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Narendra Modi and his New Zealand counterpart, Christopher Luxon, talked about wide-ranging issues in Delhi on Monday to strengthen bilateral talks. However, However, as Luxon jokingly said cricket was not among the topics discussed. The New Zealand Prime Minister said he had deliberately avoided talked about cricket to prevent a «diplomatic incident» as Modi burst into laughter. Recently, India beat New Zealand in the final of Champions Trophy, while the Blackcaps handed the Men in Blue their first home Test series defeat in 12 years. «I really appreciate that PM Modi didn't bring up New Zealand's Champions Trophy loss to India, and I didn't mention our Test victories in India. Let's keep it that way and avoid a diplomatic incident,» Luxon joked, drawing cheers from the room. Former New Zealand cricketer Ross Taylor, part of the visiting delegation, also joined in the laughter along with Modi at the reference.

Hotel chains in India say they are leveraging 'cutting-edge' AI technologies to enhance customer service, streamline operations, and amplify overall guest experience. Tata Group backed Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) said it has successfully piloted a robot assistant at its Ginger hotel at Mumbai Airport, setting the stage for 'a new era of hospitality.'

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Mobile apps cybersecurity startup Protectt.ai said on Monday it has raised around $8.7 million at an undisclosed valuation in a Series-A funding round led by global venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP). The Mumbai-based company aims to use the funds to drive global expansion, undertake product innovation and nurture talent.

Slikk Club has raised $3.2 million (about Rs 27.7 crore) in a funding round led by global venture capital firm Lightspeed. The round also saw participation from early-stage venture capital firm Multiply Ventures and other angel investors including Tracxn founder Abhishek Goyal, DST Global's Saurabh Gupta and Panthera Peak Ventures’ Nikhil Bhandarkar. The firm will use the funds for expanding operations in Bengaluru, aiming to cover 80% of the city's pin codes by setting up dark stores, expanding into new categories, adding more brands to the platform and strengthening its leadership team.

Pilgrim has raised Rs 200 crore through a mix of primary and secondary funding. The round was led by existing investor Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office (NSFO) and saw participation from Vertex Ventures SEA, Sattva Family Office, and Mirabilis Investment Trust. New investors Vertex Growth Fund and Anicut Equity Continuum Fund also joined the round. The Mumbai-based company said it was valued at Rs 3,000 crore before the latest funding. With this round, its total capital raised across primary and secondary rounds now stands at around Rs 421 crore.

inferencing hardware, said Abhijit Dubey, global CEO of the Japanese data centre giant NTT DATA. “I think it (impact) is far more fundamental. It demonstrated that the unit cost economics are significantly lower from a training and inferencing standpoint. Number two, it demonstrated that open source is viable. And number three, that there's a lot more value in inferencing than just pure training.” However, despite the Chinese disruption, NTT has not recalibrated capex plans for data centres and the industry is undergoing a boom cycle, he said. Globally, NTT has committed to invest 8 trillion Yen ($59 billion) between FY2023 to FY2027 in data centres and AI.

Starlink may offer massive satellite connectivity — a few terabytes per second of data throughput — in India, with a large amount of it already in place and can be provided immediately to customers once all the necessary approvals are obtained, people aware of the details told ET. The Starlink capacity is expected to be 80-90 times more than that of rivals Eutelsat OneWeb or Reliance Jio-SES, which could offer only 30-50 gigabits per second (Gbps), the people said. The Elon Musk-owned satellite communication company plans to set up three gateways — in Mumbai, Pune and Indore — and one point of presence in Mumbai to cater to the India market, they said. While gateways act as a bridge between a satellite and the terrestrial communication network, transmitting data between the two, the point of presence is also a key pillar for the network, though much smaller in size and scale.

However, a bench led by Justice JB Pardiwala said that Jai Corp and others are at liberty to seek quashing of the FIR filed by the Economic Offences Branch of CBI, Mumbai, before an appropriate court, which will decide the case uninfluenced by the HC observations. Senior counsel Harish Salve and counsel Mahesh Agarwal, appearing for Jai Corp and others, told the SC that the allegation made by activist petitioner Shoaib Richie Sequeira have already been considered by statutory regulator — SEBI, SAT, a coordinate bench of the Bombay High Court and also BSE, and each of them have not found any merit in these allegations.

“They have come and enriched us here, created huge jobs. We must be an open progressive forward society not parochial like some of our neighbors, he said in a post on X. “The best and brightest of India are welcome here.” He was referring to data that showed most unicorn founders came from Maharashtra followed by Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. In a series of posts, he warned that Karnataka was on its way of losing out massively by the time the term of the present Congress regime ends, while urging chief minister Siddaramaiah to act for a “mid-course correction". The former Infosys board member said this in response to a reported remark by Telangana CM Revanth Reddy that his state was finding it difficult to pay salaries to employees on the first day of every month due to the weak financial position of the state.

CAR T-cell therapy', the treatment involves modifying genes in one's T-cells — a type of immune cells — to help fight cancer. The study looked at patients with leukaemia, which occurs in bone marrow, and lymphoma, which affects the lymphatic system. Researchers, including those from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, said in low and middle-income countries, patients in whom 'B-cell' tumours continue to grow following a period of remission (relapse), or do not respond to treatment (refractory), suffer from poor outcomes due to an absence of effective therapies. A type of white blood cell, B-cells are crucial to one's immune system as they produce antibodies to fight infections.

«If you look at Mumbai, the entire city was dug up a couple of years back and we are seeing that all these infrastructure projects that started are seeing day of the light and that is why we are seeing a flurry of activity in the peripheral areas, where a huge amount of development are coming up, thanks to the connectivity,» says Prashant Thakur, Anarock Group. Let me firstly ask about Mumbai because that particular market and the region has seen a lot of redevelopment activity, especially if you talk about prime areas like Worli. And not just Worli, let us talk about the suburbs as well, there is constant redevelopment day in and day out. If you could help us understand what is exactly driving this transformation, how do you see this impacting the overall real estate trends in the city? Prashant Thakur: First of all, if you talk about Mumbai, or let us say MMR as a whole, it accounts for 45% to almost 48% of value of real estate sold across the top seven cities in the country. So, undoubtedly, it is kind of powerhouse when it comes to residential sales. And there are several factors apart from being the financial capital of India, the huge amount of job opportunity it generates, it has also seen a huge amount of infrastructure upgrade.

Blackstone Group is foraying into India’s rapidly growing housing property market, marking a strategic shift after leading the country’s commercial property space, with clear focus on the mid-income and premium segment of the market to begin with, said persons familiar with the plan. While the global alternative asset management firm has already established itself as India’s largest office and logistics landlord, and expanded aggressively into data centers, the proposed acquisition of listed company Kolte Patil Developers, marks its first big bet on housing market. «The plan goes beyond investment to building execution and development capabilities, with no capital constraints for growth. Previously, assets were acquired and consolidated, as seen with Nucleus Office Parks, Horizon Industrial Parks, and Nexus Select. In contrast, the strategy for housing focuses on establishing the platform first and then adding assets,» said one of the persons mentioned above.

Navi Mumbai International Airport. In December, the Adani Group-which is building the airport-had announced an April 17 inauguration, with domestic and international operations starting in May and June respectively. Meanwhile, the Noida International Airport in Jewar, Uttar Pradesh, is also delayed, running six months behind schedule. Zurich Airport International, tasked with building and operating the airport, now expects to inaugurate the facility in the June quarter. These two airports would be among the two largest greenfield airports to open in recent years in India.

Andhra Pradesh's Capital Region Development Authority and HUDCO inked a Rs 11,000 crore loan agreement on Sunday for the construction of the greenfield capital city, Amaravati, Government sources said. The agreement was signed in the presence of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu at his residence in Undavalli of Guntur district. «HUDCO and CRDA entered into the agreement in the presence of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu… As per this deal, HUDCO will extend a loan of Rs 11,000 crore for the capital construction,» said a press release. A Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) board meeting held in Mumbai on January 22 had given a green signal for the loan.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Sunday began a five-day visit to India with a focus on deepening the bilateral trade and economic ties. On Monday, Luxon will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will attend the inaugural session of the Raisina Dialogue as the chief guest. Days ahead of the trip, the New Zealand prime minister said he will push for a comprehensive economic partnership with India and explore ways to strengthen bilateral security ties. Luxon is visiting India from March 16 to 20 in his first trip to the country as the prime minister. He is accompanied by one of the largest delegations a New Zealand prime minister has ever travelled with. The visiting leader was received at the Delhi airport by Union Minister SP Singh Baghel. «What I'm looking for is just a much more comprehensive economic partnership and how we'd move that forward, Luxon said last week, adding, „I am determined that we are going to change the trading relationships with India big time.“

Housing demand continues to be strong and is expected to grow further on the back of tax incentives offered in the Budget and a recent repo rate cut, CREDAI President Boman Irani said. CREDAI is an apex body for private real estate developers. In an interview with PTI, Irani asserted that there are no signs of demand slowdown in the Indian housing market, rather it will continue to rise in the long-term horizon. However, he said there could be an impact in some markets that are «over-heated» but overall at pan-India level there are no concerns at all on the growth going up only. Short-term blips in a real estate cycle is not something that we need to worry about. We need to see long-term growth," he told PTI in Nashik, where CREDAI recently organised its two-day conference.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The modern Indian restaurant specialising in dishes from Andhra and Telangana has a Ramzan menu featuring regional delicacies. There’s Pyaaz Ke Samosa, a crispy rumali roti filled with a spicy onion stuffing and deep-fried; Kheema Ke Samosa, stuffed with minced meat; Talahua Gosht, a slow-cooked, pan-seared mutton with aromatic spices; and the crowd-favourite Mutton Haleem.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Less than two months after LTIMindtree Ltd named Venu Lambu as its chief executive-designate, Nachiket Deshpande, the company’s chief operating officer who was a frontrunner in the CEO race, has stepped down from his role. Deshpande, who joined India’s sixth-largest information technology (IT) services company in November 2022 after the merger of Larsen and Toubro Infotech (LTI) and Mindtree, will be take charge as LTIMindtree’s president of global AI services, strategic deals and partnerships, Lambu said in a letter to associates, which Mint has seen.

Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services taking the biggest hit, in line with a weak trend in domestic equities. Last week, the BSE Sensex benchmark declined 503.67 points or 0.68 per cent, and the NSE Nifty fell 155.3 points or 0.69 per cent. The stock markets were closed on Friday on the occasion of Holi festival.

Abu Qatal’s death, which occurred on the night of Saturday in Pakistan’s Jhelum, has made headlines, as he was involved in some of the most devastating terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. He was also a close aide to 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed. Also known as Qatal Sindhi, he was a senior member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group and one of its most wanted terrorists. A key figure with close ties to Saeed, Qatal's activities were far-reaching, and his death is seen as a major blow to the terror network.

Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008, when top Pakistani cricketers like Shoaib Akhtar, Shahid Afridi, Younis Khan, Salman Butt, and Kamran Akmal played in the tournament. The prospect of more such moments, where Indian and Pakistani cricketers played as teammates rather than opponents, came to an abrupt end after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The attacks, carried out by a Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, shook India to its core and brought the two nations to the brink of war.