India’s GDP beat all expectations to grow at 8.2% in the second quarter of the current financial year. This was a six-quarter high and significantly higher than the 7% growth projected by the Reserve Bank of India and 7.2% forecast in a Mint poll of 15 economists.

Since GDP has significantly surprised on the upside, economists now see reduced chances of a rate cut in the December policy. They also expect the central bank to revise its GDP growth projections upwards from the current 6.8% for the full year. Economists are now optimistic of a 7%-plus growth for the full year, with the impact of goods and services tax (GST) cuts giving a further boost to Q3 growth.

Rupee rout

The Indian rupee has seen sharp depreciation since July this year, hit by tariff-related jitters and outflow of foreign investors. Currently, the rupee is hovering around 89.3 per dollar and analysts expect it to breach the psychological level of 90 by the end of the year.

The currency, while showing a downward trend, has often received support from the central bank to keep volatility in check. This has prompted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reclassify India’s foreign exchange regime to “crawl-like” from “stabilized”.

According to the IMF, a crawl-like arrangement is when the exchange rate remains within a “narrow margin of 2% relative to a statistically identified trend for six months or more, and cannot be considered “floating”.

Falling behind

India fell behind Indonesia and China to settle for the third rank again in the Mint’s Emerging Market Tracker in October as a sharp contraction in exports, continued depreciation of the rupee, and muted market performance dragged its score down.

India saw the sharpest export decline among emerging markets, with shipments down 11.8% year-on-year. Its stock market value rose only 0.2% month-on-month, also among the weakest.

These weaknesses have continuously stopped India from securing the top rank in recent months. Indonesia, meanwhile, surged to the top of the rankings—from seventh place last month—on the back of strong export momentum and improving manufacturing activity.

China also held the second rank mainly due to healthy import cover and decent GDP growth momentum.

Numbers talk

₹7,280 crore: The outlay for scheme aimed at promoting the manufacture of rare earth permanent magnets approved by the Union cabinet on Wednesday. Amid China’s stronghold, the scheme aims to make India self-reliant in rare earth magnet manufacturing in the next three to four years.

$13.5 billion: The amount Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) joint venture and Larsen & Toubro (L&T) will invest on building data centres, which are in high demand due to increasing usage of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. This pushes total investment announcements into data centres this year to nearly $60 billion, Mint reported.

$2.8 billion: The cost of the uranium export agreement which Canada and India are close to finalizing, The Globe and Mail reported. Canada’s Cameco Corp would supply uranium, and the export deal could form part of a broader nuclear cooperation effort between Canada and India.

₹5,100 crore: The amount of settlement in a bank fraud case for which the Supreme Court agreed to drop all criminal proceedings against fugitive businessmen Nitin and Chetan Sandesara, promoters of Sterling Biotech Ltd and Sterling SEZ & Infrastructure Ltd, Mint reported.

10: The number of new bills likely to be introduced in Parliament’s upcoming winter session set to begin on 1 December 2025. Two crucial bills—the Jan Vishwas Amendment Bill and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) Amendment Bill—are expected to return for approval after review by a select committee during the monsoon session.

Lacklustre effort

Every winter, several regions, especially Delhi-NCR, grapple with severe air pollution, which is a health hazard. Despite facing the issue for several years now, India has not been able to come up with a proper solution. The government in 2019 had launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) to reduce particulate matter (PM) concentration by 40% by 2026 compared to 2017 levels.

However, the environment ministry’s latest available data shows that just 64 of the 130 cities (49%) have seen a PM10 reduction of 20% or more between FY18 and FY25, while only one in five has achieved the programme’s ambitious 40% reduction target, Mint reported. Moreover, the programme has exhausted only 52% of the ₹19,711 crore allocated amount since FY20 by December 2024.

Trend reversal

The estimated number of workers in unincorporated sector enterprises was 128.6 million in July-September, steady from the previous quarter but down 2.1% from January-March quarter, data released by the statistics ministry showed. Quarterly data is available only from the January-March period.

The report noted that despite global challenges and trade uncertainties, the unincorporated sector stayed afloat during the July–September quarter. While the numbers have remained steady the trend has reversed in rural and urban areas. In July-September, urban areas saw 69.1 million, up from 66.1 million in the previous quarter. However, in rural areas, the figure came down to 62.5 million from 59.5 million, erasing the gains made in urban areas.