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Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] goods companies are heading into 2026 expecting a pickup in volume-led growth, supported by stable commodity costs, easing inflation and revised goods and services tax (GST) rates, even as a weakening rupee continues to pose risks to margin guidance.Senior executives across fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer durables companies said demand conditions are improving after a prolonged period of sluggish growth, aided by easing food inflation, GST changes and a more supportive macroeconomic environment.“If I had to look ahead to 2026, a large part of growth is likely to be volume-led.

₹1,100 crore in FY26—nearly 70% higher than the ₹650 crore recorded last year—as the regional airline scales up operations, expands its fleet and raises fresh capital to double down on India’s smaller cities.In FY25, the company reported revenue of around ₹650 crore, of which nearly a third, about ₹200 crore, came from viability gap funding (VGF), said Shrenik Ghodawat, executive director of the group. The company is privately held and is yet to file its FY25 numbers with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA).VGF is a subsidy provided by the Centre under the UDAN regional connectivity scheme to ensure the commercial viability of select unserved or underserved routes.

₹515 crore to Prestige Estates Projects Ltd. With this transaction, cumulative non-core asset monetization has reached ₹1,017 crore, slightly exceeding the company’s stated guidance of ₹1,000 crore. Before the Prestige deal, Ramco had already monetized ₹502 crore of non-core assets.As of the end of September, Ramco carried a net debt of ₹4,591 crore, with a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.6x and an interest coverage ratio of 3.23x.

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Mint.For users, this would mean smartphones would automatically redirect a portion of data traffic from cellular networks to nearby Wi-Fi networks when available—including hotspots under the PM-WANI (Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface) scheme—without interrupting calls, SMS, or applications.This will help reduce congestion on crowded mobile networks, improve speed in indoor and high-traffic areas, and enable operators to use their limited mobile spectrum more efficiently, often without users noticing any change.“Telecom operators in India do offload traffic to Wi-Fi in specific scenarios, but the practice has varied widely and lacked a nationally accepted technical framework,” a government official said, on condition of anonymity.“The new draft standard aims to define how Wi-Fi can work seamlessly with mobile networks, including public Wi-Fi, while ensuring there are no call drops during network switches and that there is a common offloading framework that works across operators,” the official added.The government wants operators to ensure that Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) works properly, including emergency calls, standard text messages over the internet, and multimedia calling services, while ensuring that all authentication and data transport mechanisms shall comply with national security directives and lawful interception, according to the draft rules.The rules also want operators to support open roaming and interoperability between different vendors to allow Wi-Fi offloading to scale without friction as users move across locations and networks.The Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) under the department of telecommunications (DoT) is currently working to formalize the rules.“Telecom operators have

₹15,000 crore, as per estimates from the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways. The guidelines speak of three to four shipbuilding clusters in coastal states, with only one in each state.

aircraft that carries goods instead of passengers.If freighter operations move out of Mumbai, cargo capacity will shrink sharply, pushing up air freight rates, Kumar said. Shipping from Navi Mumbai would also be more expensive as the airport has limited cargo freighters and no international passenger flights, reducing available belly space and creating supply constraints.In contrast, Delhi operates under an open sky policy, allowing a higher number of cargo flights.

Tariff uncertainty and elevated aluminium and copper prices have lengthened contracting cycles in these markets.Domestic demand remains supported by power transmission and distribution, renewables and railways. Cost pass-through clauses protect margins, but not timing—meaning profitability is preserved even as delayed order finalizations push deliveries towards the latter part of the year.For FY26, management has guided for around 10% volume growth in conductors, while treating ₹30,000 as a minimum Ebitda per tonne level over the cycle.

₹14.5 lakh in the pre-GST phase to nearly ₹19 lakh post the reform. This increase reflected a deliberate reassessment of adequacy rather than incremental upgrades.For years, health covers priced below ₹10 lakh have dominated new purchases, largely due to price sensitivity and a limited understanding of hospital costs.

₹580 crore to the sponsorship, spread over two and a half years. “This impact is likely to reflect in financials from Q3 onwards,” Motilal Oswal’s analysts noted.Apollo’s consolidated Ebitda margin in the September quarter (Q2FY26) had risen 130 basis points (bps) year-on-year to 14.9%, the highest in the past six quarters, having declined about 110 bps to 13.2% in Q1.

compressed natural gas (CNG) and city gas distribution (CGD) prices cheaper.Noting that the regulator is vested with power primarily to fix tariffs for natural gas pipelines, the report said: "However, other remaining major part of delivered cost of gas i.e. gas prices, regasification charges (including truck loading charges) are currently not in PNGRB’s regulatory oversight.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] Indian government will focus on boosting the adoption of electric buses and trucks and charging infrastructure in 2026, which remains crucial for the nation’s goal of 30% electric mobility by 2030.E-trucks and e-buses under the ₹10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme would be the government’s priority in 2026, as incentives for electric two- and three-wheelers under the scheme are set to lapse in March 2026, a senior government official directly aware of the development said.Overall adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) rose in India despite supply-chain disruptions in 2025, stemming from China’s grip in rare earths.

Delhi-based Deepika Khosla, 38, a French teacher, and her husband, Mohit Khosla,40, a working professional in the telecom sector, are parents to twins Avighna and Itika, both eight years old and currently in grade 3. Education forms a central part of the family’s monthly budgeting.

Mint looks at how the world’s largest economy has defied expectations and stayed resilient in 2025 despite multiple challenges. Will this dream run continue in 2026?Yes.

₹25,000 crore safety net, as the Union Budget for FY26 could unveil a risk guarantee fund designed to ease financing bottlenecks and attract capital to stalled projects. The move comes amid rising project delays, cost overruns, and higher borrowing costs that have long constrained investment flows into the sector.Modelled on credit guarantee schemes for small businesses, the fund, likely managed by the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC), would underwrite development risks for infrastructure projects, allowing banks and financial institutions to lend on easier terms, said two government officials aware of the development.

Mint had earlier reported that Adani TotalEnergies E-mobility Ltd, Reliance BP Mobility Ltd and JBM Group had signed non-disclosure agreements (NDA) for the proposed deal.“JBM Group has signed an exclusivity agreement for GLIDA and due diligence is ongoing,” said the first of the two persons cited earlier, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.JBM Group is drawn to GLIDA's 850 charging points across 29 cities and 25 highways in 17 states amid India’s green-mobility push that depends on the expansion of an effective EV charging network. JBM Group’s flagship firm JBM Auto Ltd is one of India’s largest electric bus manufacturers, with 1,500 EV charging sites.

New Delhi: India’s leading electric bus and truck makers are planning to ask for a one-year extension on exemptions to import rare earth magnet motors — that are critical for electric vehicles (EVs)—under a central government scheme, three executives directly aware of the development said.According to the executives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, manufacturers may seek an import relaxation till March 2027 under the ₹10,900-crore PM-E Drive scheme.The earlier deadline for e-trucks and e-buses to switch to locally manufactured rare earth magnet motors was March 2026, which was in turn extended from 1 September 2025.The extension is being sought as supply disruptions persist in imports, while local production of rare earth magnets and alternative motor technologies is expected to take another one to two years.Manufacturers such as Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Eka Mobility and Montra Electric are deliberating on sending a request to the ministry of heavy industries (MHI) to extend the import deadline, the executives said.A formal outreach to the government is expected in the next few weeks.

pharmaceutical sector, a major global supplier of generic medicines.The revised Schedule M GMP had been earlier extended from the previous 1 January 2025 cutoff. The proposed extension for MSMEs, which have revenue of ₹250 crore or less, comes in the backdrop of less than a third of them submitting their upgrade plans, with the remaining units risking immediate closure and penalties.There are a total of 10,500 drug manufacturing units in India, of which 8,500 fall under the MSME category.

New Delhi: Companies must recognize the impact of the new labour codes in their December-quarter profit and loss statements, even as a new financial reporting format and lower compliance requirements for unlisted subsidiaries are in the pipeline, according to the head of the accounting profession’s self-regulator.Businesses are required to reflect any additional gratuity liability arising from the labour codes upfront in their December-quarter results, Charanjot Singh Nanda, president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), said in an interview, citing a guidance note issued by the accounting rule-maker.The labour codes mandate that at least 50% of an employee's total remuneration must be treated as wages, the basis for gratuity calculation. This is expected to increase gratuity and leave benefit liabilities for many employers who currently compute gratuity on a smaller base because of allowances accounting for a larger share.The guidance note, reviewed by Mint, says that any increase in gratuity liability due to application of the new labour codes is ‘past service cost’ as it results in benefits payable.

Electric trucks are becoming the latest type of vehicle to benefit from battery swapping, which has until now been largely restricted to two- and three-wheelers. Pune-based e-truck maker Blue Energy Motors and Murugappa Group’s Montra Electric are rolling out 55-tonne e-trucks that are compatible with battery swapping.These zero-emission commercial vehicles provide the right use-case for price parity between EVs and internal combustion engines (ICE) once the cost of the battery is removed from the equation, according to manufacturers and domain experts.As India races to decarbonize its massive freight sector, battery swapping could prove to be the silver bullet for heavy-duty electric trucks.

₹15,000-crore fruit economy, trapping apple growers in a cycle of rising input costs and recurring losses, even as the promise of crop insurance remains largely theoretical.Weighed down by low enthusiasm after another season of heavy losses, fruit growers have begun the new farming cycle, pruning apple trees in their orchards, amid Chilai Kalan, Kashmir's harshest forty days of winter.In Allaiepora village of Pulwama, Khursheed Ahmad Allaie tells Mint that the apple growers who once invested heavily in establishing high-density orchards, converting paddy fields into apple farms, now find themselves at a loss, as the impacts of the climate crisis have intensified over the past decade.“Global warming has changed everything. Heatwaves bring disease.