Business
Economic recovery to drive road traffic up 12-14% this fiscal
Road traffic volume will grow 12-14 per cent in the current fiscal, driven by economic recovery, continued industrial production, and increased preference for personal mobility fuelled by the pandemic, after declining 4-5 per cent in the last one year.
Resilient performance of the sector through the pandemic and adequate liquidity maintained by players would continue to support their credit profiles, a CRISIL Ratings study of 25 toll road assets across 11 states indicates.
Says Anuj Sethi, Senior Director, CRISIL Ratings, “Road traffic grew 57 per cent on-year in the first quarter this fiscal, albeit on a significantly contracted base of last fiscal, which saw more stringent restrictions. The bounce-back has been faster compared with the first wave, with normalcy returning in July as against September last fiscal. Consequently, traffic growth is likely to be healthy at 12-14 on-year.”
Commercial traffic, which is closely linked to the macroeconomic environment, is expected to log healthy growth this fiscal. Personal mobility, on the other hand, is likely to gain preference over public transport or shared mobility due to pandemic-related concerns, thereby driving passenger traffic.
With both these growth engines expected to fire, the sector’s growth prospects look brighter.
CRISIL’s base-case estimate, though, factors a modest impact of a possible third wave, and could see a downside of 200 basis points (bps) if it is more severe than anticipated.
The sector faced multiple headwinds over the last 2-3 fiscals, with revision in axle-load norms of commercial vehicles, economic slowdown and the pandemic affecting traffic.
To be sure, the sector remained resilient through the pandemic. A strict nationwide lockdown and restrictions on industrial activity disrupted traffic well into the second quarter of last fiscal.
However, once restrictions eased, there was a healthy bounce-back, limiting the decline in traffic to a better-than-expected 4-5 per cent last fiscal. This fiscal has seen a much stronger bounce-back after the second wave-induced restrictions in the first quarter.
While traffic in north, east and central regions remained fairly resilient due to lower caseload and thereby a faster relaxation of movement restrictions, the more industrialised southern and western states saw a comparatively sharper decline due to more stringent restrictions and slower recovery.
Says Anand Kulkarni, Director, CRISIL Ratings, “The credit profiles of players in the road sector are expected to remain strong, and their debt-servicing ability has not deteriorated due to the pandemic-related disruptions. Average debt service coverage ratio of the CRISIL Ratings sample is likely to be healthy at around 1.9x this fiscal, similar to our pre-pandemic estimates, after contracting by a modest 0.3-0.5x last fiscal. Additionally, adequate liquidity maintained by these players (debt service reserve of 3-6 months) would support their credit profiles.”
Healthy performance will continue to support investor activity in the sector, and CRISIL Ratings foresees strong monetisation potential in the sector through infrastructure investment trusts, private sales and toll-operate-transfer modes.
That said, an intense third wave impacting economic activity could moderate the sector outlook and will bear watching.
Business
Tesla shareholders to vote on Musk board seat and $158 billion pay award on Dec 3

Tesla has scheduled its annual shareholder meeting for December 3, where investors will vote on the re-election of Chief Executive Elon Musk and other directors, along with an advisory resolution on executive compensation and the appointment of the company’s auditor.
According to a proxy filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla has nominated Musk, Chair Robyn Denholm and director JB Straubel for new three-year terms on the board.
Shareholders will also be asked to approve, on a non-binding basis, executive compensation for 2025 and ratify PricewaterhouseCoopers as Tesla’s independent auditor for the fiscal year ending December 31.
Moreover, the proxy statement disclosed executive compensation attributed to Musk for 2025 of about $158.36 billion, consisting entirely of stock-based awards.
The figure reflects the accounting value assigned to performance-linked equity grants and does not represent cash compensation received by the billionaire entrepreneur.
Tesla said the awards remain contingent on the achievement of specified market capitalisation and operational targets.
The company previously reported in May that Musk’s realised compensation for 2025 was zero with none of the 12 tranches tied to the incentive program having been earned.
The equity package comprises roughly 423.7 million restricted shares that vest only after predetermined milestones are met.
In addition, any earned shares are generally subject to a five-year holding requirement, with limited exceptions.
The annual meeting will be held at Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas facility in Austin at 3 pm. However, Central Time and will also be accessible online.
Additionally, the filing highlighted several board-level links between Tesla and SpaceX.
However, the proxy statement did not reference any potential merger involving Tesla and SpaceX.
Apart from that, Elon Musk-backed SpaceX is scheduled to announce its third-quarter results on Tuesday after its shares fell nearly 35 per cent from their post-listing high.
This will be the company’s second quarterly earnings report since going public in June, following a volatile stretch for the stock.
The stock has dropped around 35 per cent from the record high it hit soon after its debut.
Business
Oversight Board criticises Meta over election-related moderation errors

The independent Oversight Board on Tuesday criticised Meta, saying the social media firm must improve the transparency and consistency of its election-related enforcement after a series of moderation failures involving political accounts in the United States and Brazil.
In a statement, the Board said it remained concerned by what it described as recurring shortcomings in Meta’s election integrity efforts and warned that mistakes in content moderation risk either suppressing legitimate political speech or undermining public confidence in electoral processes.
It pointed to the removal of political activist accounts linked to the ‘No Kings’ movement in the United States and restrictions placed on accounts associated with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during election periods as examples of enforcement actions that fuelled concerns about electoral interference.
According to the Board, the erroneous action against the No Kings Instagram account should have been detected by Meta’s safeguards designed to prevent moderation mistakes.
Meanwhile, it also questioned why the accounts were not included in Meta’s Cross-Check program which provides additional human review for high-profile civic and political entities before actions are taken that could affect participation in major public events.
The Board said Meta’s enforcement of fraud-related policies against ad accounts linked to Lula during Brazil’s presidential election campaign similarly represented a failure that should have been escalated to specialist reviewers.
The comments revisit concerns raised by the board following Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, when it called on Meta to establish measurable benchmarks for assessing the effectiveness of its election integrity programs and to publish relevant performance data.
While Meta regularly discloses broad statistics such as the number of advertisements archived or accounts removed, the Board said the company has yet to provide public metrics that adequately measure the effectiveness of its enforcement systems or identify significant shortcomings.
Moreover, the Board also warned that the wrongful removal of political content ahead of elections could have a chilling effect on political participation and potentially undermine electoral integrity.
“Automated enforcement tools must take language, nuance, and political context into account to better protect political speech that does not incite violence,” according to Oversight Board.
Meta had pledged in 2025 to reduce moderation errors while allowing greater freedom of expression around elections and political debate.
The Board said recent incidents suggest further improvements are needed for the company to meet that commitment.
Business
Indian stock markets closed on account of Dussehra

Indian stock markets will remain closed on Tuesday on account of Dussehra with trading suspended across major segments on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Trading in equities, equity derivatives, securities lending and borrowing (SLB), currency derivatives and interest rate derivatives will remain closed for the day on both exchanges, according to them.
Notably, normal trading on NSE and BSE will resume on Wednesday.
However, the commodity derivatives segment will follow a different schedule. Trading will remain suspended during morning session from 9 am to 5 pm before resuming in evening. The session will continue till 11:30 pm or 11:55 pm depending on contract.
Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) will not remain closed for entire day. Exchange will suspend trading during morning session from 9 am to 5 pm and reopen for evening session from 5 pm.
Investors will be able to trade commodities such as gold, silver, crude oil and base metals during evening session.
Meanwhile, National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) will remain closed for both sessions on account of Dussehra.
Following Dussehra holiday, three regular trading holidays remain on NSE and BSE calendars for rest of 2026 — November 10, Tuesday, Diwali-Balipratipada; November 24, Tuesday, Prakash Gurpurb Sri Guru Nanak Dev; and December 25, Friday, Christmas.
In addition, exchanges have also scheduled a special Muhurat Trading session for November 8, 2026 on occasion of Diwali Laxmi Pujan. Timings for special session will be announced separately.
Notably, in the last session equity benchmarks closed in negative territory amid selling pressure in the banking and information technology (IT) sector stocks.
Sensex decreased over 850 points or 1 per cent to settle at 73,852.90 on Monday. Similarly, Nifty closed 257.20 points or 1.11 per cent lower at 22,888.95.
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