Brands
Castrol India rolls out mobile classrooms for truckers in Uttar Pradesh
MUMBAI: Castrol India has launched mobile classrooms for truck drivers in Uttar Pradesh, taking training on wheels to highways and halt points under its Sarathi Mitra initiative.
Branded ‘highways as classroom’, the programme deploys a specially designed truck that will travel to 46 locations in the state in its first phase, offering bite-sized lessons in road safety, health, financial planning and digital literacy.
The move targets a workforce critical to India’s supply chain but often exposed to accidents, poor health outcomes and limited access to formal education. By meeting drivers where they work, Castrol aims to nudge safer driving habits, improve wellbeing and strengthen household finances.
The company is also extending the programme online through Digital Sarathi Mitra, a platform providing round-the-clock access to learning modules and practical information.
“Truck drivers are the backbone of our logistics ecosystem,” said Castrol India managing director Kedar Lele. “These initiatives are about helping them drive safe and live safe, while making learning inclusive and sustainable.”
Launched in 2017, Sarathi Mitra has trained more than 2.5 lakh truckers nationwide. Castrol said the expansion underlines its push beyond lubricants, investing in human capital to support safer roads and more resilient families.
Brands
Godrej clarifies ‘GI’ identifier after logo similarity debate
Says GI is not a logo, will not replace Godrej signature across products.
MUMBAI: In a branding storm where shapes did the talking, Godrej is now spelling things out. Godrej Industries Group (GIG) has issued a clarification on its newly introduced ‘GI’ identifier, addressing questions around its purpose and design following a wave of online criticism. At the centre of the debate were two concerns: whether the new mark replaces the long-standing Godrej logo, and whether its geometric design mirrors other corporate identities.
The company has drawn a clear line. The Godrej signature logo, it said, remains unchanged and continues to be the sole logo across all consumer-facing products and services. The ‘GI’ mark, by contrast, is not a logo but a corporate group identifier intended for use alongside the Godrej signature or company name, and aimed at stakeholders such as investors, media and talent rather than consumers.
The need for such a distinction stems from the 2024 restructuring of the broader Godrej Group into two separate business entities. With both continuing to operate under the same Godrej name and signature, the identifier is positioned as a way to differentiate the Godrej Industries Group at a corporate level.
The rollout, however, triggered a broader conversation on design originality. Critics pointed to similarities between the GI mark’s geometric composition and logos used by companies globally, raising questions about distinctiveness.
Responding to this, GIG said its intellectual property and legal review found that such overlaps are common in minimalist, geometry-led design systems. Basic forms such as circles and rectangles appear across dozens of brand identities worldwide, the company noted.
It added that the identifier emerged from an extensive design process and was chosen for its simplicity, allowing it to sit alongside the Godrej signature without competing visually. While acknowledging that elemental shapes may appear less distinctive in isolation, the group emphasised that the mark is part of a broader identity system that includes a custom typeface, sonic branding and other proprietary elements.
Following legal and ethical assessments, the company said it found no impediment to using the identifier, reiterating that the GI mark is a corporate tool not a consumer-facing symbol.
In short, the logo isn’t changing but the conversation around it certainly has.
