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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI: Telecom operator Reliance Jio Infocomm is entering a transition phase, shifting from heavy network expansion to a focus on monetisation and cash flow generation. As its parent Jio Platforms prepares for a potential mid-2026 listing, analysts see the December quarter (Q3FY26) as a period of consolidation—marked by steady subscriber additions, incremental average revenue per user improvement, and the gradual rollout of paid 5G use cases, led by fixed wireless access (FWA).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd’s shares fell on Wednesday, despite the sharp acceleration in its gross domestic premium income (GDPI) growth rate to 13.3% in the December quarter (Q3FY26).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents major telecom companies, has approached the telecom regulator, seeking a cap on charges for in-building mobile network infrastructure at public places such as airports.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Uber India is shifting its fleet strategy. Until now, the company had invested only in Everest Fleet, backing the operator with a $20 million funding round in June 2023, followed by around $30 million in 2024 and another $20 million in 2025.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI : The Centre may maintain the road ministry’s allocation at nearly the same level as ₹2.72 trillion in 2025-26 in the Union Budget 2026-27, aiming to shift focus towards attracting private investment, even amid slowing highway construction, according to two officials close to the discussions.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Imagine walking into a world-class facility such as the Navi Mumbai International Airport or commuting through the Mumbai Metro Aqua line. The architecture is futuristic, the lighting is perfect, but the moment you pull out your phone, the signal bars drop to zero.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: India’s top electric bus manufacturers are gearing up for the government’s next mega tender of 6,230 electric buses, cumulatively valued at over ₹6,000 crore, to be deployed across five cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad—according to tender documents released on 9 January. Delhi, grappling with severe air pollution, will get the largest allocation of 3,330 electric buses through this round of procurement, the tender document, reviewed by Mint, showed.

₹6,000 crore through certificates of deposit (CDs) at a rate of 6%, a rare move by India’s largest lender, amid tight liquidity and mounting pressure on banks to mobilize deposits, five fixed-income traders told Mint.SBI’s presence in the CD market has raised eyebrows, traders said, as it signals growing difficulty among banks in raising deposits to fund rising credit demand.The funds were raised through CDs maturing in March 2026. Union Bank of India also raised ₹200 crore via May maturity paper at 6.45%, while Small Industries Development Bank of India raised ₹4,500 crore through one-year paper at 6.95%.Certificates of deposit are low-risk fixed-income instruments where investors deposit money for a specified period at a fixed interest rate—typically higher than savings accounts—in exchange for not withdrawing funds until maturity.SBI’s three-year CD issuance at 6% is around 90 basis points higher than the interest rate it offers on bulk deposits of 46–179 days, which stand at 5.1% for the public and 5.6% for senior citizens.“State Bank of India tapping the CD market, that’s rare, isn’t it? I think they came, so it kind of underscores the point that supply is quite robust in the shorter end and credit off-take is well but deposits are a challenge,” said Killol Pandya, fixed income head at JM Financial Asset Management.While the amount is not large relative to SBI’s balance sheet, the act of raising short-term funds itself is unusual, Pandya added.Emails sent to SBI and Union Bank of India did not receive responses until press time.SBI last raised funds through CDs in November 2024, when it borrowed ₹1,650 crore.

₹9,588 crore in Q2FY26 (July-September), driven by volume growth across key segments. Non-CV businesses are also expanding: aftermarket services grew 11%, power solutions 14%, and defence 25%. These non-truck segments now contribute roughly 50% of consolidated revenue, boosting margins and insulating the company from cyclical CV volatility.Ebitda jumped 14.3% to ₹1,162 crore during the September-ended quarter, with margins expanding 50 bps to 12.1%, aided by cost optimization and higher non-truck growth.

pollution. At the heart of the dispute, experts say, was not private carpooling itself but the absence of a clear state-level framework governing commercial pooling features on ride-hailing platforms.While the government is keen to restart services as early as this month, carpooling will be classified as a non-commercial shared mobility option.

Mint.The lender, which had 454,608 prepaid cards as of November, plans to add 100,000 prepaid cards—both domestic and foreign—every year, said the document inviting external agencies to submit their bids.The state-run lender also had an active card rate of 25%, or 112,801 cards, higher than the banking industry average of 18%, as of November, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). An active card is defined as one that has been used for at least one financial transaction in the past year.The bank also has 1.1 million, including 994,062 active, wallets.“The purpose of the RFP (request for proposal) is to seek a detailed technical and commercial proposal for (an) end-to-end prepaid card management module…” the bank said in the document.The project includes issuing rupee prepaid cards, foreign currency prepaid cards (single or multi-currency with a minimum of 12 currency wallets), and national common mobility cards.

Mint had earlier reported that the central government was developing an incentive framework to improve financing options for electric trucks and buses, as limited access to affordable credit remains a key obstacle to India’s green mobility transition.About 4,000 e-buses are sold in India each year, according to data from the government’s Vahan registry. As per the latest publicly available annual report of the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) for FY25, around 145,000 buses were operated by 61 state transport utilities.

EV users as well as technical and maintenance support for commercial fleets,” said the first official.The ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) is examining changes to its guidelines for way-side amenities (WSAs) on expressways to formally include EV-focused infrastructure, including rapid diagnostics, minor repairs, battery support, towing and real-time assistance through integrated control centres, the second official said, adding that the under-construction 1,300-km Delhi–Mumbai Expressway is likely to be the first long-distance corridor where the model could be rolled out, providing an end-to-end EV-supportive route between two major metropolitan regions.“The idea is to move beyond charging points and create a full ecosystem that supports EV users on highways, similar to how air traffic control and ground handling work together in aviation,” said the first official. “Control and command centres can coordinate roadside assistance, track vehicle issues, manage response times and offer confidence to EV users undertaking intercity travel.”Queries emailed to MoRTH, National Highways Authority of India, and EV makers Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hyundai, Kia, and JSW MG on 31 December remained unanswered.Since the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway is an access-controlled expressway, a commuter expects the EV charging infrastructure along the route for convenience, said Ashish Modani, senior vice-president and group head, Icra.

tax hike on cigarettes.Globally, Indian equities lagged their East Asian peers, with the South Korean and Taiwanese markets outperforming sharply, posting weekly gains of about 4% and 3%, respectively. The divergence was driven largely by valuation-led sector rotation and strong rallies in technology and semiconductor stocks in those markets, where India has limited representation, said Robin Arya, founder of GoalFi, a Securities and Exchange Board of India-registered corporate research analysis firm.

The government is discussing an extension or a completely new production-linked incentives plan for assembling mobile phones in India as the existing ₹40,995 crore scheme is set to expire in March, according to a top government official.A final call on the exact contours of the new or an extended mobile phone PLI scheme has not been taken, and the quantum of incentives has not been decided, S Krishnan, secretary at the ministry of electronics and IT (Meity), said in an interview.“There’s an analysis which shows that some degree of disability continues in the mobile phone electronics industry. While the situation has improved significantly, there still are areas that require improvement and support.

tax-saving investments.Mid-March marks the final advance tax payment deadline, and by 31 March, you want to wrap up documentation and filings for the previous financial year. Completing these steps on time can help you avoid penalties and make the most of deductions available under Indian tax laws.For investment discipline, the first week of April (between 1 and 5 April) is the best time to make a lump-sum investment in Public Provident Fund (PPF), so your contribution earns interest for the full year.

Mint.For users, this would mean smartphones would automatically redirect a portion of data traffic from cellular networks to nearby Wi-Fi networks when available—including hotspots under the PM-WANI (Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface) scheme—without interrupting calls, SMS, or applications.This will help reduce congestion on crowded mobile networks, improve speed in indoor and high-traffic areas, and enable operators to use their limited mobile spectrum more efficiently, often without users noticing any change.“Telecom operators in India do offload traffic to Wi-Fi in specific scenarios, but the practice has varied widely and lacked a nationally accepted technical framework,” a government official said, on condition of anonymity.“The new draft standard aims to define how Wi-Fi can work seamlessly with mobile networks, including public Wi-Fi, while ensuring there are no call drops during network switches and that there is a common offloading framework that works across operators,” the official added.The government wants operators to ensure that Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) works properly, including emergency calls, standard text messages over the internet, and multimedia calling services, while ensuring that all authentication and data transport mechanisms shall comply with national security directives and lawful interception, according to the draft rules.The rules also want operators to support open roaming and interoperability between different vendors to allow Wi-Fi offloading to scale without friction as users move across locations and networks.The Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) under the department of telecommunications (DoT) is currently working to formalize the rules.“Telecom operators have

Mint has reviewed a copy of the letter.Many travellers at the Navi Mumbai airport also took to the social media platform X to complain about the lack of cellular connectivity at the airport over the last few days. The airport, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 8 October, began operations on 25 December, with the arrival of its first commercial flight.A NMIAL spokesperson, in response to Mint’s queries, said that it has not denied permission to the telecom services providers (TSPs) and is discussing the matter with them.“Owing to the delay by other TSPs, NMIA is providing free, high-speed Wi-Fi services reiterating its commitment to provide high-speed connectivity to all the passengers,” the spokesperson said.Queries emailed to operators’ lobby the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday evening did not elicit any response until press time.S.P.

₹350 crore. Rainmatter Foundation, which was set up in 2020 works as a different, non-profit entity which provides climate-related grants.While the firm's initial focus was on fintech, in the early 2020s, it ramped up investments to include industries like health and wellness as well as climate.Rainmatter’s stance comes at a time when many Indian venture capital funds have grown cautious on climate-tech, a sector that, despite early optimism, has struggled to deliver healthy exits or meaningful scale.Average cheque sizes in the segment have declined over the past three years, dropping from $52 million in 2023 to $28 million in 2024 and $27 million in 2025, according to data from Venture Intelligence, a private company tracking platform.“We never started investing in climate because other VCs were investing.

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] Indian government will focus on boosting the adoption of electric buses and trucks and charging infrastructure in 2026, which remains crucial for the nation’s goal of 30% electric mobility by 2030.E-trucks and e-buses under the ₹10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme would be the government’s priority in 2026, as incentives for electric two- and three-wheelers under the scheme are set to lapse in March 2026, a senior government official directly aware of the development said.Overall adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) rose in India despite supply-chain disruptions in 2025, stemming from China’s grip in rare earths.

Mint had earlier reported that Adani TotalEnergies E-mobility Ltd, Reliance BP Mobility Ltd and JBM Group had signed non-disclosure agreements (NDA) for the proposed deal.“JBM Group has signed an exclusivity agreement for GLIDA and due diligence is ongoing,” said the first of the two persons cited earlier, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.JBM Group is drawn to GLIDA's 850 charging points across 29 cities and 25 highways in 17 states amid India’s green-mobility push that depends on the expansion of an effective EV charging network. JBM Group’s flagship firm JBM Auto Ltd is one of India’s largest electric bus manufacturers, with 1,500 EV charging sites.