Brands
Bodycare Creations signs on as official partner of Punjab Kings
MUMBAI: In a testimony to the league’s immense popularity with female audiences, Indian innerwear brand Bodycare Creations has signed on as official partner of the Punjab Kings franchise in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) which begins on 9 April.
Bodycare Creations managing director Sanjay Dawar says, "Punjab Kings is an exciting franchise in the IPL and we are delighted to be associated with the team that shares the same passion, dedication, never-say-die attitude and strength as Bodycare. At Bodycare, we're all for offering comfort, be it on the field or off-field and it gives us immense pride to roar as the official sponsor of Punjab Kings, the spirit of Punjab."
This is Bodycare's first association with the Punjab outfit and the brand is looking to capitalise on the high female viewership that the tournament draws.
Dawar elaborates further, "Cricket is undoubtedly the most-watched sport in the country and provides the perfect platform to connect with millions of young and vibrant sports enthusiasts. As part of our brand marketing strategy, we are all set to bat on a new pitch with this tie-up alongside garnering maximum visibility and viewership for the brand."
Bodycare's special campaign on body positivity will also spread the right message to viewers with this association.
Punjab Kings CEO Satish Menon adds, "We are pleased to announce that Bodycare Creations will come on board as the team's official sponsor for IPL 2021. This partner confirms our belief in the rising viewership amongst women especially in the north of India. We are indebted to brands such as these that have taken the step to promote their products on platforms such as ours. Their support is our strength as we aim to excel on the field."
Bodycare Creations will be the official partner for the Punjab Kings team with branding rights and promotional activities throughout the IPL 2021-2022 cricketing season. The brand logo will appear on the team's leading trouser.
In a recent interview, Star Sports head Sanjog Gupta revealed that in 2020, female viewership of the IPL grew by 24 per cent.
Brands
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.
