Business
Akasa Air Boosts Pets On Akasa Service With New Perks For Travellers
 "Akasa Air Boosts Pets On Akasa Service With New Perks For Travellers")
New Delhi: Akasa Air has announced key enhancements to its popular pet travel service, ‘Pets on Akasa’, and now passengers can travel with two pets in the cabin, up from the previous limit of one, a release said. This upgraded service aims to offer more convenience and flexibility for pet owners, a release said. Since its launch in November 2022, Pets on Akasa has successfully transported over 8,500 pets nationwide.
The airline continues to act on customer feedback, as demonstrated by key policy enhancements introduced in May 2024. These include increasing the permissible weight for pets in the cabin to 10 kg and extending the validity of pet travel certificates to 15 days, further streamlining the travel experience for pet parents, it said. Pets on Akasa currently operates across 24 domestic cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Lucknow.
This move stems from the airline’s customer-focused approach and adaptability to evolving passenger needs, the release said. Passengers flying with their pets on Akasa Air enjoy a range of complimentary value-added services, including a pre-booked window seat, priority check-in and baggage delivery, and Board First, ensuring an elevated flying experience. The airline has undertaken extensive research and provided specialised training for its customer care centre, airport staff, and in-flight teams, highlighting its commitment to delivering the highest standards of care, safety, and comfort throughout the journey.
Akasa Air has also partnered with Umeed for Animals Foundation, which is a Gurgaon-based non-profit animal rehabilitation organisation dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating animals. The airline collaborates with the NGO to implement best practices across various processes and policies, continually enhancing pet comfort and safety.
The airline also provides additional perks to passengers and stated in the release that the booking window has been reduced to 24 hours before departure, down from 48 hours, allowing last-minute travellers to make arrangements more easily.
Akasa Air, serving over 21 million passengers, operates a modern fleet of 30 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, with a total of 226 planes on order. The fleet is designed to reduce fuel consumption, cut carbon emissions, and provide a quieter, more comfortable cabin environment, the release added.
Business
Chinese imports: India imposes 12% tariff on steel inflows; aims to curb cheap shipments with safeguards – The Times of India
India rolled out a new trade measure on Tuesday, imposing safeguard duties on certain steel imports for a period of three years. The move comes as a push to protect domestic manufacturers from a surge in low-cost overseas supplies, particularly from China.As per a finance ministry notification, the safeguard duty will stand at 12% in the first year, ease to 11.5% in the second, and fall further to 11% in the final year. The decision follows a detailed probe into import trends and their impact on local producers.The levy will apply to steel shipments from countries including China, Vietnam and Nepal. However, imports from some developing nations have been kept outside the scope of the measure. The order also makes it clear that specialty steel products, such as stainless steel, will not be covered under the safeguard duty.The directorate general of trade remedies, which examined the matter, recommended the three-year tariff after observing a “recent, sudden, sharp and significant increase in imports … causing and threatening to cause serious injury to the domestic industry,” the order stated. The latest move builds on an earlier step taken in April, when the government imposed a temporary 200-day safeguard duty of 12% on similar steel products, according to a Reuters report.Officials from the federal steel ministry have repeatedly stated that unchecked inflows of cheap and sub-standard steel could harm India’s domestic steel sector, prompting the need for protective measures.The decision also comes against the backdrop of growing global trade tensions in the steel market. US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs on steel have intensified scrutiny of Chinese exports, leading countries such as South Korea and Vietnam to introduce anti-dumping duties earlier this year.
Mark SavageMusic correspondent
Getty ImagesTo almost no-one’s surprise, Taylor Swift dominated the UK music charts in 2025.
The star’s 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, was the year’s biggest seller, shifting an impressive 642,000 copies since its release in October.
Women led the way all year, with breakout Brits like Olivia Dean and Lola Young powering the music industry to a record-breaking year, as combined sales rose by nearly 5% to 201 million albums sold or streamed.
There was also a huge resurgence for Oasis, whose blockbuster reunion tour helped them shift more than one million albums during 2025.
The band’s greatest hits compilation, Time Flies, was the fourth biggest album of the year, while (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, was seventh.
Getty ImagesThe figures were revealed by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which said streaming now accounts for 89% of the overall music market.
Fans streamed 210.3 billion songs over the course of the year, with US singer Alex Warren’s Ordinary the year’s most-played track.
However, Warren’s song was one of the only new releases to make a major impact – as older songs clogged up the charts.
Six of the Top 10 best-selling tracks came out in 2024. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club was even older: It was originally released in 2020.
It was a banner year for new female talent in the UK, with Lola Young landing the year’s second-biggest single, with Messy.
Olivia Dean also became the first woman in UK chart history to achieve her first number one single (Man I Need) and album (The Art Of Loving) in the same week.
Asked why her songs had resonated with so many people, Dean said she’d tried to make her album an antidote to troubling times.
“I wanted it to feel just like a hug – comforting,” she told the BBC’s Sidetracked podcast.
“I just said everything needs to feel warm and intimate.”
Dean will cap off her incredible year – which also saw her achieve four simultaneous top 10 hits – by appearing on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny.
There were also breakthroughs for confessional songwriters Skye Newman and Sienna Spiro; while artists like Raye, PinkPantheress and Wet Leg all consolidated their first wave of success at home and abroad.
On the singles chart, female artists accounted for two-thirds of 2025’s number one hits; and former Little Mix star Jade achieved the biggest opening week for a debut album with her critically-acclaimed That’s Showbiz, Baby!
Getty ImagesVinyl sales have risen for 18 successive years and increased rapidly again, up 13% year-on-year to 7.6 million units.
Swift’s Life Of A Showgirl led the pack, and the star scored another entry in the Top 10 with Lover (Live From Paris) – a limited edition release which was only available for 72 hours on Swift’s website.
According to the Official Charts Company, it sold 47,000 copies in that short stretch of time; and subsequently became the first album to reach number one on pure sales (with no streams contributing to its total) in eight years.
Overall, vinyl sales have doubled in the last decade, and are on course to overtake CDs for the first time since the 1990s.
The two formats are now separated by just 2 million sales, with 9.7 million Compact Discs sold in 2025. Ten years ago, that figure was 47.3 million.
Although it’s very much a niche market, cassettes also saw a 53.8% sales increase to 164,491 units in 2025.
The soundtrack to Robbie Williams’ biopic Better Man was, for reasons that remain unclear, the year’s best seller on tape.
In its report, the BPI highlighted that a new generation of British talent had achieved international success in 2025.
Olivia Dean and Lola Young both broke into the US Billboard charts, and scored nominations for best new artist at next year’s Grammy Awards.
Rock acts including Yungblud, Sleep Token, Wolf Alice and Florence + The Machine also made waves abroad; while Ed Sheeran became the first overseas artist to top India’s Spotify Charts since 2021 with his single Sapphire.
These achievements were “an impressive feat, given more acts than ever are vying for audience attention”, said Dr Jo Twist, CEO of the BPI.
“The UK is still the second largest exporter of music globally, which is amazing, but we can’t be complacent because streaming has opened the floodgates to every bit of recorded music that’s ever been made,” she told BBC News.
“Luckily, we have a brilliant ecosystem in the UK which helps those artists reach global success – but it’s a tough competitive environment and that’s why we need the continued support of the British government.”
London’s stock market has experienced a significant resurgence, recording its most robust year for new listings since 2021, driven by a late surge in activity.
Industry experts anticipate this positive global market momentum will persist through to 2026.
According to analysis by PwC, the London Stock Exchange welcomed 11 initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2025.
This figure specifically accounts for transactions raising a minimum of $5 million (£3.7 million) and does not include companies transitioning from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) to the main market.
The IPOs raised £1.9 billion in total proceeds, making it the strongest year since 2021 when £16.8 billion was raised in a record year for the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
It is also more than double £700 million raised last year.
A late flurry of IPOs helped deliver a boost to the market with £1.3 billion of the total proceeds raised during the final quarter of the year, marking a shift following a dearth in activity.
IPO activity gained momentum over the final months of the year, which saw the flotations of tinned tuna maker Princes Group and small business lender Shawbrook on the main market.
Princes raised about £400 million from its listing, giving the 150-year-old firm a valuation of £1.16 billion, while Shawbrook raised £348 million and clinching a £1.92 billion valuation.
Other notable flotations included Texas-based Fermi, which develops electric grids, and Beauty Tech Group which owns beauty gadget brands used by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Serena Williams.
Vhernie Manickavasagar, the UK’s IPO leader at PwC UK, said: “London has delivered its strongest year for IPO and listing activity since 2021.
“In addition, global multi-billion-pound companies selected the London Stock Exchange for their international listings in 2025, the largest of which had a market capitalisation of £16 billion in December 2025.
“These developments underscore the resurgence of London’s capital markets and its returning appeal as a leading listing destination.
“Looking ahead, momentum is set to continue into 2026, with a robust pipeline of large-cap IPOs expected across the consumer, financial services and TMT (technology, media and telecoms) sectors.”
Around the world, proceeds totalled 143.3 billion US dollars (£106.2 billion) from 1,014 IPOs over 2025 – about a fifth more than in 2024, according to PwC’s analysis.
The biggest of the year was the 6.3 billion US dollar (£4.7 billion) blockbuster IPO of medical supplies giant Medline which had its Wall Street debut earlier this month.
In terms of sectors, financial services led the charge with the biggest proportion of proceeds raised globally.
Momentum in the IPO market comes as the UK has been introducing new measures to help revive the London market after a prolonged drought in activity.
This includes a three-year, stamp duty holiday on shares bought in new UK flotations to help London compete for IPOs on an international stage.
India unlikely to extend duty-free cotton imports beyond December 2025
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Chinese imports: India imposes 12% tariff on steel inflows; aims to curb cheap shipments with safeguards – The Times of India
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