India Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Pakistan has stepped up to play a useful role in mediating between the United States and Iran in attempting to bring the latest West Asian war to an end. It should not surprise us that the Pakistani establishment, which has a culture of geopolitical risk-taking, has turned adversity into an opportunity.Not only does the continuation of the war mean economic disaster, there is a real chance that Pakistani armed forces can be summoned to a war that they do not want to fight.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Four angry women, in Bengali writer Kabita Singha’s eponymous novel, decide to go “out flying for a whole day” one winter in Calcutta (now Kolkata), most likely in the 1950s. Suman, Bulan, Renu and Chuni are fashionably bedecked as they walk from Dalhousie towards Park Street.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.On 27 April, when weather-monitoring platform AQI reported that 97 of the world’s hottest cities are in India, it felt like a ringing validation of the way I have been feeling since I set foot in my hometown a week ago to vote in the assembly elections.With temperatures crossing 30 degrees Celsius, the heat and humidity in Kolkata has been unbearable this April. If you are lucky to have the option of working from home, you could avoid the worst of the heat.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The best business class flight I have ever taken was with Air India. As the flight was taxiing for take-off, it stopped on the tarmac. There was a snag, and we had to stay in the aircraft.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At the FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament 2026, which took place in Cyprus from March 28 to April 15, eight of the sharpest minds in chess matched wits and will over 14 rounds in 19 days, hoping to survive and eventually surpass the field. For Indian star Vaishali Rameshbabu, it was a defeat deep in the tournament that brought some respite.Having started the Candidates with four draws and a loss, Vaishali, the lowest rated player in the field, found herself one full point ahead of the rest after beating Aleksandra Goryachkina in round 11.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The nerves calm, the mind clear, a deep breath later, Akshay Thatte immersed face-first in the water. He was competing in the Static Apnea category at the AIDA Malaysia Freediving Pool Games last December. By the time he surfaced, 5 minutes and 16 seconds had elapsed.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mahesh Narayanan’s Patriot begins with a curious disclaimer: “This film is not against digitalization of India”. For any piece of popular entertainment in India today, it helps to be as vanilla and nonconfrontational as possible, and at least in southern India few things are more popular than a Malayalam film starring Mammootty and Mohanlal, and directed by Mahesh Narayanan.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Around two decades after exiting India, UK cosmetics brand Lush has re-entered the market, looking to tap into the country’s growing luxury beauty segment.The maker of bath bombs, shower jellies and solid shampoo bars has partnered with Bengaluru-based Bilberry Brands under a licensing agreement, beginning with an online launch and a physical store in Delhi. A second Delhi outlet, along with stores in Gurugram and Mumbai, is expected to open soon. It plans to open seven stores by the end of 2026.In a video interview, Lush co-founder Rowena Bird discusses the brand’s return to India.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The first thing my grandmother did when she entered the kitchen each morning was say a quick prayer and soak a ball of tamarind. Be it sambar, rasam, kuzhambu, kootu or thogayal, tamarind extract was a must, and starting the soak early meant the tamarind extract was ready by the time cooking began. True to that lineage, tamarind features in almost every south Indian inspired recipe I have shared in this column over the years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.As India currently emerges as one of the hottest countries in the world, it’s safe to assume that almost everyone is nursing the desire to dive into a pool at every chance they get. There’s no arguing that rising temperatures can disrupt your fitness routine, but access to a pool also offer a refreshing change from lifting weights in the air-conditioned yet often stifling confines of a gym.A lot of people associate a workout with being slightly out of breath—marked by a high heart rate, sweating, and muscle soreness—all of which signal a decent pump from lifting. These markers can be replicated in a pool workout, sure, but it’s also largely true that very few exercises can replace swimming.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.“Do you think you’re Superman?” Meera (Sai Pallavi) scolds her colleague Dino (Junaid Khan) after he nearly gets run over saving a child who wanders into traffic. He protests, and he’s right to. Dino is uncoordinated, underconfident, uncertain.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.It’s a hot day in Hanoi, the humidity hanging heavy, but we’re cutting a cool path through the water of Ha Long Bay, heading towards the uber-luxury Vinpearl Resort, built on an island with spectacular views of the bay. This isn’t a vacation though. We’re here to test drive VinFast’s new MPV 7.Before we get to the cars, we’re shown the entire repertoire of the Vin’s group’s strength since the group has ambitious plans for India.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.From India and New Zealand formally signing a free trade agreement (FTA) to India once again becoming a net exporter of finished steel, the index of industrial production (IIP) easing to a five-month low in March, freshers facing disruptions in job offers,and gender disparity in India’s boardrooms — here is a compilation of this week's news in numbers.India and New Zealand formally signed a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) on Monday after completing the negotiations in just nine months in December 2025, making this one of the fastest trade deals ever concluded. The deal carries a $20 billion investment commitment from Wellington over the next 15 years, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said.The FTA will grant duty-free access to all Indian exports to New Zealand, spanning 100% of tariff lines.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In 1984, Siddharth Kak landed a ringside view into an expedition to Mount Everest as part of a film crew—at the heart of all the action, yet at a safe distance from it. Or so he thought.India was looking to put the first woman on the summit. The newspaper advert that Kak, then 36, stumbled upon seemed too good to be true.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The AI hack we unlocked today is based on: ChatGPT Images 2.0 (powered by gpt-image-2).What problem does it solve? Most teams generating images with AI have the same frustration: the image looks good, but the moment there's text in it- a headline, a data label, a notice in Hindi- it falls apart. Misspelt words, garbled scripts, numbers that don't match what you asked for.This isn't a niche problem.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In the cool green depths of Uttarakhand, a young audio engineer chose an unusual career path. Rohit had grown up amid the impact of human-animal conflicts, and each incident he encountered shocked him to the core. He decided he wanted to tell the world the real stories behind the hundreds of tiger attacks that occur in India, and, in doing so, combine his audio expertise with his experiences with wildlife.Setting up a YouTube channel, Wilderness, the young man dove head-first into the no-compromises setup he felt the stories deserved.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Most companies are built to survive a generation. A few endure longer.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: The Centre is exploring partnerships with real estate-focused global investors to form real estate investment trusts (Reits) that will house optic fibre networks and land assets of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), multiple people with knowledge of the matter said. The assets under consideration could also be repurposed for data centre infrastructure, potentially widening investor appeal.The plan, still at an early stage, is part of a broader push to accelerate government asset monetization following the Union budget for 2026-27, which proposed using Reit structures to recycle state-owned assets and attract institutional capital.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A regulatory effort to keep the national power grid stable and make green power more reliable may wreck the revenues of producers and potentially lead to tariff hikes, industry executives warned. The regulator has proposed steep penalties for companies which are under- or over-producing power, rattling solar and wind power firms dependent on the vagaries of weather.In the power sector, a deviation settlement mechanism (DSM) penalizes producers when what they deliver to discoms differs from what they promised.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Aster DM Healthcare is charting an aggressive expansion and growth roadmap, as it nears completion of its merger with Blackstone-backed Quality Care. With a strong financial and operational outlook for FY27, the combined entity targets over 4,400 additional beds in the next three to four years, managing director Alisha Moopen told Mint in an interview.The merger is expected to be complete in the current quarter ending June, well over a year after the deal was announced in November 2024.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s pilots have urged the aviation regulator to fully enforce flight duty time limitations (FDTL), warning that relaxations could compromise safety and crew wellbeing. In a 1 May letter, reviewed by Mint, the pilots' association cited recent pilot deaths and flagged rising fatigue risks, seeking a time-bound roadmap to end selective exemptions that, it said, have diluted the intent of the rules.