Page 3 - Innovation

Budget strengthens India's position as innovation powerhouse, say startups

The Union Budget 2025-26 marks a significant milestone for India's startup ecosystem and reinforces the nation's position as a global innovation powerhouse, say startup players. On Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a new Fund of Funds Scheme (FFS) with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to promote the growth of budding entrepreneurs in the country. "This budget is a big win for India's startup ecosystem. The Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds, along with extended tax benefits and regulatory reforms, will provide the much-needed capital and ease of doing business for emerging ventures," said Shashvat Nakrani, Founder, BharatPe. Startup Policy Forum (SPF) President and CEO Shweta Rajpal Kohli said the creation of a new Fund of Funds will provide crucial financial support to emerging startups. "The introduction of a new scheme to support 5 lakh first-time women entrepreneurs is a bold and inclusive step forward. Furthermore, the establishment of 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs an

The End of Progress? Trump era raises doubts over US innovation leadership

Although the US has long led the world in advancing basic science and technology, it is hard to see how this can continue under Mr Trump

Our capability centres turned into innovation hubs: Indian leaders at Davos

The global capability centres in India have transformed from being centres of cost arbitrage to global innovation hubs, Indian leaders said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. Speaking at a breakfast session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, they also said there should be a consistent focus on upskilling the Indian talent pool. D Sridhar Babu, Telangana's Minister for Information Technology, Electronics & Communications; Industries & Commerce, said, "The Government of Telangana is working to put young Indians in Skills' University for training, coaching and tutoring that is required to upskill and reskill employees as well as people who would like to know about new technologies.. This has already started, and it is absolutely industry-driven where the government only acts as a facilitator, he added. Emphasising the importance of staying ahead in technological advancements, he said, "As the world is witnessing ...

Irdai expands scope of regulatory sandbox framework to foster innovation

Regulator Irdai has expanded the scope of regulatory sandbox framework to encourage proposals that foster innovation, improve efficiency and ease of doing business. The IRDAI (Regulatory Sandbox) Regulations, 2025 is now more of principle-based whereby operational aspects will be issued through a master circular, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) said in a statement. "A notable addition is an enabling provision to file Inter-Regulatory Sandbox proposals, cutting across more than one financial sector," the regulator said. Regulatory sandbox usually refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which regulators may (or may not) permit certain relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing. Further, regulations on maintenance of information by the regulated entities and sharing of information too have been consolidated by the regulator. The regulation mandates electronic record-keeping with robust

Beyond Snack raises $8.3 million in series A round for expansion efforts

The fresh funds will be used for expansion into new territories, product innovation, and strengthening its supply chain infrastructure

India is a great innovation hotspot for Lenovo: MD Shailendra Katyal

India has become a very important hub. But it's not the only hub for us to innovate, given our width of solutions

Tech Talk with Lenovo India MD on Indian market needs, tech innovations and more

Tune in to this engaging Tech Talk episode, where Business Standard's Pranjal Sharma sits down with Shailendra Katyal, MD of Lenovo India. Shailendra shares his expert perspective

Our India centre global innovation hub, not low-cost back office: Jayabalan

Jayabalan said the India GTDC is playing a crucial role for driving global innovations at the firm and the plan is to continue scaling up the centre both in terms of capacity and capabilities

How Social Entrepreneurship can Drive Businesses Towards Success

Manager’s Mantra presents an insightful conversation with Advait Kumar, Founder of Boon. Advait shares valuable lessons for future managers and entrepreneurs.

Cabinet approves continuation of Atal Innovation Mission till March 2028

The Cabinet on Monday approved the continuation of Niti Aayog's flagship initiative Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), with an enhanced scope of work and allocated budget of Rs 2,750 crore, till March 31, 2028. According to an official statement, AIM 2.0 is a step towards Viksit Bharat that aims to expand, strengthen, and deepen India's already vibrant innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. The statement said while building on the accomplishments of AIM 1.0, such as Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) and Atal Incubation Centers (AIC), AIM 2.0 marks a qualitative shift in the mission's approach. "Whereas AIM 1.0 involved implementing programmes that built new innovation infrastructure to strengthen India's then-nascent ecosystem, AIM 2.0 involves piloting new initiatives designed to fill gaps in the ecosystem and scaling successes through central and state governments, industry, academia and community," it added. AIM 2.0 is designed to strengthen India's innovation and entrepreneurship ...

'Need to build mobility innovations with people-centric approach'

They emphasised the need for collective innovation to build a robust infrastructure, including electrified buses and smart mobility solutions

''From back-office sites, Indian GCCs becoming innovation hubs now''

India's global capability centres (GCCs) are projected to become a $100 billion industry by 2030, employing over 2.5 million professionals, according to industry data

Google Play picks Alle as best Indian app of 2024, Squad Busters best game

India global leader in downloads for apps powered by AI, says company in annual ranking

NextGen CEOs to focus on innovation and inclusion to build Viksit Bharat

During a panel discussion on young leadership at the 11th SBI Banking and Economics Conference, young CEOs explored strategies to future-proof Indian enterprises

BS BFSI: Compliance doesn't impede progress, say financial services heads

BS BFSI Summit: While compliance requires significant investment, it does not impede industry progress, said CTOs and CEOs as they discussed the role of regulation in India

BS BFSI Summit: Our company culture key to innovation, says Razorpay MD

We have 50 different teams, each pursuing separate goals, which allows us to innovate and launch new products, said Shashank Kumar, co-founder and managing director of Razorpay, at the BFSI Summit

Not just foreign cos, Indian corporations also jumping on the GCC bandwagon

In the last four years, large Indian conglomerates like the Reliance Industries, the Adani Group, Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), and Bank of Baroda have established GCCs locally

Delhi CEO captures 'peak Bengaluru moment' in hotel; netizens divided

Ananya Narang discovered instead a virtual receptionist managing all guest services remotely, which she described as her own 'peak Bengaluru moment'

Global innovation frenzy: Can India match the pace of tech growth?

India also has its share of both large tech companies and large national laboratories, but why is it that these don't seem to be at the forefront of any innovation news headlines?

Pioneering Robotics Innovation for Warehouse Automation

Join us on this episode of Manager's Mantra as we dive into the world of robotics and warehouse automation with Satish Shukla, Co-founder of Addverb. From the inception of Addverb to becoming a global