India Financial News

National Grid UK Ltd has outlined plans to spend up to $400 million to establish a tech facility in India, joining several global companies setting up back-end centres in the country even as the war in West Asia threatens power supply.The energy company, among the 10 largest utilities in the UK, first floated a tender on 15 December last year, inviting bids to set up a global capability centre (GCC) in India, according to twopeople privy to the development and tender documents reviewed by Mint.The company is “looking for a supplier to establish, grow and deliver engineering services capability at pace during the Build & Operate phase”, read the tender.It aims to start work on the facility next year and finish it by 2032, with a possible extension up to 2035, according to the tender document. The people quoted earlier, who didn’t want to be identified, said the GCC will employ about 1,000 employees when fully operational.Queries emailed to National Grid went unanswered until press time.The UK's electricity transmission network operator will join global power and energy sector peers, including ABB, GE Vernova, Hitachi Energy, and ExxonMobil, which have their GCCs in Bengaluru.India currently hosts over 1,760 GCCs, with Bengaluru and Hyderabad hosting 875 and 355 centres, respectively, according to the IT industry lobby Nasscom.

NEW DELHI: Patients may no longer be forced to buy an entire strip of tablets or capsules when they need only one or a few of them.India’s apex drugs regulator plans to introduce a rule mandating pharmacies to dispense the exact number of tablets and capsules prescribed by allowing the sale of cut strips, according to two government officials and documents reviewed by Mint.Many drugs, including antibiotics, are typically sold in strips of 10 or 15 tablets or capsules when patients may require only five tabs. A proposal on dispensing exact prescription quantities of strip-packed medicines was discussed at a meeting chaired by the Drugs Controller General of India on 20 March.This regulatory shift is significant for India's $50 billion pharmaceutical industry and perhaps even more so for the retail pharmacy market, which was valued at $20 billion-27 billion in 2024.

Mint India Investment Summit 2026, held in Mumbai last week.Shaji Varghese, chief executive officer of Muthoot Fincorp, said that of India’s 60 million small businesses, only 20–30% have access to credit, underscoring the critical role NBFCs play in bridging the gap. “That relevance is only further pronounced now.

A simpler income tax law will come into force from 1 April, along with other changes announced in this year’s Budget including higher benefit of deductions for salaried tax payers and a new buyback taxation scheme.The new tax regime modifies the return filing timeline in certain cases and rationalises penalties while looking to reduce complexity and encourage voluntary compliance.Mint takes a closer look at the changes that will kick in on Wednesday.The changes proposed through Finance Act of 2026, signed off by President Droupadi Murmu on Monday, include the rationalisation of certain penalties, greater leeway to update tax returns and disclose previously unreported foreign assets and income below a limit, changes to the taxes deducted or collected at source (TDS and TCS) including on overseas tour packages and education, and a new tax regime for share buybacks. From 2026-27, businesses not subjected to a tax audit will be able to file their income tax returns up to the end of August.Starting in 2026-27, taxpayers can revise their returns even after the department initiates a tax case.

Water is life. Our lives, environment and livelihoods depend on this vital resource. As we aspire to a new India, we stand at a crossroads in our water management journey.

Godrej Enterprises is planning price hikes of 6% to 10% across categories from April, as rising input costs, freight rates, and supply disruptions continue to put pressure on margins, Kamal Nandi, business head (appliances) at Godrej Enterprises Group, told Mint.“Largely, the prices are going up due to the shortage in key raw materials like plastic, which are dependent on crude oil, rupee weakening and shortages in liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and piped natural gas (PNG).”Intex Technologies expects to raise AC prices by around 4-5% and washing machines by about 5-6%, even as it tries to absorb a significant portion of the cost escalation internally to limit the impact on consumers, Keshav Bansal, director at the appliance maker, said.Hisense India is closely monitoring the evolving situation and may consider price hikes of 7-10% in the second week of April, depending on how demand trends and competitive responses unfold, according to chief executive Pankaj Rana.The war-led disruption comes at the start of the crucial summer season, when demand for cooling appliances peaks, forcing companies to balance margin protection with sustaining sales.“We are seeing simultaneous cost increases across plastics, metals and packaging, which is very unusual and is putting pressure across all product categories at once,” Bansal said.While prices typically rise ahead of the season, the increase is far more pronounced this year, creating a dual challenge of rising costs and uncertain consumer demand.Madhur Singhal, managing partner (consumer and internet) at consultancy Praxis Global Alliance, said companies are likely to take upfront price increases rather than staggered hikes through the season.

₹25,000. By late February, as war broke out across West Asia, it had nearly doubled to ₹45,000.

The scarcity of LPG cylinders has hit India’s engineering, management and medical colleges hard. Institutes are adopting diverse workarounds to manage the crisis— shifting to online classes, using diesel burners, switching to induction cooktops, or simply letting students order their meals via food delivery platforms.The crisis is due to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which nearly 90% of India's LPG imports pass. The country sources about 60% of its cooking gas from overseas.

The successful negotiation of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change was made possible by a key compromise on country-wise commitments. These would no longer be determined in a top-down manner based on what would be needed to cap global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at safe levels (the Kyoto protocol approach), but instead through a bottom-up approach by countries themselves in accordance with their national development priorities—or nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Mint India Investment Summit held last week.Manufacturing firms, in particular, are increasing R&D spending, but say the absence of validation, at home and abroad, is becoming a key roadblock.“R&D is growing leaps and bounds…but not in the commercial space,” said Pradeep Kumar Kheruka, executive chairman of Borosil Renewables Ltd, at the panel discussion.Kheruka cited Borosil’s attempt to manufacture solar glass without antimony, a toxic chemical, as an example of innovation facing resistance. “We made glass without antimony…We proved that antimony is leaching out from glass, it should be banned and yet the question is how come nobody else has done it?” he said.Despite scientific evidence, the absence of global precedent has slowed domestic adoption.

Three of India’s mid-sized IT companies—Persistent Systems Ltd, Hexaware Technologies Ltd and Firstsource Solutions Ltd—are looking to scale up their business and employ more people outside the US, which makes up more than three-fifths of their business. This mirrors the trend of their larger peers shifting their focus from the US to Europe and growth markets including Asia and South Africa.From acquisitions and large deals to strategic employee hubs, India, Australia, South Africa and West Asia are emerging as the key hotspots for these mid-sized IT services companies earning $1 billion to $5 billion in revenue as they look to insulate themselves from macroeconomic tensions and tap new growth markets.Persistent Systems, the country’s ninth-largest IT services company, got about 80% of its $1.41 billion revenue from North America.

Filmmakers are planning mega-budget big-screen spectacles across languages in the coming months despite a relatively volatile box office and uncertain business environment.The producers of the two-part mythological epic Ramayana (the first instalment of which is to be released in November) and SS Rajamouli’s Varanasi (scheduled for release in April next year) are banking on the ability of these stories to reach audiences beyond Indians, and south Asians in general. Both films are among the titles estimated to cost upwards of ₹1,000 crore each to make.They are also looking to create cinematic universes with spin-offs and merchandise offers, besides expectations of a smooth recovery from satellite and digital rights, even though broadcasters and streaming platforms have slowed down acquisitions.“The scale of these projects reflects a structural shift in how Indian cinema is positioning itself globally,” said Abishek S.

fintech space.“We are a well-capitalized and profitable organization, built on a disciplined and conservative approach to managing growth and expenses. Following our recent fundraise of ₹240 crore, we are not in immediate need of additional capital,” a spokesperson for the company told Mint in an emailed statement.

New Delhi: Farmer lobbies have raised concerns about the strict implementation of curbs on the sale of diesel in portable containers amid the West Asia war, citing increased usage to operate agricultural equipment during the upcoming harvest season in April.Farmers say the ban on loose fuel sales—introduced to curb illegal storage and misuse—has heightened uncertainty over whether adequate supplies will be available during the peak season, particularly in rural areas where access to fuel stations remains limited.The Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, Kirti Kisan Union, and Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, and farmers across northern states such as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh are now planning to raise the issue with authorities to seek to ease supply."Any disruption in harvesting will not only impact crop quality but also delay procurement, affecting overall farm incomes,” said Bhanu Pratap Singh, a farmer based in Uttar Pradesh. With the wheat harvest window being narrow and weather-sensitive, stakeholders warn that ensuring an uninterrupted diesel supply will be crucial to avoid operational bottlenecks and safeguard output in the country’s key grain-producing regions.Demand for diesel for harvesters and tractors surges as farmers begin to reap wheat around 10 April.

Shaping Urban India: By Design, Not By Default, by Janaagraha, a Bengaluru-based non-profit.India has urbanized at a fairly steady clip, broadly in line with its G20 peers. But fine feathers don’t always make fine birds.Estimates by the United Nations’ Degree of Urbanisation (DegUrba) show that about 84.1% of India’s population qualifies as urban.

After a strong run over the past few years, railway stocks have entered a period of correction, with valuations cooling and execution concerns weighing on sentiment.Yet the broader story remains intact.The Union Budget 2026-27 has announced a record ₹2.93 trillion (tn) allocation toward railways, focused on capacity expansion, modernisation, and network upgrades.This creates a steady pipeline of orders across segments, from rolling stock to EPC and signalling.In this backdrop, we examine five beaten-down railway stocks.#1 Texmaco Rail & EngineeringTexmaco Rail, an Adventz group company, is a leading player in the Indian railway manufacturing. It’s the largest wagon supplier to Indian Railways with a production capacity of 12,000 to 15,000 wagons.It designs and manufactures a diverse range of freight rolling stock for the government, the private sector, and export markets.Also, Texmaco is one of India’s largest exporters of foundry goods.

The Centre’s decision to renew the Indian central bank’s Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) framework for another five years till March 2031 is no surprise. Given today’s climate of uncertainty, with no clarity on when the war in West Asia will end, any change at this juncture would have risked rocking the boat. Needlessly.

Banks in India got a jolt late on Friday after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) capped their net open positions in the forex market at $100 million. Many have been sitting on large long-dollar positions, which they’ll now be forced to unwind by RBI’s deadline at a loss. Bank stocks, of course, slid on Monday.RBI’s apparent aim is to increase dollar supplies in support of the rupee.

Karnataka’s move to impose a tax on electric cars, a year after waiving levies, could slow down adoption in one of India’s key electric vehicle (EV) markets by eroding their price competitiveness with petrol and diesel vehicles, industry experts said. The shift comes even as other states continue to offer tax breaks to push EV uptake.According to a bill passed in the Karnataka assembly last week, a tax in the range of 5-10% of a vehicle’s price will be imposed on all EV cars based on their price at the time of registration in the state, which is expected to widen the price gap with less expensive internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.The move partly negates the state's own clean mobility policy released in 2025, under which road and registration taxes were waived off for all electric vehicles, except those priced above ₹25 lakh.This comes at a time when other large EV car markets such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi are moving to waive off all such state taxes on EVs to promote their adoption.“At a time when EV adoption is crucial to cutting vehicular pollution and improving urban air quality, this decision risks undermining the state’s stated ambition of promoting zero emission mobility,” Sharif Qamar, associate director at The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), said.

RBI measure will bring some temporary relief to the rupee, but appreciation will be limited because fundamentals remain unfavourable, treasury officials said.“Currency appreciation may be limited to the extent of unwinding of these current leveraged positions. But once that is settled, I think the currency will again follow the fundamentals, and as long as this crisis continues, rupee will depreciate,” Reddy of Karur Vysya Bank said.Following the central bank move, the rupee gained 1.3% to touch a one-week high of 93.59 per dollar on Monday, before shedding gains to hit a new low of 95.1250. Likely RBI intervention lifted it to 94.83 at close, little changed from ⁠its previous close.

Mint explains how significant AI’s impact really is on investment banking.A 2023 Deloitte report noted that global investment banks have invested billions of dollars in machine learning and natural language processing to transform trading and risk management. However, the deal-making lifecycle remains heavily dependent on human expertise.