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fintech space.“We are a well-capitalized and profitable organization, built on a disciplined and conservative approach to managing growth and expenses. Following our recent fundraise of ₹240 crore, we are not in immediate need of additional capital,” a spokesperson for the company told Mint in an emailed statement.

Shaping Urban India: By Design, Not By Default, by Janaagraha, a Bengaluru-based non-profit.India has urbanized at a fairly steady clip, broadly in line with its G20 peers. But fine feathers don’t always make fine birds.Estimates by the United Nations’ Degree of Urbanisation (DegUrba) show that about 84.1% of India’s population qualifies as urban.

sulphur demand of about 4 million tonnes. More than three-quarters of this comes from West Asian countries such as the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman, according to latest available World Bank Data for 2023.sulphur is widely used to produce sulphuric acid for fertilizers, and is also a key input in chemicals, textiles manufacturing, and electric vehicle batteries.The state-run engineering company received orders worth ₹76,930 crore from thermal power plants in FY25, its latest annual report said.

Venu Srinivasan and its managing director is his son Sudarshan Venu. Gopalan is a director on its board.On Friday, the Sundaram Clayton board accepted Kishan’s resignation and appointed M.

Mint explains how significant AI’s impact really is on investment banking.A 2023 Deloitte report noted that global investment banks have invested billions of dollars in machine learning and natural language processing to transform trading and risk management. However, the deal-making lifecycle remains heavily dependent on human expertise.

India’s retail brokers are bracing for a sharp erosion in active clients and revenue as the escalating West Asia war threatens to further dampen market sentiment and trading activity.The active retail client base of brokerages has already shrunk over the past year due to muted, rangebound markets and the impact of regulatory curbs on derivatives trading. The outflow of active clients is set to intensify from March as the US-Iran war increases the risk of more retail investors stepping away from the stock market.“Broker revenues are down 20-30% across the industry year on year.

overreaction, with fundamentals remaining largely intact, it is a clear signal to buy. Otherwise, the downside looks pretty steep.

Mumbai: The cement industry is bracing for a sharp price increase in April as the fallout from the war in West Asia drives up production costs. UltraTech Cement Ltd, India’s largest producer, is set to be the first to increase its price, according to an executive in the know.A price hike by the market leader is likely to trigger similar moves by other cement makers, who are under even greater pressure from higher costs, given their relatively smaller scale.“Nobody will increase cement prices now as they need to meet the year-end targets, but price increase will be seen in the month of April, and cost will be passed on to the consumers,” said the executive quoted above, requesting anonymity, discussing business strategy.Emails sent to UltraTech did not elicit a response till press time.The rise in cement prices is expected to marginally increase construction and infrastructure costs, as cement typically accounts for around 5% of total construction cost, according to Satyadeep Jain, lead analyst for cement, metals, mining and utilities at Ambit Capital.“Cement companies will need ₹20/bag price hike to fully offset cost Inflation vs typical ₹7-8/bag hike in April.

Despite Brent crude at $115 a barrel, shares of oil marketing companies (OMCs) Indian Oil Corp Ltd (IOCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) held up better than the broader market during Monday’s selloff. Markets see the government’s ₹10-per-litre excise duty cut from Friday as exactly what the doctor ordered for a sector staring at steep under-recoveries: ₹26 per litre and ₹82 per litre for petrol and diesel, respectively.The policy move could cost the exchequer nearly ₹14,000 crore in revenue per month.

Amid the US-Israel war with Iran, concerns are growing about the safety of subsea cables in West Asia—the hidden network that carries most of the world’s internet. A large part of India’s data travels through these cables, many of which pass through regions now at risk of conflict.

₹75 on Friday. It is now just 9% higher than its public issue price of ₹70 in September 2024.

₹10,000 crore in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues to the government by 31 March, according to two people familiar with the matter, even as the telecom operator presses for a recalculation of its liabilities on par with Vodafone Idea.This marks the first tranche of payments after a four-year moratorium ended in September 2025, with instalment schedule beginning March 2026.“The company will need to make this AGR dues payment, which includes licence fee and spectrum usage charges (SUC),” one of the people cited above said, seeking anonymity. “At ₹10,000 crore, this payment would be just one-fifth of the total AGR dues of the company,” the person said, adding that the company is taking up the re-calculation of the dues issue separately.Bharti Airtel’s deferred payment liability towards AGR was at ₹38,604 crore, according to its FY25 annual report.

State of Working India (SoW) report says India’s demographic bulge will stop expanding in four years. The share of its working-age population will begin declining in 2030.

India’s petroleum reserves have come under scrutiny since the outbreak of the West Asia war, with concerns intensifying as government data showed India’s current capacity in strategic reserves can only cover roughly five-six days of total consumption.Now, this is not as alarming as it seems, as India’s overall capacity is much higher. However, the current crisis has put a spotlight on India’s limited ability in the face of severe shocks to oil, gas and petroleum product supply.India currently has three strategic petroleum reserves (SPRs)—buried in underground caverns—in Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru, and Padur.

Reserve Bank of India had adopted the inflation-targeting regime in 2016. While some have argued for raising the target or shifting focus from headline to core inflation, the dominant view is that the framework has broadly worked.Data shows inflation breached the band in only three of the past 10 years—two instances (2020–21 and 2022–23) driven by the pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war.

West Asia conflict, which is expected to tighten global ammunition supplies and push up defence spending.The company’s defence business has scaled rapidly, with revenue growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 82% between FY21 and FY25, according to an Elara Securities report dated 24 March. Its share of total sales rose from just 5% in FY21 to 18% in FY25.“We see this segment driving the next phase of superior growth,” the report said, citing India’s ₹2.2 trillion defence capex (FY27 BE), rising geopolitical tensions and a global uptick in military spending.

₹2,055 crore (about $245 million), said the people quoted earlier, speaking on the condition of anonymity as details are not public yet.The edtech firm was valued at $3.4 billion in 2021, and upGrad had proposed a valuation of $300–400 million in November before the talks collapsed in January.upGrad’s own valuation remains unchanged at around ₹17,000 crore, though it has fallen in dollar terms from $2.2 billion in its last funding round to roughly $1.8 billion due to currency movements.This roughly translates to 0.12 Upgrad shares for every Unacademy share, the people quoted earlier said.The companies refused to share valuations when they announced the deal. UpGrad and Unacademy did not respond to Mint’s queries sent on Wednesday.The acquisition was announced earlier in March after months of on-and-off negotiations.

₹18,000 crore, factoring in WPL-related liabilities, BCCI fees, and goods and services tax (GST). The company had bought the stake in 2008 for $110 million, implying a 17% compound annual growth rate on the investment.Analysts had expected a sale valued at $1.5-1.8 billion; the $1.9 billion deal translates into ₹13–51 higher perceived value per share, as calculated from a Nomura Global Markets Research report on 24 March, prior to the official announcement.

₹60 per cylinder hike has added to household stress and squeezed small businesses.The primary driver, experts say, is global instability.According to Adhil Shetty, CEO of BankBazaar, the increase reflects continued pressure from international markets where crude oil and natural gas prices remain elevated due to geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions."India imports a large share of its LPG needs, so any rise in international prices or freight costs tends to flow through to domestic cylinder rates," Shetty noted. He added that the latest global escalation has made cooking fuel more expensive, and with deliveries taking longer in some areas, households must prepare for higher and less predictable expenses.For several years, LPG prices in regulated markets remained relatively steady, with only minor fluctuations.

Mint.While the immediate impact of the ongoing conflict remains limited, non-bank lenders believe the real risk lies in a prolonged conflict, which could trigger second-order effects across inflation, demand and credit cycles.“...we have started becoming very cautious but the war situation is also evolving. It's unfair for us to also pull down and stop the supply but we have to be very cautious in terms of lending and leverage,” the head of a non-banking financial company said on the condition of anonymity.According to lenders, the first signs of stress are emerging in small businesses, especially those dependent on gas for production, exports and global trade routes for sales.

‘Water bankruptcy’ is a term coined to convey a stage after which it is impossible to return to ‘normal’ water levels without major changes. Popularized by a January 2026 United Nations report calling out the reality of an era of “global water bankruptcy,” the term has attracted considerable attention. While globally relevant, the report highlights India as a hotspot for groundwater depletion, given our overdependence on rapidly diminishing aquifers.