Brands
Sunrise spices up Bengal’s Pujo with festive stories
MUMBAI: When it comes to Durga Puja, Bengal knows how to bring the drama, devotion and dazzle, and ITC’s Sunrise Spices is adding its own flavour to the festivities. The brand has launched Sunrise Pujor Satkahon, a pan-state initiative in collaboration with over a thousand Puja committees, to celebrate not just the grandeur of Kolkata but the pulse of every para across West Bengal.
The campaign is designed to capture the soul of Pujo, blending tradition, community spirit and cultural pride into a vibrant tapestry of stories. Committees across districts are invited to submit write-ups detailing their Pujo themes, community involvement and the cultural significance of their celebrations. These stories will be judged in a three-phase process: storytelling and community votes will shortlist the top 250 entries, a pandal showcase and jury scoring will decide the top 50, and on-ground audits will identify the top five winners on Navami. The festivities will culminate in a celebrity-led Sindoor khela on Dashami, marking a colourful grand finale.
Beyond the contest, the top 250 entries will feature in a special coffee table book, immortalising the stories, rituals and artistry of pujos across the state. Sunrise Pujor Satkahon aims to preserve and highlight the diversity of Bengal’s festive heartbeat, celebrating everything from iconic urban pandals to lesser-known rural gems.
“Durga Puja is not just a festival; it is the soul of Bengal,” said Sunrise Spices business head Piyush Mishra. “Through Sunrise Pujor Satkahon, we are thrilled to honour the rich traditions of every para, celebrating the unity, creativity and cultural pride that make Bengal’s Pujo truly unique.”
With this initiative, Sunrise Spices is ensuring that every Pujo, big or small, finds its moment in the spotlight, creating a collective archive that captures the joy, devotion and artistry of one of India’s most beloved festivals. Every para, every story, every heart is invited to be part of the celebration.
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.
