India Financial News

The market struggled to maintain its intraday highs on Wednesday as selling pressure intensified at those elevated levels. However, a positive takeaway was that every dip was met with a recovery, allowing the index to hold onto some of its gains.

Mint reported on 25 March that about ₹18,000 crore of planned fundraising was at risk.“There is a direct impact on the supply chain, but there is a second-order impact too, which is what we try to understand and work with our clients,” said Singh. “Based on the impact on currency, commodity and their own input pricing changes, we also do a real-time risk assessment as much as we can and make sure that the client is also aware of that.”Singh said Standard Chartered is involved in a large number of loan syndications in the country.

Consulting and auditing companies in India are clamping down on hiring or letting people go on the back of the impact of artificial intelligence and a poor pipeline of work from clients because of the domino effect of the West Asia war.Goliaths of the business—Bain & Co., Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Co., Accenture and Kearney, along with auditing giants PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte—have held meetings on the war and how it would affect the India headcount.“Over the last two weeks, we had meetings with senior partners and the impact of the war on business was discussed. Lateral hiring has stopped for us, unless critical, and we have been told that cost cuts are on the anvil,” said a senior partner in the consulting team of a Big Four firm.“While strategic consultants are not impacted yet, those who worked in the research teams and production services will be impacted.

The government has stripped India’s telecom regulator of oversight over television ratings, taking full control of the system that influences billions of dollars in advertising spending.The 2026 policy released last week hands complete oversight to the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB), showed the document reviewed by Mint. Until now, both the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the ministry shared oversight, creating a dual system.Trai, however, continues to regulate other key aspects of the broadcasting and cable TV sector, including channel pricing, advertising limits, interconnection and distribution rules, service quality, and compliance standards.The policy has also issued guidelines to establish standards for the registration, operation, audit, and oversight of all entities engaged in providing television rating services in India.TV ratings track what millions of people watch every day and dictate where advertising money is spent.

Stock market recap: The Indian equity markets commenced the new financial year on a remarkably bullish note, with Nifty 50 surging 1.56% to close at 22,679.40. This rally, which saw the index reclaim 22,650, was primarily fueled by optimistic global cues following hints of de-escalation in the West Asia war.Investor sentiment was further bolstered by a sharp decline in crude oil prices and a cooling of U.S.

American technology major Oracle Corporation’s decision to part ways with 30,000 employees globally—almost 19% of its total workforce—has sent shockwaves through the organization. It has also deepened concerns about the sustainability of software product companies in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation.Employees across sales, human resources, engineering and developer roles faced the axe after receiving an email from the company’s leadership at 6 am (in all time zones) on Wednesday, citing “broader organisational change”.

₹50 in India and $1 in the US, with an exchange rate of ₹100 per dollar. The real exchange rate is then 0.5, meaning an Indian X is half as expensive as an American X when expressed in a common currency.Now, imagine that domestic prices rise by 10%, so X now costs ₹55 in India, and the exchange rate moves to ₹110 per dollar. The nominal exchange rate has depreciated, but the real exchange rate remains 0.5.

₹200,000 per kilolitre, more than double the previous price of ₹96,638.14. The Union petroleum ministry stepped in quickly, capping the increase for domestic flights.Following the change, Indian Oil's jet fuel now costs ₹104,927 per kilolitre in Delhi, an 8.5% rise over March, while airlines would have to pay the new rate for international flights.

war in West Asia rocked global sentiment.Fresh project announcements slipped 13% to ₹44 trillion in the financial year 2025-26 (FY26), according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). It almost erased 16% growth seen in the previous fiscal.The slowdown was primarily driven by a 58% collapse in the government-led capex announcements, which had jumped 54% in the previous year.

The Indian government has tasked the country’s top management institute, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), to find out why its flagship scheme to promote domestic manufacturing in various sectors has not delivered as expected, and suggest remedial measures.According to two government officials aware of the development, the study—to be conducted under the aegis of federal think tank NITI Aayog—will examine 14 production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes that have attracted around ₹2.16 trillion in investments since they were launched during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.PLI schemes offer companies incentives linked to incremental domestic production, rewarding them for increasing output over a base year, rather than providing upfront subsidies.Despite a large outlay, the schemes have seen limited traction—of the nearly ₹1.91 trillion allocated for incentives, only about ₹28,748 crore or 15% had been disbursed by December 2025, according to a 20 February commerce ministry statement.“The study will undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of the scheme and focus on their impact on production growth, export expansion, job creation, and their role in enhancing India’s position in global supply chains,” the first official cited above said, requesting anonymity, adding that the study will also help understand whether the schemes need expansion or restructuring.Early indicators already point to uneven performance across sectors.Jaijit Bhattacharya, president of the Centre for Domestic Economy Policy (CDEP) Research, said that industries such as mobile phone manufacturing and food processing have done relatively well, largely because they require lower investments and are easier to scale.

India’s central bank further tightened its forex curbs on Wednesday by targeting the rebooking of cancelled forex derivative contracts and tightening norms around related-party transactions.If a company or trader cancels a dollar hedge, they can no longer re-enter the same trade to benefit from price movements, limiting their ability to take directional bets under the guise of hedging.Separately, banks have been barred from undertaking foreign exchange derivative contracts with related parties, as defined under the Indian Accounting Standard (Ind AS) 2.Wednesday’s moves come after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) first capped banks’ net open positions (NOP) in the domestic market at $100 million at the end of each business day on 27 March.Then, on Wednesday, Mint reported that RBI had asked banks for data on positions taken by their corporate clients, with the exercise aimed at assessing on-ground positioning rather than signalling immediate regulatory actions.The new regulations have come into effect immediately.Together, these measures aim to curb one-sided positioning in the rupee, which has been hitting successive record lows.

Mint. “There's been strong extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulations in place for over a decade and that has now evolved into mandatory recycled content regulations as well.”The firm announced a first close of $220 million for its second fund, which has a targeted corpus of $300 million.

on Tuesday to the Department of Consumer Affairs and some of the leading jewellery retailers, such as Tanishq, remained unanswered till press time.Tightening the framework will strengthen consumer trust, bring greater transparency and accountability in the hallmarking system, and ensure declared purity matches the product sold, said Ashim Sanyal, chief executive officer, Consumer Voice, a consumer rights’ advocacy organization.In October 2025, the Department of Consumer Affairs, through its quality standards arm BIS, launched a pilot project in 25 districts to digitally capture jewellery details. BIS recorded the photograph and weight of each hallmarked jewellery item on its portal using integrated cameras and weighing systems, reducing manual errors and improving transparency.“The pilot was a huge success, and based on its outcome, a stricter framework is now being planned for rollout across the country,” the second person said.Hallmarking was introduced in 2000 and made mandatory in phases from 2021, now covering about 400 districts.

Mint in an emailed statement.Other companies including Turtlemint, Indo-Mim, Inframarket, Symbiotech Pharmalabs, Duroflex, and KKR-backed Leap India are also taking a more calibrated approach for a public listing in the current climate, multiple people familiar with the matter said. All these companies have secured approval from market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to go public, according to data from Prime Database.Some of these companies have temporarily paused or deferred their IPO preparations due to concerns over valuations amid a turbulent stock market, two people said on the condition of anonymity.

West Asia war could push inflation higher, keeping prospective homebuyers on the sidelines. Affordability was already under strain after sustained price hikes, driven by rising construction costs even as demand held up.Early signs of a slowdown are emerging.

₹229 trillion, the highest since November 2024. Every fear event produces the same pattern: retail traders flood into options, most often choosing straddles and strangles.A straddle involves buying a call and a put at the same strike price, profiting if the market moves sharply in either direction. A strangle is cheaper, placing the call above and the put below the current price, but it requires an even larger move to profit.Both appear logical in uncertain times: direction-neutral and clean.

India’s capital markets have grown at a remarkable speed. Retail participation has surged, institutional capital has deepened and technology has transformed intermediation. Regulation has expanded alongside.

Mint explains what changes.The rules make it compulsory to segregate waste at source into four categories: wet, dry, sanitary, and special care waste. Wet waste—such as kitchen waste, vegetable and fruit peels, meat, and flowers—is to be composted or processed through bio-methanation at nearby facilities.

taxation. A non-resident is taxed only on Indian income.

Jungle Ventures, a venture capital firm targeting India and Southeast Asia, expects to exit 8–10 portfolio companies over the next 12-18 months, with half of those deals anticipated in India, according to a company executive.“The next 18 months are going to be big in terms of exits for us. The companies have matured, founders have done well,” Arpit Beri managing partner, India at Jungle Ventures, told Mint in an interview.

Dhirubhai Ambani built one of India’s greatest business empires but died in 2002 without a clear succession plan. What followed is now business folklore. His elder son, Mukesh Ambani, turned his part of the inheritance into a global enterprise worth over $117 billion.