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₹10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme, two people aware of the development said.This comes less than a fortnight after CESL concluded the country’s largest electric bus tender of 10,900 units under the PM E-Drive scheme, which seeks to accelerate adoption of electric mobility and focuses on public transport, freight, and ambulances to reduce carbon emissions.CESL’s plan involves reducing the upfront cost of these e-trucks and setting up electric vehicle (EV) chargers by building scale through demand aggregation. CESL, the subsidiary of Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), has started talks with Indian ports that are big users of trucks to ferry goods, said the first of the two persons cited earlier, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.This focus on e-trucks comes at a time when the incentives for two- and three-wheelers under the PM E-Drive scheme are set to lapse in March 2026.“CESL is looking to become the nodal agency for e-trucks also, now that the e-bus tender is done,” said the person cited above, referring to the recently-concluded tender for 10,900 e-buses.“There have been talks for becoming the nodal agency, and some talks with 1-2 ports also.

The Indian Railways increased fares twice in this financial year—first in July and then in December, marking its most concerted effort in years to narrow losses from passenger services and ease the burden on freight users who have cross-subsidised passenger travel.While the hikes have triggered political criticism, the railways argues that the increases are modest, progressive and fiscally unavoidable, especially when passenger fares recover barely 55% of costs, implying a subsidy element of about 45%, as railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted in the Lok Sabha during the recent winter session of Parliament.The twin fare revisions were part of a rationalization strategy aimed at improving the financial sustainability of passenger services without imposing a sudden shock on travellers.The railways has been absorbing the rising costs of employees, pensions, safety investments and network expansion even as passenger fares remained structurally underpriced.

₹1 crore for high courts and ₹2 crore for the Supreme Court), pendency reduction has been marginal, reflecting a culture of litigation as bureaucratic insurance rather than legal necessity.This culture stems from several institutionalized incentives that make ‘default litigation’ the path of least resistance.Audit and vigilance frameworks indirectly treat unappealed losses as negligence; accounting codes of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) require every audit objection to be ‘settled’ or ‘explained,’ and an appeal offers safe harbour from being questioned, while a liberal appellate framework allows virtually automatic filing.Despite calls for a binding national litigation policy, successive governments have balked.Instead, we now have a ‘Directive for Efficient and Effective Management of Litigation’ (April 2025), which introduces nodal officers, legal cells and MIS dashboards, but lacks statutory teeth, performance-linked disincentives or real-time data integrity.LIMBS itself remains under-updated and fails to track reasons for appeal.Here is a five-point agenda for inclusion in a national litigation policy. First, India must move away from its open-ended appeal culture and adopt a ‘leave-to-litigate’ system that acts as a regulatory filter.

₹10,000 could be put in tax-saving mutual funds. The rest had to go elsewhere — PPF, insurance, NSC, whatever. The government, in its wisdom, had decided that equity mutual funds were risky and citizens needed protection from their own enthusiasm.

Mint had earlier reported that the central government was developing an incentive framework to improve financing options for electric trucks and buses, as limited access to affordable credit remains a key obstacle to India’s green mobility transition.About 4,000 e-buses are sold in India each year, according to data from the government’s Vahan registry. As per the latest publicly available annual report of the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) for FY25, around 145,000 buses were operated by 61 state transport utilities.

The start of the year is a good time to make a resolution to get your finances in order, but start by setting the right goals.How you frame your resolutions is crucial to your likelihood of achieving them.People “with approach-oriented goals were significantly more successful in sustaining their New Year’s resolutions compared to those with avoidance-oriented goals,” according to one study by a professor of psychology at Stockholm University, Sweden, and others. So, come up with goals about what you want to achieve rather than something you wish to avoid.Think: I will build an emergency fund, rather than: I want to avoid a financial crunch.Another key is to start with a small step.“You can’t just randomly, on 1 January, change yourself,” said Krishna Rath, a Bhubaneshwar-based registered investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

Mint explains why this winter surge matters, after a year in which power consumption remained weaker than expected due to a prolonged monsoon.Power demand typically rises during December and January as colder temperatures increase the use of heating appliances. This year, a sharp cold wave across Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh pushed up electricity consumption, with temperatures dropping to as low as 4 degrees Celsius in some areas.

, 64, has been driving for Uber since losing his job as a financial adviser at a major asset-management firm two years ago. The money supplements his Social Security payments. He feels financially squeezed by the rising cost of living, and his Uber income is down, which he attributes to rising competition from self-driving Waymos.

NEW DELHI: The Centre is considering extending the 5% concessional basic customs duty (BCD) on lithium-ion cells used in battery packs for electric vehicles (EVs) for another two years in the upcoming Union budget, according to two people familiar with the matter, as domestic manufacturing has failed to gain momentum.“The proposal from the country’s automobile industry came up during consultations with the ministry of finance,” said one of the two people cited above.“The recommendation is being considered by the Union ministry of finance,” said the second person. Both persons quoted earlier did not want to be identified.The battery accounts for up to half of an EV’s price, and India’s lithium-ion cell imports have surged to $3 billion in FY25 from $1.8 billion in FY22, according to data from the commerce ministry's trade portal.India currently only assembles imported batteries, and demand for these cells is expected to quadruple from the existing 15 gigawatt-hours (GWh) to 60-65 GWh by FY30.

salary hikes.The changing balance of power is visible in attrition data. According to a Mercer study, voluntary attrition across India Inc stood at 13.1% in 2023 and fell to 11.7% in 2024.

The government is discussing an extension or a completely new production-linked incentives plan for assembling mobile phones in India as the existing ₹40,995 crore scheme is set to expire in March, according to a top government official.A final call on the exact contours of the new or an extended mobile phone PLI scheme has not been taken, and the quantum of incentives has not been decided, S Krishnan, secretary at the ministry of electronics and IT (Meity), said in an interview.“There’s an analysis which shows that some degree of disability continues in the mobile phone electronics industry. While the situation has improved significantly, there still are areas that require improvement and support.

Forecasts aren’t prophecy—they offer a glimpse into market sentiment. Our New Year special asks experts not for perfect numbers, but how they interpret the economy and the world around them—and how that shapes their money moves. The message is clear: discipline beats prediction. Stay invested. Stay diversified. Here’s how that thinking is shaping their approach to 2026, and what’s likely to keep their sectors busy.My plan stays boring yet effective: keep SIPs going in diversified equity/hybrids, maintain a proper cash buffer in liquid/ultra-short debt, and rebalance instead of reacting.

Over 80% of global trade by volume and more than 70% by value moves by sea and is handled at ports, according to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD’s) Review of Maritime Transport. In India, about 95% of trade by volume and 68% by value is carried by maritime transport.

Bengaluru: The nationwide strike called by gig workers against food delivery platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato on New Year’s Eve was largely ineffective as riders didn’t want to lose the chance to earn additional income after companies offered financial incentives for a day.Zomato set peak-hour rates at around ₹120 to ₹150 per order during the early evening to midnight on New Year’s Eve, according to its letter to delivery partners reviewed by Mint. Depending on order volumes and availability, riders had the potential to earn around ₹3,000 throughout the day.

New Delhi: India’s two-wheeler market has just logged a record year, crossing 20 million units in sales, but the milestone comes with a fresh bout of regulatory uncertainty. Manufacturers are still awaiting a formal notification on the Centre’s proposal to mandate anti-lock braking systems (ABS) on all two-wheelers below 125 cc from 1 January.Even as the cost increase-wary industry pushes for a combined braking system (CBS) as an alternative, Mint explains why the government is pressing ahead with ABS and the safety trade-offs at the centre of the debate.For one, India is the world’s biggest two-wheeler market by sales.

Mint analysis of 400 of the BSE 500 stocks. The broad-based rally created a rare environment where momentum often outweighed fundamentals.The market’s character shifted in 2025, as broad post-Covid gains gave way to selective performance driven by earnings and fundamentals.

US Federal Reserve fueled this cycle by keeping its policy rate “low for long” after the 2008 global financial crisis. For too many, “long” was interpreted as “forever.” They simply took it for granted that US growth would be consistently higher than the real interest rate on government debt, which itself would remain exceptionally low by historical standards.

lawsuits were filed in the last week of December by individuals in states including Arizona and California, who claimed they lost sensitive personal data such as financial account details, social security numbers, and addresses. Mint could not independently ascertain whether Cognizant intends to settle the claims.The 23 December complaint alleged that Cognizant did not disclose critical details of the cyberattack.“Defendants (Cognizant) have not disclosed the details of the cyberattack to Plaintiffs (complainants) or Class members, including the root cause of the data breach, the vulnerabilities exploited, and the remedial measures undertaken to ensure such a breach does not occur again.

The Indian stock market is no longer a place where bargains are easily available. Thanks to the rally over the past two years, all stocks, including midcaps, have moved up.Riding a mix of earnings growth, policy stability and steady domestic inflows, most now enjoy valuations way above their historical medians.In such an environment, the question for investors is no longer where growth exists; it is how to capitalise on it.

globalization. Faced with so much chaos and uncertainty, can we say anything with confidence about where the US and global economies are heading?One thing we can say is that the US economy is not doing as well as Trump, ever the con man, would have us believe.

New Delhi: Nearly two months after the cabinet cleared the export promotion mission (EPM) on 12 November, the government launched the market access support (MAS) intervention on Wednesday. The MAS will strengthen buyer connect, improve visibility of Indian products abroad, and support exporters, especially small businesses, in navigating entry into priority and emerging markets, the commerce ministry said in a statement.The MAS intervention will be implemented under the Niryat Disha sub-scheme of the EPM.