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  • DK Shivakumar Takes Oath as New Karnataka Chief Minister

    Bengaluru, June 3 (BNP): Senior Congress leader and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President D. K. Shivakumar was sworn in as the 25th Chief Minister of Karnataka on Wednesday, marking a significant political transition in the southern state. The oath-taking ceremony was held at the Glass House in Lok Bhavan, Bengaluru, in the presence of senior Congress leaders, elected representatives, party workers, and supporters.

    DK Shivakumar Sworn In as Karnataka’s 25th Chief Minister

    Shivakumar assumed office following the resignation of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who stepped down as part of the Congress party’s leadership transition plan after serving nearly three years in office. The change in leadership comes after consultations between the state leadership and the Congress high command.

    A prominent leader from Kanakapura and a key architect of the Congress party’s electoral successes in Karnataka, Shivakumar has held several important positions in the state government and the party organization. His elevation to the state’s top post is being viewed as a significant moment for the Congress, which seeks to consolidate its position ahead of future political challenges.

    The swearing-in ceremony also showcased unity within the Congress ranks, with outgoing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other senior leaders sharing the stage during the event. Party leaders expressed confidence that the new government under Shivakumar’s leadership would continue the developmental initiatives launched by the previous administration while focusing on governance, infrastructure, welfare, and economic growth.

    With the formation of the new government, attention will now shift to the allocation of portfolios and the implementation of the administration’s policy priorities. Political observers believe Shivakumar’s tenure will play a crucial role in shaping Karnataka’s political and developmental landscape in the years ahead.

  • Industry Seeks Dedicated Credit Rating Framework for MSMEs

    New Delhi, : In a move aimed at strengthening the growth prospects of small businesses, engineering exports promotion body EEPC India has urged the government to introduce a separate credit rating framework for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), arguing that the current system often places them at a disadvantage.

    The industry body has highlighted that MSMEs are frequently assessed against large corporate players in their respective sectors, making it difficult for smaller enterprises to secure investment-grade ratings despite their operational strengths and growth potential.

    According to EEPC India, the absence of a dedicated rating mechanism limits MSMEs’ access to affordable credit, as lower ratings often result in higher collateral requirements and increased borrowing costs. This, in turn, affects their ability to expand operations, invest in innovation, and compete effectively in domestic and global markets.

    The proposal calls for a separate evaluation framework that benchmarks MSMEs against businesses of similar size and scale rather than large industry leaders. Such a system, industry representatives believe, would provide a more accurate assessment of an enterprise’s financial health and business performance.

    A dedicated rating model could significantly improve access to finance for thousands of small businesses, which form the backbone of India’s manufacturing, exports, and employment ecosystem. Easier access to credit would enable MSMEs to strengthen productivity, create jobs, and contribute more effectively to the country’s economic growth.

    Industry stakeholders have also suggested that a specialised framework, developed in consultation with regulators and rating agencies, could help build greater confidence among lenders while ensuring fairer treatment for smaller enterprises.

    As India seeks to strengthen its manufacturing and export capabilities, policymakers are increasingly focusing on measures that improve the ease of doing business for MSMEs and unlock their growth potential.

  • SOTC Travel expands its retail distribution in West Bengal

    Mumbai, June 03: SOTC Travel, a  omnichannel Travel and Tourism Company, has strengthened its presence in East India with the launch of its latest outlet in B.T Road, Kolkata. This strategic expansion underscores the Company’s focus on deepening its regional footprint across high-potential metros, tier-1 & 2 markets.

    SOTC Travel expands its retail distribution in West Bengal

    B.T. Road, one of Kolkata’s prominent and rapidly developing residential-commercial corridors, offers access to a diverse customer base of families, professionals, entrepreneurs and young travellers seeking domestic and international holidays. The store’s strategic location strengthens SOTC Travel’s presence in a key metro market, enabling deeper customer engagement and personalized end-to-end holiday solutions.

    With its integrated omnichannel model, SOTC continues to strengthen its position as India’s favorite travel partner. By seamlessly integrating its retail network with digital platforms, the Company enables customers to engage across multiple touchpoints. Serving multigenerational families, couples, GenS (seniors), millennials and GenZ, SOTC continues to deliver experiences aligned with evolving travel preferences while expanding its regional connect across Indian markets.

    Spiritual tourism continues to witness strong demand through SOTC’s Darshans portfolio, including the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, Do Dham, Char Dham Yatra and Vaishnodevi Yatra. Alongside faith-based travel, travellers are increasingly opting for immersive holidays such as luxury cruises, Antarctica expeditions, Northern Lights journeys and adventure getaways. The Company is also seeing encouraging response to its Exclusive Bengali Durga Puja Special departures under Biswa Sera Darshan, featuring curated international and domestic itineraries for Bengali travellers.

    To further enhance traveller confidence, we have introduced TravSure  a pioneering initiative to redefine travel protection. It is designed to meet the realities of modern travel and ensure our customers feel secure wherever they go. In addition, we also offer value-added protections such as visa rejection cover, further safeguarding travellers against unforeseen financial risks.

  • Study reveals family offices need to strengthen cyber risk defence

    June 03: New global research from Ocorian, the specialist global provider of services for asset managers and owners, including private client, fund administration, capital markets, corporate, and regulatory solutions, shows that many family offices are putting themselves at greater risk of a potential cyber attack and don’t have plans in place to recover if they are hit.

    It’s estimated that 43% of family offices globally have suffered a cyber attack in the past two years but Ocorian’s study among family members and senior family office employees handling total wealth of $119.37 billion shows almost a fifth (19%) don’t have any defence plans in place to protect themselves from a potential attack. However, 18% of them say that they do plan to put one in place.

    This compares to three quarters (75%) of respondents who have taken steps to strengthen their defences against a potential cyber attack in the past two years. Just 7% say they had plans in place more than two years ago.

    Should they suffer a cyber attack more than a fifth (22%) of those surveyed say they don’t currently have an incident plan in place to respond and recover. Around 78% say they do have an incident plan ready.

    More than one in 10 (11%) family offices surveyed admit that they feel significantly challenged when it comes to delivering the level and quality of cyber security expertise they need to operate effectively. Almost half (49%) say they currently receive advice and support from third-party professionals over cyber security, but this is set to significantly increase, with 72% saying they see the levels of outsourcing around cyber security to increase over the next three years. Of these 41% say they expect a dramatic increase.

     Ian Rumens, Head of Private Client – Jersey, at Ocorian said: “A cyber security attack is becoming an increasing reality and can have huge implications for family offices, damaging reputations, triggering loss of stakeholder confidence and putting long-term relationships at risk. While many are taking steps to put the necessary precautions and defences in place, such as getting expert third-party advice, there are still too many who are highly susceptible.

     “The financial impact can also be significant, from direct theft and fraud to business interruption, incident response costs, regulatory fines and potential litigation. It’s also vital that family offices work closely with all their service providers and suppliers to make sure those partners have the right protections in place too, helping reduce the risk of a cyber incident spreading through the wider ecosystem.

     “Finally, organisations should ensure strong backup and recovery arrangements are tested regularly to help protect against data loss or corruption, so critical records and reporting can be restored quickly and accurately. On top of this, with no incident plan in place, it could also take those affected by an attack much longer to respond and recover afterwards.”

     Ocorian’s award winning dedicated family office team provides a seamless and holistic approach to the challenges and opportunities families face. Its service is built on long-term personal relationships that are founded on a deep understanding of what matters to family office clients. Its global presence means Ocorian can provide bespoke structures and services for international families no matter where they live.

     Key services include formation and administration of family offices, HR support services, support with lifestyle and luxury assets, family governance, resident and relocation services and specialist support with immigration, visas, payroll, marine and aircraft crew management and financial reporting.

  • Tech Mahindra Launches Agentic Development & Modernization Services to Drive Enterprise Application Transformation

    Pune , June 3 : Tech Mahindra , a global provider of technology consulting and digital solutions to enterprises across industries, announced the launch of Agentic Development & Modernization Services, a next-generation services portfolio designed to empower enterprises modernize how applications are built, evolved, and operated. The portfolio integrates agentic AI across the application lifecycle, enabling organizations to accelerate their journey towards AI-led, autonomous enterprise ecosystems.

    As enterprises embrace the next wave of AI-led transformation, Tech Mahindra is evolving the traditional definition of ADMS from Application Development and Maintenance Services to Agentic Development and Modernization Services, bringing together autonomous AI, modernization, and engineering excellence to drive smarter business outcomes. Built on Tech Mahindra’s decades of experience in application development and managed services, Agentic Development & Modernization Services portfolio combines engineering expertise with AI-driven delivery models to help enterprises modernize legacy application estates, optimize operations, and build future-ready digital platforms.

    Through agentic AI, contextual reasoning, and intelligent orchestration, the portfolio enables systems to continuously analyze, adapt, and respond to evolving business needs, reducing manual intervention and driving measurable business outcomes. Additionally, the services will help enterprises accelerate velocity, improve operational predictability, strengthen continuous quality assurance, and enable more autonomous, scalable, and outcome-driven application environments.

    Kunal Purohit, President – Next Gen Verticals, Tech Mahindra, said,

    “As organizations increasingly shift toward AI-native operating models, industry estimates indicate that spending on application implementation and next-generation engineering services is expected to grow significantly over the next several years. This will be driven by the rising demand for intelligent operations, autonomous software engineering, and outcome-driven transformation. With Agentic Development & Modernization Services, Tech Mahindra is helping enterprises accelerate this transition by enabling more adaptive, resilient, and context-aware application ecosystems that define the future of autonomous enterprises.”

    The new portfolio is structured around four integrated pillars:

    • Modernizing Platforms for Autonomy – Re-architecting enterprise platforms into modular, API-first, and AI-ready foundations that support adaptive and agent-driven execution.
    • Agentic Software Engineering – Embedding intelligent AI agents across software engineering and DevSecOps lifecycles to improve productivity, accelerate delivery, and enhance engineering outcomes.
    • Autonomous Operations – Enabling AI-driven operations through intelligent automation, knowledge graphs, reasoning engines, and AIOps capabilities for real-time monitoring, optimization, and self-healing environments.
    • Autonomous Quality Fabric – Transforming quality engineering through autonomous quality assurance agents that continuously optimize testing, reliability, and assurance across DevOps pipelines.

    Agentic Development & Modernization Services are powered by Tech Mahindra’s suite of engineering and AI platforms, including Swifter.io, AppGinieZ, Reforge, LitmusT, and other accelerators that support autonomous software engineering, platform modernization, intelligent operations, and AI-enabled quality assurance. The services portfolio is further reinforced by Tech Mahindra’s Vector Squad-based delivery approach, which combines human expertise with AI agents, and productized pricing through “Service Tokens” enabling modular consumption, clearer value realization and improved cost predictability.

    The launch reflects a growing focus on enabling adaptive systems, improving operational responsiveness, and accelerating innovation through AI-enabled enterprise capabilities. AI-led application modernization is expected to become a significant growth opportunity over the coming years, driven by increasing enterprise demand for autonomous software engineering, intelligent operations, and outcome-driven digital transformation initiatives.

    Alisha Mittal, Vice President, Software Engineering, Everest Group, said,

    “The application services market is entering a more agentic phase, where enterprises are increasingly looking beyond traditional automation toward AI-enabled delivery models that can support continuous evolution, operational resilience, and greater engineering adaptability. As application environments become more complex and change cycles accelerate, the market is seeing growing interest in more intelligent and software-led approaches to application development, modernization, and operations.”

    The launch aligns with Tech Mahindra’s broader vision of engineering autonomous enterprises by helping organizations move from traditional application environments toward intelligent, composable, and AI-native digital ecosystems that enable continuous innovation, agility, and business-led outcomes.

  • People with disabilities often experience poorer oral health – training could drive improved care

    People with disabilities continue to face major barriers when seeking oral health care, according to new research that explored the perspectives of patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals in different countries. The study highlights the need for enhanced training for health care professionals, more accessible services, and stronger support systems to improve equity in dental care for people with disabilities.

    People with disabilities often experience poorer oral health – training could drive improved care

     
     
    People with disabilities often experience difficulties accessing oral health services. These challenges include inaccessible facilities, a lack of trained health care professionals, stigma, and limited support for caregivers. Consequently, many of them experience poorer oral health and reduced quality of life.

    The doctoral dissertation of Doctoral Researcher Ramaa Balkaran from the University of Turku in Finland examined the experiences of people with disabilities, caregivers, and health care professionals through five studies using interviews and surveys. The research aimed to better understand the barriers and identify ways to improve services and support for dental care for people with disabilities.

    Practical training could support professionals’ confidence

    The results showed that training of health care professionals in managing people with disabilities is often limited, particularly in oral health care, despite its strong link to overall health and well-being. Access to dental services was reported to depend on the availability of appropriate services, as well as the knowledge and confidence of health care professionals in providing effective care for people with disabilities.

    People with disabilities themselves reported higher moderate levels of dental fear and anxiety, which can make seeking treatment more difficult, along with poorer oral health-related quality of life.

    Caregivers also described challenges such as discrimination, lack of information, and difficulty finding dental services that meet the needs of those they support.

    The studies further showed that both health care professionals and caregivers recognise these barriers and believe that practical training and greater exposure to people with disabilities during education can strengthen health care professionals’ confidence and improve attitudes toward care.

    In addition, the research highlighted the importance of involving people with disabilities and caregivers in the development of health care services and educational programmes. Participants emphasised that good care requires not only clinical knowledge but also soft skills such as understanding, communication, and empathy.

    “Good oral health care for people with disabilities should not focus only on one stage of life. Health professionals need to understand how experiences from childhood to older age shape long-term oral health and quality of life. Preventive care and support for both people with disabilities and their caregivers are especially important,” Ramaa Balkaran says.

    Exposure increases awareness and improves willingness to care

    The research highlights the need for health care systems to strengthen professional training, improve accessibility in dental services, and provide better support for caregivers and people with disabilities. The findings may help guide future health care policies, educational programmes, and research aimed at reducing health inequities and improving the quality of life for people with disabilities.

    By increasing awareness and preparing health care professionals to better meet the needs of these patients, the research contributes to broader efforts to create improved health care systems.

    “The findings also showed that dental students who were exposed to special care dentistry training expressed a positive willingness to care for people with disabilities. This is particularly important, as dental students’ attitudes can influence how future dental professionals approach and provide care for people with disabilities.”

     

  • Kraftshala School of Business Launches Its First Offline Campus in Gurugram

    Kraftshala School of Business Launches Its First Offline Campus in Gurugram

    Gurugram, June 03: Kraftshala School of Business, India’s leading marketing and sales skilling institution, today announced the launch of its first offline campus, in Gurugram‘s DLF World Tech Park. The launch marks the next phase of Kraftshala’s growth, fuelled by rising recognition among students, parents, and employers, and strong demand for an immersive, on-campus learning experience.

     
    Spread across 11,000 sq. ft., the new campus will offer two full-time offline programmes: PGP in AI-Led Marketing and PGP in AI-Led Sales, Marketing and Business. With a capacity of 250 students, Kraftshala is targeting an initial enrolment of 100 students this year, while focusing first on deepening its presence in Gurugram before expanding to other major metros over time.
     
    Kraftshala’s move offline is backed by a strong placement track record. The institution has crossed 3,000+ total placements, including approximately 1,000 in the last year alone. In its most recent placement cycle, Marketing Launchpad recorded 97% placements with a 6.1 LPA average CTC, while PGP in Sales delivered 100% placements with an 11 LPA average CTC.
     
    Speaking on the launch, Varun Satia, Founder and CEO, Kraftshala, said, “Over the last nine years, Kraftshala has grown because students, parents and employers have trusted the outcomes we deliver. The launch of Kraftshala School of Business is a natural next step in that journey and responds directly to what many students have been asking for a physical campus with the same focus on strong learning and strong placements.”
     
    The campus has been designed from the ground up to create a fully immersive business–school experience. It includes MBA-style cohort classrooms, collaboration spaces, quiet work zones and informal interaction areas that support peer learning, live project work and community-building. Moving away from traditional academic aesthetics, the campus uses bold design elements, graffiti and an open, contemporary layout to create an environment that feels closer to a modern workplace than a conventional classroom.
     
    The programmes are built around AI-first business education and practical application. Students will learn by launching and running live businesses, building AI agents, creating content, optimising campaigns, solving growth problems and working on live projects under the guidance of experienced operators and practitioners. Live classes will also be recorded, allowing students to revisit sessions for revision and deeper learning.
     
    “We were clear that the offline experience had to be much more than classroom delivery. It has been designed around how students learn best by doing, discussing, receiving feedback and applying concepts repeatedly in real business contexts,” said Eshu Sharma, Co-Founder and Head of Academics, Kraftshala. “AI is built into the curriculum from the ground up, and the campus adds the peer energy and collaboration that make learning more immersive.”
     
    The 9-month PGP programmes are designed as a practical, shorter-duration alternative to conventional management education. With placement accountability built in, including a refund if a student remains unplaced, the offering is aimed at students and families looking for an affordable, employment-focused pathway into marketing, sales and business roles.
    The launch also saw participation and experience-sharing sessions by leading corporate leaders, including Kunal Malhotra, CMO, Taco Bell, Mehak Gulati, Ex-Chief Brand Officer, Airtel, along with other industry practitioners.

  • Ingenix Raises Euro13m From Sofinnova Partners-Led Syndicate to Scale Modality Fusion, a Novel Architecture for Drug Development

    WARSAW, Poland, June 03 — Ingenix, the AI and biology company built around a single question – “What would it take for AI to truly understand biology?” – has today announced a €13m seed-extension funding round led by Sofinnova Partners, with participation from Inovo VC and OTB VC.

    The funding will scale development of Ingenix’s Biological Reasoning Engine and broaden its work with pharma and biotech partners through the Qualified Access Program, launching today.

    The dominant approach in AI for drug development, which trains larger models on larger datasets assuming biology will yield to scale, faces a structural problem. Biology is profoundly complex, fundamentally non-linguistic, and runs across modalities and biological scales. No single model, however large, can capture that on its own. Moreover, no single company holds all the data, across every modality and biological scale, to train one. Ingenix has built a different architecture, Modality Fusion, which integrates best-in-class models across modalities and biological scales, then reasons across their representations directly. The Biological Reasoning Engine is what Modality Fusion enables.

    “This funding lets us extend the Biological Reasoning Engine to the partners and questions where it can do the most useful work,” said Piotr Surma, CEO and co-founder of Ingenix. “We built Ingenix on the conviction that biology needs an AI architecture designed for biology and not a general-purpose model retrofitted to it. The early results have been stronger than we forecast, and we’re excited to extend the Engine to a select number of partners through the Qualified Access Program.”

    “It is no longer enough to just build models,” added Simon Turner, Partner at Sofinnova Partners. “Ingenix is building the reasoning layer, the part that actually connects the biology, the chemistry, and the clinical data into something a scientist can interrogate and act on. That’s the

    hard bit, and that’s where the value compounds. We’re thrilled to back a team that gets that.”

    The Engine in Action: ADC Payload Prioritization

     In a recent engagement, Ingenix applied its Biological Reasoning Engine to a dual-payload ADC prioritization problem for an oncology biotech which had thousands of possible payload configurations but lacked the experimental capacity to test them.

    The Engine produced 15 candidate combinations. Under blind expert review by the biotech’s translational science team, the predictions broke down as follows:

    – 5 were publicly known hypotheses.

    – 2 were supported in existing literature but not widely cited.

    – 3 had been confirmed by the biotech through internal experiments but never published and never disclosed to Ingenix.

    – 5 were novel hypotheses not previously considered by the biotech team. Of these, the biotech flagged 3 as actionable candidates.

     The double-payload ADC space is too new for any AI system to have seen meaningful training data on it. The engine reached its predictions by reasoning from first principles about the underlying biology, rather than by pattern-matching against prior examples.

    In short, insights that had taken the biotech several years of research and millions of euros to develop were accomplished by the Engine in a matter of minutes.

     Applications to the Qualified Access Program are now open at ingenix.ai/qap.

  • DXC Launches DXC CoreIgnite to Help Financial Institutions Rapidly Connect to and Scale Fintech Ecosystems

    Mumbai, June 3 : DXC Technology , an enterprise technology and innovation partner, today announced the launch of DXC CoreIgnite, a cloud‑native revenue orchestration platform designed to give financial institutions a single connection point to fintech ecosystems, orchestrate financial workflows, and activate new revenue opportunities – all while working with existing core systems.
     
    Built to operate across both DXC’s Hogan core banking platform and non‑Hogan environments, DXC CoreIgnite enables banks to modernize incrementally while maximizing existing infrastructure investments. Through pre‑built integrations and real‑time orchestration, CoreIgnite provides direct access to payment networks, digital asset ecosystems, embedded finance capabilities, and a growing partner network including Ripple, Splitit, Aptys Solutions and ArcOne. 
     
    The financial services industry is being reshaped by embedded finance, digital assets, and real‑time payments  creating new opportunities for growth and customer engagement. Yet many institutions remain constrained by fragmented integrations, legacy architectures, and the cost and complexity of modernization. As competition intensifies, DXC CoreIgnite gives banks the ability to quickly connect partners, launch new offerings, and scale innovation with greater speed and flexibility. 
     
    Designed by DXC engineers and powered by decades of banking expertise, CoreIgnite provides a single orchestration layer that helps institutions connect, manage, and scale fintech capabilities without replacing the core systems they rely on every day. Its composable architecture and real‑time execution model reduce integration complexity, accelerate time‑to‑value, and enable banks to introduce new services more efficiently. 
     
    Unlike traditional solutions that require custom integrations across multiple providers, CoreIgnite provides technology enablement and orchestration capabilities to help financial institutions support a broad range of use cases including:
     
    • Embedded finance
    • Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services
    • Digital assets and stablecoin‑enabled services
    • Payments orchestration across ACH, RTP, FedNow, wire, and card networks
    “CoreIgnite provides fintech infrastructure for financial institutions looking to innovate faster, scale more flexibly, and compete more effectively in the digital banking economy. With our secure, composable, API‑first platform, banks can connect new capabilities, orchestrate financial workflows, and activate digital financial services without disrupting the core systems they rely on every day. By decoupling innovation from the core, institutions can reduce integration complexity, move faster, and unlock new revenue opportunities at scale.” – Sandeep Bhanote, Global Head and General Manager of GrowthX, DXC Technology.
    DXC CoreIgnite streamlines how banks access and scale fintech services, from onboarding and eligibility to payments and partner management. Institutions can add, switch, and expand capabilities as business needs evolve, helping reduce integration complexity and operational overhead while accelerating time to market. 
    CoreIgnite builds on the strength of DXC Hogan, the flagship core banking platform that powers more than 300 million deposit accounts and over $5 trillion in deposits worldwide. CoreIgnite is part of DXC GrowthX, DXC’s strategic growth business focused on developing industry‑specific software, platforms, and solutions that help customers navigate industry transformation and unlock new sources of growth. 

  • Shankar Fenestrations Showcases Smart Manufacturing and Automation in India’s Industrial Growth

    New Delhi, June 3: The manufacturing sector in India is shifting to increase automation, digital monitoring, and process-based production. Through this transition, Shankar Glasses India acknowledges how critical smart manufacturing will become in enhancing performance, quality, and scale.

    Shankar Fenestrations Showcases Smart Manufacturing and Automation in India’s Industrial Growth

    In response to a growing focus on productivity, cost control, and quality assurance, manufacturers are increasingly leveraging “smart” manufacturing methods. Many manufacturers now use technologies like automation (robots), predictive maintenance  Lean production (minimizing waste), and digital workflows  to decrease their operational downtime, maximize their resources (people/machinery), and enhance their production capacity. As India pushes to become a global manufacturing destination, businesses that are investing in efficient operations and emerging technologies, as well as developing a well-skilled workforce, will have a competitive advantage going forward.

    According to Dinesh Chandra Pandey, Founder of Shankar Fenestrations & Glasses,

    “Traditional manufacturing methods have already evolved at a drastically fast pace. As a result, manufacturers are now focusing on smarter production systems, efficient operational models, and consistent high quality across all their products. To maintain their competitiveness and increase productivity in today’s rapidly changing industrial environment, manufacturers will need to move towards the use of automation and other technology as part of their manufacturing processes rather than as an afterthought.”

    Smart manufacturing is transforming the entire industrial ecosystem of India due to a focus on innovations, optimizing processes, and developing long-term resilience within operations as priorities for sustainable growth in the manufacturing sector.