The Indian banking sector stands at a pivotal moment. While artificial intelligence has been present in banking for years, a new breed of technology—agentic AI—is fundamentally reshaping how financial institutions operate. Unlike traditional chatbots or rule-based systems that execute predefined tasks, AI agents reason, plan, and act independently, effectively operating as “digital bankers” available 24/7. … Read more
The Union Cabinet of India, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved a ₹7,280 crore scheme to promote the manufacturing of Sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPM) domestically. This initiative aims to establish integrated manufacturing facilities with a total capacity of 6,000 Metric Tons Per Annum (MTPA), distributed among five beneficiaries through a global competitive bidding process, each allocated up to 1,200 MTPA. The scheme spans seven years, including a two-year period for setting up manufacturing units and five years for disbursing sales-linked incentives. The financial outlay includes ₹6,450 crore in sales-linked incentives and ₹750 crore as capital subsidy to support the creation of these facilities. This move is designed to reduce India’s heavy reliance on imports, particularly from China, for rare earth magnets, which are critical components in electric vehicles, renewable energy, industrial applications, and consumer electronics. India’s demand for REPMs is expected to double by 2030, making domestic production crucial for self-reliance and supply chain security.
The scheme is a strategic step towards positioning India as a significant player in the global rare earth magnet market while supporting the country’s commitment to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2070. By fostering indigenous manufacturing capabilities, the government aims to build a technologically advanced, globally competitive, and sustainable industrial base. The initiative is also expected to generate employment and strengthen the domestic industrial ecosystem. The approval reflects the government’s broader vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) and aligns with the goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047. This first-of-its-kind scheme marks a historic decision to develop a comprehensive rare earth magnet manufacturing ecosystem within India, reducing import dependence and enhancing strategic autonomy in critical technology sectors.
The Apple MacBook Air M4 is available at a heavily discounted price during Croma’s Black Friday sale, making it an exceptional opportunity for buyers to own a premium laptop at a fraction of its original cost. Originally launched in India at ₹99,900, the device can now be purchased for as low as ₹55,911, thanks to a combination of student and teacher discounts, bank offers, and exchange bonuses. The student and teacher offer alone brings the price down to ₹88,911, and further discounts of up to ₹10,000 are available through select banks. Additionally, customers can avail an exchange bonus of up to ₹13,000 when trading in their old PC or Mac, which significantly reduces the effective price. This deal is valid until November 30, giving buyers a limited window to take advantage of the offer. The MacBook Air M4 features Apple’s latest M4 chip, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, making it a powerful and efficient machine for everyday use, work, and entertainment. The laptop is also built for Apple Intelligence, comes with Touch ID, and supports macOS Sequoia. Reviews highlight its performance, battery life, and sleek design, making it a top choice for students, professionals, and casual users. The Black Friday sale is not only a great time to upgrade to a new MacBook but also to save substantially on a high-end device. Croma’s offer is one of the most aggressive discounts seen on the MacBook Air M4 in India, and it is especially beneficial for students who can combine multiple offers to maximize savings. The deal is available both online and in-store, and buyers are encouraged to check eligibility for all discounts before purchasing. With the combination of price, performance, and timing, this sale represents a rare opportunity to get a premium Apple laptop at an unbeatable price.
Croma’s Black Friday sale features significant discounts on Apple’s latest iPhone models, including the iPhone 16, iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17 Pro. The iPhone 16 is available for under ₹40,000 after stacking discounts such as bank offers, exchange bonuses, and coupons, making it an attractive upgrade option. The iPhone 17, despite being a newer model, is also offered at a reduced price, with some listings showing it available for around ₹45,900. The iPhone Air sees discounts up to ₹11,000, bringing its effective price down to approximately ₹108,900, with additional bank discounts and no-cost EMI options enhancing affordability. The iPhone 17 Pro is priced around ₹134,900 with similar bank discounts and EMI offers. These deals are available across multiple platforms including Croma, Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance Digital, and Vijay Sales, with exchange bonuses playing a key role in lowering prices further for customers trading in older devices.
The sale also extends to other Apple products like MacBook Pro M5 and iPads, with bank discounts and EMI options making premium devices more accessible during this period. The combination of direct price cuts, bank cashback, exchange bonuses, and no-interest EMI plans creates a compelling opportunity for buyers looking to upgrade or purchase Apple products at a reduced cost. These offers highlight the competitive pricing strategies retailers adopt during Black Friday to attract customers and clear inventory ahead of new launches.
Overall, the Black Friday sale presents a rare chance to acquire high-end Apple devices at significantly reduced prices, with the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 models standing out for their aggressive discounts. Buyers can leverage multiple offers simultaneously to maximize savings, making this an ideal time for tech enthusiasts and regular consumers alike to invest in Apple’s latest technology.
Microsoft has unveiled Fara-7B, its first agentic small language model specifically designed for computer use, featuring only 7 billion parameters while achieving state-of-the-art performance within its size class and remaining competitive with much larger, more resource-intensive systems. The model is built on Qwen 2.5-VL architecture and functions as a multimodal decoder-only language model that takes screenshots and text context as inputs, directly predicting thoughts and actions with grounded arguments to accomplish high-level user tasks. Fara-7B was trained on 145,000 synthetic trajectories generated through the Magentic-One framework, with a novel synthetic data generation system called FaraGen that can propose diverse tasks from frequently used websites, generate multiple solution attempts, and filter successful trajectories using multiple verifiers at approximately $1 per trajectory. The model perceives browser inputs via screenshots while recording internal reasoning and state history textually, enabling it to plan and execute complex goals such as booking restaurants, applying for jobs, planning trips, and purchasing shopping lists. A robust post-training safety approach incorporating open-source and in-house synthetic datasets ensures the model recognizes critical points requiring user permission or involving sensitive information, with the agent trained to refuse harmful tasks and undergoing automated red teaming to assess risks including grounding, jailbreaks, harmful content, and copyright violations. Critical safety checkpoints include situations involving personal information entry, purchase completion, phone calls, email sending, application submission, and account sign-ins. Fara-7B outperforms other computer use agent models of comparable size on benchmarks including WebVoyager, Online-Mind2Web, and WebTailBench, a novel benchmark developed to better capture under-represented web tasks in pre-existing benchmarks. The model is efficient enough to run on-device, with quantized versions requiring as little as 5.8GB of storage for the Q4_K_S version, making it accessible for deployment on consumer-grade hardware with 12GB GPU memory. Microsoft has made Fara-7B open-weight available on Microsoft Foundry and HuggingFace, democratizing access to advanced agentic capabilities while also releasing WebTailBench to support future research in computer use agents.
HP has announced plans to lay off up to 6,000 employees as part of a major restructuring effort aimed at saving $1 billion in costs. The layoffs will primarily affect roles in product development and customer support, reflecting a strategic shift in the company’s focus. This move comes amid growing demand for AI-enabled PCs, which HP sees as a key growth area. By reducing its workforce in these departments, HP intends to streamline operations and redirect resources toward developing and supporting next-generation AI-powered devices. The company expects these changes to improve efficiency and competitiveness in a rapidly evolving technology landscape. The layoffs are part of a broader industry trend, as tech firms increasingly invest in artificial intelligence and automation. HP’s leadership believes that focusing on AI-enabled PCs will position the company for long-term success and allow it to better meet changing customer needs. The restructuring is expected to be completed over the next several quarters, with affected employees receiving severance packages and support for transition. HP has emphasized that the layoffs are not a reflection of poor performance but rather a strategic realignment to meet future market demands. The company remains committed to innovation and maintaining its leadership in the PC market. Analysts suggest that while the layoffs may cause short-term disruption, they could strengthen HP’s position in the AI-driven tech sector. HP’s decision highlights the ongoing transformation in the technology industry, where companies must adapt quickly to new technologies and shifting consumer preferences. The move also underscores the challenges traditional tech firms face in balancing cost reduction with innovation. HP’s focus on AI-enabled PCs is expected to drive new product development and attract customers seeking advanced computing capabilities. The company will continue to monitor market trends and adjust its strategy as needed to remain competitive.
The banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector is undergoing a profound transformation driven by advances in governance, compute infrastructure, and digital rails. As regulatory frameworks become clearer and more predictable, the uncertainty surrounding compliance is expected to decrease, allowing institutions to focus more on innovation and the integration of new technologies. However, this shift brings increased uncertainty around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in front-line workflows, as banks grapple with how to deploy AI responsibly and effectively while maintaining trust and transparency. The evolution of digital rails—secure, scalable, and interoperable infrastructure—enables seamless data exchange and service delivery, supporting both customer-facing and back-office operations. Governance is becoming more critical, with institutions establishing cross-functional teams and robust oversight mechanisms to ensure that technology adoption aligns with strategic objectives and regulatory requirements. Compute capabilities are advancing rapidly, providing the processing power needed for real-time analytics, AI-driven decision-making, and enhanced cybersecurity. As a result, banks are investing in modular, standardized services that can be easily integrated and scaled, reducing dependency on legacy systems and IT bottlenecks. These changes are not only improving operational efficiency but also enabling faster compliance, better risk management, and more personalized customer experiences. The ability to harmonize customer-facing agility with strong risk controls is a key differentiator for leading institutions. Federated data models and open finance initiatives are helping banks break down data silos and gain a unified view of customer interactions, which is essential for leveraging AI and other digital tools. Continuous compliance automation, powered by machine-readable regulations and automated policy engines, is reducing the burden of manual checks and enabling real-time evidence for audits. Transparent performance dashboards and change-management facilitators are equipping staff with the skills and insights needed to adopt new workflows smoothly. Ultimately, the convergence of governance, compute, and digital rails is redefining the BFSI landscape, creating new opportunities for growth, scalability, and customer success while also presenting new challenges in terms of risk, compliance, and workforce adaptation.
RBI Deputy Governor Poonam Gupta has strongly defended the central bank’s inflation forecasting process, asserting that there is no systematic bias in the projections made by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). She emphasized that inflation forecasting is inherently difficult everywhere, but particularly so in India due to the high weight of food in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the volatility of food prices. Gupta explained that the MPC must publish forward-looking forecasts up to four quarters ahead because monetary policy operates with significant lags, and forecast errors are inevitable, especially during periods of economic shocks or uncertainty. She noted that the central bank uses a multifaceted approach to forecasting, including proven models, historical patterns, surveys, and expert consultations with ministries and analysts. Gupta also pointed out that forecast errors are a global phenomenon and not unique to India, and that the RBI takes media and expert criticism seriously, even if some coverage is not always kind. In response to concerns about overestimation of inflation, which critics argue has prevented the RBI from cutting rates further, Gupta maintained that the forecasts are unbiased and not consistently skewed in any particular direction. She also mentioned that the RBI is reviewing the base years for GDP and the CPI basket, which will help improve the accuracy of future forecasts. Gupta further revealed that the central bank is planning to release balance of payments data on a monthly basis instead of quarterly, to provide more timely insights into India’s external position amid shifting global trade dynamics. The RBI has already reduced the lag in quarterly data release from 90 to 60 days and is considering further improvements. Gupta acknowledged that both inflation and growth forecasts have been revised frequently in recent times, with past fiscal year GDP forecasts being too optimistic and retail inflation forecasts too pessimistic, but reiterated that these errors do not indicate a systematic bias. She stressed that minimizing forecast errors is important, but it is equally crucial to recognize that no forecaster gets it right all the time. The upcoming revision of the CPI basket by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is expected to be helpful for the RBI’s forecasting efforts. Gupta’s comments come amid ongoing debates about the accuracy and reliability of the RBI’s projections and their impact on monetary policy decisions.
The Indian Rupee concluded its trading session with a modest gain of 2 paise, settling at 88.58 against the U.S. dollar. This slight appreciation came amidst positive momentum in the equity markets, which provided a supportive backdrop for the local currency. Additionally, lower crude oil prices played a crucial role in bolstering the Rupee’s value, as India is a major importer of oil. The combination of these factors helped offset any potential downward pressures from other global influences. Traders noted that the equity market’s upward trajectory reflected investor confidence in domestic economic indicators. The benchmark indices likely saw gains, contributing to the overall positive sentiment. Lower global crude prices reduced India’s import bill, easing pressure on the current account deficit. This development is particularly significant given India’s heavy reliance on imported energy resources. The Rupee’s performance indicates a stable forex market environment on this trading day. Market participants will be watching upcoming economic data releases for further cues. The settlement at 88.58 marks a marginal improvement from the previous close, signaling resilience. Overall, the session highlighted the interplay between domestic equities and global commodity prices in shaping currency movements. This gain, though small, could set a positive tone for subsequent sessions if trends persist.
Salesforce has initiated an investigation into unusual activity involving Gainsight applications, which may have resulted in the exposure of customer data. As a precautionary measure, the company has temporarily suspended access to these tools to prevent any further potential risks. This action underscores Salesforce’s commitment to data security amid growing concerns over possible breaches. Gainsight, the provider of these applications, is fully cooperating with Salesforce’s review process. However, Gainsight has refrained from releasing any additional details at this stage, likely to avoid speculation or interference with the ongoing probe. The incident highlights the vulnerabilities that can arise even within integrated third-party tools on major platforms like Salesforce. Customers relying on Gainsight features for customer success management are now facing disruptions in their workflows. Salesforce’s swift response in blocking access aims to mitigate any immediate threats while the investigation unfolds. The exact nature of the ‘unusual activity’ remains undisclosed, fueling uncertainty among users. This event comes at a time when data privacy regulations are increasingly stringent worldwide. Salesforce has not specified a timeline for resolution or restoration of access. The cooperation between the two companies suggests a coordinated effort to address the issue transparently. Potential implications include data remediation efforts if a leak is confirmed. Businesses using these tools must now seek alternative solutions temporarily. Overall, this development serves as a reminder of the critical importance of robust security in SaaS ecosystems.