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While the transatlantic relationship made the headlines at this month’s Munich Security Conference, many of the European analysts I hung out with were more concerned about whether, how and how quickly Europe could build adequate military capacity to achieve meaningful strategic autonomy. The twin fears of a potential Russian invasion and an American divorce have compelled Europe’s leaders to invest in military capacity, but it presents the EU and its member states with unprecedented structural challenges.Europe sees a threat to the Union itself, but has to rely on the military establishments of its member-states to respond to it. Like the Pope, Brussels has practically no divisions under its command.

dividend-yield funds returned an average of 19.22% and around 18%, and 16.5% annually over the past three, five and 10 years (as of 18 February), while flexi-cap funds returned 16.85% and 14%, and 14.75% on average over the same periods. A recent rally in stocks has narrowed the average one-year returns to about 14% for both categories.Financial advisers said a run-up in dividend-yielding stocks in 2025 has helped lift the overall returns of the category for the 3-, 5-, and 10-year periods.

UPL Ltd plans to spin off and list its crop protection business as an independent entity, as part of a strategy to create the world's second-largest agrochemical firm. The Mumbai-headquartered company announced on Friday a three-step restructuring plan to consolidate its domestic and international pesticide units into a single global entity.This restructuring was undertaken in 2022 when the country’s largest agro-chemicals firm brought in private equity giants into three of its businesses.Under the three-step process, UPL Ltd will first merge its India crop protection subsidiary, UPL Sustainable Agri Solutions, with its parent.

game-changing. Yet even the acceleration will reach a point we can’t predict as AI begins to build itself. It’s not surprising that underneath the excitement lies a frisson of anxiety as humans are forced to re-evaluate their own place in the modern world.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The ministry of commerce and industry has overhauled its merchandise trade indices, shifting the base year to FY2022-23 from FY2012-13. The move aims to revamp the tracking of price and volume trends, providing a more accurate snapshot of an economy driven by high-tech manufacturing and engineering.

₹62,000-76,000 crore, with Peak XV’s initial investment valued at roughly ₹17,300 crore in 2018, clocking a return of around 75x. Similarly, ahead of a planned public listing, Peak XV Partners sold part of its stake in Pine Labs through secondary transactions at a valuation of about $5 billion, clocking returns of up to roughly 39x.The company also has a strong exit pipeline, with firms like Razorpay, Turtlemint and Zetwerk expected to go public this year."Peak XV is a global fund with Indian ethos and it is solving for global opportunities, which is what makes them unique," said Kashyap Chanchani, co-founder and managing director, Rainmaker Group, a homegrown investment bank.On several VC funds being able to raise India-focused funds in the last 24 months, Chanchani said, "With newer themes emerging, the India opportunity is becoming bigger.

XED Executive Development, set to be the first company to list on the GIFT City exchanges after its upcoming IPO, has appointed a market maker for one year to address low liquidity on the exchanges.“We have appointed Evermore as our market maker and 5% of the issue has been set aside for market-making purposes,” Piyush Agarwal, chief executive officer of XED Executive Development, toldMint.XED, which provides leadership and management development programmes to senior professionals in over 25 countries, plans to raise $12 million through a dollar-based offering. It will be listed on the NSE International Exchange and the India International Exchange – in GIFT City – in the first week of March.As the first company to list on these exchanges, XED may initially face liquidity challenges.

Judith Wiese, board member and chief people and sustainability officer at Siemens AG, cautioned that Germany will lose 15-20% of its workforce over the next decade due to demographics. And this is why India is “central” to Siemens' strategy of a capability hub.In an exclusive interaction with Mint, Wiese assuaged fears of AI-led layoffs, marked out workplace shifts since the pandemic and spoke on how data centres do guzzle energy, but that challenge needs to be dealt with responsibly.Some things have stayed since covid, particularly hybrid work. In India and China, more employees prefer working from the office.

₹150–200 crore in primary funding, as the company looks to accelerate expansion, two people familiar with the matter said.The proposed round comes at a time when non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) face tighter regulatory scrutiny and rising stress in unsecured lending, making fresh capital crucial to strengthen balance sheets and support calibrated growth.“Several mid-market private equity firms or late/growth stage venture capital firms will be tapped as a part of the process. The deal is expected to be launched in the coming weeks,” one of the people cited above said.“The company is looking to double down its presence in its existing areas of operations after it became PAT positive in the current financial year,” a second person said.Both the people spoke on the condition of anonymity.

On 27 February, India’s statistics ministry is expected to release the second of the three major macro-economic variables—retail inflation, GDP and Index of Industrial Production—currently being revamped. As with last month’s inflation number, the new GDP series will have a new base year (2022-23) and feature extensive changes in methodology and coverage to better reflect the state of our economy.Globally, decision-makers rely on economic statistics as a dashboard to frame policy.

How well we manage depends on what we know. While artificial intelligence (AI) can’t claim omniscience, it could improve governance. Outcomes of the AI Impact Summit include the New Delhi Frontier AI Commitments, under which AI majors have volunteered to serve two public causes.

The government has mandated a three-month buffer stock of medicines under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), which covers 4.2 million beneficiaries across 81 cities, in a move aimed at tackling recurring shortages and potentially boosting medicine sales while also keeping an eye on quality, according to two government officials and documents reviewed by Mint.The policy was approved for adoption 15 January 2026. The CGHS Directorate is currently rolling out operational guidelines and updating its digital systems to facilitate real-time tracking and buffer stock management.The health and family welfare ministry's move comes in the backdrop of a growing number of complaints regarding medicine shortages and delayed service; with the Centre framing a comprehensive Drug Procurement Policy for the marquee health scheme.

Every week, artificial intelligence (AI) claims become more stratospheric. Earlier this month, Elon Musk told a podcast of his plans to put satellites housing giant data centres in space that would be run on solar power. “In 36 months, probably closer to 30 months, the most compelling place to put AI will be in space,” he said.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not in retreat, although many have been predicting its untimely demise for some time. Far from shrinking, President Xi Jinping’s signature lending plan is adapting, and in doing so becoming harder to counter. It’s shifting from financing megaprojects to becoming a long-term development partner, particularly for fast-growing economies in the Global South.

The first estimates of inflation based on the revised series of India’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) were released last week. The new CPI series uses 2024 as the base year. Accordingly, inflation in January was 2.75% (the price index’s increase, i.e., over the same month of 2025), with rural inflation at 2.73% and urban at 2.77%.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Financial advisor Douglas Boneparth chuckled when he saw the sharp selloff last week in wealth management stocks over concerns about tax planning updates to an artificial intelligence tool from fintech Altruist. Boneparth, who has been using Altruist’s AI-powered Hazel platform for several months, says the market was finally waking up to something he has been experiencing firsthand: AI is beginning to transform the wealth management industry.

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India opened its space sector to private players at a time of covid paralysis. Since then, some progress has indeed been made. Poised for a breathtaking leap into space, however, might be China.In the last week of December, Beijing notified the UN’s International Telecom Union of its plan to put over 200,000 satellites in orbit within a decade.

The agenda for French President Emmanuel Macron’s India visit this week is expansive, with everything from the shape of global AI rules to the Russia-Ukraine war up for talks. What takes the spotlight, though, is the reported deal for 114 Rafale fighter jets (plus munitions) that India wants to buy from France for $40 billion.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s new consumer price index (CPI) series, released last week by the statistics ministry as part of a huge two-year long exercise to revise key macroeconomic variables, is a marked improvement over the one it has replaced. The CPI’s base year, methodology and coverage have been updated to better reflect what Indian households consume.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: Financial creditors are now leading the charge at bankruptcy tribunals, overtaking the vendors and service providers who once dominated filings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The shift marks a turning point in how the law is being used: less as a pressure tactic for recovering trade dues and more as a lender-driven restructuring framework.