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New Delhi: Looking to build globally recognizable brands around India's traditional textiles, the government has proposed a new regulatory framework that would make it mandatory for all products sold as handloom to carry an official ‘Handloom Mark’ label, which will carry strict compliance norms.The move aims to curb misuse of the handloom tag and to strengthen consumer confidence in the authenticity of India's handwoven goods, as per a draft regulation notified by the textiles ministry to the World Trade Organization (WTO).The regulations follow the launch of the Kasturi Cotton Bharat—India’s first premium brand and logo for its home-grown cotton brand—and reflects a broader effort to sharpen the global positioning of for genuine handloom products and boost weavers' income. The aim is to promote premium Indian cotton on the lines of well-known international brands such as Egypt’s Giza cotton and US's Pima cotton.According to the WTO paper, the proposed regulations aim to promote handloom products in the domestic as well as international markets.

Bengaluru: Seed funding for startups has held up better than the overall financing since the 2021 boom cooled. But Nishit Garg, a partner at global venture capital (VC) firm RTP Global, says the real bottleneck has shifted to the next phase.

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Mint.The company trimmed or sold stakes in Indian portfolio companies including PB Fintech and Dream11 in recent years, amid India’s stringent foreign direct investment (FDI) rules.The Union cabinet on Tuesday relaxed restrictions under the Press Note-3 (PN-3), which mandated pre-approval for investments from countries that share a land border with India. According to an official statement, such investments will now be allowed through the automatic route up to 10% in a local firm, on the condition that the foreign investor must not exercise management control or hold a board seat.

Mint asked how deep the present correction could run.The Nifty has fallen 9.5% from its record high of 26,373.2 on 5 January this year to 23,866.85 on Wednesday.On Thursday, the index was down around 1%.The benchmark index had hit a low of 21,743.65 on 7 April last year, six months after touching a record 26,277.35 on 27 September 2024. The 17% drawdown came after an intense spell of foreign institutional selling amid fears that global tariffs proposed by US President Donald Trump would impact emerging markets like India.Asked how he had positioned himself in the current market, Kedia said, "I am sitting like an eagle, waiting and watching to make the right move."Following the downturn, Kedia has set his sights on the midcap and smallcap space, where he believes "value can be found" by those having an investment horizon of at least three years."Many mid- and small-cap stocks are illiquid, so on small volumes they fall a lot more (than large caps), but they also can rise a lot more on small volumes after a bottom has been made."The Nifty Midcap 150 has outperformed the benchmark having fallen 8% from a record high of 22,650.05 on 7 January through 20,839.35 on Wednesday.

Digital commerce in India has become a theatre of quiet deception. Sellers cheat by design, and in the rush of a 10-minute grocery delivery, hundreds of millions of consumers rarely notice they are being fleeced.In 1919, John Maynard Keynes marvelled at the Londoner who could order by phone “various products of the whole earth” from his bed while sipping his morning tea. A century later, India has democratized this convenience through cheap smartphones and a national system of instant mobile payments, overtaking the US to emerge as the second-largest e-retail market after China by number of shoppers.Yet, this innovation is being hijacked by ‘dark patterns’—design elements that trick users into overpaying or paying for things they never wanted.

The Beatles, the move underscores a long-standing reality: the Hollywood game remains fairly hard for Indian stars to crack.While the American entertainment industry appears inclusive and casts diverse faces, the resources and effort required to audition and secure a talent agency to represent them are beyond the reach of many Indian actors.“One reason may be simply lack of access. Another is that many actors are doing very well here; they have a strong run of films, they're surrounded by their people, they're celebrated, they're treated a certain way,” said Harikrishnan Pillai, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder, TheSmallBigIdea, a digital marketing agency.

The authors are, respectively, former CEO of NITI Aayog and G20 Sherpa; and senior director, edtech and AI, Central Square Foundation.Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint.

Strait of Hormuz, have disrupted oil supplies and pushed up crude prices—an especially sensitive issue for India, which imports roughly 80% of its fuel.The turbulence has already weighed on domestic markets. The country's benchmark indices have plunged about 4% since the beginning of the war until 11 March.

Three of theworld’s largest IT services companies, Capgemini SE, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., and EPAM Systems Inc., have found a seemingly contrarian hack to both grow and maintain operating margins: increase India headcount.Analysts see this as the beginning of a new trend as artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies increasingly become part of IT services workflows and give rise to demand for tech workers to monitor their deployment. India's talent pool seems to offer a competitive staffing solution for this need.This comes at a time when some among their biggest Indian peers are trimming workforce.In calendar year 2025, Capgemini, Cognizant and EPAM ended with 230,000, 256,900, and 12,200 employees in India, making between a fifth and three-fourths of their total employees, respectively.The three companies increased their India headcount compared with the year-ago period, both in absolute terms, and also as a percentage of total headcount.

Coal India Ltd’s shares hit a new 52-week high of ₹467.90 on the NSE on Thursday, gaining over 4% when the Nifty 50 index declined 0.5%, possibly on expectations of higher prices at its e-auctions as global coal prices rise due to the West Asia conflict.The flare-up in oil and gas prices is spilling over to the international coal market, too. Higher global coal prices would hurt domestic import volumes and push CIL’s e-auction premiums and offtake higher.The state-owned company sells some of its output through e-auctions at market-determined prices, in addition to fuel supply agreements (FSA) with power producers.

NEW DELHI: The Centre is considering a 12–16% incentive on large investments to boost domestic manufacturing of construction equipment such as tunnel boring machines, cranes and crawlers, two people familiar with the discussions said.The proposal is part of the scheme for enhancement of construction and infrastructure equipment (CIE) announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her FY27 budget speech on 1 February.

I have been visiting India for more than 40 years and speaking publicly about climate change for more than 25. Over that time, India’s transformation has been extraordinary. Few nations have had such rapid economic growth, technological progress and social change in such a short period.

A sudden surge in demand for induction cooktops, triggered by India’s curbs on LPG supplies, has prompted kitchen appliance makers to ramp up production, testing supply chains for imported components.Demand for induction cooktops spiked after the government imposed restrictions on booking LPG cylinders and increased their prices, pushing restaurants and households in urban areas to look for electric cooking alternatives.At Stovekraft Ltd, the parent company of kitchen appliance brands Pigeon and Gilma, average sales of induction cooktops increased about four times over the past few days, with weekly demand about five-fold higher than in the same period last year, managing director Rajendra Gandhi told Mint.“Induction cooktops are currently seeing the strongest demand, followed by cookware,” Gandhi said. Demand is largely from retail consumers through online channels, with some traction from restaurants and cloud kitchens, he said.Wonderchef Home Appliances Pvt Ltd founder and CEO Ravi Saxena said the company’s monthly inventory of induction cooktops sold out within hours after demand suddenly spiked.“Whatever we sell in a month has already been consumed in less than half a day,” Saxena said.

over the past two weeks amid global risk aversion, rising crude oil prices and persistent foreign portfolio investor outflows, prompting investors to reassess valuations after trade-deal-fuelled exuberance and a sharp rebound from budget-session lows.However, the correction has only partly cooled the market’s froth. A Mint analysis of over 3,400 BSE-listed companies shows that while valuations have moderated from recent highs, a significant portion of stocks still trades at premium multiples.Valuations across the broader market were visibly stretched when the Sensex touched its 52-week high of 85,762.01 on 2 January 2026.

Aster DM Healthcare India Ltd has secured approval from its shareholders and unsecured trade creditors for its amalgamation with Blackstone-backed Quality Care India Ltd more than a year after the deal was announced.The voting was held on 10 March, and the results were declared on 11 March. The deal was announced in November 2024.The merger was approved by 96.68% of shareholders and all unsecured creditors, stock exchange notifications from Wednesday showed.Aster's deputy managing director Alisha Moopen told Mint that the merger is expected to be completed in the first quarter of fiscal 2027.Aster and Quality will merge via a share-swap ratio of 977 shares of Aster for every 1,000 shares of QCIL.Aster shareholders will hold 57.3% and QCIL shareholders 42.7% in the merged entity — Aster DM Quality Care, which will be the new name for current listed entity Aster DM Healthcare.Blackstone will be the largest shareholder in the merged entity with 30.7% shareholding, followed by Aster’s promoters (the Moopens, 24%).

Mumbai: Private credit is stepping in ahead of public listings to help founders and promoters consolidate stakes or shore up capital as investors seek partial or full exits amid equity market uncertainty.Over the past 12-14 months, founders or promoters of companies including Leap India, Symbiotec Pharma, Vivriti Group, Zepto, InMobi, Lenskart and Zetwerk have engaged in such transactions ahead of their initial public offerings (IPOs), multiple people familiar with the matter told Mint. “Credit is increasingly being used as a flexible pool of capital to capture these opportunities and, in some cases, to provide exits to their investors, especially when public/IPO markets are facing headwinds,” said Aakash Desai, chief investment officer (CIO) & head of private credit at 360 ONE Asset, which closed its fifth private credit fund with a $400 million corpus earlier this week.

It is welcome that India is liberalizing inward investment from countries that share a land border with India. Investments up to 10% of a company’s paid-up capital that involve no board-seat control will be allowed under the automatic route. Investment proposals that need government approval would also be fast-tracked for nods within 60 days in specified sectors, including the manufacture of capital goods, capital goods for electronics, electronic components, polysilicon and the conversion of polysilicon into ingots and their slicing into wafers.

The Nifty 50 is facing its most significant period of volatility in over a year. As of 9 March, the index has entered correction territory, down more than 10% from its January peak of 26,373.Whether the Nifty 50 recovers from here or drops further to 22,000 depends heavily on the duration of the current geopolitical crisis and the resulting oil shock.Here is a breakdown of the current investing landscape.The main driver of the market’s fall is the escalating conflict in the Middle East.Yes, if the war drags on and crude oil remains at elevated levels.

Springing a surprise, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a plan for what he called America’s first new refinery in half-a-century, backed by investment from India’s Reliance. To be built by America First Refining, it is part of a deal whose value Trump put at $300 billion, calling it the biggest in US history.“Thank you to our partners in India, and their largest privately held Energy Company, Reliance, for this tremendous Investment,” he said in a Truth Social post.