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India’s quick commerce battle is set to turn even more intense in 2026 even as companies delivering groceries to electronics within minutes chase customer loyalty and improve unit economics.The ongoing year saw an explosion of the rapid delivery segment as companies expanded beyond metros to tier 2 and 3 cities, added more warehouses and went beyond everyday essentials, burning even more cash to win over customers.Backed by fresh funding, the three dominant players–Swiggy’s Instamart, Eternal’s Blinkit and Zepto–will look to create profitable models to solidify their market position in the coming year, according to industry executives.“Expect sharper credit terms with brands, stricter expiry control, and consolidated city hubs,” said Madhav Kasturia, founder and chief executive officer of hyperlocal delivery platform Zippee. “Capital sets the pace, but execution still decides who can convert density into contribution profit every single week.”Swiggy raised ₹10,000 crore in fresh capital via a qualified institutional placement (QIP) on 13 December, two months after Zepto raised $450 million at a valuation of $7 billion, led by US-based pension fund California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) in October.

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] rise of the micro-drama is the definitive trend for India’s streaming industry in 2025, as tight budgets and slowing subscription growth mean over-the-top (OTT) players remain selective about content and still rely on big-budget films.

passage of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act in July 2025, US lawmakers added to the sense that crypto is here to stay. But look beyond the hype and an uncomfortable issue remains unresolved: Are cryptocurrencies a genuine innovation capable of serving the common good, or a speculative threat to financial and social stability?Of course, not all cryptocurrencies are alike.

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’s requests for comment.The development comes weeks after InMobi raised $350 million in new financing from Varde Partners, Elham Credit Partners and SeaTown Holdings, according to a report by The Economic Times.The report said most of the proceeds would be used to fund a share buyback from existing investors, primarily SoftBank and other private equity shareholders.Following the transaction, SoftBank’s stake fell to about 5–7% from around 35%. The deal was finalised at a valuation of under $1 billion.Founded in 2007 by Naveen Tewari, InMobi offers mobile display advertising, app-install campaigns and other adtech solutions, increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to serve advertisers.The company works with marketers and publishers, helping them connect with target audiences using data-driven analytics and providing tools for monetization, consent management and user engagement.In 2019, InMobi diversified beyond adtech with the launch of Glance, a lock-screen content discovery platform preloaded on smartphones.

₹10 crore, compared with ₹1 crore earlier (excluding penalties of up to ₹5 lakh per day for delayed compliance).Delayed filings of claim details, including date of filing and reason for rejection, could lead to penalties as high as ₹1 lakh per day. It can even conduct search and seizures on insurers, brokers, banks, non-banking finance companies, distributors or third-party associates in case of tampering of proof or documents for fraud.The new bill also formally recognises repositories for e-policy servicing.These moves could collectively rebuild trust in insurance and enhance insurance adoption in India, which dropped to 3.7% in the last fiscal year from 4% in 2023-24, even as non-life insurers witnessed a rise in net incurred claims ratio to 82.88% in 2024-25.“India still has relatively low insurance penetration and uneven social security coverage.

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]: Even by outlier standards, Coforge Ltd has been on a tear in India's $283-billion information technology (IT) services industry.It grew the fastest sequentially among the top 10 peers in the industry in calendar 2025, which helped it jump two places to the No.

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

New Delhi: India's rollout of surrogate advertising guidelines is likely to be delayed further, as the government struggles to find clear legal authority under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, two people familiar with the matter said. This complicates efforts to rein in indirect promotion of alcohol and indirect promotion ofbrands while prolonging regulatory uncertainty for companies operating under existing advertising restrictions.There is little clarity yet on a timeline for the guidelines even after one-and-a-half years of a government panel first meeting to fix these gaps from which surrogate promotions scrape throughThe consumer law does not define surrogate advertising or treat indirect promotion of prohibited products such as alcohol and tobacco as a standalone offence, limiting the government's ability to issue binding rules.“The consumer affairs ministry is examining whether the guidelines can be rolled out through executive action, while the department of consumer affairs is of the view that the current law allows intervention only when an advertisement is misleading with respect to the product being promoted, limiting the scope for such guidelines,” said the first of the two people cited above.In most such cases, the advertised product, such as packaged water, soda, music CDs or merchandise, is legally sold and not misleading in isolation, even if it uses the same brand name, logo or colours as a prohibited product.

₹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.

₹200– ₹350 per month delivers over 100 channels across multiple languages, making it the most economical and reliable shared-screen option. OTT, by contrast, requires multiple paid subscriptions and dependable broadband connectivity, both of which increase household costs.This, he added, explains why OTT growth remains urban-skewed and individual-first, while television continues to be family-first.The living-room television continues to function as a cultural anchor for Indian households, agreed Anil Suryavamshi, vice-president – digital (south & west) at media agency Carat India.“OTT fulfils the need for personalised, mobile-first viewing, but communal content still lives on TV,” Suryavamshi said.

₹96,557 crore) in dividends and share buybacks and about $1.5 billion (around ₹14,000 crore) on acquisitions, Mint research showed. Earlier in FY22, the same companies spent about ₹27,000 crore on buyouts and gave ₹81,669 crore to shareholders.

Mint breaks down how digital nomad visas work and why countries are betting on remote workers.A digital nomad is a professional who works remotely while living and travelling across different cities or countries, relying on digital tools rather than a fixed office. Typically employed in fields such as technology, consulting, content creation or online services, digital nomads earn their income online and choose locations based on factors like cost of living, internet connectivity and lifestyle.In recent years, governments have begun to formally recognise this group through ‘digital nomad visas’, allowing remote workers to legally live in a country for extended periods without entering the local job market.

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] DELHI: India is pushing to upgrade its image from the 'pharmacy of the world' to a global life sciences hub, a goal that faces critical execution risks, especially concerning quality standards and policy follow-through.

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] global trading system is undergoing a profound transformation.

hard-to-obtain contracts for electrical power—all of which can be repurposed to train and power AI models.It’s not a seamless process. Miners often have to build new, specialized facilities, because running AI requires more-advanced cooling and network systems, as well as replacing bitcoin-mining computers with AI-focused graphics processing units.

For decades, India has relied on its household consumption expenditure as the primary measure of welfare, poverty and inequality. While it is still important, it could be supplemented with new approaches that capture certain aspects of a rapidly transforming economy driven by technology and services in which households may have increasingly diversified sources of income.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Payments banks are an odd hybrid—part bank, part wallet, part financial marketplace. They accept deposits like banks, but unlike full-service lenders, they are not allowed to lend.

To mark National Consumer Day on 24 December in honour of India’s Consumer Protection Act of 1986, the government has made “efficient and speedy disposal through digital justice” this year’s theme.It aims to highlight the consumer’s right to grievance redressal under that law’s 2020 update, which set up adjudicatory bodies at the district, state and national levels to look into disputes. Given the judiciary’s overload of cases, this expansion was welcome.This January saw the launch of e-Jagriti, a unified platform for online redressal that explains the 2025 theme’s digital aspect.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Some ideas look compelling on paper, but execution is a challenging task. A similar challenge is likely to surface in the Association of Mutual Funds in India’s (Amfi) plan to train one lakh postmen to sell mutual funds (MFs).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s advertising market has undergone a decisive shift over the past year, with digital platforms emerging as the dominant growth engine while television advertising is losing momentum. Latest data from TAM AdEx shows a 149% surge in digital ad impressions from January to September 2025 compared to the same period last year.