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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] the past decade, a silent crisis has been unfolding in India's middle class.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. PORT CHESTER, N.Y.—“Avatar: Fire and Ash," a visual spectacle and the third installment in this blockbuster franchise, is the sort of movie made for the big screen. Its holiday arrival was eagerly anticipated by cinema owners still working to lure people back after the pandemic.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s focus on defence has sharpened steadily over the past few years. Operation Sindoor in May brought renewed attention to the country’s defence capabilities and strengthened the outlook for domestic defence manufacturers.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Shareholders around the world have enjoyed another stellar year. Stockmarkets in America, Europe, India and Japan are set to finish 2025 at or near all-time highs, with some closing in on a third consecutive year of double-digit gains.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Thirty-five years ago, in a lecture at Stanford Law School, Warren Buffett made an observation that has only grown more relevant with time. "Activity is the mother's milk of Wall Street," he said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Chennai/Kochi: The divergence is stark. Both Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries were established the same year—1972.

Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Anupamaa have defined households and behaviour patterns in India,” Mani says, adding that while IPL is a big story to be talked about, the company’s bread and butter is general entertainment.Other than reality programming dominated by the likes of Bigg Boss and web originals such as Criminal Justice and Special Ops 2.0, he points to the firm’s large library of Hollywood content, including slates from Peacock and HBO.“Cricket has been a very important propeller to build big viewership, but we are a 400 million monthly active user platform clocking a billion hours of watch time. That doesn’t happen just because of cricket,” he insists. One of the things with the Indian audience, Mani points out, is that you cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. About six months after China first began restricting the export of specific rare earth magnets, rattling manufacturers around the world, India announced a ₹7,280-crore incentive package on 26 November to set up five plants to produce rare earth magnets in the country.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. THIS SPRING McKinsey made what seemed to be an extraordinarily bullish forecast of capital spending on the chips, data centres and energy to produce artificial intelligence (AI): $5.2trn worldwide in the next five years. Less than six months on, the consultancy is considering upping that estimate.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mention 2007 to a group of professional investors, and watch them bristle. The year was a bad one.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI: With the benchmark Nifty 50 trading just 2% below its 52-week high, India’s equity market appears buoyant. But beneath the surface, a very different story is playing out.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI: The Centre plans to scrap expiry-based licences for medical devices and introduce perpetual approvals alongside uniform lab testing rules, according to two officials and a draft notification reviewed by Mint.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India, the country with the most number of women in the world, is making a sure, even if slow, shift towards menstrual cups (m-cups), makers of such cups and a recent study has shown. Primarily driven by cost savings in hygiene and ease of use, the increasing adoption of m-cups has an unintended outcome: a small dent in the staggering quantum of waste that India generates every year.

There’s no such thing as a sure thing in financial markets, but some things come pretty close. One of them is the proposition that there will be more interest-rate cuts next year—and another is that these reductions will have little to no effect on long-term rates.First, the cuts. US Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell may have presided over his last announcement of a decrease, but odds are his successor will cut rates further next year.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India's largest software services company, has won a mega deal valued at more than $1 billion revenues over 10 years from Telefónica UK, the British arm of Spanish telecom giant Telefónica, ending a nearly two-year drought in bagging such large deals.Telefónica UK runs the O2 brand of mobile phone services in the UK.Mumbai-based TCS will offer application and infrastructure work as part of this contract, much of which is new work for the company, said two executives privy to the development requesting that they remain unidentified in this story. A formal announcement is expected in the coming weeks.This is the fourth $1-billion deal, all in the UK, under managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) K.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI : Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, India's Union minister for tourism and culture, on 15 December informed the Lok Sabha, through written replies, of the government's initiatives to promote homestays, especially in tribal areas. Mint explains what these policies are and why the government is keen on homestays.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. When the company that runs ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund lists on the stock market later this month, it will become the fourth financial services business from the ICICI Group to go public. In doing so, ICICI Group will break away from two of its peers, SBI Group and HDFC Group, each of which has three listed businesses.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Premiumisation — the strategy of driving growth by focusing on high-end products within an existing category — has gained momentum over the past few years across several consumer-facing sectors including automobiles, jewellery, and organised retail. At its core, this reflects a steady rise in per-capita income, which has increased discretionary spending.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mumbai: Foreign banks might have "lost the plot" about two decades ago to make it big in India, losing ground to local private banks, but HSBC India's chief executive, Hitendra Dave, now wants to use a recent approval to open new branches to regain some of that ground. In January, the bank got a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) go-ahead to open 20 branches across cities such as Lucknow, Amritsar, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, and Dehradun among others.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. This week Amazon pledged to pour billions into India, while fight disruptions at IndiGo led to regulatory interventions and a potential revenue hit. Meanwhile the US Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, the fall in prices of home-cooked vegetarian meals slowed down, and Delhi experienced slight relief from pollution.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Disgraced crypto tycoon Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to fraud in connection with the $40 billion crash of his TerraUSD and Luna coins in 2022. Kwon, who had asked for a sentence of five years, pleaded guilty to two criminal counts in August, including one count of wire fraud and one on conspiracy to commit wire, securities and commodities fraud.