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Amazon Music releases Film Companion’s Cannes Film Festival red carpet podcast
Mumbai: Amazon Music India and Film Companion will bring the live glam right from the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. With the biggest names from the entertainment industry gracing the red carpet, listeners will be able to keep up with it right from their homes. Hosted by Anupama Chopra and Sneha Menon Desai, the podcast has a stellar guest lineup of filmmaker Chidananda Naik, actor Kiara Advani, actor Naseeruddin Shah, filmmaker Payal Kapadia and musician AR Rahman.
Speaking about the podcast from Film Companion, Amazon Music India director Mamta Saraf said, “Our goal at Amazon Music is to bring fresh content to the listeners and explore avenues that we haven’t before. We are excited to collaborate with Film Companion for the Cannes Film Festival special podcast, and elated about bringing it to Amazon Music listeners two weeks early.”
Addressing the association, Film Companion founder and editor Anupama Chopra said, “I’m absolutely thrilled to be back at Cannes, capturing the glory of the movies at one of the most prestigious events in the film industry. We look forward to bringing Amazon Music listeners access to the magic of the interviews and coverage of the Cannes Film Festival 2024 through our podcasts. With an incredible lineup of guests and insights into the world of cinema, this year promises to be truly unforgettable. So, tune in to ‘Film Companion at Cannes’24’ on Amazon Music and join us as we dive into the heart of cinematic excellence!”
‘Film Companion at Cannes’24’ Podcast is now streaming on Amazon Music!
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Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
