Based on the provided sources, the article titled "Indian refiners brace as Russia sanctions loom" cannot be reproduced in full.
The title appears only as a headline teaser on the front page (Page 1) of the Mint Bengaluru edition from August 10, 2026. While the teaser includes a page reference to "P1," the provided excerpts for Page 1 consist primarily of a full-page advertisement for Milky Mist and do not contain the body text of the article.
Furthermore, unlike the other front-page teaser regarding foreign banks and FCNR dollars (which is continued on Page 7), there is no continuation or full-text version of the "Indian refiners" article included in the other available pages of this edition (Pages 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, or 11).
The article teased on page 1 as "Centre plans ₹2 trillion border highway push" appears on page 7 of the source under the headline "Govt pens ₹2 tn border highway plan". Below is the reproduced text from that article:
The scale of the task is evident from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) data showing 3,338 km of current highway projects aimed at improving border connectivity have been awarded over the past five years, of which 1,301 km have been completed.
Arunachal Pradesh accounted for the largest share of projects awarded at 740 km. Other states include:
- Rajasthan: 355 km
- Uttarakhand: 266 km
- West Bengal: 205 km
- Others: Including Punjab, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura, J&K, Ladakh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, and Manipur.
Ongoing highway projects covering about 25,917 km and costing ₹7.15 trillion are currently under construction across the country. There are 1,181 highway projects worth about ₹3,100 billion currently being implemented in border areas, according to the ministry.
The government is increasingly linking highway planning to the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan, with projects being prioritized based on traffic density, connectivity requirements, road conditions, and their strategic importance.
According to Sanjay Kumar Sinha, founder and managing director of Chaitanya Projects Consultancy, the proposed highways would help reduce the "road head differential" with neighboring countries and enable faster mobilization of troops and logistical support to border areas. The experience of projects such as the 1,748-km-long frontier highway, which runs parallel to the Line of Actual Control, demonstrates the broader economic potential of strategic road connectivity, as such corridors can connect village markets to wholesale markets, supporting trade and tourism.
The financing for such roads could differ from conventional commercially oriented projects given their strategic nature. "The government’s plan is to improve infrastructure, extending connectivity and national security, but tolling these highways may be challenging," said Kalpit Singh, partner and national infrastructure leader at EY India. Singh noted that a large share of such projects involves defense and government vehicles, limiting commercial viability and leading to them being managed under EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) or Hybrid Annuity Model contracts rather than BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer).
Sinha suggested a differentiated approach: while strategically sensitive sections could follow the EPC model, defense vehicles, emergency services, and local residents could be exempted from tolls, while commercial freight and tourist traffic could potentially be charged through non-intrusive GNSS or FASTag-based systems.
The article "How US Tariffs are Reshaping Pharma" (found on page 5 under the Plain Facts section) discusses the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariff plan on the Indian pharmaceutical industry.
Below is a reproduction of the article's core content:
Overview
Last month, the US announced a tariff plan to force generic drugmakers to relocate production to the United States. While imported generic medicines will remain duty-free until August 2028, tariffs will eventually rise to 100% and 200% for India. Because India supplies nearly half of all generic prescriptions in the US, this transition window offers a temporary cushion. However, the cost of building replacement capacity in the US is prohibitive for thin-margin producers, pushing Indian firms to pivot from volume-driven exports toward higher-value products and diversified global markets.
The Generics Challenge
Following the tariff announcement on July 22, the Nifty Pharma index fell 1.5%, with 18 of 20 stocks closing lower. Investors have begun penalizing companies heavily reliant on high-volume US generic formulations, such as Lupin (which gets 42% of its revenue from the US) and Dr. Reddy’s (~34%). Conversely, firms with localized manufacturing or advanced specialty pipelines have weathered the news better.
American Rationale
A US Commerce Department review concluded that the US was risking healthcare security by relying on imported drugs. The goal is to bring manufacturing back to the US by penalizing companies that do not build local facilities within two years. While India supplies 47% of generic drugs to the US by volume, it only accounts for about 30% by value, indicating low margins. Relocating production is a challenge, as manufacturing generics in India costs 30-50% less than in the US.
Import Constraints
For pure-play exporters, shifting production is not easy. Erez Israeli, CEO of Dr. Reddy’s, noted that moving operations to the US would take four to seven years, far exceeding the two-year transition period. Additionally, Indian formulators rely heavily on China, which supplies 68-80% of India's active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Since Chinese APIs are 35-40% cheaper than local alternatives, establishing independent onshore supply chains is difficult.
Buying Up: Strategic M&A
Indian drugmakers with existing US facilities have more flexibility. Companies establishing US facilities can apply for a reduced 20% tariff rate over four years for branded segments. Major Indian players are already acquiring US assets:
- Sun Pharma: Committed $1.75 billion to buy New Jersey-based Organon & Co..
- Aurobindo Pharma: Closed a $230-million deal for Lannett Company, securing a plant in Indiana.
- Zydus Lifesciences: Acquired two California-based biologics facilities from Alvotech.
Capital Reallocation
Firms are reallocating capital toward biologics, biosimilars, and specialty medicines. A Deloitte survey shows 61% of pharma CXOs are prioritizing specialty drugs and biologics. To capture value from drugs losing exclusivity, Lupin invested $250 million in a Florida facility, and Dr. Reddy’s opened plants in Massachusetts and New York. Companies are also monetizing research; for example, Glenmark sub-licensed an oncology asset to AbbVie for $700 million, transferring US trade and manufacturing risk to a domestic US entity.
The following is the full text of the article titled “AI ‘Apocalypse’: Software Firms Race to Reinvent Themselves,” as featured in the Long Story section of the August 10, 2026, edition.
AI ‘APOCALYPSE’: SOFTWARE FIRMS RACE TO REINVENT THEMSELVES
Generative AI is steamrolling the once booming industry known as software-as-a-service
By Kate Clark
Sahil Agarwal’s timing appeared to be perfect for launching his software company in 2021. He raised nearly $30 million from investors, and by the following year, his startup, Rattle, was valued at more than $100 million.
Then along came generative artificial intelligence that could easily automate the kind of administrative work Rattle specialized in. Agarwal tried to integrate AI, but said it felt like attaching an engine onto a horse-drawn carriage. The company teetered on the brink.
“If two engineers can reproduce your entire product in a matter of a few weeks, then you deserve to be killed,” he said.
Generative AI is steamrolling the once booming industry known as software-as-a-service, or SaaS, where customers pay a subscription for software. In the 2010s, companies such as Slack and Zoom raised billions of dollars and millions of customers.
Now people in Silicon Valley are talking gloomily about the “SaaSocalypse.” AI threatens to make some software tools obsolete, particularly those built around narrow tasks such as legal drafting, research and other repetitive work.
Shares of public SaaS companies such as Salesforce and Adobe have fallen more than 30% from their peak over the past year. IBM lost $10 billion in value in a single day in July after it issued a profit warning as customer spending shifted from software to AI hardware. Earlier this week, Italian tech conglomerate Bending Spoons agreed to acquire workflow software company AirTable for $1.5 billion, well below the company’s last private valuation of $11 billion.
SaaS companies are under immense pressure to reinvent themselves. Inside boardrooms, leaders have discussed the risk that entire businesses will amount to little more than features inside tools released by leading AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI. Investors, worried that some software will go to zero, are pushing startups to adapt.
“Waiting and seeing is no longer a strategy,” said Byron Lichtenstein, chief business officer of Insight Partners, which invested in many SaaS companies and is now trying to save some of them.
The Shift to Agents
The startups are faltering because demand is shifting from tools that help people get work done to “AI agents” that do the work for them. That is forcing leaders of the last chapter of venture-backed startups to lay off employees and overhaul their companies. Many are changing business models, relaunching products or, in some cases, shutting down and starting over.
Venture-capital investors are grappling with the same uncertainty. Companies that once seemed destined for lucrative IPOs now face an uncertain future. While pouring billions into AI startups they hope are outside the blast radius of major AI labs, they are also struggling to preserve the value of software companies built before the AI boom, triaging portfolios and preparing some businesses to be sold for parts.
Insight is one of the investors most synonymous with the SaaS boom era. It built a reputation over decades backing software companies that helped build software systems for companies like Monday.com and cybersecurity startup Wiz, which was acquired by Alphabet.
Reinventing the Business Model
Every CEO that I talk to is considering quitting and starting again,” said Dori Yona, a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces and co-founder of SimpleClosure, which helps startups wind down. Fifty-one percent of Yona’s venture-backed customers in the first half of the year were software or IT-services companies, up from 44% a year earlier. For more complex folds, Yona hopes to persuade founders to make the decision while they still have cash in the bank.
Some software-services companies that build revenue-operations systems that help AI agents determine how much to charge are growing quickly. Abhijit Mitra, the current CEO of Outbound, said the industry is in a pivot. Its new business, which uses AI agents to build revenue-operations systems that can perform tasks autonomously, he said, is growing quickly.
Some software-services companies that have shifted gears are reporting growth. Lantern, a digital-health company founded 15 years ago, also pushed into AI, aiming to reinvent its claims-processing operations by turning a 16-step pricing process that often took more than two weeks into one that can now be completed in about a minute. That boosted profits, said Lantern CEO John Zutter.
Gong, a decade-old sales-software company, retrained its workforce and recently relaunched its business model around AI. It reached $400 million in annual recurring revenue earlier this year, and Salesforce agreed in June to acquire Fin for $3.6 billion.
The Case of Rattle
Sahil Agarwal, the 34-year-old co-founder of Rattle, grew up in an industrial city in northern India and started his career in management consulting in New Delhi. He moved to San Francisco in 2019, joining marketing-software startup Mutiny. At the height of the pandemic, he decided to start his own business.
By 2023, though, advancements in generative AI made it clear that Rattle needed to incorporate the new technology. Agarwal wasn’t yet convinced he could build a business that would endure with just a dollop of AI. That changed the next year, when OpenAI released its first reasoning model, o1, which showed that AI could become the core of a product, not just a feature. Rattle needed to rebuild much of its underlying software so that AI agents were at the center of the architecture, not tacked on the outside.
“You have to burn the ships and start from the ground up,” Agarwal said. By the end of 2024, Agarwal realized the efforts to integrate AI weren’t working. The engineers had spent months trying to support Rattle’s original product while building a new AI “superagent” that could automatically update Salesforce records, among other tasks. Both efforts were stalling.
He told his employees he was laying off the sales, marketing and customer-success teams. The startup shrank from 70 employees to 15, retaining only a small group to rebuild around an AI-focused product. Today, Rattle operates as an AI operating system for sales and revenue teams, identifying sales opportunities and deals that may be slipping.
Key Sidebars from the Report:
- Key Numbers: SaaS companies are under immense pressure to reinvent themselves, while investors are pushing startups to adapt.
- Why: Demand is shifting from tools that help people get work done to “AI agents” that do the work for them.
- How: Many SaaS firms are changing business models, relaunching products or, in some cases, shutting down and starting over.
- Investor Advice: Many companies are struggling to preserve the value of software companies built before the AI boom. Some are triaging portfolios and preparing businesses to be sold for parts.
The article "How different assets are taxed?" from page 11 provides a breakdown of the capital gains tax treatment following the Budget 2024.
As a general rule, the Long-Term Capital Gains (LTCG) tax on all non-financial debt funds is now 12.5%. For Short-Term Capital Gains (STCG), assets where Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is paid are taxed at 20%, while those without STT continue to be taxed at slab rates.
Below is the tax structure for various asset classes as detailed in the source:
Capital Gains Tax Table
| Asset Category | Holding Period for LTCG | STCG Tax Rate | LTCG Tax Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Equity MFs, ETFs and stocks | >12 months | 20% | 12.5%* |
| Gold ETFs | >12 months | Slab rate | 12.5% |
| REITs/InvITs | >12 months | Slab rate | 12.5% |
| Listed bonds | >12 months | Slab rate | 12.5% |
| Debt MFs** (Bought before 1 April 2023) | >24 months | Slab rate | 12.5% |
| Debt MFs** (Bought after 1 April 2023) | N/A | Slab rate | Slab rate |
| Gold MFs, physical gold, overseas MFs, FOFs | >24 months | Slab rate | 12.5% |
| Foreign equity, international ETFs | >24 months | Slab rate | 12.5% |
| Real Estate | >24 months | Slab rate | 12.5%*** |
Key Notes and Footnotes:
- *Equity Threshold: The 12.5% LTCG rate for equity applies to gains exceeding ₹1.25 lakh.
- **Debt MF Definition: This includes funds that have invested more than 65% of proceeds in debt and money market instruments.
- ***Real Estate Provisions: For properties bought after 23 July 2024, the rate is 12.5%. For those bought before 23 July 2024, taxpayers can choose the lower of 12.5% without indexation or 20% with indexation.
- Abbreviations:
- MF: Mutual funds
- ETF: Exchange traded funds
- REITs: Real Estate Investment Trusts
- InvITs: Infrastructure Investment Trusts
- Gold FOFs: Mutual funds that invest in an underlying gold ETF (those without an FOF structure qualify as long-term after 1 year).
The article titled "China’s inflation cools as oil shock starts to ease" is found on page 7 of the source, under the Corporate section.
Below is the reproduced text:
China’s inflation cools as oil shock starts to ease
By Bloomberg
China’s factory-gate inflation eased for the first time since the Iran war broke out in late February while consumer prices also decelerated, in another sign that cost pressures from the oil shock are starting to fade.
The producer price index rose 4.6% in July from a year earlier, slower than the 6.1% gain in June and the expected path of 4.9%, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics on Sunday.
The divergence shows that since a PPI turned-positive in March on the back of higher oil prices after more than three years of seeing negative signs. Consumer inflation decelerated to 2.1% in July from 2.5%. The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile food and energy items, eased to 0.8% in July from 1%.
China has emerged from a record bout of deflation with oil shock from the peak of prices. Sluggish domestic consumption has likely limited the extent to which factories could pass on higher production expenses from the peak of prices for oil, chips, and metals.
As a result, a divergence in inflation levels between upstream and downstream sectors is likely to persist until clothes-making as well as other manufacturing sectors such as energy production are seeing profit-taking.
The economic fallout of higher global prices for commodities is expected to fade in China. While crude oil prices climbed in June and July, average costs still eased from their peak earlier this year.
US President Donald Trump said this week that negotiations between Iran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz are “moving along”. Tehran said it's “close” to a deal with Oman on a new maritime transit route in the strait, even as the Islamic Republic renewed a list of demands for the US to agree to before the waterway would open.
Many economists have warned in recent years that persistent deflationary pressures in China could harm the global economy further by encouraging households to cut back on spending, eating into corporate profits and stifling investment and hiring.
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