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Technology

A Law Built for Case-by-Case Review Now Blocks Accounts by the Thousand

Section 69A requires a committee to individually judge each blocking order 'justifiable,' with reasons recorded in writing. In practice, one 2025 order blocked 2,355 accounts inside an hour, and the government has not published an annual count since 2022.

August 18, 2026

The deck of a large oil tanker seen from above, sailing forward into open blue ocean under a partly clouded sky

Business

RBI's Growth Forecast Assumed an Oil Price the Market Has Already Broken

RBI's FY27 growth and inflation math rests on an $85-a-barrel oil assumption set in April. Brent has already cleared $91, and the central bank's own numbers show it saw the rebound coming.

August 18, 2026

A woman sews fabric on an industrial machine on a factory production floor in India, with coworkers and stacked textiles in the background

Business

India's Median Firm Got Bigger After Covid, Not Smaller

A new EAC-PM working paper tracked the median Indian firm, not the largest ones, through the pandemic years. Its capital, revenue and profitability all rose, the opposite of what the K-shaped recovery story predicts.

August 18, 2026

A large satellite dish photographed from below against a blue sky with wisps of cloud

Business

Three in Four Indian Space Startups Have Never Raised Equity Capital

A Tracxn count finds three in four Indian spacetech startups have never closed an equity round. The government fund built to fix that has not made a single investment either.

August 17, 2026

Two hands exchanging Indian rupee cash notes at a small roadside tea stall

Business

The UPI Fee India Said Was False Just Became Law

Parliament just handed the government the power to charge a UPI fee it dismissed as false fourteen months earlier. The survey data and the currency numbers suggest free UPI was never actually beating cash.

August 17, 2026

Tokyo Station's historic red-brick building framed by glass skyscrapers in the Marunouchi financial district

Markets

India's Recovering Foreign Flows Depend on a Japanese Miss

Japan's economy just posted the kind of soft number that usually worries markets. In India, it is doing the opposite: delaying a Bank of Japan hike that could interrupt a foreign-investor rebound that is still deep underwater for the year.

August 17, 2026

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