Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.

Welcome to the latest edition of  “Inside India“ — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

India’s 15-minute delivery boom is reshaping one of the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce markets. The service, expected to account for nearly 40% of online retail sales in the country by 2030, is currently led by local players, but Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart are mounting an aggressive challenge. The stakes extend beyond growth — they’re fighting to stay relevant in a market that’s redefining consumer expectations.

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The under-15-minute delivery, or quick commerce, companies in India have achieved something remarkable: they disrupted the biggest disruptors. But the fight isn’t over yet.

Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, the e-commerce giants that once ended the dominance of physical retail stores in India, were late to enter the quick commerce space but are now mounting an aggressive challenge against the sector’s incumbents.

E-commerce companies are not just chasing market share in a new format – they need to offer quick commerce services to remain relevant to consumers, experts told CNBC, adding that India is an important long-term growth market where they need to tap into shifts in consumption habits.

So, during Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy’s visit to India last week, quick commerce was undoubtedly in focus.

On June 24, Jassy visited a micro fulfilment center in Mumbai and said in a post on X that the global e-commerce major now has ambitions to become India’s “largest delivery-in-minutes network.”  

On its app, Amazon Now in India is offering cash back of up to 25% for the first five orders and waiving platform fees and delivery charges as it seeks to rapidly onboard customers and deepen adoption of the service.

The U.S company plans to offer Amazon Now services in more than 300 cities, compared to Blinkit, which is India’s dominant quick commerce company with more than 2,200 dark stores serving over 200 cities as of March 2026.

The other challenger, Flipkart, also said last week that its quick service offering, Minutes, has over 1,000 micro fulfilment centers across more than 130 cities.

“For Amazon and Flipkart, this isn’t simply about entering another retail format — it’s about ensuring they remain relevant if instant fulfilment becomes the preferred mode of e-commerce,” Aakash Agrawal, associate director at Anand Rathi Investment Banking, told CNBC.

President Donald Trump on Thursday lashed out at criticism over the terms of the interim U.S.-Iran peace deal, saying those who think he hasn’t been tough enough on Tehran were either “jealous, bad people or stupid.”

His comments come shortly after the U.S. and Iranian president signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding to extend the ceasefire, including in Lebanon, and reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.

The deal sees both sides commit to further talks to reach a final agreement over the next 60 days and includes a $300 billion plan for Iran’s reconstruction as well as the removal of “all types” of U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The agreement has prompted some to conclude that the terms appear to have strengthened Tehran’s hand.

“These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are ‘tumbling’ down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid,” Trump said Thursday via his Truth Social platform.

The U.S. stock market recently notched a fresh record high and oil prices have fallen on news of the Iran peace deal, although they remain significantly higher than pre-war levels.

Iranian leaders have broadly sought to frame the agreement as a strategic victory. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian described the MOU as an opportunity to tackle Iran’s economic and political problems, saying it could help to create “a different world” in Iran and the Middle East.

“This is a historical document and a message from a powerful Iran: Peace will be realized in the shadow of mutual respect,” Pezeshkian said in a social media post, alongside images of the signed MOU.

“I think it is fair to say, at least what has been given to us in terms of the 14-point plan, the language is quite favorable or heavily favorable towards Iran,” Amrita Sen, founder of Energy Aspects, told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Thursday.

“There are a lot of details that still need to be worked out. For instance, the pace at which the ships are going to be allowed, right?” Sen said, referring to language in the MOU about the U.S. removing its naval blockade and Iran making arrangements for the safe passage of commercial vessels.

Under the MOU, Iran says it will allow the safe passage of commercial ships without tolls for 60 days only. The country will then hold talks with Oman “to define the future administration and maritime services” in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with the other Gulf states.

In justifying the interim peace deal with Iran, Trump reaffirmed his view that Tehran should never be able to acquire a nuclear weapon.

He did say, however, that Iran should have the right to enrich uranium, receive access to billions of dollars in frozen funds and be allowed to develop ballistic missiles. All of these issues test what…

Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.

Welcome to the latest edition of  “Inside India“ — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

While the U.S. and China have been racing to develop a sovereign artificial intelligence stack, India was confident of making its mark by building the AI application layer on top of foreign foundational models. But now New Delhi is being pushed to rethink its strategy as Washington moves to restrict certain AI offerings.

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India’s artificial intelligence strategy was simple: become an AI innovation hub by leveraging its vast information technology talent to develop applications using foreign foundational models.

But the fragility of that ambition was exposed last week when Anthropic disabled access to its new models— Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — for foreign nationals, complying with an export-control directive from the U.S. government.

“The fact that frontier access can vanish overnight on a foreign government’s order is the whole problem,” Saket Dandotia, co-founder and chief executive at Onetab.ai, told CNBC.

Anthropic’s suspension of access could have broken Dandotia’s business of making AI applications for enterprises had he not diversified across multiple models.

But “diversification buys time; it doesn’t buy independence,” Dandotia said, adding that India needs sovereign AI, so that startups like his do not “lose their edge” with one directive from a foreign government.

An ADP Research report released Thursday found that 41% of Indian workers use AI nearly every day, higher than 26% in China and 19% in the U.S. But without a sovereign AI stack, that adoption reflects the extent of India’s reliance on foreign tech.

India does not yet produce cutting-edge chips domestically, nor does it yet have a frontier-scale foundation model on a par with leading U.S. or Chinese models. While growing fast, its data center capacity also lags considerably behind the U.S. and China.

Government efforts are underway on all three fronts, through an India semiconductor mission, an AI mission, and tax breaks for global hyperscalers setting up data centers in the country.

The private sector is also beginning to realize the need to invest in the domestic AI stack. On Monday, India’s Sarvam AI, which is building sovereign AI models, raised $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation from a clutch of investors that included India’s third-largest software services company by market cap, HCL Technologies.

But the efforts might be too little, and likely too late, industry experts said, adding that the biggest challenge for India is access to computing power and a lack of deep-tech investment capital.

India’s strength is its strong domestic market, both at the consumer and enterprise front, and its deep tech talent pool, but it lacks the capital that is available to…

The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday that media reports it has agreed to release billions of dollars of frozen funds to Iran are false.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed that these allegations are entirely false and unfounded, stressing that no frozen Iranian funds have been released, transferred, or facilitated through the UAE,” the government told CNBC in a statement.

Earlier, Reuters quoted four unnamed sources as saying the UAE has agreed to unlock the funds in a tactical shift following hundreds of attacks on Emirati military targets and infrastructure since the start of the U.S.-led war on Feb. 28.

But over the last week, the UAE has been spared Iranian projectiles, while Kuwait and Bahrain have been hit.

Reuters quoted two regional sources as saying the UAE had agreed to release a total of $10 billion, more than $3 billion of which had already been delivered.

The news agency quoted two other sources with knowledge of the arrangement as putting the total funds involved at $20 billion, adding that the move had been agreed in return for a halt to Iranian attacks on the UAE.

One of the sources with knowledge of the arrangement was also quoted as saying a first tranche of $3 billion had already been made available.

Reuters could not establish whether the funds earmarked for the transfers belong to the UAE or originate in long-blocked Iranian accounts in the UAE banking system, or elsewhere.

Dubai has been a crucial financial corridor for Iranian businesses and individuals seeking to bypass Western sanctions, selling oil abroad and channeling the proceeds into military programs and regional proxies, according to the U.S.-based Atlantic Council think tank.

Shell companies registered across Dubai’s sprawling free zones have for years masked the origin of Iranian oil and commodities. Informal currency exchange houses have also moved funds across borders outside the reach of conventional banking oversight.

America has been pressing the Gulf country to dismantle those networks. The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned UAE-based entities in recent years, with officials reiterating that enforcement within the UAE has fallen short of the country’s stated commitments.

– CNBC’s Emma Graham and Reuters contributed to this story.

Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.

Welcome to the latest edition of  “Inside India“ — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

India is home to the world’s most prolific filmmaking industry. This week, industry executives told me that generative AI adoption is accelerating as producers seek to meet rising content demand in the country’s $32 billion media and entertainment sector while navigating tighter budgets.

Read on!

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While Hollywood continues to work out how best to use AI and debates its effect on jobs, filmmakers in India — the world’s most prolific movie production industry — have taken the next step.

In October last year, JioStar, a joint venture between Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and Walt Disney, launched a 100-episode series that used generative AI to produce a retelling of the Indian mythological epic “Mahabharat.”

The series, “Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh,” garnered 6.5 million views on its launch day, with its performance exceeding 2.1 times the platform average, JioStar’s Senior Vice President of GenAI Content and Technology Stephan Bugaj told CNBC by email.

Bugaj added that the series was never meant to be “a one-off experiment” for the platform and is the first step in exploring how AI can “expand the boundaries of storytelling.”

And they aren’t the only ones.

Indian production house Abundantia Entertainment is preparing for the theatrical launch of “Chiranjeevi Hanuman – The Eternal,” based on the mythology around an Indian deity and described as India’s first AI-generated feature film by local media.

“Made in India: the Titan story,” a series streaming on Amazon’s MX Player, has used over 100 AI shots to recreate Mumbai of the 1970s, said Prasad Gori, an AI artist who has worked on the project with his partners Anurag Tiwari and Sagar Chogale.

There has been a boom in AI-related production work in the last eight months, Gori said, adding that he now gets 10-15 offers for such jobs every week. Three years ago, he had to chase production firms for work.

India’s media and entertainment market was valued at $32 billion in 2025 and is growing at 9%, a faster rate than the broader economy, according to a report by consultancy firm Ernst & Young in March.

Generative AI tools can create films and content on a grand scale at much lower cost than traditional methods, but the real benefit is that it cuts down production timelines, according to Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research.

“There is a huge demand for content in India,” Shah said in a telephone interview, adding that it makes “time to market” a crucial element for success.

Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.

Welcome to the latest edition of “Inside India“ — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

The conflict in the Middle East has affected India’s economy, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging citizens to curb overseas travel, save fuel — and even pause buying gold. This bleak-sounding appeal is proving to be a boon for India’s domestic travel and tourism industry.

Read on!

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The conflict in the Middle East is causing India acute economic pain, with its currency weakening, the import bill rising, and mounting concerns over a slowdown in growth.

But there is a silver lining: the domestic tourism industry is showing signs of a boom.

Earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to reduce overseas travel in an attempt to conserve India’s foreign exchange reserves, under strain from a rising import bill amid a surge in global energy prices.

The Indian rupee is among the worst-performing currencies in Asia, falling over 6% year to date against the greenback, LSEG data showed. This weakening of currency, combined with inflated jet fuel prices, has also led to one of the country’s major airlines, Air India, to cancel more than a quarter of its international flights between June and August.

All this coincides with the peak season for Indian tourists travelling abroad, experts told CNBC, adding that as schools remain shut for more than a month, it is easier for families to take longer holidays to escape the Indian summer heat.

Indian Hotels Company, the country’s largest hospitality group and parent of luxury chain Taj Hotels, told CNBC’s “Inside India” that Modi’s exhortation will “benefit the domestic tourism industry.”

Rajeev Menon, president of APAC ex-China at Marriott International, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that revenue per available room in May was “back to…

HELSINKI, Finland — Iran’s influence over the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz has inadvertently transformed the energy security debate, effectively casting fossil fuels rather than renewables as the primary source of vulnerability.

For decades, the conventional narrative has been one in which renewables were criticized for their intermittency issues and dependence on weather conditions, whereas technologies such as coal, oil, and gas were seen as providing security.

The Middle East conflict and protracted closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that typically handles around 20% of the world’s global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, have reframed this debate, however, laying bare the risks associated with fragile fossil fuel supply chains.

Energy experts and the CEOs of Nordic energy giants Fortum and Statkraft made this point clear on the sidelines of the Eurelectric Power Summit in the Finnish capital this week.

“I mean, the big mantras, and I’m surprised we haven’t heard people talking about this yet, is that fossil fuels are now intermittent and uncertain, which, of course, was the argument levelled against renewables,” Kingsmill Bond, energy strategist at U.K.-based think tank Ember, told CNBC in Helsinki.

“Renewables, thanks to batteries, have become actually pretty constant given the sun rises every morning. So, look I think we have moved to a new environment and … we are still far too exposed to the old system – and we need to change, particularly in Europe, we need to change really quickly.”

Bond said the current energy shock marks the first time in history where policymakers have a superior alternative technology to turn to for security, comparing the situation today to the 1973 and 1979 oil crises.

“If you go back to the 1970s, what did we do? We built nuclear, but that took 10 years and it was expensive. This time round, we’ve got solar and wind, batteries and electrification and lots of flexible technologies, which are huge and cheap and we can scale them. And that’s what’s happening,” Bond said.

The U.S. and Israeli-led war against Iran has rattled global energy markets and triggered widespread inflation fears, with Asia’s reliance on imported energy sitting at the forefront of the global fossil fuel crisis.

Supply disruptions have also hit hard in Europe and Africa, where countries are responding to rising fuel costs and a considerable threat to food security. With no imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz in sight, the situation has prompted many to reflect on the extent to which the world remains deeply reliant on fossil fuel trade routes.

Asked about intermittency concerns regarding imported fossil fuels, Fortum CEO Markus Rauramo said, “It’s a different kind of intermittency but absolutely. So,…

Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.

Welcome to the latest edition of  “Inside India“ — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world’s fastest-growing large economy.

AI-driven gains in TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix, plus a weaker rupee and headwinds from the Middle East conflict are reshaping Asia’s market rankings. This week, I explore how the AI theme is outshining India’s consumption story.

Read on!

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In 2026, animal spirits are driving investments in artificial intelligence firms, valuing stocks such as TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix at over a trillion dollars.

For the world’s fastest-growing major economy, India — which has no large-scale AI play — this is bad news, especially at a time when its highly sought-after domestic consumption story is cracking, according to experts CNBC spoke to. Households are facing higher inflation, weaker currency, and a slowdown in quality job creation.

This decline in consumer spending and an increase in input costs due to the conflict in the Middle East is also expected to slow down corporate earnings in the financial year ending March 2027, the experts said, adding that it is making foreign investors even more eager to exit.

Foreign investors have sold Indian equities worth $27.6 billion since January, compared with a total of $18.9 billion in 2025, per data from the Indian depository NSDL.

Meanwhile, the market capitalization of India’s peers is soaring. Taiwan’s market cap touched nearly $5 trillion as it surpassed India to become the world’s fifth-largest equity market on May 26. Within a week, South Korea too pushed ahead of India, overthrowing it from sixth place, based on data compiled from the three exchanges.

It seems tables have turned against India, sharply.

Roughly 18 months ago, India’s equity market cap stood at 3.5 times that of South Korea and more than twice that of Taiwan, according to Bernstein analysts in a note published Monday.

For nearly a decade until 2024, India was one of the best-performing markets, according to Nitin Jain, chief executive and director of Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Singapore. In less than two years, the narrative has shifted from India “being the best story to a story which nobody wants to even think about,” he told CNBC.

AI is a “very powerful theme,” and if companies in the sector continue to get an earnings upgrade, investors are not going to jump ship to other markets, Jain said.

On a year-to-date basis, Korea’s Kospi 200 has gained over 130% while Taiwan’s FTSE TWSE 50 is up over 60%,…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at critics as a potential agreement with Iran remains elusive, saying that Tehran “really wants to make a deal” and that it will be a good one for the U.S. and its allies.

His comments come as air strikes between the U.S. and Iran resumed over the weekend, with each side claiming to have hit military targets near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that typically handles around 20% of the world’s global oil traffic.

“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

“But don’t the Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans, understand that it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping,’ at levels never seen before, over and over again, that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever,” Trump said.

“Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end – It always does!”

The U.S. Central Command said it had conducted “self-defense strikes” on Iranian radar and command and control sites for drones in Goruk and Qeshm Island over the weekend, while Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it targeted an air base used in the U.S. attack in retaliation.

An Axios report published Saturday said Trump had requested several amendments to the latest terms his envoys had reached with Iranian officials. The report cited one senior administration official and a second source briefed on the issue. CNBC was unable to independently verify the report.

The U.S. president has repeatedly said Washington and Tehran have been close to agreeing a deal since a ceasefire came into effect in early April, although talks have shown little progress in recent weeks.

Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel, said market participants are “way too optimistic” about the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough.

“The problem I would say is that we have been promised a good deal for a long time now and it’s more than 90 days gone,” Wolff told CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on Monday.

“I understand it will take time to really have a solid deal but have the fundamentals changed? No, they haven’t. Iran continues to have significant capabilities to inflict a lot of damage, it can continue to control the Strait of Hormuz, it still has nuclear-enriched materials, so the fundamentals haven’t changed,” he added.

Trips to smaller “secondary cities” across Asia-Pacific are getting a boost this summer as travelers opt for destinations closer to home amid concerns over geopolitical tensions and rising costs.

Nearly half of global travelers are scaling back their travel plans, with many choosing domestic trips instead, according to Allianz Partners’ Global Travel Confidence Index. The survey of about 11,000 respondents, published in May, found that around 60% of respondents from China and India planned to travel domestically.

The trend is expected to fuel visits to Tier 2 and Tier 3 destinations such as Goa and Xiamen, which are popular with local travelers but remain less familiar to many international visitors.

Some travelers are keeping their international vacation plans but choosing destinations within Asia, Rajeev Menon, Marriott International’s president for APAC ex-China, told “Squawk Box Asia” on May 21.

“People have pivoted and shifted their plans to stay within Asia,” which is driving interest to up-and-coming places such as Phu Quoc, Vietnam, he said..

“A few years ago, it was really all about Phuket, Bali and maybe Langkawi,” he said “Now you’ve got many destinations within Vietnam that are getting hotter.”

China’s outbound market is also shifting — into Southeast Asia, he said.

“They may not be going to the Middle East or Europe,” he said. “But when you look at the numbers coming into Vietnam, coming into Malaysia … those numbers are pretty strong. Even Thailand – there’s bounce back from Chinese travelers.”

Menon said revenue per available room at Marriott’s India’s properties dropped after the Iran war began, as travelers with flights routing through the Middle East cancelled trips en masse.

However, as travelers readjusted their plans — choosing domestic and intra-regional trips — growth bounced back, he said.

“From May onwards, we are back to double-digit numbers, and as we look forward the pace remains pretty strong,” he said.

Demand for secondary cities in Japan is also strong, said Menon, adding that Marriott International operates hotels in 30 of Japan’s 47 prefectures.

Bookings beyond Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka have been growing for years, with the online search engine Agoda noting the fastest growth in 2025 in Takamatsu at 63%, Matsuyama at 44%, followed by a 32% increase for Sendai, 27% for Okinawa and 26% for Sapporo.

But other cities — such as Shizuoka, Nara and Nagano — the host city for the 1998 Winter Olympics — are also attracting more visitors, according to Agoda, as Japan remains a top draw in the region.  

A survey by Visa shows among those planning to travel in Asia this summer, 1 in 4 are heading to Japan.