Country Financial News

NEW DELHI: Oil prices have been on the boil since the war between the US, Israel and Iran broke out on 28 February. To ease supply concerns and prices of over $100 per barrel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies including Russia, together known as OPEC+, agreed to increase production in May.

₹2,600 crore into its automobile subsidiary, JSW Green Mobility, since its inception—signalling a serious push into India’s passenger and commercial vehicle market as it gears up for a FY27 debut.Billionaire Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group is targeting the October–December quarter of financial year 2027 to launch its first passenger vehicle, after infusing about ₹2,600 crore into its automobile subsidiary, JSW Green Mobility, since inception.According to Mint’s review of multiple filings with the ministry of corporate affairs, the capital was deployed primarily toward setting up plant operations for passenger and commercial vehicle businesses in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, alongside general corporate purposes and debt repayment.With interests spanning steel, energy and paints, JSW’s move marks its most decisive diversification yet—and places it alongside Tata Group and Mahindra as the third major Indian business house entering the automobile sector.While the automobile subsidiary was incorporated in 2023, filings show it did not receive meaningful financial support from group firms until December 2024—when chairman Sajjan Jindal publicly declared JSW’s intent to build its own automobile brand.Funding from group companies accelerated sharply after that announcement.Queries sent to JSW Group remained unanswered.“Our idea is not to be an outpost of a Chinese company to sell products in India,” Jindal told the Financial Times in December 2024. “We want to manufacture the products in India, value-add in India, and sell them in India.”The company is scheduled to launch its first car in the October–December quarter of financial year 2027.

Wipro Ltd has bagged a contract worth $1 billion over eight years from Singapore-based food processing company Olam Group, ending a nearly six-year lull of mega deals for the country's fourth-largest information technology (IT) services firm.As part of a broader engagement, Wipro will also acquire Mindsprint, Olam’s IT arm, for $375 million in an all-cash deal, the company said in a release to the stock exchanges on Monday.Following the announcement, Wipro's shares opened 3.6% higher at ₹198.4 on the BSE in a largely weak market.The Bengaluru-based IT services company will manage the food processing company’s end‑to‑end IT transformation services. Olam has committed to spending at least $800 million over eight years in modernising its IT systems with an option to spend more than $1 billion in total.Mindsprint ended last year with $136 million in revenue and the acquisition is expected to close by June, subject to regulatory approvals.

EPL is the world's largest manufacturer of laminated tubes, producing roughly 9 billion tubes annually. It operates 21 manufacturing facilities across 11 countries, catering to the oral care, beauty, and personal care (BPC), and pharmaceutical segments.

More than three weeks since the US President Donald Trump announced an investment by ‘Reliance’ in a new oil refinery in his country, a lack of clarity from both the Mukesh Ambani-led company and India’s two top stock exchanges on the subject has exposed gaps in India’s rumour verification rules, experts said.While some experts believe that Reliance Industries Ltd should have provided further clarity on whether it was investing in the US, others think the situation falls within the ‘grey area’ of the disclosure rules governing listed companies.However, experts say India’s two top stock exchanges–BSE Ltd and the National Stock Exchange–could have used their discretion to seek clarification from Reliance Industries on the subject, as they often do with other firms for matters of far less significance.Rumour verification is governed by Regulation 30(11) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements, 2015 (LODR). The regulation was amended in 2024 to link verification to stock price movement rather than event materiality.For a stock priced above ₹200, such as Reliance Industries, the price movement threshold is 3% relative to the benchmark.

NITI Aayog, nearly 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress, while industrial water demand is expected to double by 2030. Despite this, only 30–35% of wastewater generated in urban India is currently treated, and an even smaller fraction is reused.According to Le Guennec, encouraging industries to transition from freshwater dependence to treated wastewater could significantly ease pressure on freshwater resources.

As we enter a new fiscal year, both the government and industry bodies such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) would do well to focus on what truly drives sustained growth in India: Is it the demand or supply side of the Indian economy?In ten-pin bowling, a strike happens only when the head pin is hit. Economic strategy is no different. If India wants to trigger a virtuous cycle of 8% growth, it must hit the right first pin.

Mint explains the nuances of this new, yet strategically crucial, industry.Yes. Ever since the Indian space industry was privatized in 2020, a crop of private Indian space startups has emerged with core technologies that enable space-based surveillance services.These include imagery and data from satellites, analytics from ground stations based on satellite data, and maps of satellites that help countries monitor who might be observing them.

This year’s summer holidays are not a simple beach-versus-mountains or Eiffel Tower versus Burj Khalifa decision. Instead, the West Asia war is likely to shape where you travel and how much you spend.

Amid daily price swings in crude oil, based on what the US or Iran says on a given day, global growth prospects for 2026 appear grim. Even if the war ends within days, rebuilding energy infrastructure in West Asia, battered by bombings and drone attacks, will take months if not years.

Mint. “There is no need for a manager to fold up a fund.

With the war in Iran now in its second month, India’s cooking-gas shortage is turning serious. Policymakers must view this as more than a temporary blip; it is a crisis that may permanently shift how the world’s most-populous nation consumes energy. Electric cooktops are vanishing from shelves: Amazon’s local unit reported a 30-fold jump in sales.

Brent crude prices soaring in 2026.Brent began the year at approximately $61.98 per barrel and surged to around $114.57 by the end of trading on 27 March, following the outbreak of the Iran war on 28 February.This sharp rally of about 85% is a result of a massive geopolitical risk premium. The catalyst was the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which trapped nearly 20% of global oil supply.Physical strikes on refineries, skyrocketing maritime insurance, and speculative hedging have further strained the market.

Mint, the company “has started receiving queries and having conversations with at least two West Asian nations to supply space-based sensing and Earth observation data”.Speciale Invest and Infosys-backed GalaxEye is in the race for surveillance satellite solution services. Suyash Singh, co-founder and CEO, said the company is ready to launch its Drishti optical and synthetic aperture radar (OpToSar) surveillance satellite this quarter, following which surveillance imaging and data services will commence commercially from July.“There is certainly a lot of interest, but the number of surveillance satellites that can cater to foreign demand in the current war from India is only in double digits, as compared with the US having hundreds of satellites in orbit," Singh said."We’re launching a 1.5-metre earth observation satellite in about two months, and in anticipation of the future demand based on queries received, have established plans to set up a 0.5-metre resolution satellite constellation of 20 satellites for Earth observation and surveillance constellation by 2029,” he added.Space firms are therefore hedging their bets on surveillance satellites, seeking to tap into a global surge in demand for space-based data.Several factors are driving this shift.“One of the key factors is that many West Asian nations, including Iran, do not have sovereign satellite capabilities and run very limited and small-scale space programmes.

Mint.A multipolar world could open up new leadership pathways that may not align perfectly with the largest economies, said Sternfels, pointing to emerging growth areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and data centres.India’s talent, combined with grit and entrepreneurship, gives it a winning edge, said Sternfels, who is serving his second three-year term as head of the consulting firm that has a significant influence across boardrooms and national leaderships.“In a shifting world order, this is India’s leadership moment on multiple dimensions, as it becomes a strategic imperative for organizations globally to re-orient towards India,” he said.Sternfels rejected the idea that global trade is diminishing. Instead, it is growing in different ways, he said.Global trade flow moves like water; if it is blocked somewhere, it finds a different way, said Sternfels, adding that a few free trade agreements were negotiated among countries in the last 12 months, but they do not involve the US.

The West Asia escalation has brought back into focus a structural vulnerability that has long remained underappreciated in policy discourse. Energy flows translate into payment flows, and both are now increasingly mediated by financial architectures that reflect geopolitical reality as much as economic logic. These are not passive conduits, as they can shape outcomes—by enabling, delaying or, in extreme cases, constraining the movement of money across borders.At the heart of this evolving dynamic lies mBridge, an initiative incubated under the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for interoperability among multiple central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

This summer, Anisha and Karan Kapur, a Delhi-based couple in their mid-40s working corporate jobs, are skipping a ritual they rarely miss: an overseas holiday.With only a few weeks off, they had planned a trip to Portugal, drawn by Europe’s pleasant summer weather. But with geopolitical tensions and the West Asia war, they decided to stay on safer shores instead, swapping the Portuguese summer for a shorter luxury break in Goa and along the Konkan coast.Hotels in India, sensing an opportunity, are looking to lure such travellers with offers that range from longer stays to all-inclusive meals.

GDP growth in the December quarter and strong manufacturing activity. This placed India among the better-performing economies on domestic indicators and pushed it closer to the top of the table.Currency and equity markets showed some recovery in February compared with the previous few months, but remained among the weaker performers compared to peers.

Like the ministerial gatherings in 1999, 2003 and 2017, the 14th Ministerial of the World Trade Organization (WTO), held at Yaoundé, Cameroon, ended without an agreement on anything. US trade representative Jamieson Greer used the occasion to reiterate his long-held view that the WTO is not of much use. This trade body operates by consensus and India has had its fair share of blame for such huddles yielding little, having held firm on its right to subsidize agriculture, a point that rich countries found hard to stomach.

Mint.Both the companies continue to roll out new products, which range from new nameplates, facelifts, and model updates to gain market share, with more than half a dozen launches planned between them.Strong sales momentum has led analysts to turn bullish on both companies’ prospects.“Our analysis shows Tata-PV and MM shall outperform among PVs,” analysts at Nuvama Institutional Equities wrote in a 30 March note.Tata Motors PV models, like Tata Nexon and Tata Punch, have regularly featured in the top 10 best-selling cars in the country, according to industry data.“Nexon has particularly helped because it is present in the compact SUV segment which has grown the most since GST cuts were introduced. The biggest reason is the presence of nearly all powertrains including CNG, EV, petrol and diesel, which has helped the company target a vast customer base,” a company executive aware of the company's sales performance said.Moreover, new launches like Tata Sierra, which Tata Motors is heavily betting on to gain market share, has already seen 20,000 deliveries in the past three months.Mahindra remains bullish on new launches, noting on Wednesday in statement that it closed the financial year with record-high sales.Since the start of the calendar year, Mahindra’s shares have declined 19.68%, while those of Tata Motors PV have lost 17.45%.

In a first, India plans to publicly disclose findings from inspections of drug manufacturing units, marking a shift towards greater transparency and quality monitoring, according to two government officials and documents reviewed by Mint.According to the proposal being discussed, the country’s apex drugs regulator, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), will publish details of inspected firms and audit recommendations on its website, as India's pharmaceuticals sector faces heightened scrutiny over quality.The plan assumes significance for the country's $50 billion pharmaceutical market in the backdrop of Indian-manufactured cough syrups being linked to over 140 deaths in countries, including Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon, due to ethylene glycol poisoning.The office of Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), headed by Rajeev Raghuvanshi, conducts these risk-based inspections (RBI) to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Rules.“It has been desired that CDSCO may examine the feasibility of displaying brief details of firms inspected under RBI along with the recommendations of the inspection team, after due consideration of legal implications," according to the documents reviewed by Mint. "During such inspections, inspection teams make observations and recommendations based on risk assessment.