Good morning. It has been a big week for India's capital markets, and world leaders are still camped out in New York for the UN's annual leaders' week, so there is a lot to get through. The courts have also been busy, with one ruling that could shape how India's institutions are run for years to come.
In today's newsletter: India's biggest exchange goes public, a Supreme Court split verdict on how India picks its election watchdogs, and AI's top builders pleading with the UN for global safety rules.
Closing levels · 2026-09-23
Sensex 74,828.25 UP 299.17 (0.40%) |
Nifty 50 23,446.80 UP 117.80 (0.50%) |
USD/INR 95.74 DOWN 0.12 (rupee weaker) |
Brent Crude $103.08 UP 3.86% |
Oil's sharp overnight rally pushed up import costs and kept the rupee on the back foot, but equities shrugged it off, closing higher on strong sentiment around the year's biggest listing day.
NSE lists on the bourses today, valuing India's dominant exchange at $46 billion
Shares of the National Stock Exchange of India begin trading on the BSE on Thursday, after its 226-billion-rupee initial public offering was subscribed more than five times over, making it the second-biggest IPO in Indian history behind only Hyundai Motor India's 2024 listing.
The issue was priced at ₹1,785 a share, the top of its marketed range, valuing the exchange at about ₹4.4 trillion, putting it among the most valuable stock exchange operators anywhere in the world.
Grey market signals have cooled sharply as listing day approached, pointing to a comparatively muted debut despite the overwhelming institutional demand seen during subscription, a reminder that paper enthusiasm does not always survive contact with the trading floor.
NSE going public is symbolically significant. India's dominant exchange, which handles the vast majority of the country's equity derivatives volume, now answers to public shareholders in a way it never has before. The listing closes out a process that stalled for years after a co-location scandal delayed the exchange's own market debut.
The cooling grey-market premium, even after 5.7 times oversubscription, suggests retail investors are more cautious than institutions about paying up for an exchange operator's valuation, a dynamic worth watching as India's IPO pipeline, one of the busiest in the world this year, keeps growing.
Supreme Court's split verdict pushes Election Commissioner questions to the Chief Justice
The Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a split verdict on the Centre's request to send petitions challenging the 2023 law governing how India selects its Election Commissioners to a larger bench.
Justice Dipankar Datta rejected the referral and went further, giving a prima facie opinion that the law does not ensure an independent process, since it replaced the Chief Justice of India with a Cabinet minister on the panel that picks Election Commissioners. Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, however, wanted the matter referred upward.
The disagreement now puts the question of whether to constitute a full Constitution Bench before the Chief Justice of India, a process the court itself acknowledged can leave matters pending for years.
OpenAI and Anthropic's chiefs ask the UN Security Council for global AI safety rules
OpenAI's Sam Altman appeared in person before the UN Security Council on Wednesday, joined by video from Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Hugging Face's Clement Delangue, in a session convened by France to discuss the security risks of advanced AI.
Amodei pitched world leaders on three concrete ideas: narrow international agreements such as a ban on using AI to design biological weapons, verification systems so countries can check each other's commitments, and common global testing standards with a notification system for AI security incidents.
The briefing, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly's leaders' week, is one of the most direct attempts yet by AI's biggest builders to pull world governments into a shared safety framework before, rather than after, an incident forces the issue.
Breaking.exe
Samsung's India slump. Samsung India's profit fell 36% to ₹7,228 crore in the year ended March, even as overall revenue edged up 1.2%, with the decline concentrated in its mobile phone business. |
Startup funding rebound. Indian startups raised close to $377 million this week, their strongest weekly haul since June, spanning wealthtech, AI and consumer deals. |
Electronics retailer's big debut. Mobile and electronics retail chain SS Retail listed 51% above its IPO price after its ₹500 crore issue was subscribed more than 103 times, one of the strongest small-cap debuts of the year. |
Pangaea Revisited
Trump's Iran ultimatum. Trump told the UN General Assembly he faces a choice on Iran between a deal after the US midterm elections or moving to annihilate the country, a threat Iran's president pushed back on in his own address to the chamber a day later. |
Wall Street's yield shock. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both snapped a four-day winning streak as the 10-year Treasury yield jumped to its highest level since 2007, on an oil-driven inflation scare. |
Jaishankar's balancing act. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is leading India's delegation at the UN General Assembly this week as Washington's sanctions on Russian oil buyers add friction to India's balancing act between the US and Russia. |
Bangladesh's rights rollback. Three laws passed by Bangladesh's parliament this month have gutted the independence of its human rights commission and simply rebranded the abuse-tainted RAB paramilitary force, Human Rights Watch said. |
Also, Also, Also
Rowing bronze. Satnam Singh and Salman Khan won bronze in the men's double sculls at the Asian Games, finishing just over three seconds behind the gold medal pair from China for India's seventh bronze of the Games. |
Wushu silver. Roshibina Devi lost her women's 60kg wushu final to China's Zhang Xiaoyu, adding a silver to India's growing Asian Games medal tally. |
Chanu's historic silver. Mirabai Chanu won silver in women's 49kg weightlifting, India's first Asian Games medal in the sport since the Bangkok Games in 1998. |