🏴‍☠️ Pirates of the bandwidth

Good morning. Taylor Swift dropped news of her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, at 12:12 a.m. on the 12th.

Cue orange-lit landmarks, merch drops, and a new era in full swing 🎙️🧡 

Ruchirr Sharma & Shatakshi Sharmaa  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 🏴‍☠️ Pirates of the bandwidth

• Bite-sized summaries

  • 🪷 Mumbai probes IndusInd lapses

  • 🛍️ Retail inflation slips Below 2%

• 🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

MARKETS

🇮🇳 India

• Indian benchmarks closed lower. Financial, FMCG, and Realty stocks dragged the market down, even as metal, IT, auto, and pharma sectors showed slight gains. Investors remained cautious amid global tariff worries and awaited inflation data.

🌍️ International

• US markets surged to record highs after inflation data came in slightly better than expected, boosting hopes for a Federal Reserve rate cut in September. Tech stocks led the rally as investor confidence returned.

MEDIA

🏴‍☠️ Pirates of the bandwidth

India’s media & entertainment industry is springing a leak worth about $2.5 billion a year. To plug it, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) just launched a special task force to hunt down pirates (the digital kind, not the eye-patch kind).

Who’s steering the ship? MIB Secretary Sanjay Jaju met with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to hammer out rapid-response tactics—think taking down illegal streams within 24 hours.

A recent EY–IAMAI report pegged India’s piracy ecosystem at a cool ₹22,400 crore (~$2.7B) in 2023, making it the fourth-largest chunk of the industry. That’s a lot of stolen popcorn.

The game plan:

• CII + MIB are launching an anti-piracy challenge ahead of WAVES 2025.

• An inter-ministerial committee will keep everyone—from tech to law enforcement—on the same page.

• Past proposals from the Broadcasting Bill are making a comeback, minus the bill itself.

CII chair Gaurav Banerjee says the focus isn’t just on piracy—it’s also about prepping for the AI era, with smarter policies, better talent pipelines, and safeguards for creativity.

Bottom line: India’s coming for the pirates, fast and hard. If the plan works, digital leaks could sink before they set sail keeping billions in the pockets of creators instead of on shady torrent sites.

Read more: Economic Times

GENERAL OVERVIEW

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

🪷 Mumbai probes IndusInd lapses - Mumbai’s Economic Offences Wing has opened a preliminary enquiry into IndusInd Bank’s ₹1,979 crore accounting hiccup, following a complaint by the bank’s board. The probe is probing how notional profits surfaced in the derivatives book and whether senior managers offloaded shares before the issue became public raising potential criminal liability. Earlier, audits flagged ₹674 crore wrongly booked as interest and ₹595 crore in dubious “other assets.” With the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) already investigating possible securities law violations, this moves the fallout into the legal arena. Meanwhile, IndusInd has appointed veteran Rajiv Anand as its new MD & CEO signaling a bid to steady the ship and win back investor trust.

🛍️ Retail inflation slips Below 2% - India’s retail inflation plunged to 1.55% in July 2025, its lowest level in eight years and the first time it’s dropped below the Reserve Bank of India’s 2–6% comfort zone since 2019. The fall was driven mainly by a sharp drop in food prices, with food inflation sliding to 1.8% as vegetables, pulses, and cereals saw steep declines. Core inflation also eased, suggesting that cooling price pressures are spreading beyond just essentials. While the RBI recently held interest rates steady at 5.5%, the unexpectedly soft inflation data gives policymakers more room to maneuver. Still, most analysts believe the central bank is unlikely to rush into rate cuts, preferring to watch if the trend holds before making any monetary moves.

HEADLINES

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

What’s happening in India (and around the world 🌍️)

• New Delhi is ordered to round up hundreds of thousands of stray dogs.

• Global satcom giants like Intelsat, Inmarsat eye India's $2.3 billion market boom.

• Centre targets December for digitisation of land right records.