India's central bank held firm, its Finance Minister promised more — and together, the RBI and government delivered a masterclass in economic policy communication. The message to global investors is unmistakable: India is open, prepared, and worth your confidence.
Rusk Media was founded in 2019. It makes content that a Gen Z audience watches on a phone, not a TV — scripted fiction, unscripted formats, vertical dramas, live entertainment, a talent reality franchise, and a dating show. It built its own platform. It built an advertising business. And it just raised ₹100 crore from the company behind Candy Crush licensing in India, the investor behind Zomato and PolicyBazaar, and one of India's most active VC firms.
Tamil Nadu is entering 2026 with one of the most ambitious deep-tech strategies in India. With the launch of India's first dedicated Deep Tech Startup Policy, a ₹100 crore funding plan, and TRL-based structured support, the state is building a full-stack ecosystem — from R&D to global scale. At Umagine TN 2026, the state secured ₹9,820 crore in fresh investment commitments across AI, fintech, healthcare, SaaS, and digital infrastructure. But the real story isn't just about money—it's about quantum computing access for startups, a ₹54.6 crore i-TNT Hub at Anna University, and a new reality show called 'Startup Thamizha'. Yet, beneath the glittering headlines, a sobering reality persists: Tamil Nadu is a great place to build, but a challenging one to scale. As one deep-tech founder put it, "The moments when startups are exposed to capital and customers in Bengaluru and Pune, they want to move out for justifiable reasons".
In what officials are calling the largest denaturalization campaign in recent US history, the Department of Justice has filed proceedings to strip citizenship from 17 naturalized Americans—including Neeraj Sharma, a 50-year-old Indian-origin businessman and former CEO of a New Jersey-based staffing firm. The DOJ alleges that Sharma submitted 11 fraudulent H-1B visa petitions with forged executive signatures and fabricated documents, then concealed his misconduct when applying for citizenship in 2017. As the Trump administration signals a "zero-tolerance policy" toward immigration fraud, the case has sent shockwaves through the Indian diaspora and raised urgent questions about the fragility of the American Dream.
India's unicorns are not merely financial instruments generating returns for their investors. They are institutions — shaping employment norms, digital infrastructure, policy conversations, and the expectations of an entire generation about what work, wealth, and possibility can look like.
In 1995, Sanjeev Bikhchandani was a 32-year-old marketing professional with a steady job. He and his wife invested their life savings — ₹8 lakh — to start a small business in his father's backyard shed. Their idea: a job portal called Naukri.com. The problem? India had barely 10,000 internet connections, and almost no one looked for jobs online. Everyone said he was crazy. But Sanjeev believed that the internet would change everything. Today, Naukri.com is India’s largest online job portal, with over 70 million registered users and 150,000+ recruiter clients. His company, InfoEdge, is a $10 billion publicly traded giant that has also funded successful startups like Zomato, PolicyBazaar, and Swiggy. This article traces Sanjeev's journey from a backyard startup to a pioneer of Indian internet, and from a job portal founder to one of India’s most respected angel investors.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.25%, opting for caution amid rising inflationary pressures triggered by the ongoing Iran–US conflict and global supply chain disruptions. The decision was unanimously approved by the six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which met between June 3 and June 5. The central bank also retained its neutral policy stance, while leaving the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) rate at 5.00%, and the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and Bank Rate at 5.50%.
Excerpt: As the only woman in India leading a large‑scale fintech and payments platform, Upasana Taku has navigated one of the most competitive and male‑dominated sectors in the startup ecosystem. As Chairperson, Co‑Founder, CFO, and Executive Director of MobiKwik, she has guided the company’s transformation from a mobile wallet to a full‑stack fintech platform serving hundreds of millions of Indians. This research article chronicles her journey from the United States back to India in 2008, driven by a desire for grassroots impact, and analyzes her strategic role in leading the company to a successful IPO on the BSE and NSE in December 2024. We also examine the unique challenges faced by women in fintech leadership and the policy implications for India’s digital payments revolution.
Sometime in the third week of May 2026, three deals were signed in three different boardrooms that, taken together, will reshape the Indian financial‑technology landscape more profoundly than any single regulatory intervention or market shift of the past decade. On Monday, the digital‑lending platform KreditBee was acquired by a consortium led by Axis Bank and the private‑equity firm ChrysCapital for approximately $1.4 billion. On Wednesday, the insurtech startup Policybazaar, which had been publicly listed since 2021, announced a merger with its long‑time rival Coverfox, creating the largest digital‑insurance distribution platform in India with a combined valuation of approximately $3.8 billion. On Friday, the wealth‑management platform Scripbox was acquired by the mutual‑fund giant HDFC Asset Management for approximately $420 million, bringing the startup's decade‑long independent journey to an end.
To dismantle deep-seated financial disparities, the Delhi Government has launched an ambitious initiative providing collateral-free loans of up to ₹10 crore for women-led startups and Self-Help Groups (SHGs). By acting as the direct guarantor, the state eliminates the prohibitive need for property or personal asset pledges that traditionally block women from scaling their ventures. Accompanied by commitments to offer prominent retail spaces within premium city malls, this policy bridges the gap between grassroots local manufacturing and elite consumer markets, paving a smooth path toward financial independence.