ब्लिट्ज ब्यूरो
Markets : Brent Below $86, and the Index Opens Up
The Sensex opened at 77,892.10 on 26 August, up 236.01 points or 0.30 per cent; the Nifty 50 opened flat at 24,341.95, up 7.40. The trigger was crude: Brent eased to about $85.5 from near $94 last week. Previous close: 77,656.09 and 24,334.55.
Flows: Both Sides of the Street Were Buyers
Foreign Institutional Investors bought equities worth ₹1,593.53 crore on 25 August and Domestic Institutional Investors bought ₹230.26 crore. FIIs outbought DIIs by nearly seven to one that session — an unusual configuration in a year when domestic flows have generally done the heavy lifting.
Energy: A Quarter of the World’s New Demand
Hardeep Singh Puri told Indian Foreign Service officers on 25 August that India’s energy demand will grow about 2.5 times by 2047, taking roughly 25 per cent of incremental global demand. India is the third-largest consumer of energy and oil, the third-largest refiner and the fourth-largest LNG importer.
Trade: India’s Largest Delegation Lands in Japan
Piyush Goyal is in Japan from 24 to 27 August with more than 200 business representatives — India’s largest-ever such delegation — covering manufacturing, semiconductors, clean energy, steel, automotive, financial services, healthcare and start-ups. Roundtables with Keidanren and the JIBCC of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry focused on semiconductors and AI.
Labour: Thirty-One Crore Workers on One Register
The e-Shram portal completes five years on 26 August with 31.89 crore registrations. Women are 54.28 per cent. The number to watch for employers and insurers is the smallest: about 11.5 lakh gig and platform workers, or 0.36 per cent of the register — one in 277.
Mobility : $103,265 Proposed at the H-1B Door
The US Department of Homeland Security has proposed an additional $103,265 fee on every cap-subject H-1B petition, payable at filing, and estimates about $8.8 billion a year from a projected 85,000 petitions. Blitz recomputation: $8.78 billion. Cap-exempt filings by universities and research bodies are outside the fee.
Investment : Sitharaman Pitches Canada’s Banks
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in Toronto on 26 August, told Indian business figures that India’s transformation is structural — urbanisation, a growing middle class, digital infrastructure — and flagged collaboration with Canadian banks, fintech firms and regulators. The visit to Canada and the US runs 25 August to 2 September.
MSME : The Traders’ Board Hits Its 100th Meeting
The National Traders’ Welfare Board held its 100th video-conference meeting, part of a standing engagement mechanism between the Centre and trader associations across the country. A hundred sittings is itself the datum: an institutional channel for the retail trade that now has a decade-scale record of continuity.
Space : ISRO’s Return to the Pad Is Scheduled
ISRO is preparing to launch GISAT-1A, also designated EOS-05, on a GSLV in early September — its first launch since the PSLV-C62/EOS-N1 failure on 12 January 2026. The satellite is built for high-frequency imaging of large areas of the Indian landmass, for disaster, agriculture and forestry monitoring.
Consumer : Delhi’s ₹5,110-Crore Transfer Starts Paying
The Delhi Lakshmi Yojana begins crediting ₹2,500 a month from 1 September; 4,000 approval letters were handed over on 26 August. The ₹5,110 crore provision in the 2026-27 Delhi Budget funds about 204 lakh woman-months — far more than the 6.52 lakh applications so far completed.