UPS Financial News

India Ageing Report 2023 projects that the number of persons aged 60 years and above would double from 149 million in 2023 to over 347 million (25% of the population) by 2050. The dependency ratio would grow from 16% in 2020 to 34% by 2050.This has profound social, political and economic implications.

State-owned Central Bank of India is looking to change its loan book mix by stepping up corporate lending, even as retail, agriculture and MSME (RAM) segments remain its core strength, managing director Kalyan Kumar told Mint in an interview.As of September 2025, nearly 72% of the bank’s ₹2.93 trillion loan book was tilted towards RAM, with corporates accounting for just 28%. Kumar plans to change this mix to 65:35 by March 2026, without diluting the lender’s core focus on its rural and semi-urban franchise.Barely weeks after taking charge on 30 September, Kumar said that, “RAM will always remain our priority.

Pension System (NPS) to increase its wider acceptance among households, while the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) took some tough calls to plug complete withdrawals of the provident fund. Here are the headline events of 2025 in the space that you should take note of.NPS is a defined contribution plan. The original product required an investment for a certain number of years, and on vesting or maturity, which coincides with the traditional retirement age of 60, you annuitise at least 40% of that corpus to buy a pension for life.

Electric trucks are becoming the latest type of vehicle to benefit from battery swapping, which has until now been largely restricted to two- and three-wheelers. Pune-based e-truck maker Blue Energy Motors and Murugappa Group’s Montra Electric are rolling out 55-tonne e-trucks that are compatible with battery swapping.These zero-emission commercial vehicles provide the right use-case for price parity between EVs and internal combustion engines (ICE) once the cost of the battery is removed from the equation, according to manufacturers and domain experts.As India races to decarbonize its massive freight sector, battery swapping could prove to be the silver bullet for heavy-duty electric trucks.

₹15,000-crore fruit economy, trapping apple growers in a cycle of rising input costs and recurring losses, even as the promise of crop insurance remains largely theoretical.Weighed down by low enthusiasm after another season of heavy losses, fruit growers have begun the new farming cycle, pruning apple trees in their orchards, amid Chilai Kalan, Kashmir's harshest forty days of winter.In Allaiepora village of Pulwama, Khursheed Ahmad Allaie tells Mint that the apple growers who once invested heavily in establishing high-density orchards, converting paddy fields into apple farms, now find themselves at a loss, as the impacts of the climate crisis have intensified over the past decade.“Global warming has changed everything. Heatwaves bring disease.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected]: After decades of calm, India’s paints industry has seen its equilibrium disrupted over the past year, as deep-pocketed conglomerates moved in—first with Aditya Birla Group’s Birla Opus, followed by JSW Paints’ acquisition of Dutch major Akzo Nobel’s India business.As competition surged, the industry’s largest players prioritised growth, often at the expense of near-term profitability.

From India and New Zealand wrapping up trade talks in record time to the Centre planning a higher outlay on rail safety, a drop in overseas education remittances, shifts in the rural job guarantee burden, and a record US court payout in the Johnson & Johnson talc case—here's a compilation of this week's news in numbers.The Centre is likely to announce an outlay of over ₹1.3 trillion in FY27 on rail safety in the Union budget, about 12% higher than the current fiscal’s amount of ₹1.2 trillion, Mint reported. Funds would be used for rolling stock maintenance, track renewals, and expanding Kavach—India’s automatic train protection system.This marks a shift in the government’s focus towards railway safety: the outlay was up only 2% in FY26.

Jaws, which I remember watching with my eyes closed and ears plugged with fingers. The sharks circled my cage, bumping it, rocking it wildly, battering it so they could get at me. One came close to severing a metal bar and breaking into the cage.

honhar birwan ke hote chikne paat—suggests that the signs of future success are visible early. It sums up the early years of Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani—Dhirubhai—one of India’s greatest industrial empire builders, whose youth too shimmered with portents.Ambani passed away in July 2002, leaving behind a giant conglomerate whose market capitalization today exceeds $250 billion and a legacy that continues to shape Indian business.While the details of his professional life are household lore now, repeated across newspapers, magazines, and films, it’s his early life, vividly captured in Dhirubhai Ambani: The Man I Knew by Kokilaben, that provides fascinating clues to his career.

In what has become the latest entry in a flurry of inbound Japanese deals into India, Aica Kogyo Co. is set to acquire up to 53.12% stake in Indian laminates firm Stylam Industries Ltd for up to ₹2,030 crore.Stylam Industries Ltd’s promoters will sell up to 40% of their stake to the Japanese materials manufacturing major Aica Kogyo Co.

several new records in both nominal and inflation-adjusted terms. Silver has also soared, sweeping up legions of amateur investors, ranging from newly committed collectors to Reddit-inspired speculators trading in and out of exchange-traded funds that offer exposure to silver without having to store it.Silver futures have climbed 145% this year to around $71 a troy ounce, blowing through a 45-year record in October and only picking up steam from there.

True financial well-being doesn't start by asking what the market can give you. It starts by calculating what you need to get. It begins with the Required Rate of Return.When you create a financial plan that is dependent upon market return expectations, you are essentially creating a home without a solid foundation.

silver prices surged by around 150% to ₹218,918 per kg, outperforming gold's 79% return. Over the past five years, silver's 231% gain has also outpaced gold's 173% return. This rapid increase has once again brought silver into the spotlight.

There are a lot of reasons, some deserved and some not, for Americans' distrust of their institutions. Lately I have been thinking about one of the more counterintuitive ones: Schools, governments and even employers are trying too hard to make things fair.In doing so, they are not only setting themselves up for failure—and eventually mistrust—but they are also misunderstanding the galvanizing role that unfairness plays in a competitive economy.Unfairness can be tempered, but it can never be eliminated.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] DELHI: India is pushing to upgrade its image from the 'pharmacy of the world' to a global life sciences hub, a goal that faces critical execution risks, especially concerning quality standards and policy follow-through.

electric vehicles, and electronics pushing the market into a supply deficit for the fifth consecutive year in 2025. Silver is currently trading at about $72 per ounce (oz), almost double the average of $36.6 per oz in the half-year ended September (H1FY26), and 1.4 times the FY25 average of $30.4 per oz. The persistent demand-supply mismatch is expected to keep prices firm.The rally brightens HZL’s earnings outlook.

Following years of aggressive hoarding, Indian corporations are starting to dip into their cash reserves to fund dividend payouts and acquisitions, but not capital expenditure (capex).According to a Mint analysis of data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the pace of cash accumulation hit an eight-year low by September 2025.The analysis of CMIE data for a common sample of nearly 2,000 listed firms, excluding banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) companies, showed that cash and bank balances rose just 1% year-on-year to about ₹5.4 trillion by September. The pace is a far cry from the pandemic period, when heightened uncertainty pushed median cash balances up by nearly 15% annually between September 2020 and September 2024.Companies are now sitting on a cash pile equivalent to nearly 5% of their total assets, up from 3.5% in September 2017 and 4% in September 2020, the analysis showed.

. Vasdev’s politics ranged far left, however, and his customers were unaware that while he fixed their timepieces, he also secretly financed Mau Mau insurgents who fought the British in a bloody conflict in the 1950s.He funded trade unionist Makhan Singh’s printing press, which churned out pro-independence leaflets. Makhan spent 11 years behind bars for his activism.

The heavy industries ministry is likely to exhaust its ₹857-crore subsidy fund for electric three-wheelers in the L5 category under the ₹10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme three months ahead of schedule, according to the government’s letter to manufacturers. The funds were originally expected to last until March 2026, but the high adoption of electric three-wheelers means they have been disbursed faster than anticipated.In a publicly available letter to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) dated 23 December, the ministry said it would stop granting incentives on reaching the scheme's target of 288,809 L5 three-wheelers, or on 26 December, whichever came earlier.“Para 46 of the scheme notification clearly stipulates that the PM E-Drive Scheme is fund-limited, and once the allocated funds for the scheme or any of its sub-components is exhausted, no further claims will be entertained,” the letter read.Two kinds of electric three-wheelers can receive subsidies under the PM E-Drive scheme – L3 category e-rickshaws with small batteries, commonly used for last-mile connectivity in cities such as Delhi and Kolkata; and larger, L5 category three-wheelers that are used to ferry both passengers and cargo.

Dear reader, as 2025, a year of global tumult and volatility, rolls by, Mint's reporters and columnists look around the corner on what is coming in 2026—to help you know what to expect and prepare for it. Tell us what you think at [email protected] Chinese zodiac predicts that 2026 will be the Year of the Fire Horse, symbolizing bold decisions, ambition and sharply moving away from the strategic thinking that was 2025, the Year of the Wood Snake.For both the employer and the employee in India Inc, there will be three prominent trends, says experts.

₹6.64 a unit, even though solar and wind power come for ₹2.5-4. The key reason is the 'infirm' nature of renewable power - lack of generation when the sun doesn't shine, and the wind doesn't blow.Even those renewable projects with combined solar and wind generation, plus battery storage, are not finding takers despite being available at ₹5 a unit or lower, as discoms remain wary of battery supply chains. Meanwhile, thermal provides the necessary base load.