Alibaba Group Holding share price surges 7% on unveiling DeepSeek contender

Startups Weekly: Founders may be raising less, but deals haven’t been lacking

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week showed more optimism among startups than in other corners of the world, with entrepreneurs feeling confident enough to acquire other companies, raise fresh funding, and...

Budget 2025 lands softly—markets hesitate as capex slows

AIMPWAMarch 14, 2025

More concerning is this has been tagged as a “structural slowdown,” caused by slowing government capital expenditure, weak manufacturing, sluggish exports, and lacklustre private investment. Read this | Budget to offer blueprint of reforms under Modi 3.0 Naturally, expectations from the budget were sky-high, and the markets reflected this optimism, with the Nifty 50 breaching...

China is reportedly keeping DeepSeek under close watch

AIMPWAMarch 14, 2025

China appears to think homegrown AI startup DeepSeek could become a notable tech success story for the country. After DeepSeek’s sudden rise to fame in January with the release of its open “reasoning” model, R1, the company is now operating under new, tighter government-influenced restrictions, according to The Information. Some of the company’s employees have...

Budget eyes agriculture, MSMEs, other labour-intensive sectors for job creation

AIMPWAMarch 14, 2025

The government’s focus on creating jobs for informal and gig workers comes at a time when the economy has been struggling to create enough formal jobs. Therefore, the government is leaning on agriculture, manufacturing, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and startups to generate more employment for the country’s burgeoning youth. For instance, under ‘Building...

In a post-Trump world, trade gets special focus in budget; govt opens domestic market for some imported vehicles

AIMPWAMarch 14, 2025

As US president Donald Trump threatens to impose reciprocal tariffs on its trading partners, potentially upending global commerce, India has placed a significant emphasis on invigorating manufacturing and exports while also opening up the domestic market. As part of the customs duty rejig, the government lowered import tax on a range of products such as...