There is no single inflation rate.
India's retail inflation was 4.82% in August 2026. Almost no household actually paid that. It is the midpoint of twelve very different numbers.
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Insights.
One number about India's economy, work or money, explained with a chart and traced to its primary source — the ministry's release, the regulator's filing, the survey itself. Built by the CapitalVia research desk.
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The PF line sat at ₹15,000 for 12 years. It just moved to ₹25,000.
EPFO's mandatory PF ceiling rose from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 on 17 Sep 2026, the first change since 2014. About 51 lakh more employees are pulled in.
Indian households saved 13% more in 2025-26. They borrowed 36% more.
RBI's first FY26 estimates: households added 13% more to savings but took 36% more new loans. Gold loans took ₹27 of every ₹100 of new bank personal loans.
Banks now lend faster to industry (+20.0%) than to individuals (+16.2%).
Bank credit to industry grew 20.0% in July 2026 and personal loans 16.2%. After more than five years of households leading, industry has been ahead since May 2026.
India started 66 lakh SIPs in August. It also ended 54 lakh.
SIP inflows hit a record ₹32,297 crore in August 2026, but 89 SIPs ended for every 100 started this financial year. The net growth is far thinner than the headline.
GST grew 14.8%. The part India paid at home grew 3.4%.
Gross GST rose 14.8% in August 2026. Net domestic GST grew just 3.4%, and imports supplied 70% of the rise in net GST.
The average UPI payment is ₹1,217 — and shrinking.
India made 24.51 bn UPI payments in August 2026. The average was ₹1,217, down 34% from ₹1,843 in 2020. UPI grew by taking over small, everyday payments.
Electronics now out-exports textiles 1.9 to 1. A year ago, it was a tie.
In August 2026 India exported $5.55bn of electronics against $2.92bn of textiles and apparel. A year ago the two were level.
India's gold imports fell 58% this August, the lowest August since 2019.
Gold imports fell to $2.30 bn in August from $5.44 bn, the smallest August since 2019. Duty is back at 15%, and a gram of imported gold costs 36% more in rupees.
India's fastest-growing job market is not a metro.
White-collar hiring grew 14% across India in August 2026. In Mumbai it grew 7%. In Gandhinagar it grew 44%.
Inflation has gone up every single month of 2026.
India started the year at 2.74%. Eight monthly readings later it is 4.82% — past the RBI’s 4% target and the highest print of the new 2024=100 index series.
147.7 crore people. 2 crore income taxpayers.
India's personal income tax rests on a remarkably narrow base — about 1.4 out of every 100 Indians. Not because of mass evasion, but because of how the population is built.
India's white-collar hiring grew
White-collar hiring grew 14% year on year in August 2026. The fastest-growing group isn't freshers or AI hubs — it's people with 13 to 16 years of experience.
India's growth just changed drivers
The familiar story is that India grows because Indians spend. In April–June 2026, investment did just as much of the lifting — and it is a much smaller engine.
One rupee in every three is now being built, not spent.
In April–June 2026, capital investment reached its largest share of India’s economy in the current GDP series — and it is growing far faster than household consumption.
501 deals. $5.2 billion. One cheque was 17% of it.
Indian startups closed 7% more funding rounds in January–June 2026 than a year earlier, and raised 9% less money. And one round — CRED’s $900 Mn — was a sixth of it.
India sold the world $221 billion of software. Products were $2.90 of every $100.
RBI's annual survey: software services exports rose 8.2% to $221.4 billion in 2025-26. The only segment that shrank is the one founders talk about most — products.
India’s female workforce is growing. Urban India’s isn’t.
Between July 2025 and July 2026, rural female labour force participation rose 1.9 percentage points to 38.8%. Over the same twelve months, urban female participation fell 0.5 points, to 25.3%.
The economy grew 7.8%. You weren't the reason.
April–June 2026 was not a shopping quarter. It was a buying-machines quarter: the economy grew 7.8%, and household spending was not what drove it.
Your 8.9% raise is really a 4.3% raise.
India Inc budgeted an 8.9% raise for 2026. After inflation, the real gain is about 4.3% — and in IT, just 2.4%.