In this week’s wrapup, we discuss China’s EV battery empire, the 2026 Nobel Prize in Economics, India’s new GST reforms, whether Starlink can win India’s internet war, and the Fairfax-IDBI Bank deal.

How China is building its global EV battery empire

In 2005, China’s EV battery industry had just two companies. Twenty years later, it makes over 75% of the batteries sold worldwide.

Part of the answer lies in a 2015 rule that tied EV subsidies to an approved list of battery suppliers, and every name on that list was Chinese. With the home market protected, CATL and BYD could compete with each other and get better, faster, and cheaper.

Now China is taking that playbook overseas, with at least 68 battery plants built abroad in the last decade. India, meanwhile, turned down BYD’s $1 billion factory proposal in 2023 on national security grounds. But nearly 84% of India’s lithium-ion battery imports still come from China.

So what is India doing to catch up, and how long will it take? Find out in Monday's newsletter.

Why the Nobel Prize in Economics went to Robert Hall and Michael Woodford

When inflation rises, central banks often respond by raising interest rates. But here’s the thing. If they raise them too much, it could slow the economy. And if they raise them too little, inflation could spiral out of control. So how do policymakers figure out the right move?

This year’s Economics Nobel laureates, Robert Hall and Michael Woodford, spent years tackling this very problem. Their work changed how economists understand household spending, business pricing and interest rates. So in Tuesday’s newsletter we explained what they discovered about the way people make financial decisions and how it sort of became a template for central banks to make better policy choices. You can check it out here.

The new GST reforms explained

When GST was introduced in 2017, one of its promises was to make it easier to do business across India. But for many small businesses, growing still means a lot of paperwork.

That’s why the 57th GST Council meeting focused less on tax rates and more on the system itself. The logic is simple. Lower rates reduce how much tax a business pays, but faster refunds and simpler registration reduce the time and money it spends just to operate.

So will these reforms actually give businesses back their time and money, or will they remain a good idea that never quite shows up in day-to-day compliance?

Read our full story to find out.

Can Starlink win India’s internet war?

Elon Musk isn’t happy with how India is handling Starlink’s entry into the country. And he seems to believe that domestic players are making things difficult for him.

But if we were to keep this drama aside for a while, there’s a bigger question here. Can Starlink actually compete in a country where Jio and Airtel offer dirt-cheap internet?

Satellite internet has its advantages, especially in places where traditional broadband struggles to reach. But between pricing, limited network capacity and other things, Musk’s India ambitions could face some serious hurdles. So, does Starlink have a winning strategy?

Find out in Thursday’s newsletter here.

IDBI Bank is finally being sold

The IDBI Bank sale has been stuck in limbo for years.

But now, the government has finally approved a ₹52,878 crore deal that would hand control of the bank to Fairfax, a Canadian investment and insurance company.

So what makes IDBI such an attractive bet for Fairfax? And with questions over the bank’s valuation, could this deal be more complicated than it appears?

We broke it down in yesterday’s Markets edition here.

Finshots Weekly Quiz v2.0 🧠

Hey folks! As you probably already know, the Finshots Weekly Quiz has a new avatar. If you missed out on it in the last couple of months, don’t worry. Click here to check out the rules and set a reminder to participate consistently starting next month!

But for now, it’s time to announce the top scorers of our previous weekly quiz. There were a whole bunch of you who participated, and many of you ended up with the same scores. So we’re calling you Bulls, Bears, Unicorns, Blue Chips, and Rising Stars. Here’s how the leaderboard looks right now:

If your name has been featured on the leaderboard, then congratulations! If not, don’t lose hope. If you attempted last week’s quiz, keep at it and answer all the weekly quizzes this month. You never know when the turntables! Click on this link to take this week’s quiz, which is open till 12 noon, Friday, 23rd of October, 2026. The more answers you get right, the better your chances of appearing on the Finshots Weekly Quiz leaderboard. We’ll publish it every Saturday in the Weekly Wrapup. And the winner will be announced in the first week of November.

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