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Merck & Better India support India’s true heroes
MUMBAI: Being forced to back out of school at the age of 7, he had a clear mission; no other child should be deprived the power of education. From begging on the streets of Kolkata to now being the man responsible for the free education of over 425 underprivileged children in West Bengal, the story of Gazi Jalaludin is what true heroes are made of.
Kick-starting its #HelpingTrueHeroes initiative, Neurobion Forte (a vitamin brand from Merck) and The Better India (a tech-media platform), have come together to recognize the undying spirit of Jalaludin and felicitate him as one of India’s `True Heroes.’
Merck India MD Anand Nambiar said, “This campaign aims to recognize the undying spirit of India’s lesser known heroes such as Jalaludin, who while fulfilling the dreams of their families, are also extending a helping hand to the society. I would urge everyone to support us in acknowledging and celebrating the efforts of Jalaludin and other real-life heroes and help spread the stories of their selfless work with the world. We thank The Better India team for partnering with Neurobion in recognising, supporting and helping India’s True Heroes.”
Jalaludin says, “This 40 year journey has not only been challenging, but also very rewarding. My unknown taxi passengers and generous donors have helped me bring alive my dream of a world where no Gazi has to stop going to school anymore. There’s still a long way to go. Even today I struggle to give mid-day meals to the children and salaries to the teachers. Recognition and endorsement from Merck’s Neurobion Forte & The Better India will help spread more awareness about this cause.”
Says Better India CEO Dhimant Parekh, “We are excited to partner with Merck to showcase the stories of True Heroes. Filming these stories has been a great experience and we are sure the audience will only be left inspired.”
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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.
