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West Asia conflict could ease.The benchmark Nifty50 index recovered close to half of its recent losses in the last hour on Thursday, as reports emerged that Iran had reached out to the US for talks to end the war, improving risk appetite. The news coincided with the weekly expiry of Sensex options on Thursday, which also forced the traders to square off their positions in panic.The US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on Saturday that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, triggering retaliation and fuelling a wider regional conflict in West Asia, dragging stock markets around the world lower.Over two trading sessions starting Monday, the Nifty50 had fallen 695 points, of which 285 points—about 41%—were recouped on Thursday.

₹815 crore on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overseas visits since he took office in 2014, covering 78 countries across 99 trips, according to data shared in Parliament last month.The disclosures offer a detailed snapshot of how frequently he travels, which countries dominate his itinerary and what that outreach has cost the exchequer. Overseas travel has been a central plank of Modi’s diplomatic strategy, with the prime minister frequently engaging global leaders in person.A Mint analysis of the data shows that, adjusted for inflation, the total outlay amounts to just over ₹1,000 crore in current prices. In all, Modi has spent 352 days abroad across his three terms.

Nifty bounced from a low of 24,598.6 to close at 24,956.5 two days later. On 30 September 2025, it hit an intraday low of 24,587.7 before recovering to close at 24,611.10.

The 16th Finance Commission (FC) report, covering 2026-31, arrives at a consequential moment for India’s fiscal federalism. It is wide-ranging, analytically rich and notable for making underlying data publicly available.

crude flows, has emerged as a flashpoint after US and Israeli strikes on Iran and retaliatory actions by Tehran. While there has been no formal closure, heightened uncertainty has been enough for carriers to alter schedules and pause sailings.Shipping majors including Mediterranean Shipping Company and A.P.

manufacturing expansion.The government has amended the BIS (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018, restructuring the framework for Scheme-II and Scheme-VII by formalizing a Self-Declaration of Conformity (SDOC) model for eligible notified products.“Under this system, manufacturers can obtain a licence to use the Standard Mark through registration based on self-declaration, backed by accredited lab reports,” said one of the two officials cited above, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.Scheme-II refers to the registration-based certification framework under BIS, largely covering notified electronics and IT (information technology) products where conformity is established through third-party testing and documentation, rather than mandatory pre-licence factory inspection.Under the revised Scheme-II, the application fee and annual licence fee are fixed at ₹1,000 each, with a resource fee of ₹25,000 per application payable in advance. Applications involving multiple test reports will attract an additional ₹20,000 for each extra report, with the fee structure now formally codified under the Self-Declaration of Conformity framework.Queries sent on Friday to BIS and the ministries of consumer affairs and commerce remained unanswered till press time.However, easier access to BIS certification—needed to use the Standard Mark on notified products—is paired with stricter ongoing compliance.

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Several Indian states plan to integrate trees into mainstream farming systems to improve soil health, capture atmospheric carbon, and diversify rural livelihoods, as crop yields drop due to climate change and land degradation.Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are in the process of launching state-specific agroforestry policies to include tree-based farming as a driver of sustainable economic growth, according to six people aware of the development.The proposed frameworks will ease timber and paper transit regulations, promote high-value tree species, facilitate access to quality planting material, and encourage private sector participation in value chains such as pulp, plywood, bioenergy, and fruit processing, the people said.Nearly 1.7 billion people globally live in regions where crop yields are declining due to human-induced land degradation, posing a direct threat to agricultural productivity and food security, according to The State of Food and Agriculture 2025. Agroforestry—cultivating trees alongside crops and livestock—is increasingly being viewed as a solution to rising input costs, erratic weather patterns, and land degradation.In India, trees outside forests (TOF) account for 8.65% of the total land area of 328.7 million hectares.

financial stability.Here’s how careful planning and a simple investment strategy can help you enjoy your sabbatical without constant money worries.“Every financial goal has a time horizon, which depends on personal circumstances and demographics. For example, when you plan to take a sabbatical, how much money you will need during that period to meet your expenses, and how long the sabbatical will last,” said Shantanu Awasthi, chief executive, wealth management firm Mavenark.Treat your sabbatical corpus as a ‘sinking fund’, a specific bucket accumulated specifically to be consumed like your emergency fund.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Trump administration is considering new national security tariffs on a half-dozen industries in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last week that invalidated many of the president’s second-term levies. The new tariffs being considered could cover industries such as large-scale batteries, cast iron and iron fittings, plastic piping, industrial chemicals and power grid and telecom equipment, according to people familiar with the plans.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Centre has set new standards aligning domestic norms with global benchmarks for children’s apparel to help domestic manufacturers meet stricter international regulations, two people close to the development said.

₹6,818 is what it cost me to increase our family health cover from ₹20 lakh to ₹5 crore using a top-up policy. We are in our mid-50s with two children in their 20s.This is, by a large margin, the most cost-effective way to increase your health cover.

A few months ago when the editor of Rahul Pandita’s debut novel asked me for a blurb, I wrote that his book was “addictive”. I thought I had found a way to say something meaningful about a book in a blurb, a form of praise that has become meaningless, filled with tired phrases like “tour de force.” But then I realized that I had not been paying attention to book covers. ‘Addictive’ is the new ‘unputownable.’ Apparently, the world believes addiction is a good thing, as long as it is said of a book.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The GIFT City regulator has started asking inactive companies to voluntarily surrender their licences if they do not intend to start a business, according to three people in the know, as India seeks to ensure the international finance hub is not reduced to a paper address. “Entities that remain inactive have been asked about their plans and, where there is no clear intent to operate, they may be persuaded to voluntarily surrender the license," said an official, one of the three people quoted earlier, on the condition of anonymity.

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

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The confidence with which artificial intelligence (AI) can eye human jobs has taken a leap, thanks to the rise of AI agents.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. If this winter feels strange, it’s not in your head. In the eastern U.S., residents have been suffering through one of the most frigid seasons in recent memory.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. From foreign portfolio investments (FPI) making a come back to India in February after the trade deal framework with the US, to India already diversifying its crude oil import sources, Niti Aayog flagging the projected gap in investments to achieve the net-zero carbon emission target by 2070, and easing unemployment in India—here’s a compilation of this week’s news in numbers.Inflows return February is turning out to be a positive month for foreign portfolio investments (FPIs) in Indian equities as the country saw ₹18,771 crore worth of inflows until 12 February. This follows a sombre period of consistent outflows, with FPIs pulling out ₹62,000 crore in the previous three months.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SEOUL—The hundreds of prize payouts were mostly just a few bucks each, part of a promotional campaign by a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange. The total reward pot: 620,000 Korean won, or about $425.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The government brought unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) under the tax net in 2021 to discourage their sale as investment-only products and to bring some parity with mutual funds, an investment product they are often pitted against. Now, maturity proceeds from high-value Ulips are taxed as capital gains under the current rules.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. When Sutirtha Chakraborty and Jayita Chatterjee moved to Norway in 2017, the decision wasn’t driven by money, it was driven by time. A senior doctor in India, Chakraborty was offered a role at a government hospital in Norway.