Tamil Nadu's big budget push for youth, sports, education. How experts see it

Indian benchmark indices opened lower, with Nifty falling around one per cent and metals and financials facing sharp selling pressure amid rising crude oil prices, surging global bond yields, and currency depreciation. The market decline reflects broad-based global weakness, higher domestic market volatility, and continued foreign institutional investor pullbacks. Alongside opening market movements, details emerged on the National Stock Exchange Initial Public Offering, with the price band set at seventeen hundred to seventeen eighty-five rupees. The offer for sale size was scaled down to 12.64 crore shares after major institutional shareholders, including State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda, reduced their proposed offloading. In corporate updates, HDFC Bank won all seven Bahrain cases concerning Credit Suisse Additional Tier 1 bond mis-selling claims after the court cited insufficient evidence. Meanwhile, Coforge shares dropped following governance clarifications regarding board evaluation reports.

India is hosting the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi, marking the fourth time the country has hosted the bloc's summit. Ahead of the summit's official commencement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting at Bharat Mandapam. The agenda for the high-level talks includes bilateral trade, energy supplies, defence cooperation, nuclear partnership, and escalating tensions in West Asia. The leaders aim to increase bilateral trade from the current 60 billion dollars to 100 billion dollars by 2030, while also addressing concerns regarding the trade deficit beyond government-to-government sales. The meeting is the third bilateral interaction between the two leaders in less than a year, following previous engagements including the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek. The summit highlights India's strategic role in multipolar diplomacy and its position as a voice of the Global South.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit India on September 12 to attend the BRICS summit, marking his first visit to the country in seven years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chinese President are expected to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit. Discussions between India and China are set to focus on border disengagement, trade ties, and trust-building efforts following an eight-point consensus reached in August. The diplomatic engagement also places focus on India, China, and Russia as key representatives of the Global South.

Ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, the panel examines key diplomatic engagements, including Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit with a 400-member business delegation for bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed upon a seven-point charter covering boundary negotiations, normalization of travels, border meeting points, and military communication. The discussion addresses sticking points in bilateral relations, including the Galwan clashes, border standoffs, and the trade deficit, while exploring whether economic complementarities can foster rapprochement. The panel also highlights geopolitical dynamics within the expanded BRICS grouping, the challenge of building consensus on regional conflicts such as Iran and UAE stances, and External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar's articulation that BRICS is 'non-Western, but not anti-West'. Furthermore, the conversation assesses Washington's perspective, the arrival of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and India's position at the global table balancing diverse multilateral platforms.