India Financial News

With the Union budget of fiscal year 2027 (FY27)—finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s ninth—set to be announced soon, India’s governance engine is revving up to add more muscle to the slew of reforms initiated in FY26.The two keywords for the coming budget—de-regulation and de-criminalisation—are being impressed upon all who matter within the government in an effort to make the budget a blueprint for faster economic growth over the medium term, according to two persons informed about developments within the government.The first person cited above said that every ministry and department has been instructed to give proposals for deregulation and decriminalization of laws, rules and procedures. “These are being reviewed and refined at high levels in the government every 10 days,” this person said, requesting anonymity.The second person said that the government will also move to amend two laws in the budget session of Parliament.

Mint examines what lies ahead for AI in India in the coming year.In a way, yes. India will host the next global AI summit, scheduled for 15 February in New Delhi.

Mint.For users, this would mean smartphones would automatically redirect a portion of data traffic from cellular networks to nearby Wi-Fi networks when available—including hotspots under the PM-WANI (Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface) scheme—without interrupting calls, SMS, or applications.This will help reduce congestion on crowded mobile networks, improve speed in indoor and high-traffic areas, and enable operators to use their limited mobile spectrum more efficiently, often without users noticing any change.“Telecom operators in India do offload traffic to Wi-Fi in specific scenarios, but the practice has varied widely and lacked a nationally accepted technical framework,” a government official said, on condition of anonymity.“The new draft standard aims to define how Wi-Fi can work seamlessly with mobile networks, including public Wi-Fi, while ensuring there are no call drops during network switches and that there is a common offloading framework that works across operators,” the official added.The government wants operators to ensure that Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) works properly, including emergency calls, standard text messages over the internet, and multimedia calling services, while ensuring that all authentication and data transport mechanisms shall comply with national security directives and lawful interception, according to the draft rules.The rules also want operators to support open roaming and interoperability between different vendors to allow Wi-Fi offloading to scale without friction as users move across locations and networks.The Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) under the department of telecommunications (DoT) is currently working to formalize the rules.“Telecom operators have

Mint has reviewed a copy of the letter.Many travellers at the Navi Mumbai airport also took to the social media platform X to complain about the lack of cellular connectivity at the airport over the last few days. The airport, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 8 October, began operations on 25 December, with the arrival of its first commercial flight.A NMIAL spokesperson, in response to Mint’s queries, said that it has not denied permission to the telecom services providers (TSPs) and is discussing the matter with them.“Owing to the delay by other TSPs, NMIA is providing free, high-speed Wi-Fi services reiterating its commitment to provide high-speed connectivity to all the passengers,” the spokesperson said.Queries emailed to operators’ lobby the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday evening did not elicit any response until press time.S.P.

narrated their misdeed in great detail and how Sebi’s surveillance system flagged this “unusual trading activity.” A thrilling read.Gensol & BluSmart: A tale of debt woesYet another investigation by Sood focused on two companies, one public, the second one private. BluSmart, the private business, once emerged as the third alternative in the ride-hailing business dominated by Uber and Ola back then. It became the go-to cab service for airport trips for many flyers.

₹15,000 crore, as per estimates from the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways. The guidelines speak of three to four shipbuilding clusters in coastal states, with only one in each state.

₹350 crore. Rainmatter Foundation, which was set up in 2020 works as a different, non-profit entity which provides climate-related grants.While the firm's initial focus was on fintech, in the early 2020s, it ramped up investments to include industries like health and wellness as well as climate.Rainmatter’s stance comes at a time when many Indian venture capital funds have grown cautious on climate-tech, a sector that, despite early optimism, has struggled to deliver healthy exits or meaningful scale.Average cheque sizes in the segment have declined over the past three years, dropping from $52 million in 2023 to $28 million in 2024 and $27 million in 2025, according to data from Venture Intelligence, a private company tracking platform.“We never started investing in climate because other VCs were investing.

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]’s trade policy in 2025 unfolded against a challenging global backdrop of high US tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty and slowing global demand.

helmets with every vehicle purchase from 1 January 2026. However, industry representatives cautioned that meeting the timeline would be difficult due to limited supplier capacity.Manufacturers pitched for a phased rollout instead of a hard deadline.

Tariff uncertainty and elevated aluminium and copper prices have lengthened contracting cycles in these markets.Domestic demand remains supported by power transmission and distribution, renewables and railways. Cost pass-through clauses protect margins, but not timing—meaning profitability is preserved even as delayed order finalizations push deliveries towards the latter part of the year.For FY26, management has guided for around 10% volume growth in conductors, while treating ₹30,000 as a minimum Ebitda per tonne level over the cycle.

AI and technology-led disruption, which naturally makes the hiring process more rigorous."This scrutiny has introduced new hurdles for candidates, including psychometric testing. Once reserved for the top rung, these assessments are now standard for middle management.Peer-level reviews are in too."Peer group evaluations are now done in seven out of 10 mandates at the middle and senior levels," says Pranshu Upadhyay, regional director at Michael Page India.

quality control orders (QCOs) between mid-November and early December, even as it launched over 15 new standards in the same period. The number of new standards notified has risen to close to 50 after Saturday's update.The standards create a pipeline for future regulation as the standards can be converted into mandatory QCOs in future.Experts say the latest standards are designed to be flexibile.

₹100 to the dollar.Former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian argued this week in the Indian Express that ₹100 per dollar is a worthy new-year resolution for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), not least because China and East Asia have kept their currencies cheap to exploit foreign markets: “The markets are trying to do a desirable job that policymakers have been unable or unwilling to do.”Indian companies are savvy enough to hedge their currency exposure.We should do more to help our most labour-intensive industries: ‘Make in India’ needs to be rebranded as ‘Hand-Make in India.’ A much-needed pen-stroke reform, says Laila Tyabji, founder of Dastkar, is to “simply remove GST on handlooms; it needlessly increases the paperwork and end price.”I buy handloom or hand-dyed cotton and walk 400 metres from my apartment to a tailor who adeptly makes shirts out of Kerala mundu material and even delicate jamdani that looks like candyfloss.Consider renaming Ease of Doing Business as a more truthful ‘unease of doing business,’ thus focusing on reducing the complexity of dealing with the government.It is wonderful, of course, that we can pay our taxes online almost as easily as buying a book off Amazon, but our tax system is still too complex and does little to widen the tax base. In fact, the last budget arguably narrowed it by raising the income threshold for income tax.In a country as unequal as ours, we need an inheritance tax.

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] India’s telecom sector moves into 2026, the stage is set for major, high-stakes developments.

New Delhi: India's rollout of surrogate advertising guidelines is likely to be delayed further, as the government struggles to find clear legal authority under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, two people familiar with the matter said. This complicates efforts to rein in indirect promotion of alcohol and indirect promotion ofbrands while prolonging regulatory uncertainty for companies operating under existing advertising restrictions.There is little clarity yet on a timeline for the guidelines even after one-and-a-half years of a government panel first meeting to fix these gaps from which surrogate promotions scrape throughThe consumer law does not define surrogate advertising or treat indirect promotion of prohibited products such as alcohol and tobacco as a standalone offence, limiting the government's ability to issue binding rules.“The consumer affairs ministry is examining whether the guidelines can be rolled out through executive action, while the department of consumer affairs is of the view that the current law allows intervention only when an advertisement is misleading with respect to the product being promoted, limiting the scope for such guidelines,” said the first of the two people cited above.In most such cases, the advertised product, such as packaged water, soda, music CDs or merchandise, is legally sold and not misleading in isolation, even if it uses the same brand name, logo or colours as a prohibited product.

Mint illustrated how stock picks by experts and well-known financial institutions did worse over the years than the average stock. You are literally better off throwing darts at a board.Bloomberg analysed annual US index projections over several decades from all well-known banks and Wall Street firms and found them to be off by an average of 15 percentage points—meaning they were not worth the paper they were written on.However, for this year, there is something that gives me a pointer to what may happen in Indian markets.

₹14.5 lakh in the pre-GST phase to nearly ₹19 lakh post the reform. This increase reflected a deliberate reassessment of adequacy rather than incremental upgrades.For years, health covers priced below ₹10 lakh have dominated new purchases, largely due to price sensitivity and a limited understanding of hospital costs.

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] the year 2025 drew to a close, thousands of spectators braved Delhi’s foul air, made stagnant by the unyielding winter winds, to catch a glimpse of Lionel Messi. Not long back, it would have been a regular meet-and-greet for a legendary footballer.

Bengaluru: Indian consumer branding is undergoing a quiet transformation, as companies adopt culturally familiar brand personas rather than Westernised ones to win shoppers.A new generation of homegrown labels, such as Nicobar, Gully Labs, and Vahdam Teas, is keeping Indian aesthetics, local languages, regional stories, and indigenous craftsmanship at the forefront of their products and communication. From design motifs inspired by traditional art to campaigns rooted in everyday Indian experiences, these firms are tapping into the growing consumer appetite for authenticity and cultural relevance.New Delhi-based Gully Labs, which sells modern sneakers for men and women, curates all its products with local artisans and derives its name from the Hindi word 'gully,' meaning street.

data centres are the refineries converting it into AI-ready fuel. And India is fast emerging as the next global hub.The country generates nearly 20% of the world's data but hosts only 3% of global data centre capacity.

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