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New Delhi: India’s automakers could be heading toward another semiconductor supply squeeze—this time triggered by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. As chipmakers shift manufacturing capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI data centres, supplies of conventional memory chips used in vehicles are tightening, driving up prices and raising supply risks for the industry.This could mark the third major supply disruption for the auto industry in recent years, after the rare earth magnet crunch triggered by China’s restrictions last year, and the global semiconductor shortage during the covid pandemic years of 2020-22.At least two industry executives said that if supply pressures persist, automakers may start facing shortages by the end of the next financial year (FY27).“Internal estimates suggest that the supply crunch will get serious towards the last two quarters of the next financial year, which is why there is a rush to prepare now,” one of the executives mentioned above said on the condition of anonymity.The issue was earlier flagged to analysts by Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd (M&M), which makes electric cars, and e-two-wheeler manufacturer Ather Energy Ltd.“Memory chips are something that is a supply chain risk/price sensitive thing because shortage obviously is driving premiums in memory chips,” M&M executive director Rajesh Jejurikar told analysts and investors on an 11 February earnings call.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed India’s first court-approved “passive euthanasia”, permitting the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment for Harish Rana, a 32-year-old man who has remained in a permanent vegetative state for over a decade after a severe brain injury in 2013.The ruling is expected to have a far-reaching impact on Indian patients in prolonged vegetative states and their families, said legal and medical experts, encouraging more families to seek judicial approval for this.“Passive euthanasia” permits holding back life-saving treatment for individuals who are terminally ill or in a permanent vegetative state, allowing natural death. While passive euthanasia has been legal in India since 2018, the framework was streamlined in 2023 to ease the process.“This ruling could encourage more families of patients in prolonged vegetative states to approach courts for withdrawal of life support.

PTI last week, Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said that while the regulator has no concerns about the futures segment of the derivatives market, it remains watchful of speculative trading in short-dated options. Index options turnover has grown even as cash market activity has fallen despite the regulatory curbs.Combined average daily premium turnover (ADT) of index options such as Nifty and Sensex rose 5% even as combined cash market ADT dipped by almost 8% in the current fiscal through 9 March (FY26), from the same period a year ago.In absolute terms, index options' ADT rose to ₹67,143 crore from ₹63,828 crore in the period under review, while cash market ADT slipped to ₹1.12 trillion in the current fiscal (1 Apr 2025 -9 Mar 2026) from ₹1.22 trillion in FY25 (1 April 2024-7 Mar 2025).The rise in combined options turnover comes despite regulatory curbs such as limiting index options expiry to one per exchange from multiple earlier, and tripling contract sizes to ₹15-20 lakh from ₹5 -10 lakh, among other measures, since November 2024.The National Stock Exchange (NSE) offers weekly Nifty options every Tuesday while the BSE offers Sensex options every Thursday.Market analysts attributed the growth to volumes shifting from discontinued liquid weekly contracts on the NSE such as Bank Nifty, Midcap Nifty and Finnifty to Sensex options.Prior to November 2024, the NSE ran four liquid weeklies including Nifty while BSE's only liquid contract was the Sensex options contract.

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.

India's retail inflation under the new series is expected to rise to 3.1% in February from 2.8% in January, driven by increases in prices of some food items from a year ago, according to a Mint poll of 18 economists.India’s statistics ministry had released a ‘back series' for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) using the new base year of 2024. Economists in the poll expect the second print of the CPI under the new rebased series to land in the range of 2.8-3.4%.

New Delhi: The Centre has issued an order that updates norms for piston rings – a key component of internal combustion engines (ICE) – to help reduce carbon emissions, replacing standards that had been in place since 1977. The new standards came into effect on 10 February, said the order dated 12 February.Experts said the cost impact for most automakers was likely to be limited, as many already follow similar global specifications.

A regulatory overhaul of how commissions are paid will shake up the segment estimated to account for about half of India’s ₹81 trillion in mutual fund assets: small distributors. Industry experts say they will be forced to partner with larger peers to survive, driving consolidation.The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in December approved a revised framework for total expense ratio (TER) limits.

Mint. Price was not a factor but the presentation on the screen definitely was. Like a moth to a light, the bright yellow colour drew her in and she tapped on it.That instinctive and irrational add-to-cart moment is exactly what Swiggy is betting Noice can engineer on a large scale.When the company rolled out the food and beverage (F&B) brand in the middle of last year, it did not resemble a routine back-end grocery experiment.

OTT (over-the-top) content and other entertainment options for audience attention, promotional campaigns have become a central part of a film’s release strategy, often with actors contractually required to participate.A recent dispute in the Malayalam film industry has brought that shift into focus. The Kerala Film Producers’ Association (KFPA) has asked actor Biju Menon to pay a compensation of about ₹15 lakh to cover the alleged loss incurred by the producer of his movie Nadanna Sambhavam, after the actor allegedly failed to appear for promotions as required under his contract.Queries sent to the actor on Saturday requesting a comment remained unanswered.

New Delhi: Industry stakeholders and policy experts have reacted with scepticism over Karnataka’s proposal to ban social media use for youngsters under 16 years of age, questioning both the legality and the practicality of enforcing such a restriction in one state of India.Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah unveiled the proposal along with the state’s budget for FY27 on Friday, but did not share details.Lawyers and policymakers Mint spoke with said such a state-level demographic-specific ban could require intrusive age-verification systems and may be impractical, since many children access social media through adults’ devices and accounts.Further, such a ban may also clash with the Centre’s data-privacy framework, and go against the principles of minimal data sharing put forth in the Digital Personal Data Privacy (DPDP) Act that was notified last year.“Governments considering bans should be careful not to push teens toward less safe, unregulated sites, or logged-out experiences that bypass important protections—like the default safeguards we offer in Instagram’s ‘teen accounts’,” a spokesperson for Meta Platforms Inc said in response to Mint’s queries.“We’ll comply with social media bans where they are enforced, but with teens using nearly 40 apps every week, targeting a handful of companies won’t keep them safe.

Mint explores the best- and worst-case scenarios.On Monday the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s armed forces, announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed and attacked a few ships passing through it. The announcement quickly caused panic.

Domestic equities tumbled under relentless selling pressure on Monday as the US-Israel and Iran conflict stoked fears of elevated crude oil prices and clouded India Inc’s earnings outlook for the coming quarters.India’s benchmark Nifty 50 fell 1.2% to 24,865.7, tracking weakness across Asian markets, though it fared marginally better than most emerging peers. Thailand led the declines, plunging nearly 4%, followed by Indonesia and Hong Kong, where benchmark indices slipped 2-3%.

In a recent judgement in the Supertech case, the Supreme Court held that the focus of insolvency resolution in real estate cases should be on home completion rather than liquidation. We had argued for such an approach in our article in Mint on 7 October (shorturl.at/mTftF). This judgement should fundamentally alter the real estate insolvency process and bring relief to thousands of tormented homebuyers.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at [email protected], Lara Seligman at [email protected] and Robbie Gramer at [email protected] all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint.

consistent domestic fund flows has transformed into a structural shift in India’s capital markets. Institutional investors now hold the balance of power in IPO pricing: reshaping exit strategies, valuation expectations and the very criteria for going public.That growing clout is prompting companies and private equity backers to recalibrate listing plans— prioritizing visible profitability, stronger unit economics and capital efficiency ahead of market debut, said Prashant Singhal, partner and India Markets leader at EY.

playback singing remain skewed. Most singers are paid a one-time fee, while ownership and much of the long-term digital earnings stay with producers and music labels.Industry experts say the issue is particularly acute for newer names, even though the debate has been triggered by established voices.Depending on popularity and stature, established singers can earn upwards of ₹25 lakh per song.

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).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. U.S. importers on Tuesday will no longer have to pay most of the sweeping tariffs President Trump imposed last year.

New Delhi: How much chicory is in your coffee? If you’re not sure or don’t care, you will get to know starting in July, when the percentage of chicory will be displayed quite prominently on coffee powder packs.India’s apex food regulator wants to ensure that customers are aware of the volume of chicory in their preferred brew, according to two government officials and a document reviewed by Mint.In a major overhaul for beverage labelling, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has finalized a new mandate requiring ‘prominent declarations’ on the front of the pack so that blended coffee is not mistaken for 100% pure coffee. Also, the font sizes of these declarations must be proportionate to the logo dimensions, with a 1 July enforcement date.Chicory is a popular additive that provides a darker colour and an earthy taste to the beverage.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Dozens of armed government agents swarmed the offices of shrimp producer Grupo Lamar, a family owned business that had emerged as one of Venezuela’s largest exporters after the collapse of the oil industry. The owners are terrorists, agents told petrified workers.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A mock job advertisement that has done the rounds recently calls for a “killswitch engineer" for OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. The description requires the successful applicant to stand by servers all day and unplug them “if this thing turns on us".