Category: Business

Apr 15 (BNP): Indian stock markets ended the day on a strong note on Wednesday, as investors turned upbeat amid positive global cues and hopes of renewed talks between the US and Iran.

The Sensex jumped 1,263.67 points (1.64%), while the Nifty 50 climbed 389 points (1.63%) to settle at 24,231.

Broader markets saw even stronger momentum, with both midcap and smallcap indices rising more than 2%, showing that buying interest was not limited to large companies.

All sectoral indices ended in positive territory. The Nifty IT index led the rally with gains of around 2.8%, while media and realty stocks also saw healthy buying, rising over 2% each.

Investor sentiment improved as easing geopolitical tensions lifted global risk appetite and helped bring crude oil prices under control.

Market experts said that while earnings expectations remain mixed in the near term, overall sentiment is supported by reasonable valuations and hopes of stronger corporate performance in FY27.

New Delhi, Apr 15: Vahan.ai, India’s AI-powered recruitment platform for the gig and blue-collar workforce, has announced the launch of the second installment of its flagship campaign, the Vahan Placement League (VPL) 2026. Launched with a high-energy rollout and the campaign anthem “Khelo Jam Ke, Jeeto Jam Ke,” this year’s edition sets the tone for a larger, more competitive and high-participation recruitment drive across the country. Building on the momentum of its inaugural edition, the campaign returns as the company’s largest Placement League to date, anticipating its highest-ever participation from Vahan Leaders (VLs) and access to the widest range of clients and job categories.

Vahan Leaders are on-ground recruitment partners who play a central role in connecting employers with blue-collar workers across local markets. Through its network of Vahan Leaders, Vahan.ai augments local ecosystems rather than replacing them, enabling recruiters to scale their impact using AI-powered tools. This model not only enhances efficiency but also creates micro-entrepreneurship opportunities, ensuring that value creation remains distributed across the ecosystem.

VPL 2026 will run for 10 weeks from March 23 to May 31, 2026, in parallel with the IPL season, with winners set to be announced in the first week of June. The campaign follows a cohort-based competition format, where Vahan Leaders are classified based on their past performance and capabilities. This year’s edition also introduces a two-phase structure, Phase I and Phase II, allowing participants to recover early deficits and maximise overall placements.

The campaign is expected to see participation from over 1000 Vahan Leaders across the country, working on requirements from more than 20 employers across multiple categories. All major job categories supported by the platform are included in VPL, including Delivery Partners, Bike Taxi Captains, Picker Packers, 4W drivers, Manufacturing workers, and InstaHelp providers.

VPL continues to play a key role in strengthening the blue-collar workforce ecosystem by unlocking better income opportunities across the network, regardless of gender or age, while increasing focus on Tier 2–4 cities. The campaign also reflects broad-based participation across regions, with placement contributions led by NCR, UP and Rajasthan at 36%, followed by MP, Chhattisgarh and Central India at 32%, Karnataka at 26%, East and West regions at 5%, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana at 2%, and Tamil Nadu and Kerala at 1%.

The campaign is being rolled out through a mix of digital and on-ground activations, including social media engagement, particularly on Instagram, as well as posters and danglers across Vahan Leader offices. In addition, “Booster Days” and “Booster Weeks” have been introduced to drive higher engagement and performance, while WhatsApp campaigns are being leveraged to connect both Vahan Leaders and blue-collar workers.

At the core of VPL are its key stakeholders, with Vahan Leaders acting as the primary participants driving placements and competing for top rankings, while employers provide increased job opportunities in line with rising demand during the campaign period. The success of the campaign will be measured through participation levels, placement growth during the VPL period compared to non-VPL months, increased client growth, and engagement driven through booster initiatives.

To further incentivise performance, VPL 2026 features a total prize pool exceeding INR 1 crore, with rewards including Mahindra 7X0, Tata Punch, Tata Nexon, Harley-Davidson X440, BMW G310 RR, and paid international vacations.

Commenting on the launch, Madhav Krishna said, “Our Vahan Leaders are at the core of everything we do. They are the driving force behind how opportunity reaches millions of workers across the country. The Vahan Placement League is designed to empower them further, by combining technology, incentives, and scale to help them grow their businesses while unlocking greater access to jobs across India.”

In the previous edition of the Vahan Placement League, Vahan.ai recognised and rewarded its top-performing Vahan Leaders for their exceptional contribution and impact on employment. As a gesture of appreciation for their dedication, a Vahan Leader from Rajasthan was awarded a Maruti Grand Vitara, while earlier winners included Ever Staffing in Bhopal, which received a Mahindra Thar, and Malik Group, which was awarded a Tata Nexon, reflecting how Vahan.ai continues to value and celebrate the success of its partners across India.

The campaign has been conceptualised by ArtE MediaTech Pvt Ltd with Jajabor Brand Consultancy being the media partner.

Ajmera Fashion Ltd aims to bring affordable style to every corner of India with an expansion plan. The company’s goal is to open over 400 stores throughout India by March 2027. Presently, they have roughly 250 locations. They’re looking to bolster their footprint in major cities, as well as in growing Tier II and Tier III markets, by opening new stores.

 This growth will be fuelled by their various retail formats, such as Ajmera Trends and Little Wings. These stores are meant to appeal to a broad range of customers, regardless of age or fashion tastes. The brand’s approach centres on providing affordable, stylish clothing. Ultimately, the business hopes to improve accessibility in crucial markets across the country.

While the main focus is on domestic growth, the company is also working towards fulfilling its ambition in the global market. The company already operates in Nepal. It is now planning to introduce its children’s wear brand, Little Wings, in the Nepalese market. This will mark a strategic step toward international expansion.

The expansion plan is in line with the company’s long-term vision to become a leading fashion retail chain. The brand is working to build a robust omnichannel presence. Ajmera Fashion Ltd intends to boost both its reach and customer engagement by leveraging data and streamlining its supply chain. They’re also prioritising customer-focused experiences in their stores.

Regarding this expansion, Ajay Ajmera Founder and CEO Ajmera Fashion Ltd stated,

“Our path has always been about making fashion accessible and affordable for every Indian. Opening over 400 stores by March 2027 is more than just a goal; it shows our belief in the increasing need for quality fashion in various markets. We’re excited to be taking our brands beyond India, starting with Nepal, and then gradually expanding globally.”

This ambitious retail expansion is anticipated to create numerous jobs and bolster the growth of India’s organised retail sector. Ajmera Fashion Ltd, with its emphasis on innovation, affordability, and customer satisfaction, is poised to achieve even greater success in the years ahead.

 

Delhi, April 15: Nagarro, a global digital engineering leader, has announced a strategic partnership with Cursor, the leading multi-model AI coding platform, to embed AI into everyday software development workflows, helping teams achieve production outcomes faster.

Nagarro teams are already using Cursor across several client engagements, creating a strong foundation for broader adoption. Through this partnership, Nagarro will leverage its broader usage by embedding AI native development across the software development lifecycle to achieve faster feature deliveries and higher quality standards. 

In close consultation with clients under this partnership, Nagarro will track and demonstrate measurable improvements in engineering productivity and delivery outcomes across various projects. This work supports Nagarro’s broader client-facing commitment to delivering meaningful business outcomes and reinforcing its promise of up to 20% productivity improvement for clients. The focus is on faster delivery, excellent quality, and higher consistency, with AI applied in practical day-to-day development scenarios where it can have immediate and measurable impact. 

“Cursor optimizes codebases to automate and increase the productivity of the development environments teams already operate in,” said Jenna Jones, Enterprise GTM, Cursor. “Nagarro operates in real-world enterprise environments where reliability and productivity at scale means working across complex systems. Cursor is thrilled to partner with Nagarro on their mission to deliver productivity improvement across the development lifecycle.”

“We are always focused on pushing boundaries and continuously improving how software is built — for faster delivery, high quality, and production-grade outcomes. That means using AI where it makes a real difference every day: understanding requirements, formulating design and architecture, generating code, refactoring, debugging, and maintaining high quality,” said Ganesh Sahai, CTO, Nagarro. “With Cursor, we are working closely with our teams to deliver clear gains in speed, consistency, and overall productivity, all while bringing greater satisfaction to engineering teams and customers alike.” 

This partnership also aligns with Nagarro’s focus on Fluidic Intelligence, bringing together AI, data, and engineering to deliver faster, more reliable, and high-performance outcomes, and helping clients unlock greater value from their technology investments. 

Nagarro and Cursor will continue to expand adoption beyond the initial pilot, refine usage based on learnings, and develop a detailed case studies demonstrating impact at scale. 

Microsoft’s April 2026 Patch Tuesday release contains fixes for 163 CVEs, making it the second biggest Patch Tuesday ever, just shy of the record set in October 2025 at 167 CVEs. At this pace, 2026 is on track to affirm that 1,000+ Patch Tuesday CVEs annually is the norm. Not only that, but elevation of privilege bugs continue to dominate the Patch Tuesday cycle over the last eight months, accounting for a record 57% of all CVEs patched in April, while remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities have dropped to just 12%, tied with information disclosure vulnerabilities this month.

This month, Microsoft patched a SharePoint Server spoofing vulnerability (CVE-2026-32201) that was exploited in the wild as a zero-day. This might sound like deja vu, and that’s because the last SharePoint Server spoofing vulnerability exploited as a zero-day was CVE-2025-49706 from July 2025, part of the ToolShell exploit chain used by ransomware and cyberespionage groups. While we lack insight into the in-the-wild exploitation associated with this latest flaw and whether it is related to the ToolShell exploit chain, it underscores how valuable SharePoint Server is as a target for attackers.

CVE-2026-33825 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Microsoft Defender that is marked as publicly disclosed. The timing of this aligns with the recent disclosure of the BlueHammer elevation of privilege vulnerability in Defender, which was disclosed on April 8. While we don’t have confirmation of the connection, this one warrants attention.

This month, Microsoft’s Remote Desktop received a fix for CVE-2026-26151, a spoofing vulnerability. Previous behavior allowed users to receive and open Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) files without any sort of warning. In the April 2026 Security Update, Microsoft will now provide sufficient warning dialogues to users when interacting with potentially malicious RDP files. – Satnam Narang, Senior Staff Research Engineer at Tenable

Apr 15 (BNP): Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in India are expected to depend more on bank borrowings in FY27 as lower interest rates make bank funding more attractive, according to a rating agency report.

The report noted that the share of bank borrowings in overall NBFC funding rose to about 43% in FY26, supported by strong lending activity in the second half of the year. This share is likely to increase further, reaching up to 45% in FY27.

With banks offering comparatively cheaper loans, NBFCs are gradually shifting away from debt capital market issuances, which are expected to see slower growth in the coming period.

Overall, the trend reflects a changing funding mix in the NBFC sector, with bank credit playing a larger role in meeting financing needs.

New Delhi, Apr 15 (BNP): Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in India recorded strong growth in March 2026, with total assets under management (AUM) rising to ₹1,71,468.4 crore.

According to ICRA Analytics data, the AUM has nearly tripled compared to the same period last year, reflecting rising investor interest in gold as a safe-haven asset amid global uncertainty and geopolitical tensions.

The report also shows that gold ETFs have delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 64.76% over the past five years, increasing significantly from ₹14,122.72 crore in March 2021.

Experts attribute the surge to growing participation from both retail and institutional investors, who prefer gold ETFs for their ease of trading, transparency, and convenience compared to physical gold.

The trend highlights a continued shift toward digital gold investment as part of diversified portfolios during volatile market conditions.

Mumbai, April 15: Santoor, India’s largest soap brand and the flagship brand of Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting, has appointed Tilt Brand Solutions as its Creative Agency on Record (AOR).

As the AOR, Santoor will partner with Tilt Brand Solutions to conceive and execute all aspects of marketing, brand, communication, and content across media and platforms. The focus will be on strengthening relevance with existing consumers, while expanding the brand’s appeal across newer geographies, segments, and channels.

S. Prasanna Rai, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting, said,

“We are pleased to partner with Tilt Brand Solutions for Santoor. As the brand continues to evolve and engage with a new generation of consumers, it is important to bring in fresh thinking and strong creative capabilities. Tilt’s understanding of the category and their approach to storytelling aligns well with our vision for Santoor, and we look forward to building a strong and impactful association together.”

Joseph (Joe) George, Chairman & CEO, Tilt Brand Solutions said,

“This appointment is hugely exciting and comes with a great sense of responsibility. Santoor is an iconic brand with a strong legacy, and we are committed to strengthening its relevance and reach. We look forward to bringing our collective experience and expertise across strategy and storytelling to do justice to Wipro’s faith and confidence in us.”

The partnership marks a strategic collaboration aimed at supporting Santoor’s next phase of growth and strengthening its brand momentum in a dynamic and evolving market landscape.

 

Apr 15 ( BNP): Tata Motors has achieved a major production milestone with the rollout of its 10 lakhth vehicle from its facility in Lucknow, marking a significant achievement for the company and the state’s industrial growth.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the milestone reflects the state’s rapid progress in becoming a key manufacturing hub in India. He noted that such developments are strengthening industrial capacity, generating employment opportunities, and boosting investor confidence in the region.

The achievement underscores the growing importance of Uttar Pradesh in India’s automobile manufacturing ecosystem, with increasing participation from leading industry players like Tata Motors.

Officials highlighted that the expansion of manufacturing activities in the state is aligned with its broader goal of industrial development and economic growth.