Information Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A savings bank account is the default parking spot for emergency funds. It is liquid, familiar and easy to access.But large idle balances kept “for safety” often earn just 2–4% interest — not enough to beat inflation.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing finance, but its most important impact may not be on stock exchanges or global asset managers. It may be on the bank account of a 25-year-old Indian professional.The next big disruption in wealth creation is personal, not institutional. It is about how young earners budget, save, invest and avoid mistakes.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Indian ethnic and fusion wear brand Libas is looking to become a broader lifestyle house, adding new categories and labels as it works towards a public listing by FY28."We want to be a lifestyle house of brands over the next five to ten years…So you will see some categories like handbags or maybe accessories, even home furnishing that we might explore over the next two years,” said Sidhant Keshwani, founder and CEO, without specifying the segments where the company wants to grow.The expansion plan comes as Libas scales both distribution and revenue ahead of its initial public offering (IPO) ambition. The company is targeting ₹1,000 crore in revenue by FY28, while maintaining annual growth of 30-35%.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Power Grid Corp. of India Ltd, the top power transmission utility, sits at the heart of India’s electricity network, moving bulk power across states and linking generation with distribution.Its business runs on long-term, 35-year transmission contracts under a regulated tariff framework set by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At 11.40 am on Saturday, millions of phones across India blared a loud alert simultaneously, interrupting calls and conversations. The disruption was deliberate. It was a nationwide test of a multilingual cell broadcast system developed by the state-owned Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) for emergency warnings during disasters.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The nerves calm, the mind clear, a deep breath later, Akshay Thatte immersed face-first in the water. He was competing in the Static Apnea category at the AIDA Malaysia Freediving Pool Games last December. By the time he surfaced, 5 minutes and 16 seconds had elapsed.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s pilots have urged the aviation regulator to fully enforce flight duty time limitations (FDTL), warning that relaxations could compromise safety and crew wellbeing. In a 1 May letter, reviewed by Mint, the pilots' association cited recent pilot deaths and flagged rising fatigue risks, seeking a time-bound roadmap to end selective exemptions that, it said, have diluted the intent of the rules.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Talk of the Indian rupee at 100 to the dollar is back. The currency has been among the worst performers globally since 2025, and 2026 hasn’t offered much relief. It has continued to weaken, even as the 95 level against the US dollar holds, for now.The rupee on Thursday settled at 94.84 against the dollar, up 4 paise on the day—little to change the broader direction.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Many Indians rely on recurring payments to manage everything from systematic investment plan (SIP) installments and insurance premiums to credit card bills. However, until recently, there was a major pain point for transactions above ₹15,000 done through cards or UPI: the requirement for a one-time password (OTP).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.IT TAKES ONLY a brief chat with the organisers of Black Hat Asia to realise this is no ordinary conference. Whereas most professional get-togethers invite their guests to piggyback on the hotel Wi-Fi, Black Hat builds the network for its annual conferences in Las Vegas, London and Singapore from scratch, installing switches, access points, firewalls and monitoring sensors before the conference opens.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Strait of Hormuz chokehold inflames oil prices and causes jitters in India. In a seeming upturn, the Iranian ambassador to India met journalists on 13 April to say there is continual engagement with the Indian government. He is also reported to have said no Indian ships had been charged for passage through the strait.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.That Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) has a network of 300,000 ‘influencers’ at work for its marketing department, as declared in April by Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez, has quickly become a PowerPoint talisman. In a world where entire industries sometimes change direction through choreography rather than conviction, that’s an evocative figure. Indian marketing has always had a weakness for the large gesture.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In 1604, James I of England anonymously published a small book titled A Counterblaste to Tobacco. He called smoking “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” Within a year, he had raised the import duty on tobacco by 4,000%. The duty did not work.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India is currently the world’s fastest-growing major economy, a headline that invites optimism as we sprint past the $4 trillion milestone. But for most of the 1.4 billion-plus people who live in the country, headline GDP has become a mere dashboard metric—high on transactional velocity but low on household dignity. We are witnessing a historic rupture: the link between economic growth and job creation, once the singular pulse of development, has been functionally severed.A forensic audit of India’s structural shift from 1991 to 2026 reveals a catastrophic decline in the job efficiency of our growth.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The year 2025 proved highly significant for those tracking interest rates, as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) embarked on its most aggressive easing cycle since 2019. Over the course of four policy meetings, the central bank reduced the repo rate by a total of 1.25 percentage points, bringing it down to 5.25%.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At its core, India’s Finance Commission (FC) is a constitutional mechanism for equalization, ensuring that differences in income across states do not translate into differences in access to basic public services. But equalization is only as effective as the information it uses. When fiscal data is incomplete or opaque, the FC’s recommendations—however well intentioned—risk misallocating resources, weakening incentives and undermining fiscal discipline.Fiscal transparency is foundational to India’s fiscal federal system.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Investors usually favour companies in which foreign institutional investors (FIIs) hold a stake, as FIIs are known to prefer businesses with robust corporate governance, strong liquidity, and scalable earnings growth.Rising FII ownership can indicate investor confidence and attract market participation. However, it should not be the sole consideration for equity investment.FIIs may adjust holdings due to global interest rates, currency movements, ETF flows, or broader risk events unrelated to company fundamentals.

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.A little more than three years after the launch of ChatGPT, the chief executives of India's top information technology (IT) services companies are beginning to acknowledge concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) is eroding revenue.Over the last two weeks, bosses of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd, and Tech Mahindra Ltd have all pointed to AI squeezing revenues, and addressed concerns around higher productivity benefits. More AI tools mean lower human involvement, leading to lower billing rates and, ultimately, lower business.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The government has set up an inter-ministerial advisory body, the AI Governance and Economic Group (Aigeg), to act as a central node for shaping and coordinating policy on artificial intelligence. But what rules are startups currently operating under, and will this new body change anything for innovation in the space? Mint breaks it down.For startups operating in AI in India today, the legal landscape is a combination of multiple laws.

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.