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on Tuesday to the Department of Consumer Affairs and some of the leading jewellery retailers, such as Tanishq, remained unanswered till press time.Tightening the framework will strengthen consumer trust, bring greater transparency and accountability in the hallmarking system, and ensure declared purity matches the product sold, said Ashim Sanyal, chief executive officer, Consumer Voice, a consumer rights’ advocacy organization.In October 2025, the Department of Consumer Affairs, through its quality standards arm BIS, launched a pilot project in 25 districts to digitally capture jewellery details. BIS recorded the photograph and weight of each hallmarked jewellery item on its portal using integrated cameras and weighing systems, reducing manual errors and improving transparency.“The pilot was a huge success, and based on its outcome, a stricter framework is now being planned for rollout across the country,” the second person said.Hallmarking was introduced in 2000 and made mandatory in phases from 2021, now covering about 400 districts.

Mint explains what changes.The rules make it compulsory to segregate waste at source into four categories: wet, dry, sanitary, and special care waste. Wet waste—such as kitchen waste, vegetable and fruit peels, meat, and flowers—is to be composted or processed through bio-methanation at nearby facilities.

A simpler income tax law will come into force from 1 April, along with other changes announced in this year’s Budget including higher benefit of deductions for salaried tax payers and a new buyback taxation scheme.The new tax regime modifies the return filing timeline in certain cases and rationalises penalties while looking to reduce complexity and encourage voluntary compliance.Mint takes a closer look at the changes that will kick in on Wednesday.The changes proposed through Finance Act of 2026, signed off by President Droupadi Murmu on Monday, include the rationalisation of certain penalties, greater leeway to update tax returns and disclose previously unreported foreign assets and income below a limit, changes to the taxes deducted or collected at source (TDS and TCS) including on overseas tour packages and education, and a new tax regime for share buybacks. From 2026-27, businesses not subjected to a tax audit will be able to file their income tax returns up to the end of August.Starting in 2026-27, taxpayers can revise their returns even after the department initiates a tax case.

When taxpayers complain that the income tax department is adversarial, the issue is often framed as interpersonal and behavioural. Are officers too aggressive? Are notices too intrusive? Is the department predisposed to distrust the taxpayer? These questions matter, but they misstate the problem. The real difficulty is institutional.

₹10,000 crore in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues to the government by 31 March, according to two people familiar with the matter, even as the telecom operator presses for a recalculation of its liabilities on par with Vodafone Idea.This marks the first tranche of payments after a four-year moratorium ended in September 2025, with instalment schedule beginning March 2026.“The company will need to make this AGR dues payment, which includes licence fee and spectrum usage charges (SUC),” one of the people cited above said, seeking anonymity. “At ₹10,000 crore, this payment would be just one-fifth of the total AGR dues of the company,” the person said, adding that the company is taking up the re-calculation of the dues issue separately.Bharti Airtel’s deferred payment liability towards AGR was at ₹38,604 crore, according to its FY25 annual report.

The Wall Street Journal has reported. That would add to roughly 5,000 Marines and 2,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division already ordered to the region. The additional troops would likely include infantry, armored vehicles and logistics support.That’s far fewer than the 150,000 troops the U.S.

The US Department of Labor has proposed new rules with a near 11% increase in base wages for new H-1B visa applicants, a move that could raise costs for large information technology (IT) services firms which deploy significant visa-linked talent.As per a 26 March notification, the changes would lift pay benchmarks by at least $14,500 across entry-level and experienced hires, as Washington said it looks to curb “misuse” of the visa programme and bring foreign worker wages closer to parity with those of US employees. Going by this, an employee working on an H-1B visa in the US, who earned a base wage of $133,850 last fiscal year, would now earn about $148,439.The department has invited feedback on the new rules on or before 60 days of publishing of the draft.H-1B visas are non-immigrant visas that allow foreign nationals to temporarily work in the US in specialized occupations, including IT services-related work.The US department said the move aims to curb abuse of such visas "by reducing the incentive to displace American workers with low-wage foreign visa holders.”“This proposed rule will help ensure that employers pay foreign workers wages that reflect the real market value of their labor, in addition to protecting the wages and job opportunities of American workers," said Lori Chavez-DeRemer, US Secretary of Labour, as part of the Labour Department’s press release dated 26 March.

pays ₹60,000 rent every month for her apartment in Bengaluru. She keeps rent receipts, has a rent agreement, pays via bank transfer, and has shared his landlord’s PAN with her employer to claim HRA.

NEW DELHI: The Centre has called a high-level meeting of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Financial Services and public sector banks on Wednesday to devise ways to curb high-value bank frauds amid the growing use of mule accounts, according to two people aware of the issue.Officials at the meeting will also help devise strategies to fill critical gaps in investigation and enforcement and zero in on procedural bottlenecks, especially delays in securing prosecution sanction under the Prevention of Corruption Act, one person said on condition of anonymity. This issue has increasingly become a sticking point in fraud cases involving bank officials.“With probes often slowed by approval requirements and coordination challenges between lenders and investigators, the high-level meeting signals a push to streamline processes, tighten accountability and strengthen the system’s response to complex, network-driven financial frauds,” the second person said, asking not to be identified.According to Reserve Bank of India data, fraud cases in banks and financial institutions involving amounts of ₹1 lakh and above tripled to ₹34,771 crore in FY25 from ₹11,261 crore in FY24.

cheque bounce and NPA matters, is not just a legal problem but an economic bottleneck.“The approach is to move from a litigation-heavy enforcement model to a resolution driven framework. Reducing pendency in cheque bounce cases means unlocking stuck money, easing pressure on banks, and improving credit circulation, each of which has a direct bearing on economic growth,” Said Gauhar Mirza, partner at law firm Saraf and Partners.A similar meeting was last held on 5 February 2026, during which discussions centred on measures to settle one-third of the total pending accident claim cases in tribunals and high courts across India.Emails sent to the finance ministry, IBA, General Insurance Council, MCPC and NALSA remained unanswered till press time.Abhishek Singhvi, senior advocate at the Supreme Court, and Rajya Sabha member, said, “India, with the best and the brightest in its legal ecosystem, and despite avant garde doctrines like basic structure and PIL (public interest litigation), suffers the ignominy of humongous arrears and five crore plus case pendency.

department of telecommunications (DoT) to a parliamentary panel, come as both operators grapple with capital constraints and uneven network strength across regions, prompting a rethink on overlapping network infrastructure.“Discussions have started between the two of them. The Department will report progress regarding this by next year,” telecom secretary Amit Agrawal told the parliamentary committee as cited in its report dated 16 March available on the Lok Sabha website.The parliamentary committee on communications and information technology, chaired by member of parliament Nishikant Dubey, has asked DoT to facilitate a structured and time-bound decision on comprehensive infrastructure sharing between the two.“The committee are of the view that, where there is direct or indirect government participation in the utilization of towers, duplication of creation of infrastructure and unwanted capital expenditure can be avoided,” it said in the report tabled in Lok Sabha on 16 March.The panel added that in regions where one operator has a stronger presence than the other, collaborative use of towers, fibre, spectrum and other network assets could expand service reach, optimise resource use, reduce expenditure, increase connectivity and accelerate 5G rollout.It has also asked the telecom department to prepare and submit, within six months, a detailed analysis on the sharing of towers, fibre, spectrum, and other network infrastructure, outlining progress, modalities and estimated financial savings to ensure optimal use of public resources and efficient nationwide 5G deployment.Communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, however, told Mint that any such arrangement would be a commercial decision.

Mumbai: Dairy products like milk, khoya, cheese, and ghee have become the top targets of adulteration and counterfeiting in India’s FMCG sector. Counterfeiting reported a 2.5x jump to 187 reported incidents in 2025 from 2018, per the Aspa-Crisil State of Counterfeiting in India report.Most of these incidents in the FMCG sector focused on milk-based products, the report added.

New Delhi: India has issued a new quality control order (QCO) for aluminium and aluminium alloy products, mandating compliance of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms by domestic and overseas firms for a wide range of products used across engineering, packaging, construction and electrical applications. India has seen a sharp rise in imports of the metal and its products in the recent past.The order comes in the backdrop of withdrawal of over 50 quality control orders imposed on various intermediary products and the relaxation of compliance requirements for some others.The 13 March order issued by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) replaces the QCO of 2025.

offshore crypto holdings and transactions will increasingly become visible to tax authorities through automatic cross-border data sharing.The development comes against the backdrop of India’s crypto tax regime introduced in the Union budget 2022 that imposed a 30% tax on gains from virtual digital assets and a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) on transactions. The high tax and compliance burden is nudging many traders to shift activity offshore, making cross-border reporting frameworks increasingly important.Before these regulations, the reporting structure for crypto was fragmented and voluntary.

Late last month, the US Department of War labelled Anthropic, creator of the artificial intelligence (AI) system Claude, “a supply chain risk,” and began taking steps to remove it from all use in the department, including by contractors and subcontractors to its roughly $1 trillion annual spending. There are news reports that no company that does work with the Pentagon will be allowed to engage in “commercial activity” with Anthropic. President Donald Trump called Anthropic a “radical left, woke company” that he “fired… like dogs.” OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and leading system in the AI race, swooped in within a day.

India plans to validate its indigenous artificial intelligence (AI) weather forecasting model after the monsoon season to assess its accuracy and reliability.The evaluation will compare AI-based predictions with actual rainfall and climate data, India Meteorological Department (IMD) director general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra told Mint. If successful, the model could improve early warnings, disaster preparedness, and agricultural planning nationwide, he said, adding that AI systems would analyze large historical weather datasets and real-time observations to detect patterns.The initiative will complement India’s Bharat Forecasting System (BharatFS)—a high-resolution weather prediction system launched in May 2025, operating on a 6-km grid, designed to improve forecasts for monsoon, cyclones and extreme weather events.

Mint.Other action points listed in the minutes include: trimming state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL)'s workforce, securing national networks, a roadmap for component localisation, and resolving issues in the undersea cable industry. SIM cards should be issued only on the basis of Aadhaar cards after biometric verification, it noted.Most countries tax income of companies that have data at the core of their business or some try to reduce screen usage in other ways with restrictions on timings of gaming services or age of consumers."Any kind of taxes on data usage would be impossible to implement.

Mint explains.A report by US security research firm Soufan Center underlined that the US Department of War (formerly Department of Defense) used Anthropic’s Claude, embedded in Palantir’s battlefield intelligence suite Maven Smart System, to identify sharp targets during its strikes on Iran, called Operation Epic Fury. The uses also included simulating battlefield situations and strategies.

New Delhi: Facing supply disruption from West Asia, the Indian government has directed all state-run and private-sector refineries in the country to step up production of domestic cooking gas by diverting feedstock away from the manufacturing of non-essential products, including petrochemicals.Using its powers under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, the ministry has directed all refiners to supply LPG to the three state-owned refiners – Indian Oil Corp Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd – which will in turn supply it only to domestic consumers of cooking gas.The development is significant as India has only about 25 days of LPG stock. Annual demand stands at 33.15 million tonnes, with imports servicing about 75-80% of this.

western disturbances travel eastward with westerly winds. They make for the primary source of rainfall and snowfall in northwest and north India in winter months.Though the number of western disturbances in the last three months was the highest in the last five years, their intensity was lower resulting in the highest rain deficit in the months those years."A majority of the western disturbances that influenced India during the winter season, especially during December to February, were feeble, resulting in below-normal rainfall and limited snowfall activity across large parts of northwestern India," said Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).Northwest India recorded rainfall deficits of 86.8% in February and 12% in January.

Jammu and Kashmir, the strain on the region’s hydropower sector is growing, exposing the risks facing an energy economy built on snow-fed rivers.The scale of the disruption is already visible in weather data. According to the India Meteorological Department, the Union territory has recorded an overall rainfall and snowfall deficit of 39% during this winter season, with most districts witnessing significantly below-normal precipitation.