BACK PAGE | PAGE 24 BRANDWAGON | PAGE 9 INTERNATIONAL | PAGE 10 AI steals the show on Day 2 of Goafest How Vijay’s social media blitz scripted a political blockbuster SpaceX’s IPO could make Musk world’s first trillionaire NEW DELHI, FRIDAY, MAY 22, 2026 WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE READ TO LEAD VOL LII NO. 71, 38 PAGES, `12 (PATNA & RAIPUR `12, SRINAGAR `15) P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K ATA , L U C K N O W, M U M B A I , N E W D E L H I , P U N E SENSEX: 75,183.36 ▼ 135.03 NIFTY: 23,654.70 ▼ 4.30 NIKKEI 225: 61,684.14 ▲ 1879.73 HANG SENG: 25,386.52 ▼ 264.60 `/$: 96.20 ▲ 0.62 `/€: 111.84 ▲ 0.37 BRENT: $108.07 ▲ $3.05 GOLD: `157,838 ▼ `173 NO FURTHER PLANS TO CURB NON-ESSENTIALIMPORTS,HE SAYS IN THE NEWS MARKETS More steps to check CAD on the anvil, says Goyal PAGE 7 FINO PAYMENTS BANK CEO RISHI GUPTA RESIGNS FINO PAYMENTS BANK said on on Thursday that its board has accepted CEO Rishi Gupta's resignation. The resignation comes despite the board finding him ‘fit and proper’ after reviewing documents and seeking legal opinions. The lender said Gupta sought voluntary retirement to pursue new opportunities. The resignation comes a few months after he was arrested in a GST-related case and later granted bail, reports fe Bureau. MUKESH JAGOTA New Delhi, May 21 Gor: India-US trade deal to be finalised in coming weeks THE TRADE DEAL between India and the US will be finalised “in the coming weeks or months,” and the US will send a delegation to New Delhi in June for further discussions on the deal, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said on Thursday, reports Mukesh Jagota. ■ PAGE 3 AFTER TAKING Aseries of steps to curb precious metal imports, the government is now set to announce more measures to prevent the current account from running into a big deficit. “Several steps are under consideration.Various arms of government are working as a team.The situation is globally quite challenging, but we have the confidence and the courage of conviction that we'll come out winners, even in this challenging time,” Commerce and IndustryMinisterPiyush Goyal said here on Thursday, when asked what more measures the government could take to contain the current account deficit (CAD) and arrest the rupee's slide against the dollar. On Wednesday, one-year outright forward rates for the rupee crossed the psychologicallyrelevant 100-level against the dollar during intraday trade. It closed at 96.82, down 29 paise from its previous close of 96.53 in spot market. The minister did not elaborate on the plans, but said that the government has no further plans to curb non-essential imports. Continued on Page 10 Maruti to raise prices by up to `30K from June OBSTACLE COURSE ■ India’s CAD could more than double 2% to or higher of the gross domestic product in FY27 from below 1% in FY26, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran said recently ■ Despite the West Asia war, India’s exports grew 13.6% year-on-year in April PIYUSH GOYAL, COMMERCE & INDUSTRY MINISTER The situation is globally quite challenging,but we have the confidence and the courage of conviction that we'll come out winners ■ The immediate worry is the outflow of capital as Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) ■ According to estimates, FPIs have taken out `2.2 lakh crore since the war began Modi holds marathon meet as govt nears 12 years in office FE BUREAU New Delhi, May 21 AS EXTERNAL HEADWINDS raise the spectrum of serious macroeconomic stress,the government went into a self-assessment mode onThursday.Prime MinisterNarendra Modi called a meeting of the entire Council of Ministers to deliberate on multiple aspects of governance,policy-making and implementation of schemes and projects.The occasion also assumed impor- tance as the Modi regime is completing 12 years in office later this month. According to sources, Modi chaired a“marathon meeting”to review the NDA government’s achievements and draw up an action plan for the next year, focusing on reform-oriented and citizen-centric governance. The meeting, held in the national capital,was attended by Union Cabinet ministers,ministers of state (MoS) with independent charge and MoS. RBI lifts Re from record lows MARUTI SUZUKI INDIA on Thursday said it will increase prices of its vehicles across models by up to `30,000 from June 2026, citing inflationary pressures and an adverse cost environment, reports PTI. ■ PAGE 6 JSW plugs into India’s electric cab route with Uber UBER AND JSW Group have signed a memorandum of understanding for the joint co-development and deployment of electric vehicles tailored for India's ride-hailing market, reports fe Bureau. ■ PAGE 6 CHRISTINA TITUS Mumbai, May 21 THE RUPEE REBOUNDED sharply on Thursday after hitting successive record lows in recent days, supported by strong intervention from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The currency ended at 96.20 against the dollar,up 62 paise from the previous close, according to Bloomberg. The RBI intervention came after the rupee almost hit 97 on Wednesday. The rupee has been under significant pressure since the onset of the West Asia conflict in late February and has weakened 5.7% during this period. In the calendar year so far, the currency has declined 7%. Currency traders said the PULLBACK MOVE »INSIDE« RATE-HIKE OPTION ON RBI’S TABLE P7 100 JUSTANUMBER, LETRE DEPRECIATE: PANAGARIYA P2 RBI heavily intervened,to the tune of around $4-5 billion, in both the spot and offshore markets to support the rupee . They added that the central bank sold dollars even before trading hours. “In the last few sessions, the movement was quite sudden and sharp.I think today’s intervention was aimed at bringing that a bit under control,” said Dhiraj Nim, economist and FX strategist, ANZ Bank. Continued on Page 6 ● VINAY DUBE , FOUNDER & CEO, AKASA AIR ‘Gulf crisis has impacted 15% of our West Asia operations’ Despite geopolitical uncertainties and disruptions across the aviation industry,Akasa Air remains bullish on the longterm growth of Indian aviation.The airline is continuing to expand its network and fleet while sharpening its focus on operational reliability,customer experience,international expansion and maintenance infrastructure.Vinay Dube, founder and CEO ofAkasa Air, tells Akbar Merchant that despite near-term volatility, the airline remains confident about the sector’s long-term trajectory.Excerpts: time performance,cancellations and baggage deliveryalso remained strong. Today,Akasa operates 38 aircraft,has an orderbook of 226 aircraft,and has flown over27 million passengers and more than 11,000 pets since launch. & Howwas FY26 forAkasa Air? It was a strong yearforus despite challenges such as the Pehelgam terrorattack,Operation Sindoorand the AirIndia tragedy,all of which impacted travellersentiment.Even then, Akasa delivered over40% topline growth,while Ebitda margins and unit revenues improved significantly.Reliabilitymetrics including on- Howimportant is international expansion to Akasa’s strategy? Last yearwe added Phuket and expanded Jeddah operations,while this yearwe announced Vietnam.Akasa today serves 34 destinations,including 27 domestic and seven international cities. } THE GOVERNMENT HAS DONE AN IMPRESSIVE JOB IN AVIATION What has passengergrowth been like and what is the outlook forFY27? Demand in April and May has remained healthy.However,given the ongoing Iran conflict and broadergeopolitical uncertainties,it is still too earlyto make projections for the full year.The outlook will depend on how long the situation persists. Howhas the West Asian conflict impacted operations? Before the conflict,we operated to Kuwait,Doha,Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Jeddah.Nearly8085% of ourWestAsian operations were concentrated inAbu Dhabi and Jeddah,which have been least affected.We are currentlyoperating full schedules to Abu Dhabi and Jeddah.Riyadh, Kuwait and Doha remain suspended,though these routes accounted foronlyaround 15% of ourWestAsian operations. Have you reduced flights this summeramid rising fuel costs and geopolitical uncertainty? No.Other than temporary suspensions to Riyadh,Doha and Kuwait,we are operating planned schedules.These suspended routes account for onlyaround 14 weeklyfrequencies out of more than 1,000 weeklyfrequencies operated byAkasa.Compared to last year,our schedule remains significantlylarger due to fleet growth. Continued on Page 10 The stocktaking exercise fuelled expectations of possible Cabinet and organisational changes in the coming weeks. According to sources,Cabinet SecretaryTVSomanathan made a detailed presentation on governance priorities,including the need for ministries to improve response time,expedite implementation of policy decisions , and streamline the handling of Cabinet proposals. Continued on Page 10 Sebi proposes review of IPO,re-listing price rules ANJANATHERESE ANTONY Mumbai, May 21 THE SECURITIES AND Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has proposed the price discovery for initial public offerings (IPOs) and re-listing of shares through the preopen call auction. The proposals, released on Thursday, are aimed at better price discovery and follow comments from market players about artificially suppressed prices for re-listings and volatility on listing days. Public comments on the recommendations are to be submitted by June 11. These changes, if implemented, could enable automatic and faster expansion of price bands in case of high investor demand and reduces the need for stock exchange's manual intervention. Sebi made a series of recommendations following its consultation with the Secondary Market Advisory Committee on FAIR PRICE MECHANISM ■ The call auction session is a one-hour window before regular trading session starts ■ Sebi said that ■ The proposals ■ Current mechanism are aimed at better price discovery for IPOs and re-listings is prone to artificially suppressed prices for re-listings and volatility on listing days matters such as base price, dummy price, and price discovery. Meanwhile, no changes are proposed for the issue price of a scrip. The call auction session, a one-hourwindowbefore regular trading session starts, for IPO and re-listing shares was introduced in January 2012, functioning at a dummy price the existing guardrails during the pre-open session were rejecting large buy orders band to avoid fat finger errors (inputmistakes) or order at non-genuine prices. Sebi said that the existing guardrails during the pre-open session were rejecting large buy orders, leaving little room for the market to find a fair opening price. Continued on Page 6 LIC posts record profit in FY26, 23% rise in Q4 ITC March qtr profit up 5% but revenue slides LIC REPORTED ITS highest-ever consolidated annual net profit of `57,419 crore in FY26, up from `48,151 crore in FY25, aided by growth in group insurance premiums and investment income. For the fourth quarter, LIC reported a 23% year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit to `23,467 crore, compared with `19,039 crore in the year-ago period. PAGE 7 ITC'S NET PROFIT for the fourth quarter of FY26 exceeded analysts' estimates after rising nearly 5% year-on-year, the firm disclosed on Thursday, reports Viveat Susan Pinto. The FMCG major posted a standalone bottom-line of `5,113 crore from its continuing operations, compared to `4,875 crore in the yearago period. Revenue declined 7% to `16,050 crore from `17,249 crore a year ago. PAGE 4