From India and New Zealand formally signing a free trade agreement (FTA) to India once again becoming a net exporter of finished steel, the index of industrial production (IIP) easing to a five-month low in March, freshers facing disruptions in job offers, and gender disparity in India’s boardrooms — here is a compilation of this week’s news in numbers.
India, NZ seal the deal
India and New Zealand formally a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) on Monday after completing the negotiations in just nine months in December 2025, making this one of the fastest trade deals ever concluded. The deal carries a $20 billion investment commitment from Wellington over the next 15 years, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said.
The FTA will grant duty-free access to all Indian exports to New Zealand, spanning 100% of tariff lines. India has offered tariff liberalization on nearly 70% tariff lines covering 95% of bilateral trade value, keeping out sensitive sectors such as dairy, coffee and sugar. Merchandise trade between India and New Zealand was at about $1.3 billion in FY25, making up just 0.1% of India’s total trade.
Steel trade flips
India turned a net exporter of finished steel in FY26 for the first time in three years, provisional government data reviewed by Reuters showed on Tuesday. Exports of finished steel grew by 35.9% to 6.6 million metric tonnes, surpassing imports, which fell 31.9% to 6.5 million tonnes.
The second-largest crude steel producer became a net importer in FY24 as weak global demand along with competitive pricing by China hurt India’s steel exports. Domestic steelmakers argue that with countries such as Japan and South Korea have made imported steel cheaper, increasing the pressure on local industry. The government imposed a 12% safeguard duty on steel imports for 200 days in December 2025 to protect domestic players from a surge in imports.
Numbers in the news
Over $500 million: The estimated value of the contract Infosys secured from US-based Truist Financial Corp. to set up and run a global capability centre (GCC) in Hyderabad, Mint. This represents the largest contract ever won by an IT services firm to build and manage a back-office hub for a single client.
$2.3 billion: What pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly will pay to acquire Ajax Therapeutics, strengthening its blood cancer portfolio. The deal is the lastest in a string of acquisitions, including Scorpion Therapeutics and Orna Therapeutics, as the company expands its oncology pipeline.
20%: The hike in satellite bandwidth rates by NewSpace India, the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation, effective 1 April, Mint. This is the first revision by the firm in a decade.
12%: The year-on-year growth in consolidated net profit reported by Coal India in Q4 FY26 to ₹10,839 crore. Sequentially, too, net profit improved 51.4% from ₹7,157 crore in the December quarter.
24%: The surge expected in energy prices — which would mark their highest level since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago — if the most severe disruptions caused by the war in West Asia persist through May, the World Bank said on Tuesday.
Muted industrial momentum
India’s industrial production growth to a five-month low of 4.1% in March, down from 5.1% in February, as the West Asia conflict weighed on industrial activity, government data released on Tuesday showed. The figure is slightly higher than 3.9% recorded a year earlier.
Output in key segments such as infrastructure, electricity and primary goods moderated from the year-ago period. Manufacturing, which has the largest weight in the index, grew 4.3% in March compared to 4.0% in March 2025. Power generation saw a sharp slowdown, rising just 0.8% versus 7.5% a year ago.
Capital goods recorded the sharpest growth (14.6%), higher than the 3.6% growth seen in March 2025. The figures are an early signal of the war’s economic impact.
Freshers in limbo
Around 13% of engineering graduates and 12% of MBA students are facing disruptions in job offers made in FY26, shows the Unstop Talent 2026 report. ‘Disruptions’ include job offers being delayed by over three months or being rescinded altogether. However, undergraduate students outside these two fields are the hardest hit, with 17% facing such disruptions, the report showed. The data is based on a survey conducted between January and February 2026, covering 37,218 respondents, including students across the three streams and HR leaders.
The West Asia war has deepened the ongoing stress in the job market caused by artificial intelligence. This has prompted colleges to caution newly recruited students about delayed onboarding, reviving memories of pandemic-era job uncertainty, Mint.
Gender divide at the top
Gender parity in India Inc.’s boardrooms remains a distant goal, with the sharpest gap seen among younger women entering the director pipeline, official data shows. A Mint of corporate affairs ministry data as of January 2026 found that women accounted for 32.5% of the more than one million director identification numbers (DINs) issued in the past two years.
However, their share fell to 26% in the 18-30 age group, which amounted to 88,593 DINs out of the 339, 698 in total issued in that group. Representation improves with age, rising to 35.4% in the 31-45 age bracket and 36% among those aged 46-60. DIN is an eight-digit identifier required to serve on company boards. The Companies Act mandates at least one woman director for certain firms.