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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When a British citizen turns 100, they get a message from the monarch. It’s a tradition dating back to 1917 when King George V started sending telegrams to congratulate citizens on landmark birthdays.But Sir David Attenborough is no ordinary citizen.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Well, the first days are the hardest daysDon’t you worry anymore‘Cause when life looks like Easy StreetThere is danger at your door —Uncle John’s Band by Grateful DeadPrime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent austerity appeal is like an official acknowledgement that trouble is brewing in India’s economy. His exhortations seemed like a signal to all stakeholders that the time has come to talk about the Iran war’s direct and indirect effects.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.New Delhi: The government's push for flex-fuel vehicle rollout is facing a classic chicken-and-egg stalemate.Automakers aren't ready to commit to producing vehicles that run on high ethanol blends until the fuel is widely available. Oil marketing companies, on the other hand, are unwilling to invest in storing and supplying blends such as E85 and E100 until there are enough such vehicles on the road, according to three people aware of the development.The government is in talks with automakers and oil marketing companies to resolve the deadlock, the people cited above said, requesting anonymity.Unlike standard vehicles, flex-fuel vehicles can run on petrol or any petrol-ethanol blend.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI/BENGALURU: Indian jewellery retailers and industry bodies are recalibrating their strategies as gold becomes more expensive following the government’s latest import duty hike. Companies are focusing on gold exchange schemes and lower-karat products to prevent a drop in sales volume.On Tuesday, India raised the effective import tax on gold and silver to 15%, reversing the duty cuts announced two years ago.The move comes as the government attempts to rein in surging precious metal imports and protect India’s foreign exchange reserves amid elevated crude oil prices and geopolitical tensions in West Asia.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.As a non-resident Bengali of my generation, I have witnessed with deep anguish the steady decline of West Bengal from its once-prominent position in India’s economic and intellectual landscape. What has been even more disheartening is the repeated pattern of large electoral mandates being given to successive governments—first the Left Front, and then the Trinamool Congress—followed by a growing sense of unmet expectations and a sense of repeated betrayal of trust.When Mamata Banerjee came to power in 2011, she carried with her a powerful promise of change: an end to decades of Left Front rule, which many believe had pushed the state into fiscal stress, industrial stagnation, and governance fatigue.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Being a new parent transforms one’s relationship with their city. The park is central to this change as it becomes an essential third space. These outings are not merely recreational, but also require active engagement with everything, from the grass to the play area and even the security guards.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In 1604, James I of England anonymously published a small book titled A Counterblaste to Tobacco. He called smoking “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” Within a year, he had raised the import duty on tobacco by 4,000%. The duty did not work.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.For years, the global AI race focused on frontier models, faster chips and massive capital. The US still leads this phase, with its hyperscalers ready to roll out massive expansions of data centre capacity as soon as labour, chip and power availability catch up. China, however, is shifting its strategy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A change in the way commissions are structured for onboarding clients to the National Pension System (NPS) may still fail to draw significant interest from distributors, experts said.Points of Presence (PoPs), the intermediaries that act as the primary customer interface for the NPS, can now earn 0.20% of the assets under management per annum as a trail commission in addition to a one-time onboarding fee of ₹200 when a new client is registered, the Pension Fund Regulatory Authority of India (PFRDA) said in a circular on 10 March.Before this, trail commissions—a recurring fee paid to distributors as long as a client remains invested—were not allowed. Distributors could only charge a direct fee of ₹200-300 per customer.PoPs are regulated institutions appointed by the PFRDA to provide services to all citizens seeking to open and operate their NPS accounts.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Centre’s proposal to fast-track India’s implementation of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (Women’s Reservation Act) by speeding up nationwide delimitation has opened a Pandora’s box. That Act of 2023 amended the Constitution to reserve 33% of seats in Parliament and state assemblies for women. It was to be done after delimitation, a process by which electoral constituencies would be redrawn based on population.Now the Centre has made two big legislative moves—one to enlarge the Lok Sabha’s numeric strength and another to set up a commission that would carve up India’s electoral map afresh and could use population data from an earlier census than envisaged.

Agents and employees representing banks and non-bank financial companies (NBFCs) have been known to frequently push inappropriate products on hapless customers in their zeal to boost sales and rake in the commissions that come with them. A senior citizen is encouraged to purchase a risky market-linked product such as a unit-linked insurance plan (ULIP) instead of a safe fixed-income instrument offering steady returns.

For the emerging megacities of Asia, the oil crisis that spread out from the Strait of Hormuz is like the acute phase of a chronic condition. The largest migration in human history is filling their streets and alleyways to bursting point.Urbanization and births will add a billion more people between now and 2050. Jakarta and Dhaka, with 42 million and 37 million people respectively, have overtaken Tokyo at 33 million as the world’s biggest metropolises.

Bengaluru/Mumbai: Former Tata Trusts trustee Mehli Mistry has filed an affidavit before the Maharashtra charity commissioner, seeking clarification on alleged irregularities at an affiliate of Tata Trusts.He has accused his former Tata Trustees colleagues—including chairman Noel Tata—of appointing two vice chairmen, Vijay Singh and Venu Srinivasan, who, being non-Parsis, he claims should not have served on a Trust run by a principal Tata Trust.Mistry, who resigned from Tata Trusts in October last year, has asked the regulatory body to probe the Bai Hirabai Jamsetji Tata Navsari Charitable Institution, one of the five trusts run by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust & Allied Trusts. Separately, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust & Allied Trusts run nine additional Trusts.Sir Dorabji Tata Trusts (SDTT) and Sir Ratan Tata Trusts (SRTT) own 27.98% and 23.56% of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group.

Her name is Lakshmi. She lives in a small village in the Krishna delta, Andhra Pradesh, where the fields flood in September and the nearest bank branch is a one-hour bus ride away. She wants to buy a buffalo, not as an aspiration, but as a business plan.

Senior citizens increasingly find themselves in court, fighting to reclaim homes they once “gifted” to their children or daughters-in-law, while heirs insist that “a gift is forever”.Under the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, a gift is generally irrevocable unless it carries a valid, agreed contingency for revocation under Section 126. Recent Supreme Court rulings confirm that if a gift deed is absolute and doesn’t include a revocation clause, the donor (the person gifting) cannot cancel it on their own.

₹590 crore siphoned from Haryana government accounts through the bank’s Chandigarh branch, allegedly by employees colluding with outsiders—is dismaying but not surprising. Bank frauds of this kind have happened before and will happen again. That alone is not what is driving the fury on social media.What is driving it is something else entirely.Most of the funds were restored or secured within about a day.

NEW DELHI: India recently piloted peer-to-peer power trading that will enable consumers such as households, businesses and farmers who generate renewable energy to directly sell their surplus power to other consumers through digital protocols. Mint examines how digital public infrastructure under the India Energy Stack helps such transactions.Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading refers to the direct trading of power between consumers. Once implemented, it will allow households and entities that produce solar power through rooftop installations to sell their excess generation to other consumers.

Mumbai finally got itself a new mayor, Ritu Tawde from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after a long hiatus. The city’s municipal corporation is the country’s richest local body and expectations from the incoming mayor were quite high.

On 27 February, India’s statistics ministry is expected to release the second of the three major macro-economic variables—retail inflation, GDP and Index of Industrial Production—currently being revamped. As with last month’s inflation number, the new GDP series will have a new base year (2022-23) and feature extensive changes in methodology and coverage to better reflect the state of our economy.Globally, decision-makers rely on economic statistics as a dashboard to frame policy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In India today, statistics are no longer confined to official reports or technical briefings. Employment numbers trend on TV.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The venue was the National Stock Exchange. The agenda: investments, markets and wealth creation.