Here’s a roundup of this week’s news in numbers.
Amazon’s $35 billion bet on India
Amazon Inc. will invest an additional $35 billion in India over the next five years to expand its business, from retail to cloud and streaming. The company has already poured $40 billion into India since 2010.
The investment is likely to help Amazon better compete with Flipkart and JioMart in online retail, PhonePe and Paytm in online payments, Microsoft and Google in cloud services and Netflix and other video streaming platforms.
Amazon is among several foreign companies that have pledged investment in India, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers. Microsoft recently announced its largest-ever Asian investment in India, investing $17.5 billion over four years, while Google announced an investment of $15 billion over five years.
The IndiGo fiasco
India witnessed an unprecedented national crisis following the widespread disruption and delay of flights by leading airline IndiGo. Regulators swung into action and ordered the carrier to reduce its operations by 10% to restore stability across networks.
Before the mass disruption, IndiGo was scheduled to operate around 15,000 flights per week in the current winter schedule, representing 56.7% of the total. A 10% reduction would mean around 200-300 fewer IndiGo flights per day.
IndiGo will also have to hire more pilots to meet the flight duty time limitation (FTDL) rules once the extension expires in February. IndiGo may see a 10% drop in revenue and a 17-30% drop in profitability in FY26 due to this, Mint said citing analysts.
Third Fed rate cut in 2025
The US central bank (Fed) cut its key rate by another 25 basis points, its third cut this year, to a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. The central bank made the cuts despite inflation still exceeding its 2% target, signaling concerns about a weak labor market and growth prospects.
The Fed’s first rate cut in 2025 came only in September – after India, the UK and the EU – and marked a shift in policy, with the central bank acknowledging that rising unemployment and inflation would not flare up due to US tariffs as previously feared. After a cumulative cut of 75 bps, the Fed signaled only one additional cut each time in 2026 and 2027.
Rest due to Delhi pollution
Delhi’s air quality index has improved in the last few days due to policy interventions, favorable winds and reduction in stubble burning. AQI has ranged from 259-330 over the past seven days, remaining mostly at “very” poor category, data from the Central Pollution Control Board showed.
The improvement comes after the AQI hit a recent peak of 428 (the “severe” category) on November 11, prompting the government to implement a Tiered Response Action Plan III.
The recent improvement in air quality has brought relief, but it is still worse than last year, when it was mostly in the “moderate” zone. An AQI of 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 200-300 poor, 300-400 very poor, and 400-500 severe.
Food deflation is slowing
Food prices have been falling for some time. This pulled down the prices of domestic vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals by 13% and 12.5% respectively to ₹28.4 a ₹53.8 in November from the same month last year, data from the monthly Roti Rice Rate report by Crisil intelligence showed.
However, the drop was smaller than October’s 16.5% drop for vegetarian meals, mainly due to rising potato and tomato prices. The price of vegetarian food actually increased by 2% month-on-month. Overall, inflation is expected to rise slightly to 0.8% in November from 0.25% in October, mainly due to lower food price deflation. Mint survey showed.
Numbers in the news
$700 million: What Tata Consultancy Services is paying to acquire technology consultancy Coastal Cloud. This will be TCS’s biggest buyout since its IPO in 2004.
Over $30 billion: The amount Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to raise through an initial public offering is likely in mid-to-late 2026, Bloomberg reported. That would make it the greatest list of all time.
85,000: The number of visas across categories that the US has canceled since January. The world’s largest economy has significantly tightened immigration policy under Donald Trump.
$1 trillion: China posted a trade surplus until November of this year, despite a sharp drop in export shipments to the US. The country exports more to other markets in Africa and Asia.
$5.5 billion: Value of the transaction in which Biocon Ltd will incorporate Biocon Biologics Ltd as a 100% subsidiary by acquiring the remaining stake from Serum Institute Life Sciences, Tata Capital Growth Fund II and Activ Pine LLP.
