NEW DELHI, 24 October Every bridge, metro line, flat and car India builds starts with steel, and between April and September 2026 the country used 85.0 million tonnes of finished steel — 7.6% more than in the same months a year earlier.
At a glance
Finished steel consumption, April-September 2026: 85.0 million tonnes, up 7.6%
Crude steel output, April-September 2026: 85.1 million tonnes, up 2.9%
Finished steel imports: 4.14 million tonnes, up 23.8%; exports: 3.55 million tonnes
TMT bar price, October 2026: ₹66,645 a tonne, up 26.0% on a year earlier.
What India gains
Proof that the infrastructure and housing build-out is real, and the case for adding capacity faster.
India, Azerbaijan step up cooperation on transport corridor
NEW DELHI, 24 October India and Azerbaijan will coordinate more closely on the International North-South Transport Corridor, External Affairs Minist.
er S. Jaishankar said in Baku He was speaking after calling on President Ilham Aliyev and holding talks with Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. Both countries, he said, are invested in the corridor, and “that’s very important for us.”
India-UN fund backs 95 projects across 65 developing countries
NEW YORK, 24 October A fund India set up at the United Nations in 2017 has now backed 95 projects in 65 developing countries, with more than US$76 million allocated through 15 UN entities, according to the UN Office for South-South Cooperation’s Year-in-Review 2026 of the India-UN Development Partnership Fund.
Tusk pitches Bengaluru as global hub for computing and innovation
BENGALURU, 24 October Prime Minister Donald Tusk ended his India visit in Bengaluru on 23 October with a pitch that went beyond trade figures.
He called Bengaluru a global hub for computing, research and innovation, and set a practical test for digital projects: the measure of digitalisation, he said, is not the number of new systems but whether they raise productivity, cut costs and improve services.
Sagarmala Finance Corp targets Rs 60,205 cr disbursement by 2031
NEW DELHI, 24 October 2026Sagarmala Finance Corporation Limited, had sanctioned ₹11,563 crore and disbursed ₹5,107 crore by 30 September 2026, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said.
The aim is far larger: cumulative disbursements of ₹60,205 crore by the end of 2030-31, a target the ministry ties to equity support. That is about 11.8 times today’s figure, and means lending roughly ₹12,200 crore a year for the next four and a half years.
Ashoke Sen Becomes First Indian to Win Oskar Klein Medal
BENGALURU, 24 October The first three people to receive the Oskar Klein Medal were Chen-Ning Yang, Steven Weinberg and Hans Bethe. In 2026, the 39th year of the award, it has gone for the first time to an Indian
physicist: Ashoke Sen of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in Bengaluru, part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
The medal, established in 1988 and awarded every year by Stockholm University and the Nobel Committee for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, recognises distinguished contributions to physics.
ICTS said that Professor Sen delivered the 2026 Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture, “Gravity from Strings and Strings from Gravity”, at Stockholm University’s AlbaNova Centre the same day.
