MAM
Siyaram’s announces ‘Textile Mahakumbh’ to discuss future of retail business
MUMBAI: Siyaram’s, one of the leading textile brands in men’s fashion for over four decades, today announced the launch of its initiative ‘Textile Mahakumbh’ (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeBWrrLa-Dc8IK3ikw8im0h9y2swuQmVQZT6P2l4XvyK9CNag/viewform?usp=sf_link), a unique concept that aims to bring together over 25,000+ retailers from across the country on a single platform. Textile Mahakumbh is scheduled to be hosted on Saturday, 23 May 2020 and will be live-streamed on YouTube. The event will bring together successful retailers from the textile industry to discuss the best practices to do the business and will focus on the shaping the future of retail business in the country through sharing their experiences and tips.
“We are proud to announce the Textile Mahakumbh for the first time in India which will provide a much needed opportunity for retailers to conduct their business seamlessly. Considering the current scenario and the immense challenges faced by the textile industry due to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, the whole chain from manufacturer to the retailers across India have suffered huge losses with activities coming to a standstill. There is a serious need for the entire retail community to share a common platform to plan the way forward and overcome the ongoing situation,” Siyaram Silk Mills Ltd president and ED Gaurav Poddar.
Retailers in India started feeling the heat immediately after the announcement of nation-wide lockdown in India and are still coping with a complete pause in their business. Textile Mahakumbh will create a platform where experienced retailers will share their knowledge to increase sales, profits, manage inventory and also help them make optimal use of digitalization. “We have always been committed to serve the retail community with an active voice of the problems faced by the sector. With Textile Mahakumbh, we hope to empower the retailers and motivate them to rise above the occasion with élan”, adds Poddar.
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.
