Best of the week | 'Don't fly,' said the court. India's travellers were already listening

From Mounjaro, to Ramayana release, and US mid-term elections, and Samvat 2083, and Anthropic IPO.

"Don't travel by air," the Supreme Court said on Monday, declining an urgent hearing on a petition claiming airfares had jumped 700% before Diwali. The actual rise is smaller. But the bigger story may be this. Indians are flying less than they have in years.

Picture it this way. Imagine 100 passengers flew domestically in 2019. In May this year, 126.6 did. By July, that had crashed to 101.1, and September managed only 102.9. Not a dip. A slide. Those are levels worse than three years ago, wiping out the gains of 2023 to mid-2025. Traffic has fallen year-on-year in 10 of the past 15 months.

You might blame the West Asia war's disruption of international routes. But relative to pre-pandemic levels, domestic travel is now in worse shape than international, and has been since June. International traffic dipped in March and April, then bounced back. Domestic took longer to feel the pain, as costlier fuel was passed on to travellers with a lag, and it looks more lasting. Why the difference?

Fares are the obvious suspect. Retail airfare inflation crossed 20% in July and neared 30% by September, running four to six times the rise in overall travel costs. And that is before the festive season spike. In the pre-Diwali week, the cheapest one-way flights on popular metro routes cost 45-186% more than second AC rail tickets, against a usual premium of 25-30%.

Flying was never cheap in India. An average Indian needed 17 days of work to afford a ticket in 2023, higher than most emerging-market peers. Now even those who could afford it are feeling the squeeze. Icra points the same way. Elevated fares and weaker discretionary demand are keeping passengers at home.

Is this the start of a wider spending slowdown? Crisil's Jagannarayan Padmanabhan urges caution. Air travel is a useful signal, he says, but it is too early to call it conclusive evidence of a consumption downturn. A festive-season recovery is expected, though winning back lost ground will require a big jump. The industry itself expects the pressure to continue, with fuel costs and a weaker rupee still in play. Read the full story by Rupanjal Chauhan.

For years, an antibiotic sat at the top of India's pharma sales charts. Not anymore. Eli Lilly's Mounjaro has taken the crown, and the weight-loss drug boom is quietly rewriting a market built on cheap generics. Even generic semaglutide, at ₹1,850 to ₹8,000 a month, is flying off shelves, with volumes up nearly 16-fold in seven months. Patients, it seems, will now pay for more than a low price. But does a famous brand really work better? And with dozens of brands and devices crowding in, what will keep patients on treatment beyond the first few months?

Across India's biggest IT firms, employees are asking a question. What is the software meant to monitor their work activity actually measuring? ProHance chief executive Ankur Dhingra says the fear comes from poor communication. His preferred comparison is a Fitbit, and he insists users can switch off monitoring whenever they like. Reassuring, perhaps. Yet staff worry that automated metrics may misjudge smart work, and nobody is sure what else gets logged. Dhingra has a bigger headache, too. His clients have deep tech talent of their own. Could the very firms buying ProHance end up building it themselves?

Diwali is about to get its biggest blockbuster yet. Ramayana, a mega-budget epic with Ranbir Kapoor, Sai Pallavi and Yash, opens Thursday in five languages, with IMAX shows nearly sold out. Trade experts expect a day-one haul of ₹100 crore gross, and PVR Inox says record advance bookings have broken the pre-Diwali jinx. After years of lacklustre festive weekends, the stakes are huge for cinemas. A strong run could push 2026 past ₹15,000 crore, the best year ever. But the movie reportedly cost ₹4,000 crore to make. Will a great opening weekend be enough?

Donald Trump has taken an unprecedented blow, losing control of Congress in the mid-terms. Vice-president J.D. Vance blames the Iran war, and oil has already slipped below $100 a barrel on hopes of a settlement. For India, that could mean a lighter fuel bill, a calmer rupee and even a rethink on interest rates. Trade talks and tariffs could take a new turn too, while the AI sector faces a sentiment jolt. But a bruised Trump is an unpredictable one. Hours after accepting the results, he posted a picture that hints at what he may do next.

After last year's record rally, gold is up 15% this Samvat and silver nearly 20%. Yet both have slid sharply from January peaks, with silver down 51%. On Thursday, MCX Gold closed at ₹1,43,184 per 10 grams and silver at ₹1,87,490 per kg. As Muhurat trading opens Samvat 2083, analysts are split. Some are trimming gold. Others call this a buying window and say the worst is behind us. So which metal is for stability, and which for growth? And what approach do experts recommend to ride out the swings?

Nearly two-thirds of the 148 stocks recommended by brokerages for Diwali 2025 lost value over the following year, with almost a third falling more than 25%, a Mint analysis shows. Yet 53.4% still outperformed the Sensex, which declined 11.7% over the period. While a few picks delivered spectacular gains, others lost as much as 75%. The findings underline the risks of treating festive stock recommendations as investment cues. Experts say investors should look beyond benchmark outperformance and assess absolute returns, valuations, business fundamentals and risk.

The $6.3 billion Binance hack and a suspected data breach at the State Bank of India highlight the growing cybersecurity risks facing financial institutions. While hackers manipulated Binance's internal systems to steal digital assets, SBI found nearly 3,900 customer records containing personal information circulating on the dark web. No money was stolen from SBI, but the exposed data could enable phishing and identity theft. Experts point to weak credentials, insecure systems and third-party vulnerabilities as common entry points.

India's wealthy investors are exploring ways to gain exposure to Anthropic's upcoming IPO, which could raise $100 billion and value the AI company at up to $1.5 trillion. Wealth managers say technology founders, family offices and business executives are making repeated enquiries, but direct access is expected to be limited, with India excluded from the international offering. Scarce private-market shares and regulatory restrictions add to the hurdles. Advisers are instead suggesting listed proxies such as Amazon, Alphabet, TSMC and Samsung, which have links to Anthropic.

India's youthful population is set to age, with the share of people aged 60 and above projected to more than double over the next two decades. As fertility falls and the working-age population approaches its peak, the country will need to rethink policies around three groups: children, workers and the elderly. The article argues for a three-pronged approach: moving from population control to supporting families who want children, building affordable caregiving and healthcare systems for seniors, and creating jobs and cities that help young people live and raise families.

India faces three competing policy priorities: keeping prices affordable while allowing market forces to operate, balancing the interests of savers and borrowers, and attracting foreign capital without weakening fiscal health. Holding fuel prices down protects households but risks distorting markets and delaying inflationary pressures. Higher interest rates could curb inflation and improve returns for savers, but would raise borrowing costs for the government and businesses. Meanwhile, tax cuts may attract foreign investors as capital flows weaken and the rupee falls, but could reduce government revenues when spending pressures are rising.

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