Experience the confluence of traditional technique and contemporary flavours with an exclusive five-day pop up.

(New Delhi, March 2025) Shangri-La Eros New Delhi presents a unique culinary experience at Sorrento, its award-winning Italian restaurant, with the renowned Chef Pasqualino Barbasso from Palermo, Italy, for an exclusive five-day showcase from 19 to 23 March 2025.

Bringing two decades of unparalleled expertise with him, Chef Barbasso’s journey from mastering traditional preparation techniques to becoming a global ambassador of Italy’s most loved cuisine culminates in this rare showcase.

Chef Pasqualino is among the most skilful masters of acrobatic pizza-making. In the last 10 years, Pasqualino has travelled around the world offering his stunning performances to enhance the

quality and the good taste of Italian pizza, made according to true Italian traditions. In fact, Pasqualino Barbasso began his career in his family’s Pizzeria, Il Falco Azzuro, in Cammarata, in the Sicilian province of Agrigento, where he still works when he’s not travelling.

Later, he underwent formal pizza-making training. In 1998, he won the Sicily’s Acrobatic Pizza championship. By 2001, he was the World Champion. Since then, he has made dozens of appearances in Italian restaurants and pizzerias around the world. Two times Pizza Acrobatics World Champion Chef Pasqualino Barbasso can entertain crowds with his gravity-defying pizza manoeuvres.

The culinary journey Chef Barbasso brings to Sorrento spans continents and prestigious venues, making this five-day engagement a must-attend for Delhi’s connoisseurs.

The menu presented by the chef reads like a tour of Italy’s diverse regions and seasonal treasures. Seafood enthusiasts can savour the King Sea, where premium smoked salmon meets pistachio pesto and parmesan fondue, while the luxurious Bolero showcases Italy’s finest ingredients—creamy burrata, delicate bresaola, and a sophisticated merlot reduction that elevates this pizza to extraordinary heights.

The assortment demonstrates Chef’s versatility and creative vision, from the unexpected Walnut pizza featuring a decadent combination of walnut cream, pungent gorgonzola and fresh rocket leaves, to the bold Calabrese with parmesan cream. For those craving familiar comfort with a gourmet twist, the Old West delivers slow-cooked pulled chicken, caramelised onions, and BBQ sauce, proving that Chef Barbasso’s culinary prowess extends beyond Italian borders while remaining rooted in exceptional technique and quality ingredients.

The dishes will be available on à la carte selections allowing guests to fully appreciate the breadth of his culinary vision. Whether opting for an intimate lunch or a celebratory dinner, patrons will witness first-hand masterful techniques that have made Chef Barbasso a global culinary ambassador.

18^th March 2025, Tirupati: A Center of Competence was officially inaugurated by Chief Guest Prof. Abhay Karandikar, DST Secretary, Prof. K. N. Satyanarayana, Director, IIT Tirupati, and Mr. Agendra Kumar, Managing Director, Esri India at IIT Tirupati on 17^th March 2025. Esri India and IIT Tirupati Navavishkar I-Hub Foundation (IITTNiF) had earlier signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the Center of Competence (CoC) to drive geospatial education, research, and industry applications, reinforcing India’s position as a global leader in GIS innovation.

The CoC will provide students, researchers, and startups access to advanced GIS tools, training modules, and real-world applications. This collaboration is expected to foster breakthrough developments in land management, urban planning, transportation, and drone-based geospatial analytics.

 Prof. Abhay Karandikar, DST Secretary, said at the occasion, “Strengthening the collaboration between academia and industry is essential for building a skilled geospatial workforce in the country. Initiatives like the Center of Competence at IIT Tirupati can not only equip the students with the right skillsets for better job opportunities but also help them gain spatial intelligence and develop solutions that can solve the challenges of the country.”

Prof. K. N. Satyanarayana, Director, IIT Tirupati, said, “We are excited to collaborate with Esri India to establish a Center of Competence at IIT Tirupati. This collaboration will empower students, startups, and professionals with access to state-of-the-art geospatial technologies, fostering innovation and addressing real-world challenges. Through tailored training and strong industry-academia connections, we aim to cultivate a skilled generation of geospatial experts ready to drive technological and economic progress.”

Agendra Kumar, Managing Director, Esri India, said, “Our partnership with IIT Tirupati through the Center of Competence is a key step in developing the next generation of geospatial professionals. With the rise of geospatial technologies, including satellite and drone data, AI/ML integration, and advanced analytics, this initiative will equip students and professionals with cutting-edge GIS skills. These capabilities will drive innovation across industries, offering vast career opportunities. This collaboration reflects our commitment to building a skilled geospatial workforce for the future.”

Hyderabad, March 18, 2025: Paisabazaar, India’s leading marketplace for consumer credit and free credit score platform, today announced the launch of PBMoney – a personal finance management platform designed to provide consumers with holistic insights and advise, to help them build stronger financial health.

Paisabazaar, through PBMoney, aims to deepen engagement with its large and diverse consumer base by offering a unified financial experience. PBMoney is built on the Account Aggregator framework, along with other data integrations, offering consumers a comprehensive view of their entire financial life. The platform consolidates financial accounts—including bank accounts, mutual fund portfolios, and stocks—into a single dashboard. In the coming months, PBMoney will also integrate data on insurance coverage and GST filings, providing consumers a complete understanding of their financial standing.

This industry-first initiative will provide personalised, actionable insights to help consumers track income and expenses, monitor investments, and assess insurance coverage—empowering them to make informed financial decisions. Built on a technology-first approach, PBMoney delivers a seamless and intuitive experience to enhance financial awareness and wellness.

Radhika Binani, Chief Product Officer, Paisabazaar, said, “As a consumer credit platform, we have helped millions make informed credit decisions over the past decade, earning deep consumer trust. With PBMoney, we are extending this ethos beyond credit to empower consumers with holistic financial wellness. PBMoney will provide a seamless, unified and holisticfinancial management experience—empowering consumers to take control of their financial future with confidence.”

Along with seamlessly tracking income and expenses and providing actionable insights to manage their financial lives more efficiently, PB would deliver a comprehensive view of mutual fund and stock investments, offering key insights into portfolio performance and composition.

PBMoney’s investment advisory services would offer personalised recommendations powered by advanced algorithms and data analytics. The platform will analyse each individual’s profile and risk appetite in real-time, offering tailored investment strategies, including portfolio rebalancing to help consumers maintain their desired asset allocation over time and keep their investments aligned with their financial goals and risk profiles.

PBMoney’s advisory services are independent of executionand transactions. Consumers are free to implement the advice on a platform of their choice, ensuring greater transparency and keeping consumer interests at the core. The digital-only model also eliminates the complexities and friction often associated with traditional advisory services, providing instant access to personalised insights anytime, anywhere.

In the coming months, PBMoney would continue to evolve, keeping consumer needs at the centre and expanding insights into all key financial aspects including adequate insurance coverage, emergency corpus planning, and more.

March 18,2025:IMDb’s Popular Indian Celebrities list for this week is primarily dominated by actors who have had recent releases. Khushi Kapoor secures the top position as Nadaaniyan continues to trend while her co-star and debutant Ibrahim Ali Khan is in 6th spot. Priyanka Bose is ranked 2nd after the release of the latest season of the renowned fantasy drama series The Wheel Of Time.

Meanwhile, Alia Bhatt is ranked 3rd, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is in 4th position. Shalini Pandey continues to trend in 5th position with the release of Dabba Cartel. Sadia Khateeb is in 9th spot after her film The Diplomat recently released in cinemas while Shivani Raghuvanshi is in 10th position after the release of her web series Dupahiya.

The Popular Indian Celebrities feature, available exclusively on the IMDb app for Android and iOS, highlights the top trending Indian entertainers and filmmakers each week. This is based on more than 200 million monthly visits to IMDb worldwide. Entertainment fans can see who is trending every week, follow their favorite entertainers, and discover new breakout talent.

ORLANDO, Fla., March 18, 2025 — At Enterprise Connect, Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) will unveil its vision for agentic AI collaboration, along with new AI-powered collaboration solutions designed to create futureproofed experiences for customers, employees and IT teams. Cisco is driving toward a future where AI anticipates customer and employee needs, addresses challenges, fulfils intent and further enhances productivity for all. New agentic AI innovations include the general availability of the Webex AI Agent for enhanced customer experience. Additional solutions announced across Collaboration Devices and the Webex Suite include new workflows in AI Assistant for Webex Suite to streamline employee experiences, Webex Calling Customer Assist, and AirPlay on Cisco Devices for Microsoft Teams Rooms.

“Enterprises are starting to realize the potential of agentic AI. It is reinventing what it means for people and technology to work together across the physical and digital worlds,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco. “Our customers love how Webex AI is built seamlessly into the way you work. Working alongside employees increasing efficiency, improving employee sentiment and enhancing overall customer experiences.”

Creating Customer Experience Centers with AI  

Traditional contact centers, primarily reactive in addressing customer inquiries, are evolving into experience centers where every interaction is an opportunity to provide exceptional interactions with customers. Webex is making this possible with the Webex Customer Experience portfolio with tools like AI Agent and AI Assistant for Contact Center that seamlessly answer customers’ questions and integrate with back-office systems for automated intent fulfillment. New AI solutions include:

• Webex AI Agent: With general availability planned for March 31, 2025, the Webex AI Agent is a 24/7, self-service solution with natural, human-like interactions. It works alongside human agents to answer routine and high-volume customer questions and executes actions to fulfil customer requests, while eliminating the need for queues or wait times. It integrates out of the box with Webex Contact Center and combines natural sounding conversational intelligence with real-time automation for customers to resolve issues and queries as if they were speaking or messaging with a human.
• Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center: To improve agent and customer service experiences, the generally available Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center has new features planned for Q2 2025, including suggested responses and real-time transcription for agents. These will join previously available features including context transfer summaries, dropped call summaries, Agent Wellbeing, topic analytics and automatic customer satisfaction scores (Auto CSAT).

Delivering AI-Powered Employee Experiences for End Users and IT 

In today’s digital era, employees expect intelligent and efficient collaboration experiences. AI-powered solutions deliver seamless collaboration and bolster productivity for every employee, from the end users who depend on our products daily to the IT professionals who ensure smooth operations. Employees can use some of these tools as they become available later this year to increase their productivity with workflow automation that streamlines routine tasks, easily customize and manage AI capabilities and insights, and more, including:

• Workflow Automation in Cisco AI Assistant for Webex: This capability in the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Suite intends to streamline processes and save time by working across enterprise apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Jira. This enables users to more efficiently complete tasks and automatically share meeting summaries across enterprise apps.
• AI Capabilities in Webex Control Hub: The platform will allow IT admins to easily access, search and manage all AI ecosystems in one place, and to customize them to match their organization’s needs. They will also be able to view analytics on AI usage, trends, and employee adoption metrics within Webex Control Hub.

Any employee can be empowered to assist customers with this Webex Calling solution:

• Webex Calling Customer Assist: This reimagined calling solution aims to empower any employee to assist customers with an AI-powered, modern experience in the Webex app on their desktop or mobile phone. With Customer Assist, local and regional branches including retail stores, bank branches, pharmacies and healthcare clinics can quickly provide great customer experiences, resolve issues and build strong relationships. With the addition of new features available later this year, it intends to provide efficient call routing, AI assistance for agents and supervisors and powerful analytics—all in an easy-to-deploy, cost-effective Webex Calling offering.

The Webex ecosystem delivers a seamless integration of AI-driven innovations and collaboration tools, enhancing user experiences with secure, flexible, and rich interactions across workspaces:

• Apple AirPlay on Cisco Devices will be available soon for Microsoft Teams Rooms, enabling instant wireless content sharing from iPhone, iPad or Mac to Cisco Devices.
• Now generally available, Cisco Spatial Meetings allows users to turn any space equipped with a Cisco Room Bar Pro into an immersive studio with Webex for Apple Vision Pro.
• With connectors across many enterprise apps such as Outlook, Salesforce, and ServiceNow—made possible with Glean—users can enhance discussions, search Webex, and speed up decision-making with knowledge graphs and connectors.
• Native Epic integration for Webex Contact Center, expected to be in beta this month, will enable contact center agents to access patient information more easily as they manage interactions within the popular electronic health record (EHR) software.

India, 18^th March 2025: Marking a momentous academic milestone, C.K. College of Engineering & Technology (CKCET) & CK College of Education (CKCOE) hosted its prestigious Graduation Ceremony 2025, celebrating the accomplishments of 980 graduates, including 10 university rank holders, with one securing a state rank. Held at the college’s state-of-the-art campus, the grand ceremony was presided over by Chief Guest Mr. K. Abdul Rahim, Founder of Mount Road Bilal, distinguished leaders including Mr. CK Ranganathan (Chairman & Managing Director, CavinKare Pvt. Ltd.), Ms. Amudhavalli Ranganathan (Executive Director, CK Group of Educational Institutions & Director, New Initiatives & E-Commerce, CavinKare Pvt. Ltd.), and Dr. S. Saravanan (Principal, CK College of Engineering and Technology).

The graduation ceremony proudly conferred degrees upon 551 Engineering graduates (including 535 B.E and 16 M.E graduates), 148 MBA graduates, and 299 B.Ed. graduates, marking a significant academic milestone. Among them, 10 exceptional students—5 from Engineering (3 students from B.E and 2 students from M.E), 1 from MBA, and 4 from B.Ed.—were honored as rank holders for their outstanding achievements. The grand event also witnessed the presence of esteemed dignitaries from academia, principals, and faculty members of the CK Group of Educational Institutions, alongside an enthusiastic gathering of over 2,000 parents, making it a truly momentous occasion in the institution’s journey.

Applauding the students for their perseverance and achievements, Mr. K. Abdul Rahim, Founder of Mount Road Bilal, said, “This graduation ceremony is a testament to the dedication and hard work of each graduate. It marks not only the completion of an academic journey but also the beginning of a promising future. I extend my heartfelt congratulations to all graduates and wish them success in their future endeavors.”

Addressing the gathering, Mr. CK Ranganathan, Chairman & Managing Director, CavinKare Pvt. Ltd., said, “This is a proud moment for CKCET and CKCOE as we celebrate the accomplishments of our graduates. Each of them has demonstrated immense dedication and excellence, and I have no doubt they will make significant contributions to their respective fields. I congratulate all the students and wish them a bright and successful future.”

Speaking at the event, Ms. Amudhavalli Ranganathan, Executive Director, CK Group of Educational Institutions, and Director, New Initiatives & E-Commerce, CavinKare Pvt. Ltd., added, “At CKCET and CKCOE, we are committed to empowering students with knowledge, skills, and opportunities for a successful future. Today’s graduates are stepping into the world with a strong academic foundation, and we are confident they will achieve great heights in their careers. We take immense pride in their achievements and wish them all the best.”

C.K. College of Engineering & Technology has consistently set benchmarks in academic excellence, skill development, and industry integration. Over the years, the institution has nurtured thousands of graduates who have excelled in their respective fields, with many securing top placements in leading multinational companies. Demonstrating strong academic performance, CKCET secured the 1st rank in the district in the November-December 2023 Anna University rankings and placed 62nd among all affiliated engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu. The institution also maintains an impressive placement record of securing 344 job offers from 72 reputed companies, placing its students with top offers up to ₹8.4 LPA in companies like Zoho Corporation.

Beyond academics, the college has been designated as a Skill Hub by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, offering NSDC-approved courses in IoT, AI, Drone Technology, and 3D Printing under the PMKVY scheme. CKCET also fosters a culture of continuous learning through its “Invest in Yourself” initiative, enabling students and faculty to earn over 1,820 certifications in cutting-edge technologies through platforms like SWAYAM, Coursera, Udemy, Alison, edX, and Khan Academy. With a strong foundation in academic achievement, skill development, research, sports and career readiness, CKCET remains committed to shaping the next generation of engineers and innovators.

MUMBAI, March 18, 2025: Spotify has unveiled this year’s Loud & Clear report, a transparent look at how the streaming economy continues to support artists and fuel the music industry’s explosive growth. The report demystifies how artists earn money through streaming, clarifies royalty distribution, and highlights the evolving global music landscape. In India, the growth continues upward for the artist community not just locally, but across the world.

Spotify’s contribution to the local music industry has been growing steadily since its launch six years ago. In 2024 alone, artists from India were discovered over 11.2 billion times by first-time listeners on the audio streaming platform, an increase of 13% since 2023. Through artist education initiatives, emerging artist programs, on-ground experiences, and more, Spotify is connecting artists and their fans more deeply than ever before. The success of Indian artists on the platform is highlighted in the key insights of this year’s Loud & Clear report.

Spotify is contributing to the artist economy in India

Since 2022, the number of Indian artists generating over INR 50 lac in royalties from Spotify alone has more than doubled. During the same time period, Indian artists generating over INR 1 crore in royalties from the platform alone have more than tripled, and those generating over INR 5 crore in royalties, have doubled. In fact, approximately two-thirds of the royalties generated in India in 2024 came from Indian artists, comparable to last year.

Indian artists have seen year-on-year growth on Spotify

Over 90% of the tracks that were featured on Spotify India’s daily top 50 playlist in 2024, were by local artists, a 6% increase from 2023. Close to 50% of all royalties generated by Indian artists on Spotify in 2024 were from listeners outside of India, up from 40% in 2023. The USA, UK, UAE, Pakistan, Canada, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka are a few of the countries where Indian languages were most streamed. Additionally, over 9,000 Indian artists were added to global and local editorial playlists on Spotify in 2024, compared to 8700 in the previous year.

Diversity of languages and genres represented in music export

Royalties generated by Indian artists performing in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu have each more than doubled since 2021. In addition, music performed in Telugu was one of the fastest growing in popularity in 2024, with a 39% increase in royalties generated globally year-on-year, and more than doubling since 2021. Amongst these languages, some of the most-streamed genres include Hindi pop, Hindi hip hop, Punjabi hip hop, Hindi indie, Malayalam hip hop, Punjabi pop, and Tamil pop.

In 2024, several pop and hip-hop artists contributed to the global growth of music from India, led by Arijit Singh, Pritam, Anirudh Ravichander, Karan Aujla, Shreya Ghoshal, Diljit Dosanjh, Hanumankind, Kalmi, A.R. Rahman, Sidhu Moose Wala, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Vishal-Shekhar, AP Dhillon, Badshah, and Alka Yagnik.

During the time, Indian artists saw the positive impact of Spotify’s global reach, with over 65% of the top 30 most exported songs stemming from beyond the film industry.

Globally, Spotify continues to lead the music industry in payouts, with more than $10 billion distributed in music royalties in 2024 alone, globally – increasing payouts tenfold over the past ten years. The company has now paid out around $60 billion since its inception.