In the sports sector, athletes continue to inspire with their superhuman performance, while the government prepares for further investments. The publication YourStory presents today's headlines and fresh news from various sectors.
Shruthi Nakade has achieved significant success, transitioning from swimming victories to becoming a para-athlete ranked 9th in the world. After narrowly missing out on the Paris Paralympics, she is now working towards qualifying for the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
The Indian sovereign wealth manager of alternative assets, the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), has raised ₹19,000 crore in the first closing of its ₹30,000 crore Infrastructure Fund II. This initial round was backed by the Government of India and also attracted participation from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and leading Indian financial institutions.
Food delivery aggregator Zomato announced on Monday a zero-tolerance policy against selling analogue dishes, including analogue cheese, paneer, or other dairy products by restaurants listed on its platform. The company stated that it reserves the right to exclude non-compliant restaurants from its catalog.
The government notified on Monday about the Semicon 2.0 scheme, launching a plan worth ₹1,27,500 crore. This initiative aims to deepen India's ambitions in semiconductors, covering chip manufacturing, creating a complete ecosystem that includes domestic design and intellectual property, equipment, materials, advanced packaging, research and development, and talent development.
DocPharma, a healthcare supply chain specialist, raised $2 million in a Pre-Series A funding round. The round was led by Equentis, with participation from existing investors 100Unicorns, Vinners, and a consortium of strategic business angels. The company plans to use the capital to establish 100 new certified and licensed dark stores, expand into new cities, and strengthen its infrastructure.
DocPharma has developed a patented SaaS platform that integrates warehouse management, inventory analytics, order management, and fulfillment into a single healthcare operating system. The platform provides real-time inventory visibility, routes orders to the nearest appropriate fulfillment center, and allows processing according to prescriptions. It serves electronic pharmacies, insurers, hospitals, wellness centers, and other platforms, enabling the delivery of medicines and health products in under 30 minutes.
Clientech startup YOGa Clean Air raised ₹20 crore in a funding round led by Info Edge Ventures. Dipinder Goyal, founder of Zomato/Eternal, and Three Words Capital also participated in the round. The company intends to use the funds for expansion. Founded in 2010, YOGa has developed a clean air bubble technology designed to filter incoming air and maintain slightly higher pressure inside the premises, preventing the ingress of polluted air. The system also regulates carbon dioxide levels to maintain indoor air freshness.
YOGa's products are installed in residential buildings, hospitals, schools, offices, and gyms across 11 cities. Co-founder and CEO Sachin Panwar stated that this funding will help the company spread its clean air technology to more homes, schools, and hospitals nationwide.
PhonePe launched PhonePe UPI 123Pay, providing UPI payment capabilities to feature phone users across India without requiring an internet connection. This service will be pre-installed on devices from Nokia, HMD, Lava International, and Itel Mobile, with additional partnerships with phone manufacturers expected in the coming months. Built on a proprietary stack of technology for feature phones, UPI 123Pay utilizes an SMS-based architecture designed to ensure transactions even in areas with limited 2G coverage.
Users can make P2P transfers using mobile numbers or UPI IDs, as well as conduct P2M payments using UPI IDs and QR code scanning. The service also allows users to check account balances and transaction history. Planned features include bill payments, balance top-ups, and Aadhaar registration via UPI, supported by an AI-powered voice assistant in English and 12 Indian languages.
MapmyIndia Mappls, in collaboration with ClarityX, an AI-driven data analytics and business intelligence company, has launched Geo-FI—a geo-intelligence stack designed for the credit sector. The platform aims to provide BFSI companies with a comprehensive view of borrower risks and opportunities by adding spatial information to existing credit technologies. Geo-FI integrates with loan origination systems, credit management systems, CRMs, and debt collection platforms without disrupting existing workflows. It can be deployed via API, spatial visualization tools, and SDKs, with options for on-premise, hybrid, and cloud deployment.
The platform supports various lending stages, including market identification, underwriting, location verification, and debt collection. It utilizes geo-tagged field data, delinquency heatmaps, and AI-driven workflows to identify emerging risk clusters, recommend collection priorities, and continuously improve geo-intelligence based on customer and field data.
Financial product marketplace and free credit score platform Paisabazaar is accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence across its entire organization: AI now generates approximately 86% of the new code written on its platform. The company reported that this transition transforms technology building and scaling methods, increasing development speed and allowing teams to take on a broader product and technological scope. Despite the increased role of AI, Paisabazaar is also expanding its technical team, indicating that productivity gains are being channeled into creating more products and faster experimentation, rather than resource reduction. AI-driven development is applied throughout the engineering lifecycle, including coding, testing, debugging, and documentation. Engineers continue to maintain human oversight, while the company focuses more on systemic thinking, complex problem-solving, architectural decision-making, and effective collaboration with AI tools.
Appinventiv, an IT and digital transformation services provider, launched AspireHub—a dedicated workspace initiative offering free office space for early-stage AI startups in Delhi NCR. Startups with teams of one to 15 people located anywhere in Delhi NCR can apply for the program. Selected companies will receive free workspace, high-speed internet, IT support, and access to meeting rooms. Participants will also receive mentorship from Appinventiv leadership in areas such as product development, branding, and scaling. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis, and startups are evaluated based on factors such as founding team, product, market potential, and execution capability. Appinventiv stated that some participating startups may eventually transition into a more structured incubation program, although details of this program have not yet been disclosed.
Dreamtime Learning introduced Dreamtime AiQ—an artificial intelligence platform designed to integrate classroom activities, student performance, and stakeholder communication with existing school systems. The platform solves the problem of fragmented information regarding class, teaching, and student engagement across different systems by capturing and structuring daily data. Developed to run parallel to existing ERP systems, Dreamtime AiQ uses AI-based transcription and summarization to convert classroom information into structured reports and updates. School administrators and founders can access information on classroom activities, instruction, and student engagement through a centralized dashboard, allowing them to track changes throughout the academic year instead of relying solely on periodic assessments.
Teachers can use the platform for administrative tasks, including attendance, documentation, assignment grading, and parent communication. Voice-enabled attendance and AI-powered assignment checking features are intended to reduce routine administrative workload.
Tiger Analytics received the OpenAI Select Partner designation within the OpenAI partner network—a global program for partners who create, sell, and provide AI solutions with OpenAI. This partnership will enable Tiger Analytics to work with OpenAI to assist organizations in responsibly and effectively creating, deploying, and scaling AI solutions. The company will focus on accelerating enterprise AI adoption, translating cutting-edge AI capabilities into industry solutions, and helping organizations maximize business outcomes. Tiger Analytics will help businesses leverage the latest OpenAI capabilities, including GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work, to boost productivity and solve complex business challenges. The OpenAI partner network brings together companies with industry expertise, implementation capabilities, and client relationships, while providing resources, support, and opportunities to help enterprises adopt advanced AI models and products and translate investments into measurable impact.
AI-powered MarTech platform DashLoc launched DashDesk—an AI-powered customer support platform designed to help businesses manage customer conversations, automate support operations, and deliver a faster and more consistent experience from a single workspace. DashDesk unifies customer support functions on a single platform, enabling businesses to manage tickets, optimize workflows, collaborate across teams, and gain deeper insights into customer interactions. Built around AI automation, the platform combines omnichannel ticket management with features like AI-driven ticket routing, workflow automation, and SLA management. It also provides knowledge base management, customer self-service portals, real-time analytics, and customer satisfaction tracking. DashLoc stated that these capabilities aim to help support teams increase efficiency and consistency when managing customer inquiries across various channels through a centralized operational environment.
Salesforce is expanding Headless 360 as part of its evolution toward an AI agent platform. The enhanced offering includes new model context protocol servers, Data 360 capabilities, Slack integrations, developer tools, reusable skills, and serverless experience across core Salesforce clouds. The company stated that the architecture allows authorized AI agents to securely discover, understand, and act within enterprise systems. Headless 360 aims to transform Salesforce from a suite of enterprise applications into reusable business capabilities that AI agents can safely interact with. Organizations can reuse existing Salesforce capabilities without needing to rebuild integrations for every new AI experience, while maintaining established identity, permissions, metadata, workflows, governance, and business logic. Salesforce stated that this approach is rooted in its history of openness, extending the corporate web API philosophy to make trusted business capabilities accessible wherever AI agents operate.
Indian gaming technology company ARC, in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, is creating the next generation of gaming devices. This partnership leverages Qualcomm's expertise in high-performance computing, graphics, connectivity, and gaming technology to support the development of ARC hardware for India and other emerging markets. ARC aims to create gaming devices that combine performance, portability, and efficiency for the next generation of gamers. The planned devices are expected to focus on high-performance graphics, responsive gameplay, advanced connectivity, and energy-efficient operation.
ARC will also utilize Qualcomm Technologies' capabilities in mobile computing, graphics, AI, connectivity, and power efficiency when developing a broader portfolio. The company stated that this collaboration marks a significant step in its product roadmap to deliver a premium gaming experience while keeping devices practical and accessible for daily use. B2B Banking FinTech and RegTech infrastructure company PaySprint launched SprintPGx, an intelligent multi-payment gateway platform developed...