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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A decade has passed since India began rebuilding inclusive and progressive infrastructure for women, with the gender budget hitting ₹5 trillion in 2026-27. This represents around 9% of the Centre’s total expenditure.While the push for women’s inclusion through higher expenditure is visible, and millions of women are part of several schemes encompassing self-help groups, small businesses, and employment, among others, several gaps remain that raise questions about whether these benefits are just on paper.Data shows that over 50 million women beneficiaries are under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), and over 100 million under self-help groups, but very few are registered businesses—the share of formally registered enterprises run by women was just 20.5% in 2023-24, marginally up from 17.5% in 2021-22.While the gender budget has grown in size, the internal architecture suggests a shifting focus towards livelihood rather than women-led industrialization.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Gender parity in India Inc.’s boardrooms remains distant, and the gap is widest among younger women entering the director pipeline, official data show.A Mint analysis of ministry of corporate affairs data up to January 2026 shows women accounted for 32.5% of more than a million director identification numbers (DINs) issued over the past two years. But in the 18-30 age group, their share dropped to 26%, or roughly one in four of the 339,000 DINs issued, compared with 73.92% for men.DIN—an eight-digit identifier required to serve on company boards—helps track an individual’s involvement across multiple companies, though it does not guarantee a board seat.Representation improved with age.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Private credit has had a good start. There is growing demand from corporate borrowers for faster credit decisions, customization of the loan structure and possible flexibility in repayment terms. Except a few exemplar banks, most still take 30-75 days for corporate loan underwriting, while they find it challenging to customize loans or offer flexible payments for regulatory reasons.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In the TCS New York City Marathon in November 2025, Vijayaraghavan Venugopal finished first among 332 Indians who participated in the run, a remarkable achievement for a 50-year-old. He was the only one among them to finish in under 3 hours, the timing of 2:47:57 being his best ever for the distance.At the Taj Santacruz in Mumbai a few months later when we meet, it’s not surprising that the athletic chief executive officer and co-founder of sports nutrition supplement brand Fast&Up looks much younger than his years.

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.Law firms are closely watching a potentially precedent-setting case before India’s bankruptcy courts that could have far-reaching implications for companies dealing with entities facing international sanctions.At the heart of the dispute lies a key question: can companies legitimately withhold payments to a sanctioned supplier, or can the supplier initiate insolvency proceedings over non-payment? Whichever way this question is ultimately settled is likely to reshape bankruptcy disputes in India.The issue has surfaced after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Ahmedabad, in a 26 March order, held that foreign sanctions cannot be used as a defence to avoid payment of dues to operational creditors such as suppliers and vendors.The case involves an insolvency plea by Mumbai-based petrochemical supplier CJ Shah & Co. against Flint Group India Pvt.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Artificial intelligence is advancing at startling speed. The latest models can now complete complex, time-eating tasks with little human supervision. This month one of OpenAI’s models helped derive a new result in theoretical physics.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The old pharma order anchored around cutting-edge advances in the West has quietly disappeared. What we have now is a bipolar industry centred on the US and China—with implications for patients and policymakers worldwide. China has closed the gap on the number of research studies being conducted and in certain cases even moved ahead of the West on developing new treatments.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently updated its economic data for member countries, as part of the health check it conducts on the global economy twice every year. One number buried in the latest World Economic Outlook database is worth pulling out: India’s current account deficit.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Vice President JD Vance is expected to lead a new round of peace talks with Iran in Pakistan this week in a fresh effort to end the war with Tehran, but there still appear to be significant gaps between both sides as the U.S. pushes Iran to lock up its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.Vance is expected to arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for talks with Iran on Tuesday—although Iran was still threatening on Sunday that it wouldn’t attend talks, saying Washington’s demands remain excessive. Pakistan helped broker a two-week cease-fire between the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.China is making strides in open-source artificial intelligence. Eighty percent of developers worldwide who use open-source AI tools are building with Chinese models, according to an estimate by our colleague Martin Casado, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Research from our firm and OpenRouter shows a significant increase in the use of Chinese open models last year, reaching in some weeks a high of 30% of all AI usage.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.HYDERABAD: Two weeks after announcing its foundational artificial intelligence models for transcriptions, voice and images, Big Tech firm Microsoft wants to use its Azure cloud business strategy to sign long-term AI contracts with clients.Microsoft’s business model for Azure has found success in the past 12 years of chief executive officer Satya Nadella’s tenure. The company, which follows a July-June financial cycle, reported $281.7 billion in revenue in FY25, out of which its cloud revenue hit $106.2 billion.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Weekly expiry hesitation has been laid to rest and a strong closing gives confidence that the recent highs would be surpassed. As the possibility of a new high emerges, the resistance at 24,300 is gradually weakening, making today a crucial session.BEML (Current price ₹1,711.60)Buy above ₹1715, stop ₹1640, target ₹1915 (multiday)⦁ Why it’s recommended: BEML Limited (formerly Bharat Earth Movers Limited), established in 1964, is a premier Indian PSU manufacturing heavy equipment for defence, mining, construction, and rail/metro sectors.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Amid diesel supply constraints triggered by the ongoing West Asia war, the government’s review of telecom operators and tower firms’ complaints has laid bare a crucial gap: the sector’s “critical infrastructure” tag is not ensuring priority fuel access on the ground. This threatens network continuity, especially in areas reliant on diesel-fuelled power backups, putting essential services—from hospitals to law enforcement—at risk of disruption.Despite its formal classification under national critical frameworks, telecom infrastructure continues to face uneven state-level curbs on diesel sales and movement.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Earning ₹12 lakh and paying zero tax is no longer the ceiling under the new regime. With the right salary structure and employer-backed benefits, even professionals earning ₹15 lakh, or more, can reduce their taxable income to zero.That shift marks a break from the old regime, where tax planning revolved around deductions such as house rent allowance (HRA), leave travel allowance (LTA), home loan interest and Section 80C investments.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.If you thought the old vs new tax regime debate was settled, think again.Just when the government seemed determined to push taxpayers toward the new regime, the newly notified Income Tax Rules, 2026 have quietly reopened the contest. By increasing limits for several exemptions, the old regime has regained relevance.And now, as a salaried individual, you are back to doing what you hoped was over: choosing.Every April, employers ask for investment declarations.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The bulls are active and capitalising on every dip to trigger a recovery. However, the market continues to be dragged down by an inability to sustain gains at higher levels.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The government is moving to close loopholes in its gold hallmarking system, introducing mandatory item-level tracking to end the fraudulent practice of reusing unique identification codes across multiple pieces of jewellery. By digitizing every ornament's physical profile, including photographs and weight, the government aims to formalize a massive, trust-based retail market where light enforcement has often left consumers holding less than they paid for.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Recent proposals by the Reserve Bank of India to curb digital fraud could disrupt payments and hurt small merchants’ cash flows while proving insufficient to combat the growing problem, several industry experts told Mint.In a discussion paper floated on 9 April, the RBI proposed introducing a one-hour lag at the payer’s end for transactions above ₹10,000. Other suggestions included:Industry leaders said the RBI's current ‘safety net’ approach addresses the symptoms rather than the cause.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Wall Street traders have become preoccupied by one particular market indicator.Some refer to it as the Treasury breakeven inflation curve and, while that’s a bit of a mouthful, it’s simply the market’s expectation of average inflation over two periods.The breakeven inflation rate for the 2-year and 10-year reveal how the market thinks prices would behave in the near- and long-term. Plotting the difference between these two expected inflation rates delivers this so-called curve, which has been under intense scrutiny.The breakeven curve “highlights the markets moving on from the [Iran] conflict,” wrote Barry Knapp, managing partner of Ironsides Macroeconomics, underneath a video posted Monday.How? Consider what happened after Russia invaded Ukraine and after President Donald Trump unveiled punitive tariffs.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Technological revolutions have a familiar rhythm. First comes excitement, then investment, and then an awkward phase of reality refusing to cooperate with the narrative. Artificial intelligence (AI) has now entered that third phase.Over the past year, large technology firms have cut thousands of jobs while increasing investment in AI.