Record News

India’s market regulator is working on a collaborative framework with corporates, academia and professional bodies to expand the pipeline and effectiveness of independent directors, even as recent boardroom tensions at HDFC Bank sharpen scrutiny on governance standards.“Sebi will seek to embark on a joint initiative for capacity building of independent directors at scale with a view to further improve corporate governance,” Sebi chief Tuhin Kanta Pandey said at the 19th Governance Summit hosted by the Confederation of Indian industries (CII) on Monday.“Boards are well constituted, but not always equally effective. Information is available but not always interrogated deeply.

₹8,136 crore – its best-ever, driven annually, by new project launches and geographical diversification. Still, it missed the ₹8,500 crore pre-sales target set for the fiscal year.Sobha launched nine projects in six cities during FY26. Out of these, three were in the March quarter (Q4FY26), consequently, pre-sales for Q4 rose year-on-year to ₹2,039 crore.

music markets globally, with the recorded music industry crossing ₹3,000 crore in annual revenues and digital contributing over 60%," said Vitasta Kaul, chief marketing officer, Hoopr, a music licensing platform. "However, per-stream payouts remain among the lowest globally, often fetching a few paise per stream.

₹1.05 lakh per kilolitre, though lower than initially announced.On Wednesday, state-run oil marketing companies briefly hiked jet fuel prices by more than 100% before rolling back the increase for domestic scheduled flights following government intervention.International routes, however, will bear the full increase, setting the stage for costlier overseas travel ahead of the peak summer season. With ATF accounting for a substantial share of airline operating costs, carriers are expected to pass on the higher burden, making outbound travel more expensive in the coming weeks.FY26 proved turbulent for Indian equities, with foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turning decisively bearish amid mounting global headwinds—from US-led tariff disruptions to the West Asia war.Net FPI outflows totalled ₹1.8 trillion in FY26, the highest since records began in 1992, according to a Mint analysis of National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) data, exceeding all previous episodes, including the global financial crisis in FY09.The selloff intensified towards end of the year, with March 2026 alone recording ₹1.2 trillion in outflows, as geopolitical uncertainty fuelled fears of FY27 earnings downgrades and unsettled India’s macroeconomic outlook.

India’s defence exports surged to a record ₹38,424 crore in 2025-26, marking a 63% increase over the previous year, defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday. The ballast was provided by defence public sector undertakings, whose outbound shipments saw an impressive 151% increase to ₹21,071 crore. Defence exports by the private sector recorded a relatively modest 14% rise to ₹17,353 crore.

₹9,000 crore to become the country’s fourth-largest paint company, sees stronger growth potential in industrial coatings than in the decorative segment, Parth Jindal managing director of JSW Paints and chairman of JSW Dulux, the erstwhile AkzoNobel India, told Mint.“We have global R&D capabilities after we acquired Akzo Nobel and particularly in the absence of Birla Opus in the industrial paints space we see less competition,” Jindal said. He added that a potential shift towards electric vehicles (EVs), driven by the West Asia conflict, could further boost demand.The conflict has already started influencing the EV market.

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.

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.

Having risen steadily over time, the share of Indian households who use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as their primary source of fuel for cooking is now at 60% as of 2024. Another 33% of households still used firewood.This data comes from India's Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys, a series of large, nationally representative household surveys conducted by the National Statistical Office, which ask the head of the household what the primary source of energy used by the household in the 30 days preceding the survey was.

With the rupee under pressure from capital outflows and higher crude prices, India’s central bank is expanding its scrutiny beyond banks to corporate treasury positions in the foreign exchange market to assess large arbitrage trades, two bankers familiar with the matter said.According to these bankers, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) data call is aimed at assessing the extent of arbitrage exposure with corporate clients, rather than signalling immediate regulatory action.The exercise follows the central bank’s move on 27 March to cap banks’ net open positions in the domestic market at $100 million at the end of each day, which forced several lenders to unwind trades.“Corporates might have to unwind as well if things come to a head,” one of the two bankers cited earlier said, requesting anonymity. Corporate treasuries manage firms’ foreign exchange exposures through hedging to ensure that earnings and cash flows are not hit by currency swings.An email sent to the RBI on the matter remained unanswered till press time.A Jefferies report on 29 March said that the forex derivative market is dominated by larger banks with gross onshore positions of $30-40 billion that largely offset each other.

Mint that the compliance requirement is especially important for digital personal loans, buy now, pay later (BNPL), and other frequently disbursed unsecured products, where borrowing patterns can shift within days rather than months.“In a traditional monthly reporting cycle, the lifecycle of a 15-day BNPL transaction or a 30-day micro-loan is essentially a blind spot…it begins and ends before the data ever reaches the bureau,” said Aditya B. Chatterjee, managing director of credit bureau Equifax India.And borrowers “used to exploit this particular window of a blind spot in the (bureau reporting) system”, said Sugandh Saxena, chief executive of self-regulatory organization Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE), adding that “fintechs would greatly benefit” from fresher bureau data.That is because digital NBFCs dominate the personal-loan market by volume, accounting for 78% of sanctioned loans in the first nine months of 2025-26, even though their share by value was only 19%, according to FACE data.Credit data from banks, NBFCs, and fintech lenders used to be updated with bureaus on a monthly cycle, but in practice, taking 30-45 days from disbursal to reflection in a borrower’s file.

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.

For foreign investors backing Indian equities, the financial year 2026 was one they would rather forget. It was a period dotted with global disruptions, starting with US-led tariff uncertainties and ending amid the US-Israel-Iran war.

overreaction, with fundamentals remaining largely intact, it is a clear signal to buy. Otherwise, the downside looks pretty steep.

music labels that historically owned or administered the sound recording rights, as well as licensing agencies that collect royalties on their behalf, agreed Sonam Chandwani, managing partner, KS Legal & Associates.Once the statutory term expires, the recording effectively enters the public domain and any person is legally entitled to perform, broadcast or commercially use that recording without obtaining a licence from the original rights holder.“This development is beneficial for businesses such as hotels, restaurants, event organisers, broadcasters and digital content creators because it removes the obligation to pay licensing fees for the use of those specific recordings. Conversely, it reduces the ability of legacy music companies to exercise exclusive control over certain parts of their catalogue.

New Delhi: International Finance Corp. (IFC) aims to scale up its India investments by about 30% to $7 billion this fiscal year ending 30 June, said Sarvesh Suri, regional vice-president for Asia and the Pacific at World Bank Group’s private sector-focused development finance arm, in an interview to Mint.

CCL Products (India) Ltd: Buy above ₹1,070 | Stop ₹995 | Target ₹1,220 (multiday)Tata Consumer Products Ltd: Buy above ₹1,060 | Stop ₹995 | Target ₹1,180 (multiday)India's coffee and tea sectors have demonstrated remarkable resilience and growth momentum in FY26. The coffee export milestone of $1.86 billion by February FY26 represents a significant achievement, with the sector consistently recording over $1 billion in annual exports for the fifth consecutive year.

shaky five-day truce in West Asia looms, leaving investors caught between hopes of de-escalation and the reality of a US military deployment."While the sellers are relatively more bullish after the two-day rally, they aren't taking any chances lest last-minute nasty surprises crop up on Friday," said Sudhir Joshi, consultant at Khambatta Securities.The bullishness of sellers or writers is reflected in the relative number of puts to calls sold as of Wednesday. For every 100 calls sold, the writers sold 124 puts, underscoring their belief that they would retain premiums on the puts sold as markets would rise by 30 March.The put-call ratio typically ranges from a very bearish 0.70 to an extremely bullish 1.30.A put seller gains when the market rises or remains flat, while a call seller gains when the market falls or remains flat at the level sold.

tax efficiency. Instead, we began with questions about their marriage.

war in West Asia has brought to light the dependence on imported fuels.India imports most of its crude oil and a majority of its natural gas requirement. This has caused anxiety among consumers about disruptions in cooking fuel.

Brent crude oil, which is trading around $98, and FII outflows are playing a decisive role in the sharp market correction. Elevated crude prices are keeping inflation concerns alive, while the rupee is trading near a record low at 93 per dollar, adding to macroeconomic pressures.