
Business
After a Rate Hike, India's Repo Rate Is Still Below Its Own Inflation Forecast
The RBI raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50 per cent. By the central bank's own projections, inflation still runs above that rate in the quarter now under way and the two after it.
By The Signal Editorial
October 7, 2026 · 6 min read
The Latest

Business
India's Data-Sharing Rail Reaches 2.8 Billion Accounts, but Customers Have Linked Only 11 Percent
The Account Aggregator rail has 2.8 billion accounts enabled for sharing, and customers have linked 310 million. RBI's new interoperability rule goes after that gap, not the plumbing.
October 7, 2026

Business
Airtel Raised Postpaid Prices After Its Record Quarter of Postpaid Gains
Airtel's Rs 50 postpaid increase is worth at most about 1 percent of its India revenue. What it tests is whether its fastest-growing customers will pay more for a bundle they may never use.
October 7, 2026

Technology
India Lost Its Cheapest Phones to the AI Memory Boom, and Almost Nothing Else
India's smartphone market fell 11.1% in Q2 2026. Strip out phones under US$100 and the rest of the market did not shrink at all. AI data centres are repricing one band of buyers, not everyone.
October 6, 2026

Geopolitics
The US Tariff on India Is Now 10 Percent, and the Trade Talks Are Still Stuck
Sitharaman says India-US trade talks have hit a plateau. The tariff India faces is now 10 percent, and the two countries' own trade statistics disagree about what it has done.
October 6, 2026

Business
India's Gold Loan Boom Is a Bet on the Price of Gold
NBFC gold loans were up 70 percent in the year to May 2026, and NBFC retail credit is still accelerating. Gold was down about 7 percent in 2026 by mid-year, then rose 13 percent in August and pulled back in September. The lending boom is a bet on a metal that keeps swinging.
October 6, 2026

Markets
Aramco's Asia Price Cut Looks Like a Freight Rebate, Not a Price War
Saudi Aramco surprised the market by cutting Asia's November price to the widest discount since June 2020. Supertanker hire has risen 15-fold in a year, and Asian refiners say the cut is meant to cover it.
October 5, 2026
Business & Markets

Business
After a Rate Hike, India's Repo Rate Is Still Below Its Own Inflation Forecast
The RBI raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50 per cent. By the central bank's own projections, inflation still runs above that rate in the quarter now under way and the two after it.
October 7, 2026

Business
India's Data-Sharing Rail Reaches 2.8 Billion Accounts, but Customers Have Linked Only 11 Percent
The Account Aggregator rail has 2.8 billion accounts enabled for sharing, and customers have linked 310 million. RBI's new interoperability rule goes after that gap, not the plumbing.
October 7, 2026

Business
Airtel Raised Postpaid Prices After Its Record Quarter of Postpaid Gains
Airtel's Rs 50 postpaid increase is worth at most about 1 percent of its India revenue. What it tests is whether its fastest-growing customers will pay more for a bundle they may never use.
October 7, 2026
Technology & Science

Technology
India Lost Its Cheapest Phones to the AI Memory Boom, and Almost Nothing Else
India's smartphone market fell 11.1% in Q2 2026. Strip out phones under US$100 and the rest of the market did not shrink at all. AI data centres are repricing one band of buyers, not everyone.
October 6, 2026

Technology
Google's Hardened Framework Cuts XSS Bugs by 250 to 1
Google's AI bug hunter confirmed over 500 exploitable security flaws across its web apps, and only 2 on the hardened framework built to stop exactly that bug. The gap says more about templates than about talent.
September 27, 2026

Technology
A Litigation Funder Bankrolled the Lawsuit That Just Cost Apple $5.7 Billion
A federal jury ordered Apple to pay $5.72 billion over two haptic patents, then discovery showed the winning plaintiff's case was bankrolled by a subsidiary of litigation funder Burford Capital.
September 27, 2026
Health, Culture & Geopolitics

Health
Two Large Listed Hospital Chains Raised Bills Slower Than Parliament's Inflation Figure
A parliamentary panel wants foreign hospital capital curbed and prices capped, citing medical inflation of 10 to 13 percent. Two large listed chains report bill growth of 5 and 8 percent, and Apollo credits case mix.
October 5, 2026

Health
Serum Institute's HPV Vaccine Cleared WHO While India Vaccinates With Gardasil
WHO prequalified Cervavac on 25 September 2026, the sixth HPV vaccine to clear the gate. India's own free programme, launched in February, runs on Merck's Gardasil.
October 5, 2026

Health
India Has Regained Its Pre-Covid Lifespan, but WHO Cannot Say by How Much
WHO's new estimates say India's life expectancy is back above its 2019 level, ahead of the world. The 95 percent range around the 2023 figure runs 7.1 years, three times as wide as the 2019 range.
October 2, 2026