DECIPHERING 2023 WITH 15 COMPELLING READS

Mint's Long Story is where we embrace the challenge of delving deep into a story and telling it well every day of the week. This space allowed us, over the course of a year, to report on and explore a wide range of stories that captured the zeitgeist. From the short-seller attack on the Adani group to the chaos at healthcare company Pristyn Care, from the human cost of futures and options trade to the underbelly of Bank of Baroda's app usage fiasco, we unearthed corporate stories that stirred the nation. Here are 15 stories that highlight the breadth and depth of our reporting, from among the 238 long stories we published in 2023.

- Nikhil Kanekal & Shashwat Mohanty

THE MAN BEHIND THE $50 BILLION SELL-OFF

We began 2023 with a short-seller attack on the Adani group. The conglomerate, whose owner Gautam Adani was Asia’s richest man till that point, eventually saw about $107 billion of its market value being eroded. The report, titled “How The World’s 3rd Richest Man is Pulling The Largest Con in Corporate History" was published by Hindenburg Research, a New York-based firm. It made allegations of corporate fraud, stock manipulation and insider trading. Given the impact it made on one of India’s largest conglomerates, we decided to peel the layers of the onion of who exactly is behind Hindenburg Research. Here’s the story of Nathan Anderson, the founder of Hindenburg, by Varun Sood.

AN IIT DEGREE GUARANTEES A GREAT PAY CHEQUE. WRONG

For decades the idea of graduating from one of India’s prestigious government-run professional institutes, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) meant that one could look forward to a successful career, deeply correlated to earning well. However, Devina Sengupta gave this long-held notion a reality check. Her piece explores the two tiers that plague the IIT brand name, the difficult choices of taking student loans to attend coaching classes and IIT itself, and what the majority of fresh graduates earn across various industries. The reality is many graduates, especially for the perceived lower tier, do not get a job on campus.

WHY PRAMILA DEVI USES HER SLIPPERS SPARINGLY