Brands
Kansai Nerolac ties up with Gujarat Lions for IPL season 9
MUMBAI: Kansai Nerolac Paints (KNPL) has signed up with the Gujarat Lions franchise as associate sponsor for the ninth edition of the Indian Premier League which will begin on 9 April.
Gujarat Lions, captained by Suresh Raina, is one of the two debutant teams this IPL season, and has a mix of experienced and fiery young players such as Brendon McCullum, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Dale Steyn, Aaron Finch and India U-19 captain Ishan Kishan to name a few. Gujarat Lions will battle it out against seven other teams for the title of ‘Indian Premier League Champions 2016’.
Speaking on the association, Kansai Nerolac Paints decorative director Anuj Jain said, “It gives us great pleasure to announce our sponsorship with Gujarat Lions. Cricket is the most loved sport in India and Nerolac has sponsored ‘Gujarat Lions’ because we believe that the team embodies a passion to excel. The team members are committed to outdo their previous performances and this spirit is resonated in our range of high performance products as well.”
“We are happy to have Kansai Nerolac as our associate sponsor. The support of a loved brand such as Kansai Nerolac means a lot to a team that is new and eager-to-perform. The Gujarat Lions are happy to don the vibrant orange caps and helmets with the Nerolac logo as we share a common grit and determination to outperform the best in the business,” said Intex Technologies director and Gujarat Lions owner Keshav Bansal.
The association between Kansai Nerolac and Gujarat Lions follows some aggressive advertising by the brand during the recently concluded ICC World 20-20. Kansai Nerolac has also been maintaining a good media presence through on–air ad slots during the IPL over the years.
Kansai Nerolac has been promoting a range of healthy home paints. This association with Gujarat Lions reiterates the belief that a significant aspect of healthy living is linked with our living conditions & in having a healthy active lifestyle that keeps you fit. Participating in sports is a natural way of achieving good health.
Jain further added, “Kansai Nerolac has been advertising during cricket tournaments for quite some time now. This alliance with Gujarat Lions is a conscious move to become active advocates of the sport. We will also engage cricket fans through a series of interesting initiatives centred around our association off the field, while the Gujarat Lions team enthrals fans with their performance on ground.”
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan continues to be the face of the brand. “We will continue to reach out to fans through both cricket and Bollywood, the two biggest mass appeal platforms in India. Further our associations with both of these will be promoted across traditional media channels like TV, print and newer ones like social media as well,” concludes Jain.
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.
