India Financial News

The randomness of Donald Trump’s tariffs has underscored that a state of flux for businesses is the only constant. That this has been inflicted by one of the chief architects of the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s rules of global trade is ironic, as it has left us with this mockery of a rules-based order.Last April, the US President alleged that foreign trade and economic practices had created a national emergency and imposed tariffs across imports from all countries. Ten months later, the US Supreme Court ruled that they were unlawful.

The US government’s trade lawyers are working overtime. So what if the work in question requires more imagination than it does expertise?Over the past fortnight, investigations into 16 countries for supposed manufacturing “excess capacity” have been launched under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. The office of US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer also announced that similar probes would begin into forced labour practices in 60 countries.

The India-European Union free trade agreement (FTA) has reduced tariffs on many agricultural exports, but these alone won’t secure market access unless our exporters meet high EU import standards and sustainable production requirements. The EU, through its Green Deal and subsequent directives such as those on deforestation (EUDR) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (EUCS3D), has implemented stiff regulations covering food safety, soil health and environmental and labour standards, including rules on greenhouse gas emissions and the wages, health, gender balance, age adequacy and work conditions of workers.

The 19th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) begins this weekend, where all eyes will be on the defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who clinched their first ever win last year. Meanwhile, there are big-name investors, including Temasek, EQT, Premji Invest, Adar Poonawalla and a couple of US-based sports investors, vying for stake in the Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers teams.

Mint has reviewed the correspondence.Such cookstoves are used in African countries such as Nigeria and Ethiopia and elsewhere in Brazil.The push by ISMA and GEMA comes in the backdrop of India’s ethanol makers also lobbying the government for higher ethanol blends in vehicle fuels and to find more use-cases for the country’s surplus ethanol production, as reported by Mint earlier. They have been seeking incentives for flex-fuel vehicles which run on very high ethanol blending, and higher procurement of ethanol by oil marketing companies.

The West Asia crisis is taking a toll on Indian manufacturing and services sectors. Private sector companies are grappling with demand slowdown and input cost inflation.The seasonally adjusted HSBC Flash India Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) Composite Output Index fell to a nearly three-and-a-half year low of 56.5 in March from a final reading of 58.9 in February.The Flash PMI is an early, advanced estimate of economic activity in the manufacturing and services sectors.

₹13,000 crore leap into the future of healthcare—shifting from mass-produced generics to cutting-edge “living medicines” grown from cells, alongside advanced chemicals.With blockbuster drug patents set to expire globally, Mint explains how the country plans to tap a $300 billion biologics opportunity.To handle the work of growing medicines from living cells, India plans to build three new national research institutes and upgrade seven existing ones, including major centres in Mohali, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.These centres will focus on training a specialized workforce to manage the high level of scientific skill required. Since making medicines from living organisms is much more difficult than a standard pill, this expertise is essential for everything from laboratory research to high-tech factory management and safety checks.India plans to set up 1,000 testing sites nationwide to rigorously evaluate safety and effectiveness.This is essential because biologics are fundamentally different from traditional drugs.

(DGCA), and the matter was later raised in Parliament.Laser strikes near Indian airports have jumped sharply, rising from 122 cases in 2023 to over 500 in 2025, data tabled in Parliament show. The incidents pose a direct safety risk to pilots and highlight weak enforcement of rules that strictly prohibit such activity that endangers life or safety.As per data, 502 laser-related disruptions were reported across 22 airports in 2025, slightly lower than the 528 incidents recorded in 2024.

Mumbai: India’s largest private sector lender HDFC Bank has appointed at least two law firms Wadia Ghandy & Co, and Trilegal to conduct a review of the circumstances leading to former chairman Atanu Chakraborty’s sudden exit last week, said two people aware of the matter.These law firms have been tasked with aiding the bank’s internal legal counsels to sift through pages of minutes of past board meetings to see if Chakraborty had made any serious observations, according to one of the two people cited above. The bank’s board and the management maintained they had no inkling of Chakraborty’s exit and he did not specify what he was referring to as part of his ethical concerns despite being repeatedly asked.Earlier on Tuesday morning, the bank said its board approved the appointment of external law firms to conduct a review of Chakraborty’s resignation letter.

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is one of the products facing a global supply crunch today, thanks to the Iran war. The result is more than a cooking gas shortage in India. In order to prioritize the availability of cooking gas for homes, the government reduced supplies to commercial establishments.

A silver lining seems to have appeared around the clouds of war over West Asia. Donald Trump put off by five days the US threat of bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure just hours before his 48-hour deadline was to expire for Iranian forces to open the Strait of Hormuz.The US President cited “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East” between the US and Iran over the past two days as the reason for his decision.

plastic waste, here the responsibility shifts partly to companies that bring plastic.The registration module was launched in February, and the platform is expected to become fully operational within the next four months.The initiative comes amid growing concerns over the management of plastic waste, electronic waste, and used batteries, wherein enforcement gaps and fragmented systems have posed challenges to effective implementation."The existing system was not effective in managing the full EPR lifecycle or tracking compliance digitally, as it is more manually. The new portal will enable end-to-end management of obligations, including registration, target setting, monitoring and reporting,” one of the officials said.The portal will require all obligated entities as well as intermediaries such as recyclers and processors to register digitally.An email query sent to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Central Pollution Control Board remains unanswered."The portal will initially cover five to six waste streams, where EPR compliance is mandatory, including plastic waste, e-waste, battery waste, used oil, and waste tyres.

New Delhi: India imports around 50% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) requirements from West Asia, and most of it is sourced from Qatar. With the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on Ras Laffan industrial City, a large chunk of India's imports are halted. This supply crunch may impact several downstream industries in India including fertilizers and steel.

fertilizer. For plants, nitrogen is a vital nutrient for growth—without it they cannot convert sunlight into energy. If all crops knew how to synthesize nitrogen from the air (which is available freely), there would be no need for urea.

FPIs have remained underweight in India for a second straight year, with their ownership in National Stock Exchange-listed companies falling to a 15.5-year low of 16.7% in the December 2025 quarter, from 17.4% a year ago, NSE data showed."De-escalation aside, certain data points pertaining to the conflict seem to have become more severe, resulting in FPIs moving out of risky emerging market (EM) assets to the safety of the dollar," said Swarup Mohanty, chief executive of asset management company Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India).Mohanty said the latest attrition has come on top of the tech and AI impact on India, which had been “playing on the FPIs' mind”. Jyoti Jaipuria, founder of portfolio management services firm Valentis Advisors, attributed the plunge in FPI equity assets to a reduction in earnings visibility due to the country's "particular susceptibility" to oil price shocks, and to slowing flows to EMs specifically and to equities in general, consequent to the conflict.Since the start of the war and the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Brent crude futures have surged 56% to $112.19 a barrel as of Friday, dragging the rupee down 3% to 93.71 against the US dollar on concerns over the impact of high crude prices on India’s current account deficit (CAD).A $10-per-barrel increase in oil prices raises India's CAD as a proportion of its gross domestic product by 0.4%, according to Jaipuria.The surge in crude and the rupee’s fall dragged the benchmark Nifty down 8.2% to 23,114.5 on Friday.

Growing up in Kerala, it was a weekly ritual to spark the firewood and get ready for an oil bath. The weather was warm enough during the week to use the plentiful water from a running tap or well. The firewood had to be kept dry and was allocated pride of place in the outhouse to be brought out in small batches for weekly baths or cooking.

The demand environment for IT services is stable rather than sharply improving, according to Accenture. Clients continue to prioritize large, strategic transformation programs with spending trends similar to 2025, said the global IT giant, which competes with tier-I Indian technology companies in outsourcing business and is often seen as an indicator of future prospects.Accenture’s managed services (outsourcing) constant currency (CC) revenue increased 5% year-on-year in Q2FY26, outpacing the consulting business, the company told investors in its earnings call for the quarter ended February (Q2FY26)—Accenture follows a September to August financial year.Sequentially, managed services growth moderated with softening deal wins, but the management expects a gradual improvement in H2FY26, supported by the conversion of large deals.

The simultaneous patent expiry of Ozempic’s active ingredient in China and India on Friday was a watershed moment. Until now, these weight-loss drugs have been available largely to people with means. The launch of affordable generic versions will be a levelling force in healthcare, with global consequences.That’s because the world’s two most-populous countries aren’t just consumers.

Geopolitical shocks affect commodity prices and energy costs, altering inflation trajectories and corporate margins. Most immediately, shifts in global risk perception influence capital flows across emerging markets.

IDBI Bank’s shares hit a new 52-week low of ₹66.45 on the NSE on Monday and have now lost almost 30% since 13 March after media reports that the central government may scrap its plan to sell a majority stake in the lender.IDBI Bank is classified as a private sector bank even though the government and state-owned Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) together hold a 94.7% stake in it.

live events sector was valued at over ₹20,800 crore in 2024, reflecting a 15% year-on-year and is expected to double by 2030, according to a report by Deloitte India, released last week. “Events of this scale involve a wide ecosystem: organizers, venues, ticketing platforms, security agencies, local authorities, licensing agencies, partners and multiple vendors for various aspects.