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mismanaging these trade-offs. Officials seem to deem almost any expense to be an acceptable price for security. Money is being spread wastefully thin, not focused where China’s grip is tightest, in refineries and smelters.

speech last September. Then, he told his parliament that Washington’s aim for denuclearization was a “delusional obsession.”The two leaders haven’t met since 2019, and the North Korean leader ignored an offer to reconnect when Trump visited South Korea last fall. The Kim regime hasn’t held formal nuclear talks with the U.S.

Last week’s AI Impact Summit ended the way these gatherings routinely do. This time with a ‘New Delhi Declaration,’ a non-binding hymn to cooperation and the hope that “AI could be made to serve humanity.” It’s the sort of empty language that dozens of countries and international organizations can sign up to without changing a thing.The most revealing statement came from the industry. Hours before the declaration, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman offered a bit of moral arithmetic in an interview with the Indian Express.

After reaching a framework for a trade deal with India that raised the hope of bilateral ties settling down, Washington has thrown a fresh curve ball. On Tuesday, the US commerce department announced varying import duties on solar panels from three Asian countries, including a whopping 126% on those from India. The other two, Indonesia and Laos, also face similarly high tariffs.

India’s traditional brokers are banking on a business they dominate to claw back the ground they ceded to digital rivals over the past decade: lending clients money for leveraged trading.Called the margin trading facility (MTF) in market parlance, it allows investors to buy shares by paying only a part of the total value upfront, with the broker funding the rest at an interest cost.MTF book surged 42.9% in the year through January 2026 to ₹1.20 lakh crore even as the markets turned volatile, according to a February Care Edge report. The top two in the category are bank-backed brokers: ICICI Securities Ltd and Kotak Securities Ltd.

Commuters looking to zoom past toll plazas on India's 1,46,560 km highway network will have to wait longer. Security concerns about surveillance cameras imported from countries like China have delayed the rollout of the barrier-free tolling system.The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) seeks to install the multi-lane free-flow (MLFF) system at around 1,150 toll plazas nationwide to allow vehicles to pass through at speeds of 100 km/h or more.

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. U.S. importers on Tuesday will no longer have to pay most of the sweeping tariffs President Trump imposed last year.

India’s long-held ambition to become a serious shipbuilding nation on par with giants such as China, South Korea, and Japan may finally get off the starting blocks in the second half of 2026, at a time when the Asian shipyards are packed with orders, with waiting periods stretching into several years.In the first instance of a global shipbuilding giant investing directly in core shipbuilding infrastructure in India, state-run Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) and South Korea’s HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE)—part of the HD Hyundai Group—are in final stages of forming a joint venture to set up a $500-million manufacturing facility in Kochi, with both partners contributing equally.CSL’s chairman and managing director, Jose V.J. said a CSL team would visit South Korea this month to finalise the deal.

A recent report by the Haut-Commissariat à la Stratégie et au Plan that urged the EU to consider either steep tariffs on Chinese imports or a deliberate weakening of the euro against the renminbi has triggered reactions well beyond Paris and Brussels. What began as a domestic French strategic recommendation has evolved into a wider debate about Europe’s economic direction and its role in an increasingly fragmented global trading system.The proposal, suggesting tariffs of up to 30% or a 20–30% euro depreciation, reflects mounting anxiety over Europe’s widening trade imbalance with China and its erosion of industrial competitiveness.

The new Income Tax rules have proposed a change for claiming house rent allowance (HRA) that may affect claims where the rent is paid to parents, siblings or any other relative. Effective 1 April, salaried employees may have to clearly state their relationship with their landlord while claiming HRA tax benefits.The aim is to prevent misuse of the exemption, especially in cases where rent is shown to be paid to family members to reduce tax liability, said Sandeepp Jhunjhunwala, partner at Nangia Global Advisors.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Iran has sought for years to build closer military ties with China and Russia, but its powerful friends are proving reluctant to step forward as the regime faces the most acute U.S. threat to its survival in decades.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: A set of common initiatives and directives signed by India, the US, China and 83 other countries at the recently concluded India AI Impact Summit will shape global collaborations on artificial intelligence (AI) despite the agreement being non-binding in nature, said a top bureaucrat who spearheaded the declaration. On Saturday, the government released the New Delhi declaration that was signed by 88 entities, including the European Union (EU) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Mint, SDHI chief executive officer Vipin Kumar Saxena said the companies plan to cooperate initially on medium-range (MR) product tankers and potentially very large gas carriers (VLGCs), with Samsung providing designs and engineering support.“We will start by working together on specific ships (MR tankers and VLGCs). Once we execute these successfully and build confidence, the relationship can evolve further,” Saxena said in the interview.Samsung will license vessel designs and provide engineering and material packages, while construction will take place at SDHI’s Pipavav yard.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. HONG KONG—In his two decades at Silicon Valley venture-capital titan Sequoia, Neil Shen made billions by identifying and investing in every major tech company to emerge in China. Now, the Chinese billionaire is betting big on artificial intelligence, using American capital to fund Chinese firms competing in the global AI race.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI: As part of India’s playbook to diversify its critical mineral and rare earth supplies, India on Saturday inked a pact with Brazil.

brands online, ahead of Google.This is where the good part ends.Social media is notorious for harming people’s mental health, driving online harassment, disrupting sleep, creating anxiety and accelerating digital addiction. According to Pew research, 48% of American teens say social media harms people their age. India's Economic Survey 2025-26 has flagged the rapid rise of digital addiction and screen-related mental health challenges.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Supreme Court’s decision overturning President Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on imports isn’t the game-changer for international trade that it might appear to be at first. In Asia, Europe and the Americas, governments don’t expect Trump to abandon his favorite tool of economic policy, despite the legal setback.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President Trump still has three years left in office. Yet the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday that most of his tariffs are illegal has given the world a glimpse of U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. From India’s uneven export growth despite a sharp rise in shipments to several countries to the country hosting the first artificial intelligence (AI) summit, new Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket resetting the inflation measurement, merchants reporting higher sales due to the digital payment system, and a gauge of national pride sentiment—here’s a compilation of this week’s news in numbers. India’s exports rose 0.6% year-on-year to $36.6 billion in January 2026, the latest trade figures released on Monday showed.

Judith Wiese, board member and chief people and sustainability officer at Siemens AG, cautioned that Germany will lose 15-20% of its workforce over the next decade due to demographics. And this is why India is “central” to Siemens' strategy of a capability hub.In an exclusive interaction with Mint, Wiese assuaged fears of AI-led layoffs, marked out workplace shifts since the pandemic and spoke on how data centres do guzzle energy, but that challenge needs to be dealt with responsibly.Some things have stayed since covid, particularly hybrid work. In India and China, more employees prefer working from the office.