India Financial News

NEW DELHI: The finance ministry is weighing a plan to provide credit guarantee cover to funds that NBFCs raise from banks and ramp up their microfinance operations, according to two people familiar with the development.The proposed one-time credit guarantee scheme will help non-banking financial company-microfinance institutions (NBFC-MFIs) access funds from banks easily and tide over a liquidity crunch in maintaining their lending to low-income households that lack access to traditional banking.The guarantee cover under consideration will be larger than the ₹7,500 crore cover that was offered during the pandemic. The new scheme is likely to be managed by the state-run National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company, which will cover and underwrite the lending risk to NBFC-MFIs arising due to factors outside the control of small borrowers.This will help NBFC-MFIs to draw funds on easier terms from financial institutions.

₹39, Glam Pass offers shoppers a 10% discount, up to ₹300, on their first three purchases and is valid for three months. The feature is currently live for select users in Mumbai and is expected to be rolled out to other cities, including the National Capital Region and Bengaluru, in the coming weeks, the people said, on condition of anonymity.Glam Pass is expected to remain brand-specific rather than platform-wide, focusing on targeted benefits for labels shoppers already prefer, instead of generic perks spread across a large marketplace.

The economy appears to be on a stable footing ahead of the Union budget. Growth clocked 6.5% in 2024-25, public capital expenditure crossed ₹11 trillion, its highest share of GDP in 15 years, and inflation has largely stayed within the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) tolerance band.Yet, a troubling imbalance lies beneath the macro aggregates. Private capital has not responded with the breadth or momentum one would expect at India’s current stage of development.

Air pollution in the National Capital Region (NCR) continues to dominate headlines this winter, highlighting the absence of any long-term strategy to deal with a deadly subject that is affecting millions of lives in and around India’s capital. Of growing concern is the fact that most other urban areas in India beyond the NCR are also generating increasing levels of air pollution, with the number of ‘good’ air quality days trending towards zero.

Mint review of usage practices and public policies across X, Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT found that safeguards on such content are not uniform across companies.As MeitY’s notice put X under scrutiny, policy and AI experts pointed to a key policy gap that appears to have placed Grok in the government’s firing line even as other platforms have so far avoided similar action.On 2 January, the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) issued a notice to X seeking details on how the platform acts against objectionable content and how it plans to address sexual content. The move followed concerns over how Grok, which is embedded within X (formerly Twitter), can be used to modify photographs into content that could be deemed sexual, obscene, or violative of a user’s privacy.Mint has seen a copy of the notice which had set time until Monday for X's reply.X has sought more time to respond to Meity's notice, meanwhile.

Mint reported on 23 December, quoting official data, that Japan is now the fifth-largest source of foreign direct investment into India.MUFG, which is one of Japan’s largest private lenders, is in discussions with multiple Indian IT services firms, including Tech Mahindra, for hiring support, the two people said, though the bank’s current India headcount could not be independently verified.The lender has two tech centres in Bengaluru to support back-end IT functions for the bank and enterprise solutions for the parent firm. MUFG ended last fiscal year with a net interest income of $20.8 billion, up 12% from the year-ago period.“They are mainly having talent requirements for Linux, .NET, and Java roles, apart from other AI and cybersecurity requirements,” said one of the two people.Manufacturing conglomerates are making similar moves.

₹50,000 business, shoot a YouTube video—to capture low-intent, high-frequency users early in the funnel.Priced as low as ₹1 and consumed in minutes a day, this content is designed less to teach deeply and more to build daily engagement, turning everyday questions into habit—and habit into revenue.The shift marks a clear break from outcome-led edtech, which relies on full-time teachers and structured curricula. Micro-learning platforms instead monetise curiosity, leaning on subject-matter experts and creator-led content at a time when the sector is under pressure to show early revenue traction.Platforms like Seekho cracked this early and now clock close to $4-4.5 million monthly revenue, according to media reports.

Even as extended negotiations go on between Washington and New Delhi on trade, US President Donald Trump seems to have thrown another spanner in the works. On Sunday, he said India could face fresh tariffs if it didn’t cut Russian oil purchases. “We could raise tariffs on India if they don’t help on the Russian oil issue,” he said.

artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and electronics to solar power equipment, medical devices and defence systems.China’s dominance in the silver market does not stem from mining strength but from its overwhelming control over refining. According to the London Bullion Market Association’s (LBMA) list of accredited refiners for global over-the-counter trading, China hosts 27 silver refineries, followed by Japan with 13.

India is making steady progress on artificial intelligence (AI). After chairing the Global Partnership on AI Council in 2024, the country is preparing to host the five-day India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi in mid-February. Apart from heads of state, CEOs of tech firms such as Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Adobe, Salesforce and Qualcomm are expected to attend.

₹76, Ola Electric’s stock price has plunged to around ₹40 - a staggering 47% decline - and investor patience is wearing thin.So, where did Ola go wrong? The primary diagnosis is a chronic lack of focus. In the management classic Good to Great, James Collins uses a Greek parable to distinguish between two leadership types: the fox, who pursues many complex paths, and the hedgehog, who simplifies a complex world into a single organizing idea. Collins argues that greatness is achieved through a "Hedgehog Concept" which is a singular focus found at the intersection of three circles: what a company can be the best in the world at, what it is deeply passionate about, and what drives its economic engine.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] July 2025, Mumbai-headquartered Glenmark grabbed the spotlight when it signed what was one of the biggest out-licensing deals for an Indian drugmaker with Chicago-based Abbvie Inc.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] Bollywood star Salman Khan to cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar, and from Nutella to Taj Hotels, 2025 saw celebrities and brands alike rush to court to protect their identity from digital misuse.

Stock market recap: Indian equities ended lower on Monday, 5 January, despite positive global cues as investors booked profits in select heavyweights amid increased geopolitical tensions after the US military action in Venezuela, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.However, the US attacks on Venezuela did not deal any significant blow to global markets. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei and Korea's Kospi jumped over 3% each, while China's Shanghai Composite rose by over 1%.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] venture capital (VC) funds have raised about $2.5 billion across 20 new vehicles so far in calendar 2025, outpacing the $1.6 billion secured via 16 funds in 2024 and $1.9 billion across 19 funds in 2023, according to Venture Intelligence.

JSW Steel and other steel stocks are in the news. The company’s shares jumped 4.9% on 31 December, largely on account of the government’s decision to impose import tariffs on steel products. Before the recent correction, the stock had been trending up for more than two years.Import tariffs help protect pricing of domestic steel producers by preventing cheaper imports, so what does the future hold for the stock? Today, we will discuss the pros and cons of investing in JSW Steel.

New Delhi: Homegrown carmakers Tata Motors, and Mahindra and Mahindra are increasingly improving the speed at which they develop products to gain market share in an intensely competitive domestic market, according to senior executives at auto component makers working with the companies.Indian carmakers have reached parity with European, Japanese and Korean automakers and are increasingly catching up to the speed of Chinese carmakers in rolling out new products, according to top executives at US-based component major BorgWarner Inc. and homegrown auto part maker Lumax Auto Technologies Ltd.This comes in the backdrop of Indian automobile manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd reaching the number two rank in annual sales in 2025 for the first time in at least a decade, since retail registration data became available, toppling Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor India Ltd.The shift is inevitable, Nalinikanth Gollagunta, CEO of Mahindra’s automotive division, said.

Mint.The proposed change aims to build a comprehensive database of bulk drug traders, improve traceability of imported raw materials, over 70% of which come from China, and allow regulators to quickly identify and hold accountable specific dealers involved in the supply of substandard inputs in India’s $50-billion pharmaceutical market.The new mechanism would dismantle the umbrella approach in the current common licensing system for raw materials and finished medicines, give the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) a long-missing registry of nearly 1.2 million bulk drug traders, and significantly strengthen traceability and accountability in the country's pharmaceutical market.The government move comes in the backdrop of India’s reputation as the ‘Pharmacy of the World’ taking a hit due to deaths of children in Uzbekistan, Gambia, Cameroon and India linked to cough syrups manufactured by Indian firms.As per the officials, a draft notification is in the works for this separate licensing regime for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), including bulk drugs and advanced intermediates, which were valued at approximately $3.5 billion in FY25.While the total value for India's total pharmaceutical-related imports—including finished products—for FY24 was approximately $8.2 billion, bulk drugs remain the dominant share of this inflow data from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics and commerce ministry shows.India’s API market is projected to reach $38.13 billion by 2034, growing at a CAGR of 8.50% from 2025 to 2034, according to reports by research firms like Market Research Future.“The lack of transparency in the raw material supply chain was highlighted by recent reports of cough syrups

When elevated valuations and fresh supply of equity could moderate market returns, investors could consider putting their money in equity schemes – with the flexibility to manoeuvre across sectors and market capitalizations – and in asset allocation schemes with a greater tilt towards equity, Sankaran Naren, executive director and chief investment officer at ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, said in an interview with Mint.Naren advises restraint while making standalone investments in precious metals like gold and silver at current prices, adding that exposure to them could at best be taken through multi-asset strategies or via asset allocation. The markets are closely tracking the impending Indo-US trade deal, he added.

With India’s urban hubs struggling with creaking infrastructure and weak service delivery for bulging populations, the central government is drawing up a blueprint to give municipal administrators greater autonomy over finances and service delivery, while reducing reliance on state and central grants.The blueprint—expected to be unveiled at the upcoming Union budget—will focus on strengthening urban local bodies’ (ULBs’) own-revenue sources such as property tax and user charges, two government officials directly involved in the process said, requesting anonymity.It will also encourage ULBs—including municipal corporations, municipalities and nagar panchayats—to tap market-based instruments including municipal and green bonds to fund long-term urban investment.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] 2025 draws to a close, advertising finds itself caught between consolidation and reinvention—forced to get bigger even as its traditional role grows smaller.