Modi, Meloni, and Melody 🥸
Global green capital, nuclear race heating, and sweet mistakes.
🗓️ Morning, folks! ☀️
Dalal Street had a solid Wednesday comeback.
After a weak start in the morning, both the Sensex and Nifty bounced back sharply to end the day in the green.
Reliance Industries led the recovery, gaining nearly 3%, while energy, auto and capital goods stocks added more fuel to the rally. FMCG, IT and media stocks stayed under pressure.
💡 Spotlight: Global money flows into India’s green dream 🌳
British International Investment and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners have launched North Star, a $300 million clean energy platform aimed at accelerating renewable power projects across India.
The two firms will invest up to $150 million each into the platform, which will back solar, wind, hybrid renewable energy, and battery storage projects.
The project will generate more than 4 million MWh of clean power annually while helping avoid nearly 4 million tonnes of carbon emissions every year.
Why India: India already has the world’s third-largest renewable energy capacity after China and the US, and its target of reaching 500 GW by 2030 has made it a major investment destination.
Let’s hit it! 💪🏻
1 Big thing: India-Italy ties get sweeter 🍬
Whenever PM Narendra Modi and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni meet, the internet knows something is about to trend.
What’s brewing: beyond the memes and viral moments, the two leaders unveiled a much bigger plan, one focused on trade, technology, defence, clean energy, space and manufacturing.
India & Italy want bilateral trade between the two countries to cross €20 billion by 2029. And they believe the proposed India-EU Free Trade Agreement could help make that happen faster.
Some numbers: Italy is India’s fourth-largest trading partner in the European Union.
In 2025, bilateral trade between the two countries reached €14.25 billion. India’s exports stood at €8.55 billion, while Italy’s exports to India came in at €5.70 billion, marking a 9.42% rise over 2024.
Both countries are looking closely at sectors like defence, aerospace, auto components, pharmaceuticals, machinery, textiles, tourism and clean technologies.
The sweetest headline: Modi gifted Meloni a pack of Melody toffees, turning the already viral ‘Melodi’ nickname into a real-life moment. And that’s where Dalal Street entered the chat.
Shares of Parle Industries surged 5% after the Melody moment went viral. Investors appeared to assume the listed company was linked to the famous Melody candy.
Except…it isn’t.
Melody is actually made by Parle Products, the privately owned FMCG giant behind Parle-G, Monaco and KrackJack.
Parle Industries, despite the similar name, is a completely separate listed company with no connection to Melody toffees.
Here’s the video incase you missed it.
2. Government’s $1 billion EV push 🚌
India may soon roll out incentives worth over $1 billion to push private transport operators towards electric buses and trucks.
The why: the government wants to reduce India’s dependence on fossil fuels, especially in commercial transport, which consumes massive amounts of diesel every day.
According to Bloomberg, the proposed programme could run for 10 years and focus mainly on privately owned buses and trucks.
Stock action: stocks like JBM Auto, Ashok Leyland, Olectra Greentech traded in the green on the back of this news.
And that’s important because private operators dominate the sector.
The challenge: India has more than 2 million buses on the road, but government-run transport operators control only around 5% of them. Nearly all trucks in the country are privately owned too.
Electric buses are seeing some momentum, largely driven by state transport corporations. But diesel buses still dominate the roads, and long-haul electric trucks have barely taken off.
The progress: electric buses accounted for 4.5% of total bus sales in FY26 till mid-February, up from 3.5% in FY25, according to Vahan data.
3. Adani, Reliance enter nuclear race ⚛️
Maharashtra government signed agreements worth ₹6.5 lakh crore to build nuclear power projects capable of generating 25,400 MW of electricity.
For context, this much power can potentially supply electricity to over 2 crore homes.
Breaking it down: four major companies are now part of Maharashtra’s nuclear expansion push.
Adani Power will invest ₹1.5 lakh crore for a 6,000 MW nuclear plant in Ratnagiri
Reliance Industries plans a 7,200 MW plant in Ratnagiri with ₹2 lakh crore investment
NTPC will invest ₹1 lakh crore for another 7,200 MW nuclear project in Sindhudurg
Bajaj Group’s Lalitpur Power plans a 5,000 MW nuclear project with an investment of ₹2 lakh crore
Zoom out: this comes shortly after India opened its nuclear power sector to private companies for the first time in nearly six decades through the newly passed SHANTI Bill.
In the 2025-26 Union Budget, the Centre launched the Nuclear Energy Mission to rapidly scale up India’s nuclear power capacity.
The government also cleared the way for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), compact nuclear reactors that typically generate up to 300 MW of electricity.
4. How India become a digital export superpower? 💻
India has crossed $328 billion in digital services exports and became one of the biggest invisible exporters on the planet.
But the real story starts when you realise global banks, tech giants and even AI systems are now running critical operations from Indian cities without most people noticing it.
More than 90% of this export economy moves through cloud servers, laptops and video calls instead of ships and containers, and it is changing how the world does business.
The next time someone talks about India’s export boom, the biggest product may not be something you can even see.
5. Stocks that kept us interested 🚀
What went up ⬆️
💊 Zydus Life surged over 2% in a weak market as management projected quarterly revenue above $300 million and modest growth for FY27.
🏭 Hindalco shares rose nearly 4% as Novelis reported higher operating profit in Q4.
🌐 Tata Comm board approved the appointment of Ganapathi S Lakshminarayanan as MD & CEO of the company for 5 years, shares jumped 8%.
📈 Dredging Corp, Mankind Pharma, BLS International shares gained up to 8% after reporting Q4 results.
What went down ⬇️
🌾 Shares of PI Industries fell as much as 8% reacting to company’s Q4 results. The results turned out to be worse than what the street had feared earlier.
📉 BEL, Zee Ent fell up to 5% after reporting weak Q4 earnings.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
📊 Core growth: India’s core sector growth rose to 1.7% in April, with stronger cement and steel output offsetting weakness in coal and crude oil production.
🌱 E30 push: India notified E30 petrol standards as the government deepens ethanol blending efforts to reduce crude oil dependence.
🤖 Meta restructuring: Meta’s latest layoffs pushed 2026 global tech job cuts past 1.11 lakh as the company shifts thousands of employees toward AI-focused roles.
That’s a wrap! Don’t let the weekday blues get to you.
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