t expend a lot of energy naming this disc.” After listening to the disc my review changed to “great music, boring name.” Boring or not, Lynda & Pattie somehow stumbled upon a perfectly descriptive title for their CD that somehow after centuries of traditional music is absolutely unique. (PH) “Traditional Duets was actually a place holder with our graphic design artist and toward the end of the project we fell in love

“While we are yet to feel the pressure in products sourced from third-party suppliers, there are shortages in Apple’s original accessories,” said one of the re-sellers of the American brand in an upmarket store at Gurgaon.

“There are supply issues for several brands. There is no clarity when the situation will normalise,” said Nilesh Gupta, director at Vijay Sales, a leading electronics retailer in Mumbai and New Delhi. “If it doesn’t get corrected fast, we may move into a stock-out situation from next month.”

Apple reopened 38 Apple stores which were temporarily closed after the epidemic, state-run China Daily reported. Only four stores remain closed.

"We strongly appeal to you to not increase GST on mobiles. The increase of 6% would directly lead to hike in prices of product, impacting consumer behaviour leading to a slowdown in demand affecting business adversely,” said the letter written by AIMRA national president Arvinder Khurana.

The decision was taken in the 39th GST Council meeting chaired by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The move was made to correct the inverted duty structure. ​

Industry bodies Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology (MAIT) and India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA) have written to the government seeking concessions in the delivery of smartphones among other electronics devices and removal of restrictions on the movement of components for inland and export purposes.