UPS Financial News

money psychology.For instance, people whose childhood was spent in an austere home where parents struggled to make ends meet might grow up to be extremely careful with money because they don’t want to face scarcity again, said Pamarthi. “When they think of money, they get scared,” she said.

An old commodity-trade adage is that the Middle East “sells hydrocarbons to buy carbohydrates.” The desert states send out their oil and natural gas, and in comes wheat and rice. There are a few things produced in the Gulf, however, that are crucial to global food production: nitrogen fertilizer such as urea and ammonia, and the gas used to make them.So the war in Iran—and its blockage of the Strait of Hormuz waterway—has prompted warnings about another bout of global food inflation similar to the one that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite such fears, the agricultural market isn’t at risk today, at least in the short term.

India’s luxury hotels are exploring ways to capitalize on their brands by going beyond room bookings and food and beverage sales. Chains such as Taj, Marriott, Leela, Oberoi and Sarovar are increasingly moving into branded residences and serviced apartments to diversify their offerings.The trend, which has been around for a few years, gathered pace in FY26, with at least half a dozen projects signed and launched across Mumbai, Gurugram, Noida and Greater Noida as hospitality companies looked for more asset-light revenue streams tied to real estate.Indian Hotels Company Ltd, which runs the Taj brand of hotels, signed an agreement to manage 74 Taj serviced apartments with the Gulshan Group in Noida last month.

₹2,600 crore into its automobile subsidiary, JSW Green Mobility, since its inception—signalling a serious push into India’s passenger and commercial vehicle market as it gears up for a FY27 debut.Billionaire Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group is targeting the October–December quarter of financial year 2027 to launch its first passenger vehicle, after infusing about ₹2,600 crore into its automobile subsidiary, JSW Green Mobility, since inception.According to Mint’s review of multiple filings with the ministry of corporate affairs, the capital was deployed primarily toward setting up plant operations for passenger and commercial vehicle businesses in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, alongside general corporate purposes and debt repayment.With interests spanning steel, energy and paints, JSW’s move marks its most decisive diversification yet—and places it alongside Tata Group and Mahindra as the third major Indian business house entering the automobile sector.While the automobile subsidiary was incorporated in 2023, filings show it did not receive meaningful financial support from group firms until December 2024—when chairman Sajjan Jindal publicly declared JSW’s intent to build its own automobile brand.Funding from group companies accelerated sharply after that announcement.Queries sent to JSW Group remained unanswered.“Our idea is not to be an outpost of a Chinese company to sell products in India,” Jindal told the Financial Times in December 2024. “We want to manufacture the products in India, value-add in India, and sell them in India.”The company is scheduled to launch its first car in the October–December quarter of financial year 2027.

After years of marginal tweaks, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) undertook one of the most consequential reforms in its External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) framework in February this year. Over the decades, commercial loans raised by Indian resident entities have been regulated under tightly-controlled regimes, with caps on the quantum of annual borrowing, ceilings on interest spreads, prescriptive maturity conditions and rigid end-use norms.

India’s mutual fund body has asked the market regulator to allow fund houses to use intraday borrowings from banks to purchase securities after it deferred implementation of the new norms to July, according to two people aware of the development.On 13 March, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) tightened regulations and allowed fund houses to borrow funds from banks on an intraday basis only for repurchase or redemption of units, payment of interest, or income distribution-cum-capital withdrawal payouts to unitholders. The new rules were to have become effective on 1 April, Sebi said in a circular.“The circular will tie up mutual funds’ hands.

Wipro Ltd has bagged a contract worth $1 billion over eight years from Singapore-based food processing company Olam Group, ending a nearly six-year lull of mega deals for the country's fourth-largest information technology (IT) services firm.As part of a broader engagement, Wipro will also acquire Mindsprint, Olam’s IT arm, for $375 million in an all-cash deal, the company said in a release to the stock exchanges on Monday.Following the announcement, Wipro's shares opened 3.6% higher at ₹198.4 on the BSE in a largely weak market.The Bengaluru-based IT services company will manage the food processing company’s end‑to‑end IT transformation services. Olam has committed to spending at least $800 million over eight years in modernising its IT systems with an option to spend more than $1 billion in total.Mindsprint ended last year with $136 million in revenue and the acquisition is expected to close by June, subject to regulatory approvals.

Snapchat is leaning on India’s regional film industries, enlisting local celebrities to share movie updates and behind-the-scenes content, to engage Gen Z tier-II and tier-III cities—a win-win for both the platform and filmmakers.“We work closely with regional film industries across languages spanning Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and other ecosystems because that’s where some of the most authentic and culturally relevant storytelling is happening today,” said Saket Jha Saurabh, director and head of content and AR partnerships at Snap Inc., Snapchat’s parent company.“These efforts also play a key role in helping us strengthen our reach across emerging markets, including tier-II and tier-III cities, where both regional storytelling and Snapchat adoption are seeing a strong momentum," he added.While Snapchat has collaborated to promote movies such as Pushpa 2, HIT 3, Ponniyin Selvan II, Kantara Chapter 1, and Dude, top regional celebrities like Rashmika Mandanna, Allu Arjun, and Ghanta Naveen Babu, popularly known as Nani, also share content on the app, enticing their fans to sign up.The strategy is to offer exclusive content and early previews, including first looks at films, directly to the app’s audience.

As the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) heads into its first policy decision of the new financial year on 8 April, a rate pause is widely expected even as a rapidly shifting macro landscape triggered by the West Asia war may force a shift in its outlook.A Mint poll of 10 economists and market participants points to rising inflation risks and a weakening growth outlook, with all expecting the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to hold rates while signalling a more cautious policy stance.In 2025, the RBI had cumulatively cut the repo rate—the rate at which it lends short-term funds to banks—by 125 basis points (bps), with the last cut of 25 bps in December to 5.25%.“We do expect RBI to hold onto the repo rate and stance,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda. The MPC’s stance has remained neutral since June 2025.“The tone will be cautious,” Sabnavis added.

oil price spike has worsened the external flow position further by widening the current account deficit and triggering large FPI capital outflows.While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced measures to curb speculation in the onshore forex market, the rupee's depreciation is likely to persist and add to inflationary pressures.At present, the headline inflation remains below the target rate and with the excise duty cuts, the central government has ensured that the near-term impact of the adverse shock on inflation and growth is contained.It is thus likely that the MPC will leave the repo rate unchanged at 5.25%, awaiting clarity on the duration of the oil market disruption, while acknowledging that higher oil prices have significantly increased the risk of inflation rising above 4% over the year.The policy stance is likely to be retained as neutral, providing the MPC with the flexibility to act appropriately depending on the evolving macro-economic conditions.The longer oil prices stay above $100 per barrel level, the greater will be the upward pressure on imported and overall inflation and downward pressure on real GDP growth. Thus, over the course of this fiscal year, the MPC will closely monitor disruptions to energy markets due to the West Asia conflict.

At a dinner hosted by a family that owns a newspaper business, the conversation naturally drifted towards artificial intelligence, then doom. I said something I believe in, even though I knew it was not very persuasive. That the time has come for a triumphant return of a general interest print magazine, as long as it was brilliant, entertaining and not overrun with activists.

This year’s summer holidays are not a simple beach-versus-mountains or Eiffel Tower versus Burj Khalifa decision. Instead, the West Asia war is likely to shape where you travel and how much you spend.

standing out in a falling market, and what’s driving their strength.Lupin is trading at ₹2,335, just shy of its 52-week high of ₹2,376, and is up 11% so far in 2026.An integrated pharmaceutical company, Lupin operates across formulations and APIs, with formulations contributing about 95% of revenue. Geographically, the US remains its largest market, followed by India and other developed and emerging markets.It ranks as the third-largest pharmaceutical player in the US by prescriptions and eighth in the Indian market.Financially, Lupin has delivered steady growth.

manufacturing sector continuing to be a male fortress. Of the top 100 manufacturing companies in India today, only a handful are headed by women who reached those heights without the leverage of a family name.Born to a Sindhi Amil family in Hyderabad (Sindh) in 1944, Lila Thadani’s steel was forged in the harsh kiln of partition.

Silent compiler: Compile multi-file reports while you're in transit or between meetings.Inbox sentinel: Triage your inbox and flag urgent emails before your day begins.Recurring pilot: Run recurring tasks (like daily status reports) on a schedule, monitored from your phone.- A consultant heading into a client pitch realizes she hasn't fully prepped on a competitor.From her phone: "Check my /research folder and emails from our sector lead. Compile a 1-page snapshot and save to /Pitch-Prep."By the time she walks into the room, it's done.- An HR manager wrapping up back-to-back interviews needs three candidate briefing packs ready for tomorrow's final round.From her phone: "Pull the shortlisted CVs, generate interview questions based on the JD, attach the interview notes, and save one briefing doc per candidate to /Briefing-Packs."She's home by the time they're ready to share.Truly async: You assign the task and leave—Claude doesn't need you hovering.Your files, your machine: Local processing means sensitive data stays with you.One persistent thread: Your phone and desktop stay in sync—no switching apps, no copy-pasting between devices.Mint's ‘AI tool of the week’ is excerpted from Leslie D'Monte's weekly TechTalk newsletter. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your email inbox.Note: The tools and analysis featured in this section demonstrated clear value based on our internal testing. Our recommendations are entirely independent and not influenced by the tool creators.Jaspreet Bindra is co-founder and CEO, and Anuj Magazine is co-founder, of AI&Beyond.Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint.

₹800 crore handicrafts industry is seeing orders stall, cash get locked up and livelihoods fray—exposing its deep reliance on export markets.In Eidgah’s Narwara locality, Pashmina weaver Rauf Ahmad Qureshi, 54, keeps one eye on his loom and the other on television updates from the Gulf, where demand for his work is shaped. “We get work through traders, so any crisis impacts us quickly,” he told Mint. “An artisan lives hand to mouth.

Mint.Jio, which has over 500 million subscribers, told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that it was in compliance with the regulator's guidelines, and the tariff plans offered are based on “intelligible criteria”, and cannot be treated as discriminatory.The service provider has been given time till 14 April to comply with two directions. First, Jio has to publish and make available all tariff offerings, including the three special tariff vouchers— ₹249, ₹199 and ₹209—at all its platforms such as retail stores, customer care centres, website and app.

Mint. “There is no need for a manager to fold up a fund.

India Inc. is increasingly turning to its own shareholders for capital.Companies sharply ramped up fundraising through rights issues in FY26, signalling a clear preference for funding from promoters and existing investors as volatile markets and cautious institutional investor flows made external capital harder to access.Qualified institutional placements continued to dominate fundraising by companies, although the gap with rights issues narrowed sharply from FY25.Companies raised ₹47,280 crore through rights issues in FY26, more than tripling from ₹13,797 crore in FY25 and marking the highest mobilization since FY21, according to Prime Database.

Swiss luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer is riding India’s growing middle class to bet that localized retail sales can offset a falling global appetite for high-end Swiss timepieces. The LVMH-owned brand plans to open boutique shops rather than rely on third-party distributors to shore up sales in a volatile luxury market.As parent LVMH struggles with a profit slide, India’s demand for Swiss watches has defied the downturn, surging more than 26% early this year.

₹600 per kg to ₹1,000 per kg, premium Mamra almonds from Iran up about 25% to ₹3,500 per kg, and prunes in some cases doubling from ₹500 per kg to ₹1,000 per kg. Pistachio prices have risen from ₹2,000 per kg to ₹2,800 per kg in the past month.Overall, he said, imported dry fruit prices have increased between 15% and 100%, depending on availability and sourcing constraints.India sources a wide range of dry fruits globally, with Iran and Afghanistan among the key suppliers of pistachios, figs, raisins, apricots, dates and premium Mamra almonds.