Good morning. It has been a heavy few days for weather and safety news across the subcontinent, and the diplomatic and economic chessboard is moving fast too, from the oil corridors of West Asia to a trade fight escalating in North America. Markets at home stayed cautious ahead of a big overnight earnings report from a chipmaker that most of India's IT sector watches closely.
In today's newsletter: catastrophic flash floods in Nepal that have left dozens of Indian tourists unaccounted for, a devastating nursery fire at a Pakistani hospital, and India's push to woo foreign capital even as it flows out of the market.
Sensex 77,472.94 -183.15 (-0.24%) |
Nifty 50 24,207.75 -126.80 (-0.52%) |
USD/INR 95.44 +0.26 (rupee up) |
Brent Crude $86.30 down over 2% |
IT and FMCG stocks dragged the benchmarks lower as traders stayed cautious ahead of Nvidia's results and tracked developments in West Asia, even as easing crude prices offered some comfort on the oil import bill.
Nepal flash floods leave dozens dead and 142 Indian tourists missing
A wall of water swept through Nepal's Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts on Wednesday morning, and flash floods along the Trishuli river system killed dozens of people in Nepal and China, with hundreds still unaccounted for as rescue teams dig through mud-buried buildings, trucks and roads.
The reason this lands close to home: Nepal's tourism ministry says over 400 tourists remain unaccounted for, and Indian nationals make up the largest single group among them, a reflection of how many Indians travel to Nepal for trekking and pilgrimage with barely any border formality. Consular teams are now working alongside Nepali rescuers to trace them.
Search and rescue continues in Nuwakot's worst-hit towns, where floodwater tore through commercial areas and buried multi-storey buildings under mud, cutting off roads that rescue convoys now have to clear before they can even reach some villages.
Glacial and monsoon-driven flash floods are becoming a near-annual event across the Himalayan belt, and India's own mountain states face the identical risk profile. What happens in Nepal this week is a preview of the kind of disaster response Uttarakhand or Sikkim could just as easily be managing next.
The 142 Indian nationals among the missing are almost all independent trekkers rather than package tourists, which is exactly why nobody has a clean list of who is even in the affected valleys. Visa-free travel makes Nepal easy to visit and hard to track in a crisis.
Fire at Islamabad hospital nursery kills 14 newborns
A fire tore through the newborn nursery at Pakistan's largest government hospital before dawn on Wednesday, and at least 14 of the roughly 15 infants inside the ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences died, with only one baby pulled out alive.
Officials say the blaze most likely began when an air conditioning compressor exploded inside the nursery, a mechanical failure that turned catastrophic in a ward meant to be among the most closely monitored in the hospital.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered an immediate inquiry, and grieving parents outside the hospital are demanding to know whether the ward had adequate firefighting equipment in the first place.
India pitches investors abroad as foreign capital pulls back
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is nine days into a tour of Canada and the United States built around trade and investment, part of a broader government push to keep global capital flowing into India even as foreign portfolio investors have been net sellers of Indian equities for stretches this year.
The pitch matters because India is competing for the same pool of global money that is also chasing AI-driven rallies in the US and Europe. A finance minister on the road for over a week making the case directly to fund managers is itself a signal of how seriously the government is treating the outflow.
Breaking.exe
UPI's security test. Even as UPI handles billions of transactions a month, a fresh look at India's digital payments ecosystem questions whether security has kept pace with its scale, pointing to the sheer number of banks, apps and gateways that now touch every rupee moved. |
Nvidia's blowout quarter. Nvidia posted record quarterly revenue of $96.2 billion and guided to $108 billion next quarter, sending shares higher after hours and underlining how central the chipmaker remains to the AI buildout that Indian IT firms are racing to plug into. |
Bloomberg's India bet. Bloomberg Media launched a dedicated Bloomberg India digital hub as the country becomes its second-largest audience market worldwide, thirty years after the wire first set up shop here. |
Pangaea Revisited
Hormuz reopening push. Iran and Oman are pushing an interim framework, including a temporary joint corridor and mine clearance, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, a development that would matter directly for India's oil import bill if it holds. |
Canada hits back. Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on roughly $20 billion of US goods, matching Washington's levies dollar for dollar as the two countries' trade fight escalates further. |
A September of summits. India, China and the United States are heading into a September packed with high-level summits, setting up a season of diplomacy that will test New Delhi's balancing act between the three powers. |
Also, Also, Also
Bihar protests flare. Police clashed with student and youth protesters marching in Patna, a month after Gen Z-led demonstrations first erupted over alleged irregularities in competitive exams. |
Delhi's flu spike. Delhi has logged 2,308 H1N1 cases, prompting Chief Minister Rekha Gupta to call an emergency review meeting, with isolation wards now set up across the capital's hospitals. |
India tightens grip. India closed in on victory over Sri Lanka on day four of the second Test in Colombo despite fifties from Sooriyabandara and Kamindu Mendis, with the hosts trailing by just 16 runs. |