Brands
Fanta adds ‘Juicy+’ to its portfolio; chooses Sara Ali Khan as the new brand ambassador
MUMBAI: Adding an element of fun to the humdrum of life, Coca-Cola India has introduced Fanta Juicy+, a new variant of its orange flavoured sparkling beverage. The new beverage contains real orange juice that will tingle taste buds with the Fanta fizz that consumers have loved for years. Bubbly and energetic actor Sara Ali Khan has been chosen as the brand ambassador to deepen it’s connect with the millennials.
Commenting on the launch of the new beverage, Shrenik Dasani, Vice President – Sparkling Category, Coca-Cola India said,“Fanta has always been known for its fruity taste, tingling bubbles and its ability to create moments of pure fun. With this new launch, we are adding the taste of real orange juice into the mix, for an even more fruity, even more fun experience for our consumers. But we are not stopping there! We are truly delighted to welcome Sara Ali Khan to the Fanta family. Her vivacious, wholesome and fun persona are sure to make Fanta moments fruitier and more awesome than ever before”.
Speaking on her association with the brand, Sara Ali Khan, said, “I am so excited to be associated with Fanta! I feel that Fanta resembles my spirit the most because it has this orang-y, juic-y, fun kind of vibe to it, and I believe that I have a similar vibe to myself! It’s about being fun, and I feel that Fanta and I are both fun!”
As an ambassador of Fanta, Sara will be associated with a range of consumer activations, digital and social media engagements and marketing programs for the brand.
Fanta Juicy+ contains orange juice sourced from local fruit farmers in India. With launch of this new variant, Coca-Cola India is broadening its portfolio by introducing sparkling beverages blended with fruit juice. As part of its ‘Fruit Circular Economy' initiative, the company is developing the juice category, adding fruit juice to the sparkling products and introducing newer products in the beverage space.
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.
