USCIS visa bulletin August 2025 brings major relief for Indian applicants
USCIS will continue to use the Final Action Dates chart to decide who can proceed with Adjustment of Status (AOS) applications as usual. Now, in order for a green card to be approved, an applicant's priority date must be earlier than the date listed in this chart for their category and country of chargeability.
ALSO READ| Is the SSA providing $16,728 annual bonuses? Here's what the bonus actually means
While many categories remain unchanged from the July 2025 bulletin, there are two updates:
EB-3 India has advanced slightly, moving from 22 April 2013, to 22 May 2013.
EB-2 for the Rest of the World, Mexico, and the Philippines has retrogressed from 15 October 2023 to 1 September 2023.
EB-1 remains 'Current' for most countries, meaning applicants from the Rest of the World, Mexico, and the Philippines can proceed with green card processing regardless of priority date. However, EB-1 India remains stuck at 15 February 2022, and China at 15 November 2022.
For the EB-2 category:
India holds steady at 1 January 2013.
China stays at 15 December 2020.
The Rest of the World, Mexico, and the Philippines all now share the retrogressed date of 1 September 2023.
For the EB-3 category:
The Rest of the World and Mexico remain at 1 April 2023.
The Philippines continues on 8 February 2023.
China stays at 1 December 2020.
ALSO READ| New York's inflation refund checks 2025: Check eligibility criteria and expected date to receive
No changes from the July bulletin were made to the Dates for Filing chart, which is used to determine when applicants can submit their AOS applications.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
India's EV reality check, TCS layoffs heat up, and a $1.5 billion rejection
For the longest time, I drove a diesel SUV as my daily commuter. It wasn't ideal, but even when the fuel gauge dipped to the dreaded 'low fuel' warning, I never panicked. What's the worst that could happen? I could always call roadside assistance through my insurance, and they'd show up with fuel cans. Life with an electric car is very different. No one's going to rush in with a giant battery to bail you out, at least not yet. There is HopCharge, a startup that'll come to your location (in five cities) and charge your car. But when things go wrong with an electric vehicle (EV), they can go really wrong. In my 3,000-km experience, I've encountered vandalized chargers, roadside hawkers refusing to move from charging spots, cars wrongly parked at EV stations, so-called 'fast' chargers working at snail's pace, glitchy mobile apps, and non-existent customer support. If you're buying an EV, a home charger isn't just useful, it's essential. And if you're thinking of long road trips, even the most enthusiastic EV owner should think twice about relying solely on public chargers for a 400-km journey. This is the story of India's EV infrastructure, and the critical loopholes that need plugging before electric vehicles can truly go mainstream. On 27 July, Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest mass tech recruiter, announced that it would lay off about 2% of its global workforce. But as Mint's Jas Bardia and Varun Sood report, insiders have flagged several inconsistencies in how the process has played out. One big question: what exactly do these layoffs achieve? During a leadership meeting with CEO K Krithivasan, business heads were instructed to tell impacted employees that this isn't about profits, it's about 'restructuring' to enable future growth. But someone ran the numbers. If the average salary of those laid off (mostly mid- and senior-level staff) is ₹ 25 lakh per year, letting go of 12,000 employees would save about ₹ 3,000 crore. That's just 6.7% of the ₹ 45,000 crore TCS paid out in dividends in FY24. So, was there another way to manage this? Soon after Operation Sindoor, the Ministry of Defence allocated a $4.5 billion emergency fund to the Army, Navy, and Air Force for procuring critical defence technologies that India currently lacks. One top contender: a compact, lightweight combat drone that can be launched from almost anywhere, functions without GPS, and operates even in network-jammed environments. The Indian Air Force is particularly keen on this drone, with the deal reportedly finalized in principle and awaiting official sign-off. That's not all. India is also in the market for uninterrupted, high-resolution satellite surveillance data. While India's own SBS-3 programme aims to address this gap, existing surveillance satellites still fall short in both resolution and refresh rates. To bridge the gap, the Centre is eyeing foreign partners for round-the-clock, ultra-high-resolution data that could dramatically improve India's real-time intelligence capabilities. Read the full scoop on what's coming next for India's defence tech. India's police satellite network, PolNet, first launched in 2002, is long overdue a revamp. And now, a mix of domestic giants and global players, including Adani and Tata group subsidiaries, Navratna PSU Bharat Electronics, and Cisco, are vying to modernize it. PolNet currently relies on ageing satellite tech. The government's new plan involves bringing in modern, low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites—à la Starlink—for better last-mile connectivity. But despite several extensions and interest from top vendors, the upgrade is stuck in limbo. At stake are contracts worth hundreds of crores. Who will win the race to modernize PolNet? Mint's Jatin Grover investigates. A JPMorgan note suggests that Apple could launch its first foldable iPhone next year, priced at around $2,000. The announcement can't come soon enough: after a strong quarter that beat analyst expectations, Apple's stock rose 3.5%—only to dip again by 6% in the days that followed. With AI seen as its Achilles' heel, can a sleek, foldable device revive Apple's innovation image? And finally, meet Andrew Tulloch, the AI engineer who reportedly turned down a $1.5 billion (yes, billion) offer from Meta to rejoin the company. Tulloch, who spent nearly 12 years at Meta before joining OpenAI and later Mira Murati's new venture, Thinking Machines Lab, is now at the heart of Silicon Valley's most aggressive talent war. Zuckerberg, sources say, still hasn't given up. Transformer by Mint is your weekly lens into the biggest shifts in India's technology landscape. From boardroom battles and AI breakthroughs to defence tech and electric cars, we track the innovations shaping your future.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
7 hours ago
- Business Standard
Pharma Inc gears up for Day 1 launch of obesity drug in March 2026
As the global demand for next-generation diabetes and weight-loss therapies surge, Indian pharmaceutical companies are stepping up preparations to roll out generic versions of semaglutide—a blockbuster GLP-1 receptor agonist—once patent expires around March 2026. The generic launches will be significant, as the prices for the Indian consumer are expected to come down significantly from the current ₹17,000-26000 (monthly), thereby expanding the patient coverage. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), Cipla, Sun Pharma, and Mankind Pharma, and others are ramping up peptide manufacturing, forming device partnerships, and aligning regulatory strategies to capture a share of the global GLP-1 market, estimated to cross $150 billion by decade's end. Hyderabad-based DRL is planning Day 1 launches in India and Brazil, part of a 2026 global rollout across 87 countries. 'The semaglutide launch is very important to us,' said CEO Erez Israeli. The company aims to price its product below Novo Nordisk's current ₹17,000 monthly offering. DRL is also working on 26 GLP-1 therapies, backed by a ₹2,700 crore FY26 capex plan to scale peptide and biosimilar production. Cipla is targeting first-wave launches through a mix of in-house and partner filings. 'We see GLP-1 as one of the biggest therapy opportunities in the last five years,' said Umang Vohra, MD and global CEO at the post earnings call. The company is building parts of its GLP-1 supply chain internally while leveraging partnerships to ensure scalability. Cipla is also crafting an affordable strategy for India's price-sensitive market, betting that post-patent price erosion will be offset by volume growth. Mankind Pharma aims to launch both oral and injectable semaglutide generics and is advancing MKP10241, a novel oral obesity drug in Phase 2 trials in Australia. Sun Pharma, meanwhile, is progressing its investigational GLP-1 molecule Utreglutide, targeted for launch in four to five years. It has secured Phase III approval for semaglutide trials in India, even as it reports negligible impact of GLP-1 drugs on its existing diabetes portfolio. The race for a piece of India's ₹628 crore anti-obesity market, however, comes at a time when the Indian courts and drug regulator body are looking to monitor the unregulated use of weight loss drugs. According to sources, the Central Drug Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) has initiated work to form a panel after the Delhi High Court in July 2025 asked it to consult experts and relevant stakeholders to look into concerns arising out of approval for drug combinations being sold in the market for weight loss. The directive came in response to a public interest litigation filed by fitness entrepreneur Jitendra Chouksey, who had raised concerns about the marketing approval of drugs such as semaglutide, tirzepatide and liraglutide for weight management, despite limited safety data and the absence of India-specific clinical trials. While disposing of the petition, the court asked the drug regulator to respond to the petitioner within three months. At present, India has two officially available semaglutide brands: Rybelsus (oral) and Wegovy (injectable), both from Danish major Novo Nordisk. Rybelsus is approved for treating Type 2 diabetes, while Wegovy was launched in June 2025 for weight management. US-based Eli Lilly's tirzepatide drug, Mounjaro, is also available in India for obesity management. Analysts say the semaglutide opportunity is also fuelling India's peptide manufacturing ecosystem. 'Formulation is no longer enough—companies need full-stack execution,' said Nirali Shah, Pharma Analyst at Ashika Group, pointing to DRL, Cipla, and Sun Pharma's early moves to secure pen delivery partnerships. Contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs) like Anthem Biosciences and Syngene are positioning themselves to capture a larger share of the growing peptide segment. Device manufacturers, too, are scaling up to meet rising demand for injection pens. India's peptide CDMO market, currently valued at $80 million, is growing at a CAGR of 14 per cent and could become a global supplier base for GLP-1 drugs, said Nilaya Varma, CEO of Primus Partners.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
8 hours ago
- Business Standard
Pharma Inc gear up for Day 1 launch of obesity drug in March 2026
As the global demand for next-generation diabetes and weight-loss therapies surge, Indian pharmaceutical companies are stepping up preparations to roll out generic versions of semaglutide—a blockbuster GLP-1 receptor agonist—once patent expires around March 2026. The generic launches will be significant, as the prices for the Indian consumer are expected to come down significantly from the current ₹17,000-26000 (monthly), thereby expanding the patient coverage. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), Cipla, Sun Pharma, and Mankind Pharma, and others are ramping up peptide manufacturing, forming device partnerships, and aligning regulatory strategies to capture a share of the global GLP-1 market, estimated to cross $150 billion by decade's end. Hyderabad-based DRL is planning Day 1 launches in India and Brazil, part of a 2026 global rollout across 87 countries. 'The semaglutide launch is very important to us,' said CEO Erez Israeli. The company aims to price its product below Novo Nordisk's current ₹17,000 monthly offering. DRL is also working on 26 GLP-1 therapies, backed by a ₹2,700 crore FY26 capex plan to scale peptide and biosimilar production. Cipla is targeting first-wave launches through a mix of in-house and partner filings. 'We see GLP-1 as one of the biggest therapy opportunities in the last five years,' said Umang Vohra, MD and global CEO at the post earnings call. The company is building parts of its GLP-1 supply chain internally while leveraging partnerships to ensure scalability. Cipla is also crafting an affordable strategy for India's price-sensitive market, betting that post-patent price erosion will be offset by volume growth. Mankind Pharma aims to launch both oral and injectable semaglutide generics and is advancing MKP10241, a novel oral obesity drug in Phase 2 trials in Australia. Sun Pharma, meanwhile, is progressing its investigational GLP-1 molecule Utreglutide, targeted for launch in four to five years. It has secured Phase III approval for semaglutide trials in India, even as it reports negligible impact of GLP-1 drugs on its existing diabetes portfolio. The race for a piece of India's ₹628 crore anti-obesity market, however, comes at a time when the Indian courts and drug regulator body are looking to monitor the unregulated use of weight loss drugs. According to sources, the Central Drug Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) has initiated work to form a panel after the Delhi High Court in July 2025 asked it to consult experts and relevant stakeholders to look into concerns arising out of approval for drug combinations being sold in the market for weight loss. The directive came in response to a public interest litigation filed by fitness entrepreneur Jitendra Chouksey, who had raised concerns about the marketing approval of drugs such as semaglutide, tirzepatide and liraglutide for weight management, despite limited safety data and the absence of India-specific clinical trials. While disposing of the petition, the court asked the drug regulator to respond to the petitioner within three months. At present, India has two officially available semaglutide brands: Rybelsus (oral) and Wegovy (injectable), both from Danish major Novo Nordisk. Rybelsus is approved for treating Type 2 diabetes, while Wegovy was launched in June 2025 for weight management. US-based Eli Lilly's tirzepatide drug, Mounjaro, is also available in India for obesity management. Analysts say the semaglutide opportunity is also fuelling India's peptide manufacturing ecosystem. 'Formulation is no longer enough—companies need full-stack execution,' said Nirali Shah, Pharma Analyst at Ashika Group, pointing to DRL, Cipla, and Sun Pharma's early moves to secure pen delivery partnerships. Contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs) like Anthem Biosciences and Syngene are positioning themselves to capture a larger share of the growing peptide segment. Device manufacturers, too, are scaling up to meet rising demand for injection pens. India's peptide CDMO market, currently valued at $80 million, is growing at a CAGR of 14 per cent and could become a global supplier base for GLP-1 drugs, said Nilaya Varma, CEO of Primus Partners.
