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Desert villagers in Rajasthan turn to traditional ingenuity to beat intense heat, water scarcity

Caste, Clout, Continuity: Congress Ticks All Boxes In Karnataka, Except One

DK Shivakumar took oath as Karnataka's new Chief Minister on Wednesday.

Vodafone Idea shares rally 7% to fresh 52-week high despite market crash. What's behind the surge?

The shares of Vodafone Idea sharply surged nearly 7% to a new 52-week high of Rs 15.09 apiece on the NSE on Wednesday, even as the Sensex and Nifty crashed, as multiple tailwinds boosted investor sentiment for the telecom major.The stock has rallied 46% in one month and a whopping 121% in one year. The company currently has a market capitalisation of more than Rs 1.62 lakh crore.ICRA upgrades Vodafone Idea’s rating, revises outlookRatings agency ICRA upgraded Vodafone Idea’s rating to A- from its earlier BBB rating and revised its outlook on the company’s long-term fund-based loans worth Rs 727 crore to ‘Stable’ from ‘Positive’. ICRA said that the rating upgrade was driven by a change in rating approach for Vodafone Idea to factor in support from promoter Aditya Birla Group, which was further strengthened with the re‑appointment of Kumar Mangalam Birla as the Chairman of the board and with the proposed equity infusion of approximately Rs 4,730 crore through a preferential allotment of warrants to a promoter group entity in May 2026. “These developments reflect strong confidence in Vi’s potential and long-term growth trajectory. The Aditya Birla Group has expressed its continued support to Vodafone Idea to ensure timely debt servicing and to ensure continuity of operations and improvement in its market position. The Aditya Birla Group has been consistent in providing operational and financial support to Vi and will continue to do so going forward. Further, the Group’s brand equity and market position provided Vi with assistance in Government engagement and higher financial flexibility,” it added.ICRA also highlighted the revision of Vodafone Idea’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues. In May, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) cut Vodafone Idea's AGR dues by 27% to Rs 64,046 crore as of December 31. This revision significantly alleviates the company’s liability burden and enhances cash flow visibility, the ratings agency said, adding that these will provide a push to the telco’s capex plans.Citi removes ‘High Risk’ rating on Vodafone Idea sharesCiti removed its 'High Risk' rating on the stock and raised its target price to Rs 17, implying an upside potential of more than 20% from the previous closing price. In its latest note, Citi Research changed its rating on Vodafone Idea shares to ‘Buy’ from ‘Buy-High Risk’, citing several tailwinds, including the government’s recent reassessment of AGR dues, rating upgrades, equity infusion by the Aditya Birla Group, and other factors into consideration.The brokerage, however, flagged key risks to its bullish view, including delays in bank funding, intensifying competition that could limit future tariff hikes, continued subscriber churn, and slower-than-expected growth in 4G and 5G users.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Coforge shares gain over 2% after unveiling agentic AI platform for insurance industry

Shares of Coforge rose more than 2% to their day’s high of Rs 1,495 on the BSE on Tuesday after the company announced the launch of its "Nexa Agentic AI Platform", a business platform that aims to cater to the global insurance industry.According to the company, the platform is designed to help insurers derive greater value from their existing insurance platforms and speed up time-to-market without replacing core systems. Instead, it layers AI orchestration capabilities over incumbent platforms while operating within the guardrails of leading platform providers.Built on the Coforge One AI platform, Nexa Agentic AI Platform offers a marketplace of more than 30 insurance AI assets covering underwriting, claims, product development, customer service and platform modernisation. The company said the platform is modular and composable, allowing insurers to deploy specific capabilities or adopt the full suite through an Insurance-in-a-Box model.Coforge said the platform is purpose-built for the global insurance market across Property & Casualty, Life & Annuities, Specialty insurance, as well as managing general agents (MGAs) and intermediaries. It incorporates human-in-the-loop oversight, full auditability and measurable outcomes.The platform includes six flagship orchestrators spanning the insurance value chain. These include an AI-enabled Submission Centre, which the company said can increase underwriting capacity by more than 30% through automated data extraction, validation and prioritisation.Another offering, the Agentic State Rollout Factory, is designed to automate rates, forms and filings across jurisdictions, enabling more than 25% faster realisation of new revenue. The AI-enabled Product Rollout Factory aims to accelerate product launches by 30% while improving quality and responsiveness to regulatory changes.Coforge also introduced an Agentic AI Global Expansion capability to support market entry across geographies, a Core Platform Modernisation capability that it said can reduce total cost of ownership by more than 30%, and an Agentic Claims Triaging Centre that can enable more than 35% faster claims triaging and higher straight-through processing.Rajeev Batra, Executive Vice President and Global Practice Head of Insurance at Coforge, said the platform combines the company's AI engineering capabilities with its insurance domain expertise to help clients scale AI adoption and business outcomes.Also read: Morgan Stanley says Indian stock market poised for strong year ahead. Here’s whyThe company said the platform is designed around key insurance stakeholders, including brokers, underwriters, claims adjudicators and customer service agents. Looking ahead, Coforge plans to progressively integrate insurance knowledge graphs into the platform to enhance insurance-specific reasoning across submissions, policies, claims and customer interactions.Coforge said Nexa Agentic AI Platform will form a key part of its insurance go-to-market strategy, helping clients accelerate AI adoption while preserving existing technology investments and complying with platform guardrails.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Localisation lens on 500 most-imported items

New Delhi: The government is examining 500-odd heavily imported products including machinery, fertilisers, chemicals, cotton staple fibre, plastics, silicon wafers and carbon fibres, to identify localisation opportunities and reduce dependence on overseas supply. The commerce and industry ministry is collating data from different ministries on import dependence, estimated time and capital investment required to achieve commercially viable domestic manufacturing capability, and national strategic relevance of these products, officials privy to the development said.The idea is to reduce the country's import bill and build supply resilience amid the ongoing West Asia crisis.The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is "analysing data such as production capacity and bottlenecks faced by industry," one of the officials said.131428063The department has sought information such as the extent to which domestic demand for the product is met through imports, indicating vulnerability to external supply and the need for localisation, and the importance of the product in ensuring continuity, resilience, and stability of domestic manufacturing and essential downstream sectors.The exercise also covers harvester-threshers, parts of turbo jets and certain graphite, officials said.DPIIT is likely to shortlist around 100 items where the imports are high but the country has capacity to produce them locally, another person aware of the development said.High import dependence means where 60% or more of the domestic demand for the product is met through imports while medium is where imports are 30-60%. "Electronics and chemicals are two key sectors where imports are huge but the potential to export is also significant," another official said.India's goods import bill stood at $774.98 billion in FY26, led by oil at $174 billion, electronics at $116.17 billion, and gold at $72 billion. The country also imported organic and inorganic chemicals worth $28 billion last fiscal.Makeup preparations, dishwashers, industrial valves and certain silicon wafers also figure in the list of the products whose imports are being studied.The exercise comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to help preserve foreign exchange and contain the country's rising import bill amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia.

Opinion: Blog | A Star Is Born: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's Unreal Rise Amid India's Search For Continuity

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is not the norm. He is an aberration.

News in Frames | The drying naulas of Uttarakhand

Many of the naulas and dharas, the water springs which represent a union of nature and human ingenuity, are drying up in signs of a deepening environmental crisis across Uttarakhand