📰In Mumbai, a Local Election With Global Stakes | Daily India Briefing

Mumbai’s civic elections this week come at a moment when the gap between the city’s global ambitions and its lived reality is increasingly hard to ignore. Today, we explain more.

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Macro

• Sovereign bonds slipped after Bloomberg deferred inclusion into its Global Aggregate Index. A further update on inclusion will come mid-2026; the news caused 10-year yields to rise about 3 basis points to 6.63 percent.  

• The rupee dips due to NDF expiries and corporate hedging needs. State-run banks are now offering dollars to stem the selling, though the rupee was only down 0.1 percent on the day. 

• Top asset managers are holding more cash and dumping sovereign bonds, predicting a tough year ahead for government debt. Sovereign bonds returned 6.7 percent on rupee terms last year, the lowest since 2022, and investors are buying cash, state debt, and corporate debt instead.

Equities

• Technical analysis shows that the stock market is still running weak. 40 percent of Nifty stocks are trading below their 200-day average and global funds are still net sellers. The market has improved since September when 70 percent of constituents were below their 200-day moving average. 

• Earnings from both TCS and HCL were soft, showcasing a weakening IT sector. While one-time charges linked to revised labor rules on employee benefits led to a downswing, accounting for that still showed weakness. Discretionary tech spending and R&D weakened at both companies as well.

Alts

• Firms are looking for more expertise and attention in the ECM market than before. Issuers are looking for sector insight and equity storytelling plus governance and trading support. The demands have also caused deal fees to rise to an average of 1.86 percent, the highest on record.

• Foreign enrollment at US colleges fell by 1.4 percent or 5,000 students. Graduate student programs saw a 6 percent decline though undergraduate programs saw a 3.2 percent rise as ambitious Chinese and Indian applicants keep trying for prestigious colleges.

Policy

• SEBI is exempting small brokers from technical glitch rules of paying penalties. Brokerages with less than 10,000 clients will not have to pay penalties or report requirements due to technical glitches. The move should keep competition higher in the trading space. 

• The RBI raises advance limits for states after providing $98.7 million (₹8.9 billion) to Delhi's capital. States can now take out a total of $6.8 billion (₹610.1 billion) amongst themselves. 

• Traders fear that SEBI will axe weekly options on the Sensex and Nifty 50.The last 2 weekly gauges are used for hedging and eliminating them would push investors to use only shorter-dated tenors, raising hedging costs dramatically.

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In Mumbai, a Local Election With Global Stakes

Mumbai’s civic elections this week come at a moment when the gap between the city’s global ambitions and its lived reality is increasingly hard to ignore. Chronic potholes, traffic snarls and monsoon flooding coexist with soaring real estate prices and an influx of global capital, placing unusual weight on a municipal vote that rarely attracts national attention. The city’s residents are choosing councilors who will oversee India’s richest civic body, with a budget of roughly $8.9 billion (₹801 billion), and help steer an ambitious $30 billion (₹2.7 trillion) effort to remake Mumbai’s infrastructure.

Home to about 20 million people, Mumbai is in the middle of one of the most aggressive urban makeovers in Asia. New bridges, coastal roads, underground metro lines and rail upgrades are reshaping daily commutes, while plans to redevelop Asia’s largest slum aim to alter the city’s housing landscape. For the BJP, modernizing Mumbai is central to a broader push to project India as a global investment destination and to match economic heft with urban aesthetics.

Control of the municipal corporation is therefore politically valuable. The BJP is seeking to win Mumbai for the first time, alongside its regional ally, the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde. A victory would be read as a signal of urban voter sentiment ahead of larger state and national contests. At the same time, the ruling coalition faces voter frustration over basic civic services such as water supply, waste management and the daily grind of commuting in one of the world’s most densely populated cities.

Infrastructure has been the government’s calling card. Last year, Modi inaugurated about $4 billion (₹360 billion) worth of transit projects, including a new airport developed by the Adani Group, and work is underway on a $1.5 billion (₹135 billion) slum redevelopment project. Yet nearly half of Mumbai’s population still lives in informal settlements, even as the city posts the highest cost of living in India. That contrast underscores the political risk of focusing on marquee projects while neglecting everyday urban services. The Bombay High Court also accused the municipality of having extremely high rates of corruption back in 2011. 

Even with challenges, Mumbai’s pull on global finance continues to strengthen. Commercial real estate demand is booming, senior bankers are earning more than their peers in Hong Kong, and firms such as BlackRock, HSBC, Mapletree, and SMBC are expanding their footprint. Turning that momentum into durable prosperity will depend less on headline announcements and more on whether the next municipal leadership can spend effectively, curb corruption, and ensure that growth does not come at the expense of the people who keep the city running.

See you tomorrow.

Written by Yash Tibrewal. Edited by Shreyas Sinha.

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