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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President Trump has complained to aides repeatedly in recent weeks about Attorney General Pam Bondi, describing her as weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda, administration officials and other people familiar with his complaints said. The criticisms appear to be part of an intense campaign by Trump to pressure the Justice Department to more aggressively pursue his priorities, some of the officials said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For years, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has responded to President Trump’s broadsides in ways that generally avoided escalation. That changed on Sunday night.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The dollar fell the most in three weeks in overnight trading, while Treasury bond yields retreated and gold soared to a fresh record high as global markets reacted to a U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Federal Reserve received grand jury subpoenas from the Justice Department on Friday that threaten a criminal indictment relating to Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony last summer about the central bank’s building renovation project, the Fed chair said in a video statement on Sunday night.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: When presenting the Union budget last February, the government projected a 13% growth in direct tax collections for the current financial year, banking on the strong tax buoyancy seen in preceding years. However, between April and mid-December of this year, collections have grown approximately 8%.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI : Signalling a recalibration of India’s quality control regime, the Centre has withdrawn a total of 49 quality control orders (QCOs), according to an 8 January communication to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Oil isn’t the only commodity to drive President Donald Trump’s decision to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The nation’s critical minerals shouldn’t be overlooked as a potential motive for regime change.

There’s more to dense fog conditions than pollution and flight cancellations. There’s also the risk of power outages.In fact, a perfect storm may be brewing across several parts of north and central India, where a rain-deficient winter, dense fog conditions and atmospheric pollution have raised concerns over the tripping of power transmission lines, said three people aware of the outage concerns in India’s power system.Fog increases moisture on power transmission lines, allowing pollutants in the air to settle on their surface.

In December 2025, several salaried taxpayers received emails and SMS alerts from the income tax department flagging discrepancies in deductions and exemptions claimed in their income tax returns (ITR).The alerts said certain claims did not match employer-reported salary data or other system records and needed revision.Most of the flagged cases involved returns where exemptions or deductions were claimed in the ITR but did not reflect in Form 16, said Nemin Shah, director at EQX Business Consultancy.If an employer deducted tax assuming fewer deductions, but the employee later claimed a larger set of exemptions directly in the return, it resulted in a refund of excess TDS. “Seeking a big refund results in the system likely taking notice and flagging it,” said Shah.This is where the annual investment declaration and proof-submission window with employers becomes critical.Every year, in January or February, employers ask employees to submit proof of investments and expenses declared at the start of the financial year.

Generative AI is trained on vast amounts of information to “understand” and generate human-like language. In simple terms, it functions like a super-intelligent research assistant for tax departments.One of its most immediate applications is document summarization.

₹37 trillion. Also, only 66 of the 291 operational central PSUs were listed on India's stock exchanges.The listed companies had a market capitalization of ₹38.57 trillion as of 31 March 2025, according to the department of public sector enterprises.Panda said that the 22-member parliamentary panel plans to review close to two dozen public sector enterprises by the end of its current term, compared to four in the last year of the previous Lok Sabha. COPU, comprising 15 Lok Sabha members and seven Rajya Sabha members, is reconstituted every year.The current 18th Lok Sabha has a five-year tenure that began in June 2024.Panda said that the committee, in its first year—August 2024 to April 2025—under his chairmanship in the current Lok Sabha delivered 12 reports, a three-fold increase from the reports presented in the panel's last year in the previous Lok Sabha.

₹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.

Even as Vodafone Idea has received a breather on most of its adjusted gross revenue dues, a near-term obligation remains. The telecom operator will need to pay ₹700–800 crore in AGR dues related to FY18 and FY19 over six years, including the current financial year, according to two officials familiar with the matter.This amount is outside the ₹87,695 crore in AGR dues as of 31 December 2025, which the government has frozen, and Vodafone Idea will pay it between FY32 and FY41.The reassessment process to arrive at Vodafone Idea’s final AGR liability is expected to take four to five months, one of the officials said.“In the Supreme Court’s 1 September 2020 order, the table of AGR calculations also included figures for FY18 and FY19.

Justice Department has stated explicitly that it is no longer in the business of routinely complying with orders from federal district courts or courts of appeal, and the administration has treated laws mandating spending (and more) as optional.The rhetorical foundation for these moves is Trump’s claim to have a “mandate” in the form of his (slender) election victory in November 2024. Never mind that, under the US constitutional system, presidents exercise authority within the terms set by the country’s laws.

Fed independence by finding a way to distinguish it from other agencies over which the president has asserted a right to remove “principal” officers at will. Regardless of the outcome of litigation over the attempt to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook, though, the central bank’s independence already has been significantly impaired.For example, Trump has asserted that all interpretations of law and review of agency expenditures, including by the Fed, fall within the purview of the White House and Justice Department.

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.

Mint, more than half of SMEs lack access to affordable finance, real-time climate information and insurance products, forcing many to treat resilience spending as discretionary.The findings come as businesses worldwide face rising risks from natural disasters, with climate change intensifying extreme weather and geological events. There are an estimated 358 million SMEs globally.SMEs are often the worst-affected by climate disasters and the least equipped to recover.

With the Union budget of fiscal year 2027 (FY27)—finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s ninth—set to be announced soon, India’s governance engine is revving up to add more muscle to the slew of reforms initiated in FY26.The two keywords for the coming budget—de-regulation and de-criminalisation—are being impressed upon all who matter within the government in an effort to make the budget a blueprint for faster economic growth over the medium term, according to two persons informed about developments within the government.The first person cited above said that every ministry and department has been instructed to give proposals for deregulation and decriminalization of laws, rules and procedures. “These are being reviewed and refined at high levels in the government every 10 days,” this person said, requesting anonymity.The second person said that the government will also move to amend two laws in the budget session of Parliament.

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] India’s telecom sector moves into 2026, the stage is set for major, high-stakes developments.

Mint examines what relief the government is considering for Vodafone Idea, why AGR recalculation alone may not be enough, how high tariffs would need to rise for the company to remain viable, and whether India’s telecom market can sustain repeated price hikes without losing subscribers or competition.In October, the Supreme Court allowed the government to reassess Vodafone Idea’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, which stood at ₹83,400 crore as of end of March 2025. The ruling came as a breather for the company, which has flagged concerns about its ability to survive beyond the current financial year without government support.AGR is the revenue base used to calculate licence fees and spectrum usage charges payable to the government.

New Delhi: To reduce India’s high burn-related mortality rates and standardise care across hospitals, the Centre has issued comprehensive treatment guidelines that formalise first-aid practices and discourage the use of common household remedies, according to two officials and a document seen by Mint.The development assumes significance given the rising burn injuries—an estimated 6-7 million injuries annually and around 150,000 deaths each year—with women and children disproportionately affected due to cooking fires and flammable liquids.The new framework, to be adopted by health centres with immediate effect, seeks to replace India’s fragmented, hospital-specific burn care protocols with a uniform, evidence-based system ranging from first responders, primary health centres (PHCs) and tertiary hospitals.The guidelines organise burn care into four levels—pre-hospital, primary, secondary and tertiary—clearly outlining responsibilities at each stage to reduce delays, inappropriate treatment and avoidable complications.They address a critical gap where healthcare professionals often relied on a mix of personal expertise and conflicting protocols due to resource constraints.The effectiveness of burn care in India has been constrained by chronic shortages of trained personnel, essential supplies and specialised equipment, gaps that are most acute in resource-limited settings, impacting patient recovery and complication rates."Standard treatment guidelines are vital because medical science is evidence-based, yet currently, individual hospitals often follow disparate protocols. It is crucial to collate best practices to ensure uniformity," said Dr.