Author: Sharad Natani
In one of the biggest deals in global luxury history, French fashion powerhouse Kering — parent of iconic brands Gucci, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and Alexander McQueen — has announced the sale of its entire beauty business to L’Oréal for €4 billion (approximately Rs4.15 lakh crore). The transaction gives L’Oréal a 50-year exclusive global license to design, manufacture, and market beauty and fragrance lines for Kering’s high-end fashion labels, including Gucci Beauty and Creed Fragrances. Kering’s Strategic Realignment Under CEO Luca de Meo Under the leadership of newly appointed CEO Luca de Meo, Kering is undergoing a sweeping restructuring drive aimed…
In a case that has sent shockwaves through India’s financial markets, a 22-year-old promoter allegedly executed a Rs36 crore fraud through a Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) IPO. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has launched a full-scale probe and imposed sweeping restrictions on Nirman Agri Genetics Limited and its young promoter, Pranav Kailas Bagal, for misappropriating IPO proceeds, falsifying documents, and misleading investors. Fake Vendors, Phantom Firms & Vanishing Funds SEBI’s preliminary findings paint a picture of deliberate deception. Of the Rs20 crore raised through the IPO, 93% of the funds were allegedly transferred to non-existent or…
India is all set to take a giant leap in artificial intelligence with its very own homegrown model — Sarvam AI, a revolutionary platform capable of conversing fluently in multiple Indian languages. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw confirmed that the indigenously developed AI system will be ready by December 2025 or January 2026, adding that he plans to personally use the platform once it goes live. This marks a defining moment in India’s tech independence journey, aligning with the government’s “Make AI in India” vision — a move that places India among global AI innovators like the U.S. and China. What…
The quiet hum of keyboards inside a Bengaluru startup might just be the sound of India’s next major economic transformation. Here, a young team at LimeChat is training artificial intelligence models to talk, type, and think like humans—machines built to do what millions of Indian workers have done for decades: customer service. Their mission? To replace them. “Once you hire a LimeChat agent, you never have to hire again,” says Nikhil Gupta, the 28-year-old co-founder, smiling confidently. LimeChat’s AI can now handle up to 80% of customer queries that once required human staff. The company claims a single AI bot…
In a heart-stopping moment aboard the New Delhi–Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express, an Indian Army sepoy turned into a guardian angel for an eight-month-old baby who had suddenly stopped breathing mid-journey. Sepoy Sunil, an ambulance assistant posted at a field hospital in India’s North-East, was returning from leave when destiny called him to duty once again — this time, not on the battlefield, but in a crowded train coach. According to a Defence official, the infant had developed severe respiratory distress and became unresponsive, leaving passengers in panic. The child’s distraught mother fainted, believing her baby had died. In that moment of…
In the wake of the shocking insider trading scandal involving officials from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is rolling out a nationwide sensitisation campaign to prevent similar incidents across India’s regulatory ecosystem. The move marks a strategic shift from enforcement to prevention — focusing on awareness, accountability, and secure handling of Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI). SEBI’s New Preventive Strategy According to senior officials, SEBI will soon begin outreach programmes with key regulatory institutions — including the RBI, TRAI, IRDAI, PFRDA, and CERC — to educate them about the risks of…