Diversity Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Forensic audits have gained significance in today’s world of business as they serve as a useful tool for commercial lenders to investigate fraud by borrowers and/or identify other deep-seated financial irregularities. Forensic auditors are also employed by resolution professionals to report on preferential, undervalued, fraudulent and extortionate (‘PUFE’) transactions for adjudication under India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). While there is no single universal definition, several globally recognized organizations have provided widely accepted definitions (and norms) of forensic auditing.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Is Keynesian advice relevant to India’s economy? Austerity, Keynes warned, could worsen an economic slump. If we all cut back on spending, output would reduce.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s securities enforcement framework has long faced a contradiction. Parliament has progressively introduced minimum penalties to strengthen deterrence. At the same time, it has retained broad adjudicatory discretion through mitigating factors.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Looking at her bold, singular designs, it is hard to believe that jewellery designer Bhavya Ramesh never formally studied the craft. The engineering graduate, who describes herself as “completely self-taught”, started her eponymous label in 2018 with a small investment from her father, and one clear goal: “I wanted people to look at my work and say, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’ That’s still my only aim,” she tells Lounge over a video call from Mumbai.A D2C brand that began online, the label has, in recent years, made a confident leap into offline retail, with two stores in Mumbai and a newly launched outpost in Khan Market, Delhi. While the move signals the brand’s growth, Ramesh says the real push came from customers.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.China’s economy got off to a solid start in 2026, with its GDP growing 5% in the first quarter, according to official data released on Thursday. This exceeded the expectations of economists and struck the top-end of the 4.5-5% growth aim set by Beijing for the full year. Driving the expansion were China’s robust exports for the quarter, although its March shipments faced severe headwinds.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Facing a gas supply squeeze amid the West Asia war, India is considering a steep increase in blending compressed biogas (CBG) into city gas networks—potentially up to 20%—in a phased manner to reduce import dependence and cushion supplies, said two people aware of the discussions.The blending mandate for city gas distribution (CGD) entities was 1% as of fiscal year 2026 (FY26), to be gradually increased to 3%, 4% and 5% in FY27, FY28 and FY29, respectively. The government is now considering enhancing this to well beyond 5% and with a much more stringent timeline.This underscores a policy shift towards scaling domestic CBG output, as India prioritizes essential gas use and looks to ease pressure on liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.Natural gas is processed to produce piped natural gas (PNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) as fuels for cooking and mobility, respectively.Government is pushing for a higher adoption of piped or city gas by domestic as well as industrial users due to the acute shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), the more commonly used cooking fuel.The government's focus on compressed biogas is gaining momentum amid the energy supply crunch due to the West Asia war, with India depending on the region for 40% of its natural gas imports.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Centre is building a digital system to track the sale of its urea, in an effort to curb diversion and hoarding of its most-utilized fertilizer at a time of broken supply chains and concerns of food security.The new system, spearheaded by the Department of Fertilizers, will require Aadhaar-based biometric authentication through a mobile app currently under development, two people familiar with the plan said. At a later stage, the system will also integrate farmers' land records, crop details, and fertilizer requirements based on landholding.

The scarcity of LPG cylinders has hit India’s engineering, management and medical colleges hard. Institutes are adopting diverse workarounds to manage the crisis— shifting to online classes, using diesel burners, switching to induction cooktops, or simply letting students order their meals via food delivery platforms.The crisis is due to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which nearly 90% of India's LPG imports pass. The country sources about 60% of its cooking gas from overseas.

tax efficiency. Instead, we began with questions about their marriage.

Indian trade negotiators and diplomats soliciting foreign investment never miss an opportunity to showcase the country’s swelling middle and its robust legal system as the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy. Data emerging from recent research, however, shows both these bragging points to be over-wrought and unsaleable today.The size of India’s vaunted middle-class is projected to go from 500 million individuals currently to over 700 million in 4-5 years.

On 9 March the union government issued an order under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 that discouraged companies which receive pooled gas supplies from legally challenging its decision to divert natural gas to priority sectors.The move comes amid concerns over possible supply disruptions caused by the ongoing West Asia conflict, which has affected liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.Mint explains what the order says, the legal basis for it, and whether courts can still entertain challenges from affected companies.The ministry of petroleum and natural gas issued the natural gas (supply regulation) order, 2026 to deal with potential LNG shortages. The order introduced a four-tier priority framework for allocating natural gas.

Companies Act requires every listed company to appoint independent directors constituting at least one-third of its board. The report shows that the highest number of independent directors on a single board in the last four years (FY22-FY25) was eight in FY22, a level seen in three listed companies. The number is down to five, seen in a single company.Gender diversity on boards also remained skewed.

In November 2023, a few governments and technologists gathered at Bletchley Park to discuss artificial intelligence (AI), seeking to come to terms with the technology they were developing. The mood was sombre and fear was the dominant register.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mass-market television shows that cater to families and universal audiences are topping OTT viewership charts, proving that streaming has now entered what experts refer to as a period of ‘massification’ with the medium no longer restricted to urban, upmarket audiences. According to media consulting firm Ormax, the list of top 10 most-watched OTT properties in India for the week ended 8 February included titles originally made for TV such as Naagin season seven on JioHotstar (4.5 million views), Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah on YouTube and SonyLIV (3.8 million views) and Pati Brahmachari on the YouTube channel of Dangal TV (3.1 million views).

How well we manage depends on what we know. While artificial intelligence (AI) can’t claim omniscience, it could improve governance. Outcomes of the AI Impact Summit include the New Delhi Frontier AI Commitments, under which AI majors have volunteered to serve two public causes.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Genre diversity turned out to be a key feature of the top 10 Hindi language films of 2025 and experts and theatre owners acknowledge that hit movies are no longer driven entirely by action or VFX spectacles, as was the case soon after the pandemic. As many as 15 original Hindi films grossed more than ₹100 crore each last year compared with six in 2024.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi is positioning for an oil windfall from Venezuela, as the South American nation prepares to re-route hundreds of thousands of crude oil barrels currently shipped to China. As American sanctions on Venezuela end, Caracas may dispatch to India and the US 400,000 barrels per day that it now sends to Beijing, three people aware of the matter said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. From India and the US finalizing the much-awaited trade deal, to low budgetary allocation for the Prime Minister’s Internship scheme in the Budget, richer states seeing an uptick in their share in the Centre’s divisible revenue, and startup leaderships lacking gender diversity—here’s this week’s news in numbers.Trade deal Following months of tariff disputes and prolonged negotiations that tested the India–US relations, a long-awaited free trade agreement was announced on Monday.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI: The Centre plans to tighten the regulatory framework governing the transport of ammonium nitrate by extending legal responsibility from only consignors to also consignees, depending on who provides the transport vehicle.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A key subtext of Budget 2026 is the evolving fiscal compact between the Centre and the states—an arrangement recalibrated every five years by the Finance Commission. FY27 marks the first year of the five-year award period of the 16th Finance Commission (FC), which, like its predecessors, had to reconcile competing demands from a diverse set of stakeholders.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President Trump said he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, the latest escalation in his administration’s fight with the institution over alleged antisemitism. Trump posted on social media after the New York Times reported that his administration had dropped its demand for a $200 million payment to the government to settle the dispute.