From farmers fretting over plunging onion prices and Delhi's smog-triggered cloud seeding, to India seeking a review of its Asean trade pact, slowing pace of industrial output growth, and Nvidia's market cap surging to $5 trillion-here's a compilation of this week's news in numbers.

Farmers in Maharashtra and Karnataka are facing losses due to a steep decline in prices of onions, along with crop damage from heavy rainfalls. The steep decline this year is mainly due to oversupply in the market after bumper production last season and the effects of the export ban and restrictions imposed from August 2023 until April 2025.

While prices of vegetables overall are also declining, onions are worst-hit, recording a 54–56% year-on-year plunge in recent weeks. Wholesale prices are now around ₹20–21 per kg, the lowest since mid-2023. The situation has worsened with excess rain damaging the new crops, causing very little return for the farmers.

The 47th Asean summit in Kuala Lumpur concluded on Tuesday, with India calling for an early review of its free trade pact with the regional bloc, citing limited benefits.

Although India-Asean trade more than doubled to $123.1 billion in 2024-25 from $56.2 billion in 2010-11, the gains have been skewed in favour of Asean members. Most of the trade is concentrated in five countries-Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand-which account for 95% of the total. Since the pact took effect in 2010, Asean's share in India's imports has risen steadily from 8.3% to 11.7%, while its share in exports has slipped from 10.2% to 8.9%, a Mint analysis showed.

Pollution levels in Delhi spiked further on Thursday, with the city recording an air quality index (AQI) of 373-the highest in the past 10 days, according to official data.

The surge pushed air quality back into the“very poor" category after a brief improvement earlier in the week, when it had slipped to the“poor" range. Delhi has reported“very poor" air on seven of the last ten days. As pollution levels continue to climb, authorities have intensified containment measures.

The Delhi government conducted two consecutive cloud-seeding operations earlier this week-the first such exercise in over five decades-under its air quality management strategy.

65.4 tonnes: The quantity of gold the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) brought home over the past year, taking its domestically held reserves to 575.8 tonnes out of a total 880.8 tonnes as of September 2025, according to its latest forex management report.

14,000: The number of corporate jobs Amazon will cut as part of a major restructuring to streamline operations. The layoffs span logistics, payments, gaming, and cloud units, as the company pivots more aggressively toward artificial intelligence.

₹4,000 crore: Air India CEO Campbell Wilson has said the airline is facing losses from Pakistan's airspace closure since June 2025 following a brief military conflict, Mint reported. The airline has since taken measures to reduce the impact on its long-haul international routes.

72,000: That's the number of electric vehicle chargers the Centre wants states to roll out under a ₹2,000-crore plan within the ₹10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme, with Delhi, Maharashtra and Chandigarh leading the charge on EV adoption, Mint reported.

38%: That's the share of RuPay credit card transactions in India by volume, shows a Bernstein Securities report. The homegrown network has gained ground over Visa, MasterCard and Amex by using its exclusive access to UPI, accounting for 8% by value, Mint reported.

Industrial output grew 4% year-on-year in September, the slowest pace in three months, as a contraction in mining offset a strong manufacturing performance, data from the statistics ministry showed.

Manufacturing expanded 4.8%, outpacing overall industrial growth, while mining shrank 0.4% and electricity generation slowed to 3.1%. Core infrastructure output, which makes up over two-fifths of the index, also cooled to a three-month low of 3%.

Among categories, consumer durables and construction goods posted strong gains, while primary goods and non-durables declined, highlighting uneven momentum across sectors despite festive-season demand support.

Nvidia became the world's first company to reach a $5 trillion market valuation on Wednesday, extending its lead over global tech rivals. Shares surged nearly 5% on Nasdaq, lifting its market cap far above Microsoft's $4.02 trillion and Apple's $4 trillion.

The rally came after CEO Jensen Huang said the company expects $500 billion in AI chip orders and announced plans to build seven new supercomputers for the US government. Nvidia's meteoric rise has been remarkably swift - it reached a market value of $1 trillion for the first time in June 2023 and hit the $4 trillion valuation mark just three months ago.
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