DayStarter

Market snapshot

Equities and sectors

Nifty opened absolutely flat at 24,472, tracking lacklustre global cues, while oil prices remained elevated amid the continuing stalemate in talks; selling pressure quickly took over, dragging the index below 24,400 towards 24,370 within the first hour.

A brief recovery towards 24,400 around 10:30 AM failed to sustain, with the index slipping towards the 24,270–24,280 zone by noon and touching an intraday low near 24,265 shortly after noon.

The second half consolidated largely between 24,275 and 24,300 until around 2:30 PM; buying interest returned in the final hour and a sharp closing move lifted the benchmark to 24,435.95, around 35 points below its opening level and significantly off the day’s lows.

Commodities and currency

Institutional flows

The macro view

Prices and monetary policy

India’s retail inflation rose to a 19-month high of 4.45% in July, driven primarily by higher food and fuel prices; inflation also picked up across restaurants and accommodation services and transport, while price pressures in healthcare, recreation, sports and culture eased marginally during the month.

Inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index, surpassed the Reserve Bank of India’s 4% midpoint target for the second successive month since January 2025, and marginally exceeded the median estimate of 4.4% forecast by 20 economists in a Mint poll, as the full impact of petrol and diesel price hikes and firmer food prices came into effect, according to provisional data released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation on Wednesday.

Food inflation, a key constituent of the CPI, stood at 5.52% in July, up from 5.32% in June, 4.78% in May and 4.20% in April; inflation remains within the RBI’s tolerance range of 2–6%.

Earlier this month the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee revised its FY27 inflation projection lower to 5% from 5.1%, but cited risks from an expected below-normal monsoon amid El Niño conditions, high and volatile energy prices, and possible second-round effects from elevated input costs, with the peak expected in Q3FY27.

Silver, gold, diamond and platinum jewellery, as well as vegetables such as onion, ginger and garlic, were among the items with the strongest inflationary pressure, while potato, peas, tomato, ladies finger and car and jeep were the top items with low all-India inflation; inflation was highest in Andhra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka as well as Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Ladakh, and lowest in Delhi, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

The Reserve Bank of India proposed changes to how banks and non-banks calculate interest rates, saying lenders should cap costs for small loans taken by borrowers and microfinance customers, and proposed that lenders put a ceiling on the annual percentage rate on microfinance loans and small value loans and ensure that they are not usurious.

Fiscal, capital formation and external flows

Public capital should serve as a catalyst for private investment rather than replace it, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday at a seminar on the sidelines of the Brics finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ meeting in Jaipur, outlining a series of government measures aimed at making infrastructure projects more attractive to private investors.

The government has raised ₹52,716.02 crore through disinvestment in FY27 so far, according to data from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management; budgeted capital expenditure for FY27 stands at ₹12.22 trillion, 11.5% higher than the FY26 revised estimate of ₹10.96 trillion.

The Reserve Bank of India’s concessional hedging window has narrowed the cost gap between overseas borrowing and domestic bonds to just 8–10 basis points seventy days on, as higher US Treasury yields and a rush of Indian banks into the dollar market to fund foreign-currency non-resident deposits pushed spreads higher, leaving public sector non-banking financial companies weighing whether to borrow overseas now, wait for better rates, or stay home, two PSUs and two merchant bankers said.

For a three-year US dollar bond, a treasury yield of around 4.27% combined with a spread of about 110 bps takes the base borrowing cost to roughly 5.37% on a semi-annual basis, and with the RBI’s 1.5% hedging facility and roughly 30 bps for coupon hedging, the overall cost of dollar borrowing works out to around 7.20% against domestic bond yields of around 7.28–7.30% for PSU issuers, according to market estimates cited by Mint.

Since the US-Iran war broke out on 28 February, the yield on the 10-year benchmark US treasury has gone up by 65 bps to 4.68%, while the corresponding domestic government bond yield is up only 10 bps to 6.78% as of 11 August, Bloomberg data showed, as reported by Mint.

Banks raised around $36.73 billion through the FCNR route until 31 July, according to data released by the RBI on 1 August, and the market expects mobilization to reach around $90 billion by September end, when the special FCNR deposit window closes.

Energy, resources and regulation

Amid energy-security concerns, the Centre is planning two new strategic petroleum reserves at Bikaner in Rajasthan and Bina in Madhya Pradesh, with feasibility studies for Bikaner completed and being finalized while the pre-feasibility study for Bina has concluded and a detailed feasibility report is set to begin, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas told a parliamentary standing committee whose report was submitted on Wednesday.

India’s crude oil import bill surged 60% to $49.8 billion in the June quarter, even as volumes fell to 60 million tonnes from 62.6 million tonnes a year earlier, as per government data; a $1 increase in crude prices sustained for a year can raise India’s annual import bill by ₹18,000 crore, with implications for inflation, growth and the external sector.

State-run refiners Hindustan Petroleum Corp. and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd are seeking up to a combined 6 million barrels of oil through spot tenders, with HPCL planning to import up to four million barrels for delivery in September and October and MRPL seeking up to 2 million barrels for 10–20 October, documents show.

Renewable energy developers can now voluntarily cut tariffs after winning a tender, a move that could help clear about 40GW of unsigned power purchase agreements without reopening the original bids, the ministry of new and renewable energy said in a communication dated 31 July, provided the developer offers the cut on its own and is not asked or pressured to do so.

India Ratings and Research said on Wednesday that the growing gap between renewable energy commissioning and transmission readiness is emerging as a key credit risk for the sector, with about 84GW of the 196GW RE pipeline till FY32 facing delays in general network access operationalization.

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 without debate; the Bill seeks to restrict states from levying additional tax on mineral rights and to give the Centre control over regulation of mineral-bearing lands having mineral contents in accordance with the parameters prescribed under the parent Act.

The Union government is amending the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 by introducing a new section 9D specifically prohibiting states from imposing any levies on mined minerals; the amendment comes two years after the Supreme Court upheld states’ right to tax minerals, and exempts the states from refunding the taxes collected so far.

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a motion to refer the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 to a 31-member joint committee of Parliament for further scrutiny amid strong opposition protests and demands for its withdrawal; the committee comprises 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha.

Consumption, households and social spending

The Centre is planning a system to curb the sale of stolen gold jewellery by marking each piece as “sold” against its unique six-digit Hallmark Unique Identification number after a transaction, two people directly involved in the process said; India’s gems and jewellery market was valued at about $85 billion in January 2026 and is projected to reach $130 billion by 2030, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation.

Organized jewellery retailers accounted for 16% of India’s gold jewellery retail market in FY25 while the unorganized segment accounted for 84%, according to Icra Research cited in an Assocham report released in March 2026.

India is weighing wide-ranging reforms of health insurance, from benchmarked treatment rates to a nationwide claims exchange, as it looks to boost transparency in a struggle to hold down some of the highest medical inflation in Asia, two persons informed of the matter said, with reform recommendations expected by year-end from a panel of regulators, industry leaders, hospitals and CII.

Nearly 84,000 government and government-aided schools have shut down across India and student enrolment has declined by nearly 15 million since 2018-19, according to a Mint analysis of government data in 21 states and Union territories with over 10 million population on eight indicators.

Indian states have spent 13–14% of their budgets on education on an aggregate basis in the last few years, data from the Reserve Bank of India showed, falling short of the 15–20% prescribed by Unesco, and down from 16% or more recorded consecutively between 2010-11 and 2014-15.

Data on sectoral shares of subsidies and transfers in states’ total revenue expenditure in the 16th Finance Commission report shows the share of cash transfers has jumped from just 3% in 2018-19 to 20% in 2025-26, while the share of subsidies and transfers on health, education and housing has declined from 13% to 11%.

Corporate action and earnings

Tata Sons: chairman’s exit

N. Chandrasekaran will step down as chairman of Tata Sons when his term ends in February 2027 and will not seek reappointment, ending a nearly decade-long tenure; under his leadership the Tata Group expanded significantly into new areas including airlines, semiconductors, electronics, batteries and digital businesses.

The decision followed a months-long standoff with Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata over the performance and strategic direction of some of the group’s new businesses, according to people familiar with the matter, and came six days before the Tata Sons annual general meeting scheduled for 18 August.

In his resignation letter Chandrasekaran wrote that the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust had unanimously resolved and recommended the extension of his next term for a period of five years, and that the resolution tabled at the Tata Sons Board on 24 February 2026 was not carried through because one of the Board Members did not support it.

The four new businesses that Tata Sons entered under Chandrasekaran, Air India, Tata Digital, Tata Electronics and Agratas, reported a combined loss of ₹29,924 crore in FY26 according to Tata Sons’ annual report, while losses across private businesses nearly doubled year-on-year to ₹27,854 crore during the year ended 31 March 2026 and Air India’s losses more than doubled to ₹22,238 crore.

Between March 2017 and March 2022 the valuation of the group’s listed companies surged three-fold to ₹23.2 trillion, but in the subsequent four years it moved barely 4% to ₹24 trillion, far slower than the 23% growth seen by the Sensex over this period, per Mint calculations on Bloomberg data.

Under Tata Sons’ Articles of Association the chairman will be appointed by a five-member selection committee; the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust own 27.98% and 23.56% respectively, other Tata trusts own 14.4% for a combined 65.9%, with the Shapoorji Pallonji Group at 18.38%, nine Tata Group companies at 12.86% and seven individuals at 2.87%.

The Centre is unlikely to intervene in the leadership turmoil at Tata Sons, viewing the matter as an internal issue of the conglomerate that should be resolved within the group, according to two government officials.

Deals and capital raising

Bank of America will acquire up to 49.9% in Jio Credit Ltd, the wholly-owned lending subsidiary of Jio Financial Services Ltd, for $1.9 billion, the companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday; the transaction values Jio Credit at about $3.8 billion and will initially give Bank of America a 26.5% equity interest, rising to 49.9% on exercise of the warrants.

Jio Credit had assets under management of ₹30,667 crore as of 30 June 2026 against ₹11,665 crore in the year-ago period, a 163% growth as per its investor presentation for the June quarter; the investment including equity shares and warrants if fully subscribed would be ₹18,268 crore.

Aditya Birla Group’s Pilani Investment and Industries Corp. is seeking to raise as much as ₹1,909 crore by selling a 0.57% stake in UltraTech Cement Ltd through a block trade on Thursday, 13 August, offering about 1.7 million shares at a floor price of ₹11,481 apiece, a 3% discount to the closing price of ₹11,836 on 12 August, according to a term sheet seen by Mint.

Private equity firm Tiger Global Management has fully exited The Viral Fever in a transaction that valued the company at $22 million, down from $82 million in 2019, selling up to a 40% stake to investors including Lighthouse India Fund-I, Frontier Globecap Ventures and LC Nueva Advisors LLP, three people close to the deal told Mint.

Bling Brands Pvt Ltd, which operates direct-to-consumer fitness brand Boldfit, has initiated a process to raise $80-100 million from private equity funds at a valuation of about ₹3,000-4,000 crore based on forward-looking revenue multiples, three people familiar with the matter said.

Yulu raised $87.5 million as part of its Series C round in a mix of equity and debt to expand its electric vehicle operations, the company said; of the $93 million round, $57.5 million came from GEF Capital Partners, a secondary component of $5.5 million gave some early institutional investors an exit, and $30 million of debt was raised from two European lenders.

Exits executed through IPOs declined 47% year-on-year to $801 million across 12 transactions during the six months ended 30 June, while total exit values in the country fell 29% in the same period to $9.4 billion, according to data from EY and the Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association cited by Mint.

The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development plans to raise $3-4 billion through external commercial borrowings, up from an earlier plan of $1-2 billion, and has raised $850 million under the RBI scheme through a term loan last month at SOFR plus 120 basis points, managing director Rajkiran Rai G said on the sidelines of the FIBAC 2026 conference in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Central Bank of India has mobilised $250 million under the FCNR-B window introduced by the Reserve Bank of India, surpassing the $100 million target set for July, and has set a target of $400 million by September end, a senior bank official said on Wednesday.

Primary market pipeline

Blackstone-backed Horizon Industrial Parks Ltd’s ₹2,600 crore initial public offering opens on 17 August with a price band of ₹57-60 a share and the anchor investor portion opening on 14 August; of the amount to be raised, ₹2,250 crore will go towards repaying debt against total borrowings of ₹6,884.34 crore as of 31 March 2026.

South Eastern Coalfields Ltd, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd, has initiated the process of appointing investment banks for an initial public offering likely to be worth around ₹8,000 crore to ₹10,000 crore, comprising an offer for sale of at least 10% of Coal India’s holding alongside a potential fresh equity issuance of about 5%, two people aware of the matter told Mint.

Zetwerk Pvt is preparing to file for an initial public offering that could raise as much as $400 million, may submit updated paperwork this week and is likely to begin investor meetings this month, targeting a launch as early as September, according to people familiar with the matter.

Earnings and company performance

Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles reported an 83% year-on-year surge in Q1FY27 consolidated net profit to ₹2,560 crore, supported by strong demand from infrastructure, logistics and freight customers, which helped offset higher commodity costs; revenue from operations rose 20% year-on-year to ₹20,576 crore compared with ₹17,192 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding investment gains in Tata Capital, Tata Motors’ standalone net profit rose 8% to ₹1,528 crore, though the operating margin narrowed by 90 basis points to 10.9% due to rising commodity costs; the company gained 100 basis points in market share compared to the March quarter according to its investors presentation, and its shares gained 1.6% on Wednesday against a 0.3% decline in Nifty Auto.

Tata Motors management noted that the company is still working to secure approvals for its $4.4-billion acquisition of Italian commercial vehicle maker Iveco, a deal that has now been delayed twice with expected closure pushed from June to November, having received final approval from Spanish authorities and awaiting approval from French authorities.

Hindustan Aeronautics reported a 15% year-on-year increase in Q1FY27 consolidated net profit to ₹1,590 crore compared with ₹1,384 crore a year ago, while revenue from operations rose over 14% year-on-year to ₹5,515 crore from ₹4,819 crore in the corresponding quarter of FY26.

Grasim Industries swung to a Q1FY27 standalone net profit of ₹247 crore compared with a ₹118 crore loss a year ago, with revenue jumping nearly 28% year-on-year to ₹11,795 crore and EBITDA more than doubling to ₹1,094 crore, supported by momentum across core and growth businesses along with a favourable product mix and pricing environment.

Lenskart reported a 270% year-on-year surge in Q1FY27 net profit to ₹222 crore, with revenue growing 43% to ₹2,714 crore, EBITDA jumping 76% to ₹588 crore and EBITDA margin expanding to 21.7% from 17.7%.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd posted Q1FY27 revenue growth of 21% to ₹7,043 crore and net profit growth of 34% to ₹581 crore, with Ebitda growing 28% year-on-year to ₹1,092 crore and margin expanding to 15.5%, the company said in a release.

Vodafone Idea added 0.3 million subscribers in Q1FY27, a first since the 2018 merger, taking its total subscriber base to 193 million; revenue grew 6% year-on-year to ₹11,689 crore, Ebitda rose 9% to ₹5,034 crore, and the reported loss of ₹3,754 crore narrowed from ₹6,608 crore a year ago, though adjusted for all exceptional items the loss stood at ₹5,358 crore.

Vodafone Idea reiterated its ₹45,000 crore network investment plan over the next three years with ₹9,000 crore of orders already placed, and has secured ₹6,400 crore including promoter support while discussions continue for the balance debt raise; Arpu rose 1.7% sequentially and 7.3% year-on-year to ₹177 and the stock rose 3.3% on Wednesday.

Bharti Airtel has removed its entry-level ₹299 monthly prepaid plan that offered 1GB of data per day, requiring subscribers to upgrade to the ₹349 plan for a daily data allowance for 28 days, a ₹50 or 16.7% increase; Airtel also removed its ₹319, ₹579, ₹619 and ₹649 prepaid plans.

Manappuram Finance’s consolidated assets under management grew 57% year-on-year to ₹69,635 crore in Q1FY27 while gold loan AUM nearly doubled to ₹57,006 crore, contributing 82% of consolidated AUM against 65% a year ago; gold loan yield rose 60 basis points sequentially to 17.7% and RoA and RoE improved to 3.2% and 13.6% respectively.

Jyothy Labs’ operating Ebitda margin fell to 8.4% in Q1FY27 from 16.5% a year ago, with revenue of ₹773 crore up 3% and net profit more than halving to ₹47.6 crore from ₹96.8 crore, hurt by higher raw material costs and German partner Henkel AG’s decision in May to walk away from a 15-year licensing deal for the Pril and Fa brands.

Godrej Consumer Products shares closed at ₹910.00, down 11.22% from ₹1,025.00, ranking among the top losers amongst F&O stocks on 12 August.

The Godrej Consumer Products board had not discussed a leadership transition when it granted outgoing chief executive Sudhir Sitapati a fresh five-year term, chairperson Nisaba Godrej told investors late on Tuesday, hours after the company announced his sudden and immediate exit; Aasif Malbari, the former global chief financial officer, was appointed managing director and CEO effective 11 August.

Ola Electric said it has received approval from the ministry of heavy industries for revised timelines under the ₹18,100 crore production-linked incentive scheme for advanced chemistry cells, with quarterly incentives of ₹7,240 crore till 2031, and said it is on track to install 6GWh of capacity for NMC and LFP batteries by the end of the current quarter.

State Bank of India used artificial intelligence and digital data to underwrite nearly ₹1 trillion of loans of up to ₹5 crore each to medium, small and micro enterprises in FY26, and has seen lower delinquency in the portfolio underwritten through its business rule engine, managing director Rama Mohan Rao Amara said.

Regulatory and legal

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd on Wednesday asked the Securities Appellate Tribunal to lift Sebi’s market-access ban, saying it needs to sell about ₹1,200 crore of liquid mutual fund investments to fund day-to-day operations; the tribunal reserved its order and asked Sebi to file its reply within six weeks.

Mining major Vedanta Ltd told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday that if the Centre wants to maximize revenue from Gujarat’s offshore oil and gas field it must amend its policy on contract extensions rather than arbitrarily reject the company’s application, as it appeals a single-judge order upholding the Centre’s September 2025 decision to deny a 10-year extension for its CB-OS/2 block in the Cambay Basin.

The Andhra Pradesh State Investment Promotion Board approved 25 industrial projects worth ₹2.08 lakh crore with the potential to create 21,627 direct jobs; three data centre projects in Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli account for ₹1.75 lakh crore, or over 84% of the total investment.

Upcoming events

Global pulse

Global index closes

Energy, West Asia and commodities

Crude oil remained volatile around $83 per barrel as markets weighed conflicting signals over a potential US-Iran agreement on the Strait of Hormuz; while negotiations remain deadlocked amid increasingly confrontational rhetoric, Pakistan said the two sides were close to an arrangement, while Iran-Oman talks were reportedly at an advanced stage.

Global oil inventories will tumble this quarter at more than twice the rate previously estimated as the Iran war flares again, with oil markets facing a shortfall of 1.8 million barrels a day as renewed hostilities and maritime disruptions undermine a production recovery, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly report; for 2026 as a whole the deficit will likely be the widest in five years.

Elevated fuel prices prompted the IEA to deepen estimates for this year’s decline in global oil demand by almost 50% to 1.6 million barrels a day, the biggest slump in annual average terms since the 2020 covid pandemic, while US energy secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that 9 million barrels a day has escaped in the past week, almost half prewar volumes.

President Donald Trump claimed the US had total control over the Hormuz Strait, as Washington and Tehran hardened their stances in deadlocked negotiations over the waterway, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before fighting began on 28 February.

Iran’s oil exports fell to close to zero in July after the US reimposed its blockade, down from $4.5 billion in June, according to Capital Economics; annual inflation is running over 80%, with chicken prices up 190% from a year earlier and milk up 150%, and the International Monetary Fund expects the economy to shrink 5.4% this year.

Wheat prices surged over 3% to above $6.50 per bushel, moving closer to July’s two-year high, as concerns over Black Sea supply disruptions intensified after Ukrainian drone attacks reportedly halted operations at a grain terminal in Novorossiysk, Russia’s key Black Sea wheat export port.

Macro, markets and technology

US inflation eased for a second consecutive month to 3.4% in July from 3.5% in June, in line with expectations, as price pressures continued to moderate with the impact of the energy shock triggered by the Iran war easing, potentially reducing pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates further.

Norway’s $2.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, posted a record profit of 1.75 trillion Norwegian crowns, or $184.3 billion, in the first half of 2026, driven by strong equity market returns and particularly gains in Asian technology stocks, according to chief executive Nicolai Tangen.

Bank of America plans to deploy $250 billion by July 2027 to finance US digital and critical infrastructure projects through its Critical Infrastructure Finance Initiative, providing lending, investments, capital markets services and advisory support.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has teamed up with Apollo Global Management, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs and KKR on a $500 billion plan to standardize chip financing by creating asset-backed pools of capital for AI companies, with Nvidia partly on the hook if things go wrong.

Issuance this year of AI-related bonds by big tech companies, data-centre projects and chip-financing vehicles reached $344 billion in early August, up by more than $200 billion from what was issued in 2025, according to Bank of America Global Research.

Taiwan’s Foxconn reported a 35% rise in second-quarter profit, beating analyst forecasts, on continued strong demand for artificial intelligence; net profit for the April to June period was T$59.97 billion, or $1.86 billion, versus an LSEG consensus estimate of T$58.8 billion and T$44.4 billion a year earlier.

China recorded 12.9 million electric vehicle sales in 2025, up 20% from the previous year, while Europe recorded 4.3 million, up 33%, and North America saw 1.8 million, down 4%, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Around 35 million foreign tourists arrived in China last year according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, with visa-free entry accounting for more than 70% of travellers, up by 50% from 2024; in the first half of 2026, 18 million people arrived from visa-free countries, pushing overall foreign tourist arrivals up by 20%.

India and the South Africa-led Southern African Customs Union group on Wednesday signed a roadmap for launching negotiations for a preferential trade agreement in goods, with both sides looking to conclude the negotiations within one year; the five members of SACU are Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.

Iran will soon join the New Development Bank, the development lender established by the Brics group of nations, central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said in a state media report published on Wednesday ahead of a Brics finance meeting in India.

Management commentary

Reproduced verbatim as carried by the Zerodha AfterMarket Report

Reproduced verbatim as carried by the Mint Mumbai print edition

Reproduced verbatim as carried by the Mint Mumbai print edition

Reproduced verbatim as carried by the Zerodha AfterMarket Report

Reproduced verbatim as carried by the Zerodha AfterMarket Report

Feature: Inside the number, how India builds its CPI

Sources: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI); Press Information Bureau; The Federal; PRS Legislative Research; Outlook Money.

MoSPI compiles the Consumer Price Index every month and reports headline retail inflation as the year-on-year change in that index; the ministry released a new basket on base 2024=100 on 12 February 2026, replacing the 2012=100 series. What follows is drawn entirely from MoSPI, the Press Information Bureau and the other named sources listed at the close of this section.

Who compiles it, and on what base

The Consumer Price Index is compiled and released monthly by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation; MoSPI began releasing the CPI for rural, urban and combined sectors in January 2011 with base year 2010=100, according to the ministry’s Frequently Asked Questions on the CPI 2024 series.

MoSPI released the CPI on base 2024=100 on 12 February 2026, replacing the 2012=100 series; the item basket and the corresponding weights are based on the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2023-24, and the ministry stated the exercise was undertaken for enhancing the coverage and representativeness of the inflation measure.

MoSPI stated that the previous CPI series with base 2012=100 served as a stable and reliable measure for more than a decade, but that during this period significant structural changes occurred in consumption behaviour, income levels, urbanisation, expansion of the services sector, and digitalisation.

Expenditure weights in CPI 2024 are derived from HCES 2023-24 while base-period prices were collected during January 2024 to December 2024, MoSPI stated, noting that for any price index to be robust and analytically sound the price reference period should be as close as possible to the weight reference period.

The first release under the new series reported a year-on-year inflation rate of 2.75% (provisional) for January 2026, with corresponding rural and urban rates of 2.73% and 2.77%, and Consumer Food Price Index inflation of 2.13%, according to the MoSPI press release carried by the Press Information Bureau.

An Expert Group on Base Revision of CPI was constituted with representation from the Reserve Bank of India, academia, line ministries and statistical experts, MoSPI stated in the same release.

What the basket contains

The CPI 2024 series has 12 divisions, 43 groups, 92 classes and 162 sub-classes as per the Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP) 2018, MoSPI stated in its FAQ on the new series.

The total number of weighted items increased from 299 to 358, and within that, goods items rose from 259 to 308 and services items from 40 to 50, underscoring changing household expenditures, The Federal reported.

The new items added to the CPI basket are rural housing rent, online media service provider or streaming services (OTT subscriptions), value-added dairy products, barley and its products, pen-drive and external hard disk, attendant, babysitter and exercise equipment, The Federal reported.

The items deleted are VCR, VCD and DVD player and hiring charges, radio, tape recorder, second-hand clothing, CD and DVD audio or video cassettes, and coir or rope, The Federal reported.

On the headline comparison, MoSPI stated that the share of food and beverages currently stands at 36.75% for the 2024 series and would have been around 42.62% for the 2012 series, with the change in structure between the two series due to adoption of the COICOP 2018 framework; on a like-for-like classification the food weight moves from 45.86% to 40.10%.

MoSPI stated that the weight of rural housing in the CPI 2024 series is 11.764%, which includes housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, and that the weight of education services in CPI 2024 is 3.3%, with books and stationery classified separately from education services under COICOP 2018.

How the prices are collected

The CPI 2024 series covers 1,465 rural markets and 1,395 urban markets across 434 towns, and in addition 12 online markets are covered across 12 towns having a population of more than 25 lakh, MoSPI stated in its FAQ.

Price data are collected monthly from rural and urban markets while online prices are collected on a weekly basis, MoSPI stated; real-time price data are collected from selected urban markets including online markets and from villages covering all States and Union Territories through personal visits by field staff of the Field Operations Division of the National Statistical Office on a weekly roster.

Price collection for airfare, telephone and OTT is also carried out through online platforms, and 12 online markets were added across 12 towns with a population of more than 25 lakh to capture price variations of items sold on e-commerce and online platforms, MoSPI stated.

A total of 19,039 dwellings, including 15,715 in urban and 3,324 in rural areas, are identified for rent collection in CPI 2024, MoSPI stated, adding that in view of the use of a chain-based index more dwellings may be added in future.

The new series excludes free social transfers such as PDS supply, free electricity up to a specified limit, free education, free healthcare services or other goods and services provided without charge, in keeping with the International Monetary Fund manual on CPI, The Federal reported.

How the index is compiled

The Jevons index, or short index formula, is used for compiling elementary indices in the CPI 2024 series, while the Young or modified Laspeyres index is used for compiling higher level indices, MoSPI stated in its FAQ on the new series.

Weights represent the share of household spending on each item and are computed separately for rural and urban sectors from monthly per capita expenditure shares, with combined weights calculated as population-weighted averages of the rural and urban weights, and higher-level aggregation using fixed base-year weights consistent with an overall Laspeyres framework.

MoSPI publishes a linking factor to connect the two series over a common overlapping period, with 2025 as the overlapping year during which both CPI 2012 and CPI 2024 indices are available; the formula uses the annual geometric mean of the new and old series for that year.

Under the older 2012 series, the Consumer Food Price Index was based on ten of the twelve sub-groups contained in the food and beverages group, excluding non-alcoholic beverages and prepared meals, snacks and sweets, according to MoSPI press releases on that series.

Under the CPI 2024 classification, the prepared, snacks and meals category has been migrated to a separate class, food and beverage serving services, under restaurants and accommodation services, ICRA noted in its commentary on the new series.

Why the number carries weight

In May 2016 the RBI Act, 1934 was amended to mandate a flexible inflation-targeting framework under which the central government sets a CPI inflation target every five years in consultation with the RBI and notifies upper and lower tolerance levels, with inflation outside the tolerance band for three consecutive quarters considered a failure under the framework, PRS Legislative Research noted.

A target of 4% inflation was notified for 2016-21 with upper and lower tolerance limits of 6% and 2% respectively, and in March 2021 these targets were retained for another five years ending March 2026, PRS Legislative Research noted.

The Department of Economic Affairs issued a gazette notification on 25 March 2026 under Section 45ZA of the RBI Act retaining the inflation target at 4% with an upper tolerance level of 6% and a lower tolerance level of 2% for the period beginning 1 April 2026 and ending 31 March 2031, Outlook Money reported.

Ahead of the new five-year period the RBI published a discussion paper in August 2025 asking stakeholders whether headline or core inflation should be in focus given the high weightage of food items in the CPI basket, whether the 4% target remains appropriate, and whether the tolerance band should be revised, narrowed, widened or removed, Outlook Money reported.

Inflation data is used by the Reserve Bank of India for monetary policy decisions and to monitor price stability, for designing policy and social sector welfare schemes, as a deflator to adjust nominal GDP to real GDP, and for revising wages, updating tax brackets and adjusting social security payments, The Federal reported.

MoSPI’s release for June 2026, on base 2024=100, stated that the CPI for July 2026 would be released on 12 August 2026, placing the July reading carried in today’s Market Snapshot and Macro View on this 2024=100 series.

MoSPI has stated that the new CPI series is not comparable with the old series owing to the change in classification structure, and the ministry has indicated that base revisions will be undertaken at regular intervals of three to five years based on Household Consumption Expenditure Survey data.

Sourcing

This feature is compiled entirely from the following named, publicly accessible sources. No Mint content and no paywalled source has been used in this section.

• Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation: Frequently Asked Questions on the CPI 2024 Series and the press release for CPI on base 2024=100 for January 2026 (mospi.gov.in).
• Press Information Bureau: first press release of the Consumer Price Index on base 2024=100, and subsequent monthly CPI releases on base 2024=100 (pib.gov.in).
• The Federal: “New CPI 2024: Weightage down for food, up for housing, health, telecom”, Prasanna Mohanty, 12 February 2026 (thefederal.com).
• PRS Legislative Research: report summary, Review of Monetary Policy Framework by RBI (prsindia.org).
• Outlook Money: “RBI To Maintain 4 Per Cent Inflation Target Until 2031: Centre”, 26 March 2026 (outlookmoney.com).
• ICRA: Consumer Price Index commentary, February 2026 (icra.in).

Day at a glance

Closing

Primary sources: Zerodha AfterMarket Report, market close on 12 August 2026; Mint, Mumbai edition, 13 August 2026; Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Press Information Bureau, The Federal, PRS Legislative Research, Outlook Money and ICRA for the feature section. DayStarter is compiled from the named sources. This briefing is a factual news aggregation and is not investment or tax advice.