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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s central bank has quietly become a key pillar of macroeconomic stability. It is not just a monetary authority, but increasingly playing a role as a fiscal shock absorber. This deserves appreciation and caution.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has managed an extraordinarily hard decade.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.It all happened in one day.Three of the hottest startups in history moved closer Wednesday to becoming trillion-dollar companies. With a fresh filing, SpaceX showed the path to a landmark IPO likely to mint Elon Musk as the world’s first trillionaire.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In a reminder that the inflation beast is never fully tamed, but can at best be forced to retreat temporarily, wholesale price inflation in India jumped to a 42-month high of 8.3% in April. That’s more than double the previous month’s 3.9% and a far cry from the 0.9% recorded a year ago. The longer global oil supply remains disrupted, the likelier it will go into double digits.And with diesel and petrol filling-station prices hiked only in May (and more hikes likely), it is just a matter of time before retail inflation, already at a 13-month high of 3.5% in April, increases.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Shortly before the 2024 election that would move him back into the White House, Donald Trump took a phone call on his plane from a secret supporter.Nicki Minaj was on the line, and she wanted Trump to know she was supporting his re-election, according to people familiar with the matter.Trump’s campaign managers, sensing an opportunity to score an endorsement from the rap world’s most popular female star, asked Minaj to take her support public. But Minaj—and her management team—said she needed to stay behind the scenes because taking a political stance posed a risk to her brand and businesses, some of these people said.Not anymore.Today, the 43-year-old best known for chart toppers like “Starships,” for leading an online army of mega-fans known as “Barbz” and for bringing a theatrical streak to contemporary hip hop has embraced a new status atop MAGA’s A-list.She has visited Trump in the Oval Office, spoken in support of administration priorities at the United Nations and encouraged her tens of millions of social-media followers to lobby their legislators on the White House’s behalf.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Assamese was, of course, his mother tongue, the language in which he thought and dreamed, the linguistic landscape that felt like home. But the Northeast’s complex demographics meant that multilingualism was practical necessity as much as cultural richness.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Even as India braces for record electricity demand this summer, power prices on exchanges recently slumped to zero in multiple trading sessions. The sharp fall has highlighted a growing challenge for India’s power sector: managing rising solar generation in the absence of adequate storage capacity.The trend has implications for renewable energy developers, power distribution companies and grid managers.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Investing in artificial intelligence involves a strong belief that it’s different this time, and memory-chip makers are a particularly extreme example.Micron Technology recorded its biggest-ever loss just three years ago, and is now forecast to become the sixth-most profitable U.S. stock. It will make just under $100 billion over the next 12 months, more than Meta or Berkshire Hathaway.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Are you better off than when Jerome Powell assumed the chair of the Federal Reserve Board on Feb. 5, 2018? From the narrow viewpoint of investors, the answer would be yes.Over those eight-plus years, the central bank and the markets experienced a once-in-a-century pandemic, a near-total shutdown of major economies, and nearly an acute seizure of financial markets, followed by the biggest surge in inflation in over four decades.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.From Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging austerity measures as the West Asia war inflated India’s import bills, to the Centre raising minimum support prices for key kharif crops to ensure food security, retail inflation edging up on rising energy-linked items, the government banning sugar exports to protect domestic supplies, and India among top countries for disaster-related displacements in 2025—here is a compilation of this week’s news in numbers.As the West Asia war disrupts global supply chains and pushes up India’s import bill, PM Modi has urged citizens to adopt austerity measures to ease pressure on the economy.In the public address, Modi called on households to avoid non-essential gold purchases, overseas holidays and destination weddings for a year, while urging farmers to reduce fertilizer use by half.The appeal comes amid mounting stress on India’s external balances, with the rupee weakening and the current account deficit facing renewed pressure.India remains heavily dependent on imports of crude oil, vegetable oils, fertilizers, gold and silver. Trade data show that India imported over $290 billion worth of these commodities in 2025-26 — nearly 38% of the total import bill of $776 billion.Amid heightened global volatility and supply chain concerns stemming from the West Asia war, the Union cabinet this week approved a series of measures aimed at strengthening India’s food security, including higher minimum support prices (MSPs) for key kharif crops.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.An underappreciated surplus of crude oil, sloshing around storage tanks and aboard ships, cushioned the global economy when the Persian Gulf closed 2½ months ago.That excess supply is now dwindling at a record pace, with oil executives and analysts predicting that a harsh reckoning is set to upend the relative calm in energy markets. Acute shortages of key fuels and soaring prices could emerge within weeks if the Strait of Hormuz remains shut.The drawdown in private storage and government strategic reserves along with a fall in demand due to the higher prices, has bought time and prevented oil prices from exploding.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: The Indian rupee’s slide to fresh record lows amid the ongoing West Asia war is prompting calls for deeper structural reforms instead of short-term liquidity measures to stabilize the currency, five market participants told Mint.While the US-Iran conflict has intensified pressure on the rupee, experts said the currency’s weakness predates the war and reflects broader concerns over slowing capital inflows at a time when India’s current account deficit is expected to widen.Since the war began on 28 February, the rupee has declined by 4.6%, according to Bloomberg data. After clocking fresh lows for three consecutive trading sessions, the currency hit a fresh record low of 95.96 per US dollar on Thursday, before trimming losses and ended at 95.64 compared with 95.66 on Wednesday.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India's gold imports from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) under the 2022 trade agreement are drawing fresh attention amid India's push to curb bullion imports to conserve foreign reserves.Gems and jewellery imports from the UAE, dominated by gold, have surged to one-third of India's total shipments in 2025-26, according to commerce ministry data reviewed by Mint.Even as India’s gems and jewellery imports hit a record $71.98 billion in 2025-26, imports from the UAE rose from $14.79 billion in 2022-23 to $27.09 billion in 2024-25, and stood at $24.08 billion during April-February 2025-26.Total gems and jewellery imports from the UAE stood at $15.93 billion in 2021-22, according to the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council.At the same time, utilization of the tariff rate quota (TRQ), which allows a limited quantity of gold imports from the UAE at a duty rate one percentage point lower than the standard rate, has remained modest at about 140 tonnes in 2024-25 and just 8.58 tonnes so far in 2025-26.The trend has raised concerns that higher inflows under the concessional route could dilute the impact of 15% customs duty on gold and silver, as traders may increasingly route imports through the lower-duty quota, weakening efforts to curb imports and manage the trade deficit.It also assumes significance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to citizens to avoid buying gold for at least a year, urging them to invest in productive assets instead to help reduce the country’s import burden and strengthen the economy.“The trade agreement does offer some price advantage due to differential duty and would hence need to be monitored.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.“We are thinking of moving to Dubai. Know any good brokers?” That question used to pop up regularly in 2025 on cross-Arabian Sea phone calls to residents of the city-state from India.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai last year, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the launch of a “next-generation financial market infrastructure,” designed to “tokenize financial assets and settlements.” While it received no more than a passing mention in his speech, the Unified Markets Interface he mentioned appears to be an early signpost of the direction in which the digitization of India’s financial sector is likely to progress. To understand the significance of this announcement, it is important to be clear about what a tokenized asset is and how it works.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Since the start of the West Asia war and the sharp 44% rise in crude oil prices, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have been steadily selling Indian shares, pushing total outflows in less than five months close to last year’s record level.FPIs have sold cash shares worth ₹2.28 trillion in calendar 2025 through 11 May — just ₹120 billion short of the record ₹2.4 trillion secondary market outflows seen in the whole of 2025, according to depository and exchange data.Of this, ₹1.85 trillion — over four-fifths of total outflows — came between March and 11 May alone, underscoring investor concerns about the impact of elevated crude on India’s macroeconomic fundamentals and corporate earnings if the war drags on.Recognizing the economic threat from sustained high oil prices, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated an appeal to citizens to conserve fuel and curb gold purchases on Monday.The West Asia war, which began on 28 February, has lifted crude 44% to $104 a barrel as of 11 May.With India importing around 90% of its daily crude requirement of 5.5 million barrels, the oil shock threatens to widen the current account deficit.The pressure is visible in the currency markets.

debt, data shows, as consumer insolvencies have reached their highest level since the start of 2009.Consumer insolvencies — a measure that indicates how many Canadians filed for relief under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act — reached record highs in the first three months of 2026, according to data from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.In January, February and March, 37,121 Canadians filed for insolvencies — amounting to 17 Canadians filing for insolvencies every hour this year, according to the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals (CAIRP).This is the highest volume of Canadians filing for insolvencies since the first quarter of 2009, CAIRP said, when the Canadian economy was reeling from the aftershocks of the Great Recession of 2008.Compared to the same period in 2025, consumer insolvencies were up 8.5 per cent, while they were up 6.5 per cent compared to the last three months of 2025.Between January and March, 1,232 businesses in Canada filed for insolvency.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.New Delhi: After halting new cooking gas connections and extending refill booking periods, oil marketing companies (OMCs) are turning to tax data to weed out ineligible beneficiaries of the direct benefit transfer scheme for LPG (DBTL), even as high energy prices raise the possibility of a fuel price hike.Indian Oil Corp. Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: The few seconds of music you hear while waiting for someone to answer a phone call is copyrighted intellectual property, and telecom operators offering caller tunes may now need separate licences and royalty payments to lyricists and composers after a recent Calcutta High Court ruling.On 8 May, the Calcutta High Court ruled against Vodafone Idea in its long-running dispute with the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS), holding that telecom operators cannot offer caller tunes and ringtones solely on the basis of licences obtained from music labels.Mint explains the ruling and what it could mean for telecom operators and digital platforms.The dispute centres on whether telecom operators offering caller tunes and ringtones require separate licences from lyricists and composers, apart from licences obtained from music labels such as Saregama.Telecom companies treat caller tunes as a value-added service, a paid add-on beyond regular calling and SMS facilities that generates additional revenue and improves user engagement.Vodafone Idea signed agreements with Saregama in 2014 to use songs for caller tune services. However, IPRS argued that while music labels may own sound recordings, lyricists and composers retain separate rights over the underlying literary and musical works under the Copyright Act, particularly after the 2012 amendments that strengthened creators’ royalty rights.In 2018, Vodafone Idea approached the Calcutta High Court challenging IPRS’s claim that telecom operators required separate licences and royalty payments for using songs as caller tunes and ringtones.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Even though Indian gold retailers sold less jewellery in the March quarter as soaring prices forced shoppers to cut back on purchases, higher rates helped prop up their revenues.Jewellery buyers typically stick to fixed budgets, buying smaller quantities when prices are high, executives said. “When prices are low, the volume will be higher.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A group of 20 AI researchers recently spent two weeks trying to break a set of autonomous AI agents—systems with real email accounts, persistent memory, shell access and the authority to act on their owners’ behalf. They succeeded 11 times out of the cases they documented. The agents disclosed private medical records, wiped email servers, broadcast defamatory messages, looped in resource-consuming spirals for nine days, and were corrupted through a fake governance document that gave an attacker persistent but invisible control across multiple sessions.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: The Centre is set to adopt a more modest highway construction target for fiscal 2027 (FY27) as it focuses on clearing delayed projects while attempting to revive private investment through the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model.The government is likely to target construction of 10,000 km in FY27, unchanged from the previous fiscal year, when actual construction fell short at about 9,400 km. The target marks a step-down from the record 13,814 km set for FY24 and about 12,500 km for FY25.