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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In the cool green depths of Uttarakhand, a young audio engineer chose an unusual career path. Rohit had grown up amid the impact of human-animal conflicts, and each incident he encountered shocked him to the core. He decided he wanted to tell the world the real stories behind the hundreds of tiger attacks that occur in India, and, in doing so, combine his audio expertise with his experiences with wildlife.Setting up a YouTube channel, Wilderness, the young man dove head-first into the no-compromises setup he felt the stories deserved.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Benne dosa for ₹99”, reads a board outside Maa Annapurna, a small eatery tucked between coffee shops and snack joints in a residential neighbourhood in Mumbai’s western suburb of Andheri. The menu has the usual idli-vada, chaat and pav bhaji. But the real draw is the benne dosa. With the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan campus a few blocks away, it has, in just a couple of weeks, become a favourite among students and those in nearby PG accommodations.Even as his small eatery clocks over 100 benne dosas daily, owner Animesh Shah says he is perplexed by the long queues at a popular dosa spot in the city.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) ended FY26 on a good note, clocking an underlying volume growth of 6% for the three months through March (Q4FY26), a multi-quarter high, supported by steady demand across both rural and urban markets. The improvement is notable, with volume growth rising from 4% in Q3 after a muted Q2, when volumes were broadly flat. The company expects FY27 to be stronger than FY26, driven by portfolio shifts and channel transformation.The durability of this recovery, however, will be tested in the coming quarters.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Global payments network Visa is stepping up its push for merchant acceptance in India as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) cements its lead in everyday digital payments, a top Visa India executive told Mint. The company is betting that cheaper acceptance tools, card-based subscriptions, and a broader set of payment choices can help it win share among both small and large merchants.Ramakrishnan Gopalan, chief product officer, India and South Asia at Visa, said the company’s first pitch to merchants is built around consumer choice.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.State-owned Uco Bank expects its micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) portfolio to remain stable despite global headwinds, managing director and chief executive officer Ashwani Kumar told Mint in an interview on Thursday. The bank is eyeing a retail lending boost and is stepping up investments in technology to drive growth, he said.While geopolitical tensions and supply-chain disruptions could have some impact, Kumar expressed confidence that policy support would help cushion the sector.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The stock of HFCL has been attracting strong investor interest over the last month.This top optical fibre cable supplier’s shares have surged from ₹70.77 to ₹106, rallying almost 50% in a month. The question now is, will the rally sustain?Let's examine the factors that will determine the stock's direction.HFCL designs, integrates, and delivers end-to-end digital network solutions that enable high-speed, secure voice and data transmission for telcos, defence, and railways.It offers advanced optical fibre solutions, open-source wireless access solutions, multiband 5G radios, and state-of-the-art system integration services.HFCL designs and delivers customised products/solutions for defence services, institutions, and the projects of national security significance.Robust execution of telecom/fibre/defence orders: HFCL gets orders frequently, but investors reward companies that convert orders into revenues on time. Fast project execution, few delays, and smooth delivery build confidence and revenue visibility.Recently, the company’s subsidiary received an order of ₹1,367 crore for optic fibre cables.Margin and profit growth: It isn’t just about revenue increase.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Cognizant Technology plans to cut about 4,000 jobs, or roughly 1% of its workforce, two people with knowledge of the matter said, even as slowing demand and a push toward automation weigh on growth and prompted the company to lower its full-year outlook.The company on Wednesday announced Project Leap, a transformation programme involving increased investments in AI, integrated digital offerings, and workforce upskilling. Cognizant expects the programme to cost $230-320 million, including $200-270 million of employee severance and other personnel-related costs, but generate savings of as much as $300 million this year.While Cognizant did not put a number to the employees affected by the restructuring, the management said in a post-earnings analyst call that more than 20,000 freshers would join this year, suggesting reductions in mid-level roles.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Anthropic’s Mythos, a frontier artificial intelligence (AI) model, can outperform humans in detecting vulnerabilities across systems, including banks, telcos and utilities. While it can detect flaws faster and better than humans, global agencies warn it could be used as a potential cyberweapon too. Mint decodes.Claude Mythos or Mythos is US-based Anthropic's advanced AI model designed to handle complex cybersecurity tasks such as identifying bugs, analyzing systems and even generating exploits.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Nearly 70% of Indians lack meaningful health insurance. Our penetration rate— just 0.35% of GDP—is lower than that of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The conventional explanation is that Indians either do not understand insurance or cannot afford it.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In most modern homes, we only think about electricity or wi-fi when they stop working. They are essential, life-altering utilities that function quietly in the background, demanding zero cognitive effort. They enable productivity, comfort and continuity without needing constant intervention.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.One MobiKwik Systems Ltd expects to see margins improve after the Reserve Bank of India approved its application for a non-banking financial company (NBFC) licence, the company’s top executive told Mint.This marks a key regulatory milestone for the listed fintech as it looks to deepen its lending business. The licence will sit under wholly owned subsidiary MobiKwik Financial Services Pvt Ltd.“We have got this NBFC license to make our business more efficient and improve on margins,” said Bipin Preet Singh, chief executive officer of MobiKwik.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The creator economy is earning a rising share of consumers’ attention, but its growth is making the terrain more complicated both for brands and for creators seeking sponsors.While some major marketers say they’re moving spending from television and digital advertising to social-media creators, the money is lagging behind both consumer trends and the population boom among creators themselves. That’s spreading budgets thin, discouraging potentially more effective long-term partnerships and leaving many out in the cold, creators say.“Every creator wants to work with the brands,” said Sam Beres, who goes by Sambucha to his millions of followers on YouTube and TikTok.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.For years, the global AI race focused on frontier models, faster chips and massive capital. The US still leads this phase, with its hyperscalers ready to roll out massive expansions of data centre capacity as soon as labour, chip and power availability catch up. China, however, is shifting its strategy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Kenneth Andrade, chief investment officer (CIO) of Old Bridge Mutual Fund and founder director of Old Bridge Capital Management, who views investing as a journey where one pays ‘tuition fees’ through market cycles, believes that opportunities never really dry up.“There’s always a stock or sector to be found,” he said.He notes opportunities have become easier to spot recently, though that wasn’t the case in 2024 and early 2025. With valuations now normalised, he expects more modest returns, likely in the low teens over a longer cycle.“I think most of the worst is already priced in. If a shock occurs, the opportunity will be much larger.”He said this is a phase where it makes sense to put about 50% of capital to work upfront and stagger the rest over the year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.As 5G monetization remains sluggish, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd will plan a wider rollout of 5G premium services through network slicing based on demand from users, their willingness to pay, and the much-awaited regulatory clarity.While the telecom operator noted that its network is technically ready to support direct-to-consumer premium 5G services for specialized use cases like gaming and for enterprise offerings, it clarified that it is currently not looking to introduce network slicing for everyday mobility voice or data services."The 5G premium services with our SA (standalone architecture) stack that we are able to offer, some of this is being done on a trial basis. We need to ensure that we are fully regulatory compliant, but these products are ready for the market,” said Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy at Reliance Jio, during the March-quarter earnings call on Friday.On offering differentiated 5G for everyday voice or data services, Thakur said the company’s network supports the same, "but whether consumers need something like that, whether the consumers pay a premium for that, and whether that would be regulatory compliant.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s presidency of Brics arrives at a consequential moment for the global order. Traditional multilateral institutions are struggling to respond to geopolitical conflict, economic fragmentation and technological disruption.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.One day in March 2026, a senior software developer, Kovanikov, found himself thoroughly offended. He had just received a cold outreach email from the CEO of AI startup, Composio, inviting him to call in. The email was obviously written by an AI assistant, Jarvis.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Telecom operators Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd are evaluating the risks posed by Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, an AI model that identifies cybersecurity vulnerabilities in operating systems.“We are talking to suppliers (to understand the vulnerabilities) because we don't do this, the software is owned by them,” Randeep Sekhon, chief technology officer (CTO) at Bharti Airtel, told reporters on the sidelines of an industry event by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Friday.Sekhon’s comments assume significance as Anthropic has said its latest model, Claude Mythos—currently available to a limited set of companies—can identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities in their digital infrastructure.This has raised concerns that, if accessed or misused by malicious actors, it could increase the risk of cyberattacks across critical infrastructure sectors such as telecom and banking.Sekhon, however, emphasized that it was too early to comment on the actual impact on telecom operators.“These are not systemic risks putting networks in danger. They are typically smaller software bugs that earlier may not have been discovered through routine checks,” Sekhon said, adding that telcos are users of technology and not builders of technology.On Thursday, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired a high-level meeting with banks and key stakeholders to assess risks from emerging threats linked to the AI model.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Over the past decade, India’s digital economy has increasingly relied on open-source software to power its core digital infrastructure and governance systems. From banking to government platforms, the code behind payments and public services is shared, modular and visible.While this approach delivers scale, lower costs and reduced vendor lock-in, new AI systems developed by Anthropic, OpenAI and others are exposing its soft underbelly. Old unpatched gaps are showing up in widely used open-source software.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When mutual funds start accumulating a stock, especially in the small-cap space, it's not by accident.Fund managers spend weeks, sometimes months, doing the kind of due diligence most retail investors simply don't have the time or resources for.So when fresh shareholding data shows a fund quietly building a position in a small-cap name, it's worth paying attention.Here we look at four such small-cap companies.These stocks are filtered using Equitymaster’s stock screener: Smallcap Stocks Recently Bought by Mutual Funds in India.In the most recent March 2026 quarter, mutual funds increased their stake by 7.5%, taking the overall shareholding to 17.24%.This buying comes on top of three consecutive quarters of buying, where mutual funds had increased their holding from 8.44%.Aavas Financiers operates in the affordable financing segment. It offers housing loans and MSME loans backed by property and loans against property (LAP) to segments in the middle and lower income salaried and self-employed borrowers in India's rural and semi-urban regions.Unlike its peers, Aavas uses an in-house sourcing model (98.9% direct) rather than relying on agents.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Belgium’s Ageas Insurance is prepared to invest additional capital in India to break into the country’s top 10 life insurers in the next three to four years, provided returns on equity remain favourable.“If the growth is there and the return on equity is good, we will be there with the capital,” Ageas Insurance’s global CEO Hans De Cuyper, who is in India, told Mint. “On the life (insurance) side, we have expressed the intention to become top 10.