OPINION, P10 WELL BEING FE LINES ACROSS THE AISLE, P CHIDAMBARAM With one in four adults suffering from above-normal blood pressure levels in India, a new twice-yearly injectible, currently undergoing trials, may offer a ray of hope Page 8 Major brands, new players, consumer interest making segment hot Page 6 An election-eye gambit Smart glasses come into focus A SILENT EPIDEMIC LEISURE Follow us on Twitter & Facebook. App available on App Store & Play Store WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM VOL 19 NO. 14 A NEWYEAR SPREAD LUCKNOW 20 Pages, `12 FINANCIAL EXPRESS ON SUNDAY SUNDAY, APRIL 12, 2026 P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , WHAT'S INSIDE C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , When harvest, season and ritual converge on the plate Page 9 READ TO LEAD H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K A T A , L U C K N O W , NEGOTIATORS LED BY VANCE, GHALIBAF MEET IN ISLAMABAD US and Iran start talking ● Trump says US‘clearing out’Strait of Hormuz ● Iran demands ceasefire in Lebanon,sanctions relief ARIBA SHAHID, ASIF SHAHZAD & PARISA HAFEZI Islamabad, April 11 A book offering a mindset shift to overcome behavioural inertia in AI adoption DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT Massivenumbers ofemptyoil tankersheading toUStoloadup withbestand ‘sweetest’ oil Continued on Page 2 To Total Continued on Page 2 Talks with Saudis on supplychains COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY minister Piyush Goyal held discussions with Saudi Arabia's tradeministerMajidbinAbdullah Al Qassabi on ways to strengthen supply chains disrupted overtheWestAsia crisis, after holding talks with counterparts from the UAE,Bahrain and Kuwait, reports PTI. All thesecountriesaremembersof the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)withwhich India is negotiating a free trade agreement. Continued on Page 2 62.5 10.9 5 9.5 12 12.7 71.8 ` lakh crore Mauritius France Ireland 12.5 12.5 14.2 14.4 12.1 21.2 12.9 11.4 11.7 12.9 12.7 Singapore INDIA remains open and welcoming to global capital, said Sebi Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey during a meetingwithVC stakeholders at San Francisco to discuss the evolving India-US economic partnership. ■ PAGE 3 Continued on Page 2 THEUNIONGOVERNMENTon Saturdayraisedexportdutieson high speed diesel and aviation turbinefuel(ATF),increasingthe levy on diesel from `21.5 per litreto`55.5perlitreandonATF from `29.5 per litre to `42 per litre,reports FE Bureau.Export duty on petrol continues to remainnil.Thedutyhikeswould be applicable with immediate effect,thefinanceministrysaid in a notification. 5.3 4.5 4.7 .0 4.0 4.8 .2 4.2 9 1.9 1.5 9 2.9 5 2.5 2 3.2 8 2.8 8 2.8 2.5 2.1 1.8 1.9 1.6 FROM Jan 1, 2027, only electric threewheelers will be eligible for new registration in Delhi, followed by a similar mandate for twowheelers from April 1, 2028, as per the draft EV Policy ’26 released on Saturday. ■ PAGE 3 Continued on Page 2 Feb 2026 Mar 2026 % change Source: NSDL Bengal poll ripples felt nationwide LABOUR WOES ● Short-term migration strains ■ Garment sector in urban workforce Delhi-NCR seeing 30% shortage of workers as SUGANDHA MUKHERJEE New Delhi, April 11 THE COUNTRYIS in the midst of a labour crisis. It is a time of theyearwhen migrant labourers traditionally return home for harvest season, but this year the problem has been magnifiedbyshuttingdownof many small enterprises due to LPG shortage,and elections in Assam and West Bengal, for which migrants are returning home in hordes to vote. they return home for harvest season, elections in Assam, West Bengal ■ Labour tightness particularly visible in manufacturing, sanitation, security, logistics, retail, hospitality, construction From domestic help to gig workers, daily wagers to factory workers, an entire spectrum is abandoning work for a ■ Domestic services platforms such as COOX, Broomees, Helper4U, BookMyBai seeing increased traction coupleofmonths,leavingtheir employers high and dry. Industryvoices say the disruptionisalreadyvisibleacross P U N E Govt raises ATF, diesel export duty `9.31 lakh crore in equity assets during March—marking a record monthly fall— with total holdings dropping from `71.78 lakh crore to `62.47 lakh crore. Luxembourg and Singapore ranked second and third, with equity assets declining by `75,000 crore and `68,000 crore, respectively. — Compiled by Kishor Kadam FPI equity assets ets Luxembourg DelhidraftEV Sebi:Indiaopen policyreleased toglobalcapital FOREIGN PORTFOLIO INVESTORS (FPIs) from the US—which account for 44% of FPI holdings in India—saw a sharp erosion of `3.96 lakh crore in their equity assets in March. Their holdings declined from `31.53 lakh crore in February to `27.57 lakh crore in March, as per data sourced from NSDL. Overall, FPIs across all countries recorded a combined decline of 31.5 27.6 Artemis II astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean after a historic 10-day lunar flyby mission, the first by humans in over 50 years and the farthest from Earth, in San Diego, California. The mission not only shattered several records, but also revealed swaths of the lunar far side never seen before by human eyes, besides a total solar eclipse and a parade of planets, most notably our own shimmering Earth against the endless black void of space NASA/ PTI Trump positioned the initiative as a global service intended to guarantee the safe transit of energy supplies. He noted, “We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to countries all over the world, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others.” D E L H I , USFPIsleadMarchrout with`3.96-Lcrerosion US ● TOTHE MOONAND BACK Washington DC: US President Donald Trump announced that the United States is “starting the process”of clearing the Strait of Hormuz,a move aimed at securing one of the most vital maritime oil corridors in the world, amidst escalating regional friction. In a statement shared on Truth Social, New Delhi: An Indiaflagged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker, Jag Vikram, has crossed the Strait of Hormuz,marking the first such transit by an Indian vessel since a temporary two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran was announced. Ship tracking data showed the tanker moved through the strategic waterway between Friday night and Saturdaymorning andwas located in the Gulf of Oman,east of the Strait on Saturday afternoon, proceeding eastwards. The vessel movement was also confirmed by a governmentstatementgiving an update on developments in West Asia. “The India-flaggedLPGvesselJag Vikram has safely crossed the Strait of Hormuz today (Saturday),”it said. N E W Other Amplifying with AI ‘Clearing out Hormuz as favour to world’ Canada ■ WORDS WORTH, P4 Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif with US Vice-President JD Vance (left) and Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (right) in separate meetings in Islamabad, on Saturday AP/PTI Japan How a new generation of young prodigies, backed by global exposure, advanced training tools and elite mentorship, is reshaping the country’s chess landscape, one winning move at a time Norway India’s chess renaissance SENIOR US AND Iranian officialsmetSaturdayinIslamabad for the highest-level talks between Washington and Tehran in half a century as they sought to bring an end to their six-weekwar. ThetalksbetweenVice-President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner,and Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi lasted for two hours before the delegations broke for a rest, as peraPakistanisource.Pakistan’s armychiefwas also present. As the talks began, there were conflicting accounts of what had been agreed. A US official told Axios that several US Navy ships on Saturday had crossed the Strait of Hormuz, whose blockade by Iranhascausedthebiggest-ever disruptiontoglobalenergysupplies.But Iranian state TVand a Pakistanisourcedeniedthatany US vessel had passed through thewaterway. Indian,three othervessels cross Hormuz UK ■ SPOTLIGHT, P7 M U M B A I , MSMEs.Animesh Saxena, former president of the Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) and managing directorof Gurugram-based Neetee Apparel, said,“The LPG crisis and elections have added to the labourmovement,”adding that the impact is particularly sharp in labour-intensive sectors. “The garment sector in Delhi-NCR is seeing a nearly 30% worker shortage. There are also shortages in logistics and MSME manufacturing.” He added that companies are resorting to higher overtime and facing delays in production as a result. Continued on Page 2 Lucknow