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New Delhi: As India's job market battle intensifies, top tech firms are swapping staid job ads for influencer-marketing campaigns on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Creators with millions of followers now spotlight job openings and work cultures, turning a single video into a flood of thousands of applications.Companies like Atlassian, 7-Eleven GCC, Octa, EPAM Systems, ServiceNow, Intuit, ZS Associates, and Infosys are leading this charge, betting on niche influencers’ social media reach to lure talent in a hyper-competitive landscape.“For us, it’s about visibility in the right places where top tech talent is consuming content.

New Delhi: For the first time, nearly a third of all laptops being sold in India are being shipped with the ‘Made in India’ tag. This rise, which has played out over the past two years, has happened as government incentives have pushed electronics manufacturers to focus on the segment and diversify from mobile-led revenue.In March 2024, less than 5% of all laptops being sold in India were being assembled locally, analysts and industry executives said.

New Delhi: Indian refiners have ramped up daily domestic production of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by around 10% in the past few days in the face of a supply squeeze from the US-Iran war, two people aware of the development said.The refiners have also secured 20 very large gas carriers (VLGC) carrying around 1 million tonne (mt) cargo, mostly from the US, the people said on condition of anonymity.However, the country is still short of another 20 VLGCs—totalling 2 mt—which Indian oil marketing companies (OMCs) have been scouting for since the war broke out on 28 February, these people added.“Production has already gone up by 10%,” the first person cited above said, adding that India is looking at sourcing more LPG from all available sources, including the US, Canada, Australia and Algeria.The second person said: “There was a shortfall of about 40 VLGCs, and 20 VLGCs have already been booked.

New Delhi: The Centre has issued an order that updates norms for piston rings – a key component of internal combustion engines (ICE) – to help reduce carbon emissions, replacing standards that had been in place since 1977. The new standards came into effect on 10 February, said the order dated 12 February.Experts said the cost impact for most automakers was likely to be limited, as many already follow similar global specifications.

New Delhi: India has tightened access to domestic cooking gas as the escalating conflict in West Asia threatens fuel supplies and drives volatility in global energy markets.The Centre has prioritized household LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) consumption, and introduced a lock-in period between cylinder bookings, two people aware of the matter said.“The priority for LPG supply in this situation is domestic consumers. Further, in order to curb hoarding of cooking gas, a 25-day lock-in period has been implemented,” one of the two people mentioned above said on condition of anonymity.

NEW DELHI: The Centre’s second e-bus tender under the ₹10,900 crore PM E-Drive scheme, for 2,900 e-buses in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, and Mumbai, and 3,330 buses in Delhi has been deferred by one month.The tender for 6,230 e-buses opened for manufacturers and operators on 9 January this year, and was scheduled to close on 10 March. But a 6 March notification by Convergence Energy Services Ltd (CESL), the government’s demand aggregation agency, showed the closing date was deferred to 9 April.

NEW DELHI: India builds some of the world’s fastest expanding highway networks but depends on imports for a large share of the bitumen used to bind asphalt.The country needs about 9 million tonnes of bitumen each year for road construction. In FY25, domestic production was 5.3 million tonnes, with the rest imported—largely from West Asia, a region currently facing conflict.Against this backdrop, bio-bitumen, an alternative derived from biomass, could replace up to a third of petroleum-based bitumen, potentially reducing India’s import dependence.

New Delhi: Industry stakeholders and policy experts have reacted with scepticism over Karnataka’s proposal to ban social media use for youngsters under 16 years of age, questioning both the legality and the practicality of enforcing such a restriction in one state of India.Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah unveiled the proposal along with the state’s budget for FY27 on Friday, but did not share details.Lawyers and policymakers Mint spoke with said such a state-level demographic-specific ban could require intrusive age-verification systems and may be impractical, since many children access social media through adults’ devices and accounts.Further, such a ban may also clash with the Centre’s data-privacy framework, and go against the principles of minimal data sharing put forth in the Digital Personal Data Privacy (DPDP) Act that was notified last year.“Governments considering bans should be careful not to push teens toward less safe, unregulated sites, or logged-out experiences that bypass important protections—like the default safeguards we offer in Instagram’s ‘teen accounts’,” a spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc said in response to Mint’s queries.“We’ll comply with social media bans where they are enforced, but with teens using nearly 40 apps every week, targeting a handful of companies won’t keep them safe.

New Delhi: Facing supply disruption from West Asia, the Indian government has directed all state-run and private-sector refineries in the country to step up production of domestic cooking gas by diverting feedstock away from the manufacturing of non-essential products, including petrochemicals.Using its powers under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, the ministry has directed all refiners to supply LPG to the three state-owned refiners – Indian Oil Corp Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd – which will in turn supply it only to domestic consumers of cooking gas.The development is significant as India has only about 25 days of LPG stock. Annual demand stands at 33.15 million tonnes, with imports servicing about 75-80% of this.

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the nationwide Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign on 28 February by including it in India’s Universal Immunization Programme to vaccinate 12 million girls annually. With 120,000 new cases and 80,000 deaths annually, India accounts for a quarter of global cervical cancer deaths.Infection by certain HPV strains can cause precancerous cell changes, which may eventually lead to cancer.Mint explains the rationale behind the plan to help stop cervical cancer – the second most common cancer among women in India – by leveraging the country's digital infrastructure and primary health centre network.The aim is to prevent cervical cancer in girls before they are exposed to the virus.

Could India be returning to Russia for oil supplies? Going by a Bloomberg report, it seems so. Two shipments of Russian crude oil that were originally headed for East Asia have reportedly been redirected towards India and are expected to unload this week, with one already having reached Paradip.

NEW DELHI: India’s gadget buyers are shunning inexpensive smartwatches, a category that saw a massive surge in demand until two years ago. A lack of customer enthusiasm for barebone alternatives to the benchmark Apple Watch as well as existing buyers finding them unworthy of a second-time purchase, have caused smartwatch sales in the country to drop to its lowest in sales volumes and revenue in four calendar years.Data sourced by Mint from market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC) India showed that 28.9 million smartwatches were sold in 2025, generating net revenue of $780 million.

NEW DELHI: The heavy industries ministry has begun assessing proposals from state governments and state-run oil marketing companies to install charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EV) under the ₹10,900 crore PM E-Drive scheme, with the aim of disbursing about ₹80 crore by the end of FY26, according to two people aware of the development.The government has allocated ₹2,000 crore of the scheme’s overall outlay towards supporting the installation of over 72,000 EV chargers. It will cover 70-100% of the upstream costs of setting up charging stations in state-owned premises in cities and on highways, including bringing adequate grid power to the site, and 70% of the cost of actual chargers.The government roughly halved the benchmark costs of setting up public EV charging stations in 2025 from the 2022 estimates to ₹1.6 lakh for a 12-kW charger, ₹3.4 lakh for a 60-kW charger, ₹5 lakh for a 120-kW charger, ₹8 lakh for a 240-kW charger, and ₹12.5 lakh for a 360-kW charger.

Past conflicts in the Middle East typically hit India at the gas station. This time, the risks transcend oil, threatening everything from smartphone exports to New Delhi’s fragile finances.Flames have reached the United Arab Emirates, India’s second-largest electronics export destination after the US. Beyond being an entrepôt for regional trade, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are wealth hubs for the Indian elite.

New Delhi: India’s top carmakers are seeking alternative sources for lithium-ion cells that go into electric vehicle batteries as they seek to secure supply to counter China’s unpredictable curbs.Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, the country’s second-largest carmaker, has begun talks with Germany’s Volkswagen Group, which has a lithium-ion cell subsidiary PowerCo, for future supply, the company said at Kotak Institutional Equities’ Annual Investor Conference last week.While Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd will depend on its group firm Agratas, Hyundai Motor India Ltd has inked a partnership with Exide Industries Ltd to procure locally made cells from the gigafactory under construction in Bengaluru.Lithium-ion batteries account for more than a third of an EV’s cost. Diversifying cell supply is important after China imposed restrictions on the export of rare-earth magnets, another critical component used in building motors.

New Delhi: Basmati rice exporters will meet officials of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) this week to assess the fallout of escalating tensions in West Asia, as shipping disruptions and rising freight and insurance costs threaten India’s nearly $6 billion basmati trade in FY25, as per people in the know.The move comes amid growing uncertainty over consignments bound for the Gulf region, which accounts for nearly 60-70% of India’s basmati exports. Exporters said that while the immediate damage is still being assessed, several shipments are either stuck in transit or held up at ports, raising concerns over delayed payments and contractual risks if the conflict is prolonged.“Exports have come to a standstill in some corridors.

NEW DELHI: The timelines for peak fossil fuel consumption—including oil and coal in both India and globally—may be delayed further amid geopolitical tensions that are pivoting the focus towards energy security and countries deviating from their climate commitments, Shell plc's chief economist Mallika Ishwaran said.While decarbonization in road transport is under way, there is little progress in aviation, marine and steel, which would delay the energy transition journey and eventually, peak oil timelines, Ishwaran said in an interview."We are seeing oil persisting. Electrification of road transport happens anyway, and that displaces anywhere between 40% to 60% of oil demand in road transport, so that's the significant displacement.

New Delhi: India is shifting its strategy for solar component manufacturing from sales-based production-linked incentives (PLI) to an upfront capex-based subsidy for wafers, ingots and polysilicon, according to Santosh Kumar Sarangi, secretary in the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE). The ministry is developing financial-support schemes for agri-photovoltaics, floating solar and bioenergy, Sarangi said in an interview.To address 43 GW of unsigned power agreements, representing a ₹2.1 trillion investment, implementation agencies such as Solar Energy Corp of India (SECI) are negotiating project cancellations for unviable sites and securing state commitments for others.

NEW DELHI: With a new duty slapped on solar module exports to the US, Africa may become an alternative destination for India-made solar power equipment, a government official said.To push solar module exports and project exports, Indian developers can also set up green energy projects through the Renewable Energy Service Company (RESCO) model, Santosh Kumar Sarangi, secretary in the ministry of new and renewable energy, said in an interview."I believe Africa would emerge as a good destination for India. Not only module exports, but also for project exports, where people are able to go and set up projects as RESCO developers," the secretary said.Under RESCO, a company installs, operates and maintains a solar energy system on a consumer’s property.

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.

renewable energy. "So, our companies will have to challenge that in the appellate forum; but until then, this will continue, this 126% which has been imposed," he said.