UPS Financial News

India’s energy regulator is moving to plug a widening hole in the country’s gas supply chain as the conflict in West Asia threatens supplies of natural gas that is vital to power, fertiliser and city gas distribution networks.According to two people aware of developments, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) is preparing to propose overground storage facilities for natural gas near the country’s existing LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminals—India currently has eight such terminals. The storage would be used for both commercial purposes and for strategic requirements during exigencies, they said.“PNGRB may propose the government to set up storage reserves for LNG, preferably near existing terminals to support India’s growing demand at times of exigencies and ensure energy security,” one of the two people said on the condition of anonymity, adding that the regulator would approach the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to frame rules under the PNGRB Act.The urgency follows a halt in tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries more than half of India’s LNG imports, and a spike in prices of LNG after an attack on QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan complex on Monday.The move assumes significance considering India imports 55% of its gas requirement and holds barely 20 days of inventory—including supplies in transit.

Jammu and Kashmir, the strain on the region’s hydropower sector is growing, exposing the risks facing an energy economy built on snow-fed rivers.The scale of the disruption is already visible in weather data. According to the India Meteorological Department, the Union territory has recorded an overall rainfall and snowfall deficit of 39% during this winter season, with most districts witnessing significantly below-normal precipitation.

The market’s reaction to the joint US-Israel strikes on Iran wasn't exactly subtle. The war is choking the Strait of Hormuz, hurting tanker flows and causing oil markets to react. Brent crude price is now at $78 a barrel.Back home, the benchmark Nifty 50 index fell by 1.2% on Monday, while shares of state-run Indian oil marketing companies (OMCs) were down around 4%.

Anthropic’s latest complaint against three Chinese labs is a warning sign for Silicon Valley: Don’t expect to earn too much from the competitive edge your model gives you. Companies from the developing world will line up to swim across your moat, if they can—and neither the US government nor your lawyers will be able to help you. As the music industry and Big Pharma could tell them, nobody will eliminate your rivals, you have to accommodate them.The company says it has pretty solid evidence that DeepSeek, MiniMax and Moonshot ran “industrial-scale campaigns” to “illicitly extract” the capabilities of its own model, Claude.

₹1,000 crore over the last two years in acquiring stakes in startups such as BlackBuck, OfBusiness, Purplle, Shiprocket and BlueStone.The size of the first fund was about ₹300 crore, followed by a ₹400-crore second fund. The third fund is likely to have a corpus of ₹500 crore and will go live shortly, Oister’s co-founder and co-chief executive officer Sandeep Sinha told Mint in an interview.

Mint explores the best- and worst-case scenarios.On Monday the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s armed forces, announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed and attacked a few ships passing through it. The announcement quickly caused panic.

Wipro Ltd faces an annual dent up to $100 million as American cosmetics brand, Estée Lauder, has shifted the Bengaluru tech services company's share of work in a half-billion dollar, five-year deal to Accenture Plc.This latest development raises questions on chief executive officer (CEO) Srini Pallia's turnaround plan and growth at Wipro, as outsourcers pivot towards generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI, solutions, analysts said.According to four people in the know, Accenture will now handle key IT functions of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc including finance, database management, and back-end management for the New York-based cosmetics company.Early in February, Estée Lauder had announced the Accenture contract but there was no information on that business moving away from Wipro.“In the second quarter, we've established our new Enterprise Business Services, selecting Accenture to transform how we deliver shared services globally as we accelerate the deployment of AI throughout the organization,” said Stéphane de la Faverie, chief executive of Estée Lauder, during the company’s post earnings conference call on 5 February.Emails sent to Wipro and Estée Lauder on Monday went unanswered.Mint learns that much of the work awarded to Accenture was part of a February 2021 deal won by Wipro. The Bengaluru company had reportedly bagged the $500 million contract with Estée Lauder, which was supposed to run for five years.

₹345.47 trillion ($3.93 trillion)—3.26% lower than the ₹357.14 trillion estimate published in January under the 2011-12 series.The downward revision stems from those earlier overestimations. In an interaction with Mint, the statistics ministry confirmed that proxy indicators used in the older series had led to overestimations, validating concerns raised by economists, policymakers and researchers for nearly a decade.But the shrinkage is only part of the story.

A new term that entered the lexicon after India’s budget for 2026-27 was the ‘orange economy.’ Synonymous with the creative economy, it is emerging as a formidable engine of growth that transcends traditional industrial boundaries. Once viewed as niche, the intersection of culture, technology and intellectual property now accounts for roughly 3.1% of global GDP and 6.2% of all employment.For a country like India, where recent budgetary initiatives recognize the strategic value of creative assets, the growth of this sector offers more than just economic expansion.

About a month ago, I built my first app. It was a simple speed-reader Chrome extension that is designed to display text one word at a time so I can read an article faster than normal.

India is preparing for one of the biggest overhauls of its highway tolling architecture since the rollout of FASTag. Instead of the previously considered Global Navigation Satellite System-based tolling model, the ministry of road transport and highways and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) now plan to implement the Multi-Lane Free-Flow electronic toll collection system across the country’s 146,560-km national highway network.

agriculture, with a significant intervention underway in Maharashtra. The state government has structured a large programme that brings in private sector participation on the generation side while farmers remain the primary beneficiaries.

₹1 trillion towards highway construction in FY27, potentially marking the largest annual private sector investment in India’s roads sector, according to two people aware of the matter.Projects worth around ₹35,000 crore, reserved exclusively for private participation under the build-operate-transfer (toll) model, are likely to be bid out in the first three months of the next fiscal year, according to the first person cited above.Detailed project reports for projects worth ₹50,000–60,000 crore are being finalised and are expected to be opened for bidding in the third and fourth quarters of FY27.“As all these would be BOT (toll) projects, the private sector is expected to give investment commitments of close to ₹1 trillion for building greenfield highways,” the person said.The push signals a renewed push to crowd in private capital after years of limited activity under build-operate-transfer (BOT) model.

New Delhi: India’s top carmakers are seeking alternative sources for lithium-ion cells that go into electric vehicle batteries as they seek to secure supply to counter China’s unpredictable curbs.Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, the country’s second-largest carmaker, has begun talks with Germany’s Volkswagen Group, which has a lithium-ion cell subsidiary PowerCo, for future supply, the company said at Kotak Institutional Equities’ Annual Investor Conference last week.While Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd will depend on its group firm Agratas, Hyundai Motor India Ltd has inked a partnership with Exide Industries Ltd to procure locally made cells from the gigafactory under construction in Bengaluru.Lithium-ion batteries account for more than a third of an EV’s cost. Diversifying cell supply is important after China imposed restrictions on the export of rare-earth magnets, another critical component used in building motors.

BENGALURU: Reliance Retail is reshaping its fashion business around faster-moving private labels as it looks to win over India’s young shoppers, betting speed and control over its own brands will be critical as competition intensifies across apparel and lifestyle retail.The shift is visible across its brands, such as Azorte and Zivame, where the retailer is speeding up product cycles, adding more trend-focused styles, and investing in tech-enabled store experiences for consumers who increasingly discover fashion through digital content and influencers.The push reflects how Reliance Retail is adapting to a market where younger consumers are increasingly setting the pace of competition.“India’s median age is 26. If you are in an aspirational category like fashion, lifestyle or beauty and you are not targeting this segment, then you are missing the obvious,” said Ankur Bisen, senior partner at The Knowledge Company.

New Delhi: Basmati rice exporters will meet officials of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) this week to assess the fallout of escalating tensions in West Asia, as shipping disruptions and rising freight and insurance costs threaten India’s nearly $6 billion basmati trade in FY25, as per people in the know.The move comes amid growing uncertainty over consignments bound for the Gulf region, which accounts for nearly 60-70% of India’s basmati exports. Exporters said that while the immediate damage is still being assessed, several shipments are either stuck in transit or held up at ports, raising concerns over delayed payments and contractual risks if the conflict is prolonged.“Exports have come to a standstill in some corridors.

drive up natural gas prices and freight costs, industry officials and analysts said.Although the government makes a provisional estimate of the fertilizer subsidy at the start of the financial year—based on sowing patterns, irrigated area and historical demand—it carries an implicit obligation to enhance the allocation if unforeseen developments arise.Currently, the fertilizer subsidy is projected at ₹1.71 trillion for the next financial year, slightly lower compared to the revised estimate of ₹1.86 trillion for the ongoing 2025-26 fiscal (FY26)."If the crisis persists for long, the fertilizer prices are expected to go up which might require higher subsidies," said an industry official on the condition of anonymity. In the past, the government has been making special financial provisions for additional subsidies in case of a spike in global prices.Natural gas, the primary feedstock and energy source for urea production, accounts for a bulk of fertilizer manufacturing costs, making the sector highly sensitive to price spikes.Research firm Zero Carbon Analytics has said that of the top countries that import oil and gas via the Strait of Hormuz, Japan faces the most direct risk of disruption, due to its high share of oil and gas trade through the shipping route and its reliance on imported oil and gas.

Mint.Today, Milky Mist is one of India’s fastest growing milk product brands with a 30% compounded annual growth rate between FY23 and FY25. Last fiscal year, the company clocked revenue of ₹2,350 crore with a product range that spans the entire milk spectrum—paneer, ghee, butter, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, chocolate and more.It is this exercise that has also emboldened him to try something few private sector dairy players have attempted so far—become a pan-Indian brand.The milk sector in India is dominated by strong regional players, almost all of them backed by state governments. They include Mother Dairy (Delhi), Nandini (Karnataka), Saras (Rajasthan), Aavin (Tamil Nadu), Milkfed (Punjab), Milma (Kerala) and Parag (Uttar Pradesh), to name a few.

crude flows, has emerged as a flashpoint after US and Israeli strikes on Iran and retaliatory actions by Tehran. While there has been no formal closure, heightened uncertainty has been enough for carriers to alter schedules and pause sailings.Shipping majors including Mediterranean Shipping Company and A.P.

AI-focused data centre can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households, while the largest facilities under construction could consume 20 times as much.In 2024, data centres accounted for 1.5% of global electricity consumption, largely concentrated in the US, China and Europe. Global data-centre electricity consumption is expected to more than double to 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030, equivalent to more than half of India’s electricity consumption in 2023-24 (1,622 TWh).The IEA estimates data centres will account for about half of electricity demand growth in the US between 2025 and 2030.

₹366/bag, said a Jefferies India report dated 1 March. One cement bag weighs 50 kilograms.“Dealers in Ahmedabad said that hike attempts are being made slowly by companies to revert to stronger pre-September levels,” added Jefferies.Infrastructure momentum is aiding demand.