Brands
TVS Motor taps Kalpana Unadkat as independent director
CHENNAI: TVS Motor Company has appointed Kalpana Unadkat as an additional director and non-executive independent director for a five-year term, in a move that strengthens the board’s legal and governance heft.
The appointment, effective December 15, is subject to shareholder approval, the company said in a disclosure to the BSE. The board cleared the decision at its meeting held earlier in the day.
Unadkat is a dual-qualified solicitor in India and the UK, with more than 25 years of experience in cross-border mergers, joint ventures and corporate governance. She was formerly a senior partner at Khaitan & Co and co-head of Ashurst’s India practice in London.
She currently serves as an independent director on the boards of Avenue Supermarts, TVS Credit Services and Eris Lifesciences. A leading authority on corporate governance, she advises boards on effectiveness, leadership, organisational culture and decision-making, and has trained more than 200 directors through structured development programmes. Unadkat regularly advises international companies and is ranked among the leading lawyers in independent legal guides.
Her accolades include the Trailblazer Women Achiever Award 2023 from Ficci Flo, Corporate Governance Lawyer of the Year in 2018 and 2019, The Rising Women of the Year Award in 2019, and the Female Lawyer of the Year and Women Super Achiever awards in 2017.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
