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software companies, which often billed clients by the number of hours an engineer spent on a task, are now forced to redefine what is worth a developer’s time.This shift is being felt by young Indians across the workforce, from final-year students appearing for placements to entry-level software engineers and mid-level engineers at information technology (IT) companies.Ansh Masand, a final-year MBA tech engineering student at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, is witnessing this shift firsthand.Masand, who also works at a Bangalore-based AI startup, says he began freelancing in his second year despite not having the skills to build full-fledged software applications at the time.“I didn’t really know how to make production-ready software,” he says. “But I could ask questions, use AI and deliver something that worked.”Masand says what stood out to his clients was not how the code was written, but how quickly it was delivered.“I was building things in a day and solving problems that existed in their current workflow” he says.

Delhi-based Deepak Kakkar didn’t think of caregiving as a financial line item until it became one. When his septuagenarian father’s health declined due to liver cirrhosis in 2024, the immediate concern was medical treatment. But within weeks, he could see his monthly household budget change completely.

Mumbai: India is expected to sustain strong M&A momentum, including cross-border deals, as investors take a long-term view despite macro headwinds, top executives said at the Mint India Investment Summit.“It’s interesting how the last three quarters over 2025 have shown the ability of investors to digest any volatility, price it in if required and proceed with M&As as they see sense in it over a 5–10-year horizon,” Devarajan Nambakam, co-head of India investment banking for Goldman Sachs Group, said at the summit last week.“This is probably going to be tested more this year than last, but the ability of investors to see through these volatilities has been the biggest mindset shift.”With India being a robust growth economy, there is demand for capital to accelerate this pace and for shareholders looking to monetize their stake among others, he added.“From a supply perspective, it’s safe to say that almost no pool of capital is unavailable in India be it strategic capital, private equity, private credit or hybrid capital. Today, the quantum of the capital that is available is higher than we’ve seen.

When taxpayers complain that the income tax department is adversarial, the issue is often framed as interpersonal and behavioural. Are officers too aggressive? Are notices too intrusive? Is the department predisposed to distrust the taxpayer? These questions matter, but they misstate the problem. The real difficulty is institutional.

New Delhi: India has intensified its public health battle against tuberculosis (TB), a disease that the World Health Organization said officially reclaimed its position as the world’s leading infectious killer in 2023, surpassing covid-19. While the initial 2025 target set in the National Strategic Plan served as a catalyst for a 10-fold increase in funding to ₹6,356 crore in FY26 from ₹640 crore in 2015, India remains committed to eliminating the disease well ahead of the global 2030 deadline.To reach this goal, the government is leveraging artificial intelligence, community support, and rigorous airborne infection control.

NSE), typically happens on the last Tuesday of every month. With markets shut on Tuesday for Mahavir Jayanti, the rollover will take place a day earlier, on Monday.“Investors or traders opting to exercise or physically settle their stock options and futures upon monthly expiry could provide an element of support to the market,” said Kruti Shah, quant analyst at Equirus Securities.If, instead, traders close out positions or roll them over to the next month, it would signal more short aggression, Shah said.

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.

₹1 lakh.”Santosh Joseph, founder of Germinate Investment Services, added: "People earlier were told what to do, but never the why. Now social media sells the benefits through these tips."But accessibility comes with risks.“The biggest issue is oversimplification,” Anooshka warned. “Wealth creation is complex, but social media often reduces it to quick tips.”There’s also the problem of context—what works for one person may not work for another.

(DGCA), and the matter was later raised in Parliament.Laser strikes near Indian airports have jumped sharply, rising from 122 cases in 2023 to over 500 in 2025, data tabled in Parliament show. The incidents pose a direct safety risk to pilots and highlight weak enforcement of rules that strictly prohibit such activity that endangers life or safety.As per data, 502 laser-related disruptions were reported across 22 airports in 2025, slightly lower than the 528 incidents recorded in 2024.

garment manufacturing—especially in the domestic market—has relied on company-defined specifications rather than nationally harmonized benchmarks.India’s shirt market, valued at over ₹39,000 crore and dominated by men’s wear (94%), is expanding steadily, with women’s segments growing at an 11% CAGR (compound annual growth rate), while the trouser market is also witnessing strong growth, driven by rising incomes and urbanization, and is projected to reach ₹78,480 crore by 2027.This assumes significance as India is a major exporter of shirts, with outbound shipments of men’s and boys’ shirts rising from $1.06 billion in FY24 to $1.08 billion in FY25, while exports of women’s shirts increased from $1.04 billion to $1.10 billion during the same period. Despite this, the new standards are unlikely to alter export volumes, as manufacturers will continue to follow the sizing and specification norms of importing countries, while ensuring compliance with BIS requirements for the domestic market.Similarly, exports of men’s trousers rose from $1 billion in FY24 to $1.12 billion in FY25, while women’s trousers saw a sharper increase from $2.84 billion to $3.10 billion during the same period, underscoring India’s strong presence in the global apparel trade.“A uniform standard will benefit exporters, as different buyers currently impose varying testing standards, increasing compliance costs.

Stock market recap: Indian equity benchmarks, Sensex and the Nifty 50, slumped more than 3% on Thursday in their worst session since June 2024, dragged down by heavyweight HDFC Bank after the abrupt exit of its chairman and by a surge in crude prices following attacks on West Asian energy facilities.The Nifty 50 fell 3.26% to 23,002.15 points, while the BSE Sensex also lost as much to settle at 74,207.24.On the Sensex, Eternal, Bajaj Finance, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Bajaj Finserv were among the major laggards. HDFC Bank dropped 5.13% after its chairman, Atanu Chakraborty, resigned, citing ethical concerns.Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, soared 6.75% to $114.8 per barrel after Iran attacked a key natural gas facility in Qatar as well as two oil refineries in Kuwait.Best stocks to buy today (All Buy trades are rates of Equity & Sell rates are based on F&O)IPCALAB: Buy above ₹1550, stop ₹1500 target ₹1680 (Multiday)GESHIP: Buy above ₹1445, stop ₹1380 target ₹1540 (Multiday)COLPAL: Sell below 1880, stop ₹1940 target ₹1760(Multiday)Indian equity markets suffered a sharp selloff on Thursday, March 19, 2026, as persistent global risk-off sentiment and a surge in crude oil prices triggered broad-based losses.

DoT) in December reserved 50MHz spectrum in the 5,875–5,925 megahertz (MHz) band for V2X and intelligent transport systems (ITS). Of this, 30MHz (5,875–5,905MHz) will be used for initial deployment, with the remainder earmarked for future ITS applications.DoT has approached Trai for its recommendations as MoRTH does not deal with the subject of spectrum.Vehicle connectivity is built around two components: on-board units (OBUs) installed in vehicles and roadside units (RSUs) deployed along infrastructure such as traffic signals.

carbon credit is roughly equivalent to the emissions caused from burning about 430 litres of petrol or a round-trip flight between Delhi and Singapore. It can sometimes take more than a year for a carbon credit to be issued.

China’s move against OpenClaw came before the rest of the world had even settled on a vocabulary for what worried it. This early restriction matters because it frames the issue correctly.OpenClaw is not merely another chatbot. It is an open-source agent framework designed to connect language models to real tools such as messaging apps, email, calendars, browsers and local files, so that the system can act with limited human supervision.Chinese authorities did not impose a blanket prohibition on all use, but reports indicate that state-linked institutions have been told not to install it on work devices and personal gizmos (in some cases) because of security concerns.

₹10.9 on 27 February, a day before the war.Investors purchase put options to protect their portfolios from downside risk. It is the opposite of a call option, which is purchased during bull markets.Demand for the 22,000 put is reflected in the rise of its open interest (OI)–a gauge of money flowing into a market–to 5.33 million contracts on Friday from 1.4 million when the war began.The US and Israel strikes and the retaliation by Iran across the Gulf region show no signs of abating.

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markets, by their nature, eventually begin to price the world beyond the conflict.Nations often enter wars even when they can scarcely afford them. They end wars for the same reason. When the economic and political costs become unsustainable, conflicts eventually wind down.The current war in West Asia will likely follow a similar pattern.

The Karnataka government’s action against Bengaluru-based digital gold savings app Jar has become a test case for India’s wider digital gold industry. Acting on inputs from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and a public caution from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the state has booked Jar Gold Retail Pvt Ltd and its directors under the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes (BUDS) Act.Because similar products are sold across the market, the case could shape how digital gold platforms are scrutinized in India.

For many urban women, egg freezing is increasingly becoming part of long-term life planning, much like buying insurance or investing for retirement. But unlike most financial goals, this one comes with a biological deadline, and it isn’t cheap.The procedure typically costs ₹1.35- ₹3 lakh per cycle, with annual storage fees of ₹10,000–30,000 and potential IVF expenses later.

US President Donald J. Trump’s extraordinary gamble in attacking Iran and risking a wider conflagration in West Asia dials up the economic hazards facing the US economy from ‘very high”’ to ‘extreme.’ This new stress compounds a series of other pressures already facing the economy, which is now even more unlikely to emerge unscathed.The near danger is a setback in financial markets that gets out of hand. In many ways, some such reversal was already overdue, given the apparent overvaluation of US equities, the weight placed by tariffs on the economy’s back, a still-deteriorating fiscal outlook and stubborn inflation.