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₹4,500 crore in 2025, a startling subculture of ‘digital beggars’ has emerged. These are not street performers or skilled influencers but ordinary individuals who go live on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook for hours, sitting in drab rooms with a QR code plastered on screen, waiting for UPI notifications like "Received ₹10 on Paytm".No dances, no skits, no aesthetic backdrops—just raw pleas for micro-donations from thousands of viewers.

₹1,000 crore ($111 million), said two people in the know of the developments.An announcement is expected on Monday."The deal value for the acquisition is around ₹1,000 crore. With the slew of fresh acquisitions, Inox Clean may soon file a fresh DRHP (draft red herring prospectus) for its public listing," said one of the two people mentioned above.Mint had earlier reported that SHV Energy has appointed BNP Paribas to sell the solar energy assets of SunSource Energy in a deal having an equity value of around $100 million.

Mint.During the hour-long meeting, X executives explained how the image-editing feature functioned. They offered an example: if billionaire Elon Musk appeared in a photograph alongside other technology executives and users prompted the tool to remove “the most racist person”, Grok might remove Musk, this person said.The explanation failed to reassure regulators.

₹599 and ₹999 per person, with Perspectives taking a 20% commission.If the loneliness economy has a defining characteristic, it is that many of its founders did not arrive with market research or business plans. Most began by trying to solve a personal, unmet need.Originally from Tamil Nadu’s textile hub of Tiruppur, Krishna Rubiga moved to Chennai for work in 2024 and struggled to make friends. Singles mixers felt crowded and transactional.

₹1 crore for high courts and ₹2 crore for the Supreme Court), pendency reduction has been marginal, reflecting a culture of litigation as bureaucratic insurance rather than legal necessity.This culture stems from several institutionalized incentives that make ‘default litigation’ the path of least resistance.Audit and vigilance frameworks indirectly treat unappealed losses as negligence; accounting codes of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) require every audit objection to be ‘settled’ or ‘explained,’ and an appeal offers safe harbour from being questioned, while a liberal appellate framework allows virtually automatic filing.Despite calls for a binding national litigation policy, successive governments have balked.Instead, we now have a ‘Directive for Efficient and Effective Management of Litigation’ (April 2025), which introduces nodal officers, legal cells and MIS dashboards, but lacks statutory teeth, performance-linked disincentives or real-time data integrity.LIMBS itself remains under-updated and fails to track reasons for appeal.Here is a five-point agenda for inclusion in a national litigation policy. First, India must move away from its open-ended appeal culture and adopt a ‘leave-to-litigate’ system that acts as a regulatory filter.

advertising. But its approach has had limited impact on India. Most of our focus continues to be on safer areas, such as gender, specifically women’s empowerment.

Grok operates within a global ecosystem. Compliance requires localization for Indian regulations without disrupting global operations.AI-generated content can deliver benefits, such as simulations for factories or product design, but in the wrong hands, it raises serious concerns. Addressing misuse, therefore, requires a combination of technical, organizational, and regulatory guardrails, not a single fix.More powerful AI models are likely to amplify risks.

Many investors look for dividend stocks to include their portfolios as dividends provide steady income and can contribute significantly to long-term returns. They also signal strong fundamentals and offer stability during market downturns.However, dividends should not be the sole focus when buying a stock.

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] volume at the growth stage and private equity level, in the $30-100 million range, has increased from last year, even as the number of mega deals (greater than $100 million) in the Indian market has decreased.

planning to soften its stance on e-commerce rules for exports, as it considers allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in inventory-based e-commerce models, but only for export purposes. India has about 165,000 post offices, including over 149,000 in rural areas and around 15,000 in urban centres.Currently, India’s FDI rules do not allow foreign-funded e-commerce companies to operate an inventory-based model, under which they own the goods sold on their platforms.

India’s quick commerce battle is set to turn even more intense in 2026 even as companies delivering groceries to electronics within minutes chase customer loyalty and improve unit economics.The ongoing year saw an explosion of the rapid delivery segment as companies expanded beyond metros to tier 2 and 3 cities, added more warehouses and went beyond everyday essentials, burning even more cash to win over customers.Backed by fresh funding, the three dominant players–Swiggy’s Instamart, Eternal’s Blinkit and Zepto–will look to create profitable models to solidify their market position in the coming year, according to industry executives.“Expect sharper credit terms with brands, stricter expiry control, and consolidated city hubs,” said Madhav Kasturia, founder and chief executive officer of hyperlocal delivery platform Zippee. “Capital sets the pace, but execution still decides who can convert density into contribution profit every single week.”Swiggy raised ₹10,000 crore in fresh capital via a qualified institutional placement (QIP) on 13 December, two months after Zepto raised $450 million at a valuation of $7 billion, led by US-based pension fund California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) in October.

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] rise of the micro-drama is the definitive trend for India’s streaming industry in 2025, as tight budgets and slowing subscription growth mean over-the-top (OTT) players remain selective about content and still rely on big-budget films.

Bengaluru: The nationwide strike called by gig workers against food delivery platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato on New Year’s Eve was largely ineffective as riders didn’t want to lose the chance to earn additional income after companies offered financial incentives for a day.Zomato set peak-hour rates at around ₹120 to ₹150 per order during the early evening to midnight on New Year’s Eve, according to its letter to delivery partners reviewed by Mint. Depending on order volumes and availability, riders had the potential to earn around ₹3,000 throughout the day.

The number of small businesses going public grew at a slower pace this year as stringent regulatory requirements to curb frenzy and unfavourable macroeconomic conditions dampened issuances.The number of initial public offerings (IPOs) on the small and medium enterprises (SME) platforms grew 12.5% so far this year compared with a 31% surge in 2024, according to a report from Pantomath Capital Advisors.The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) regulatory curbs significantly contributed to the slowdown by tightening eligibility, governance, and fund-use norms starting late 2024 and into 2025, said Jay Jhaveri, partner at Bhuta Shah and Co. LLP.

clean-fuel vehicles. The latest amendment dilutes that requirement, allowing the induction of BS-VI compliant petrol two-wheelers into fleets for another year.The norms apply to a wide range of companies with delivery fleets, including food delivery, e-commerce and ride-hailing firms such as Zomato, Swiggy and Rapido, among others.“A number of representations have also been received from various aggregators, delivery service providers and e-commerce entities, as well as gig workers, highlighting their difficulties with a request to allow them to continue induction of petrol-run two-wheelers in the existing fleet,” the 23 December amendment said.Email queries sent to the environment ministry and CAQM on December 30 remained unanswered till press time.

Mint’s requests for comment.The development comes weeks after InMobi raised $350 million in new financing from Varde Partners, Elham Credit Partners and SeaTown Holdings, according to a report by The Economic Times.The report said most of the proceeds would be used to fund a share buyback from existing investors, primarily SoftBank and other private equity shareholders.Following the transaction, SoftBank’s stake fell to about 5–7% from around 35%. The deal was finalised at a valuation of under $1 billion.Founded in 2007 by Naveen Tewari, InMobi offers mobile display advertising, app-install campaigns and other adtech solutions, increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to serve advertisers.The company works with marketers and publishers, helping them connect with target audiences using data-driven analytics and providing tools for monetization, consent management and user engagement.In 2019, InMobi diversified beyond adtech with the launch of Glance, a lock-screen content discovery platform preloaded on smartphones.

₹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.

₹200– ₹350 per month delivers over 100 channels across multiple languages, making it the most economical and reliable shared-screen option. OTT, by contrast, requires multiple paid subscriptions and dependable broadband connectivity, both of which increase household costs.This, he added, explains why OTT growth remains urban-skewed and individual-first, while television continues to be family-first.The living-room television continues to function as a cultural anchor for Indian households, agreed Anil Suryavamshi, vice-president – digital (south & west) at media agency Carat India.“OTT fulfils the need for personalised, mobile-first viewing, but communal content still lives on TV,” Suryavamshi said.

₹325 crore, allows Bhansali Productions Pvt. Ltd to retain full intellectual property rights over its films while giving Saregama exclusive music rights to all its future films.Experts see this development paving the way for more institutional funding in Indian cinema at a time when OTT platforms are tightening content spends and global capital is looking for disciplined exposure to Indian storytelling.This model also aligns India closer to global studio-platform economics—separating high-margin IP ownership from high-risk production, and accelerating the sector’s institutional maturity.“For Saregama, the transaction is fundamentally a music play rather than a film bet.

₹96,557 crore) in dividends and share buybacks and about $1.5 billion (around ₹14,000 crore) on acquisitions, Mint research showed. Earlier in FY22, the same companies spent about ₹27,000 crore on buyouts and gave ₹81,669 crore to shareholders.

The ministry of road transport and highways has tweaked cab aggregator guidelines to ban advance tipping—a feature that allowed passengers to offer a tip upfront while booking a ride. What does this mean for the companies bracing for short-term friction, and how will incentive redesign to offset the long-term impact? Mint explains.Queries sent to Uber, Ola, Rapido and Namma Yatri following the 26 December notification did not elicit a response until press time.Advance tipping refers to a feature on ride-hailing apps that allows passengers to add a tip at the time of booking, before a ride is accepted or completed.