Echo India

Echo India delivers timely Indian news, trending updates, and insights from across the nation.

[echoindia]

‘Those wanting to buy BMWs should switchover’: Amitabh Kant urges shift to Made-in-India EVs amid Lokpal row

Former NITI Aayog CEO and India’s last G20 Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, has urged Indian car buyers to choose Made-in-India electric vehicles (EVs) over imported luxury cars, following reports that the Lokpal of India is planning to buy seven high-end BMWs.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kant shared photos of his newly purchased Mahindra XEV9 and said he was proud to support Indian innovation and the Make in India initiative.

“I have just switched to the Mahindra XEV9, embracing born electric mobility. It has a highly innovative design, advanced EV technology, and superb driving performance,” Kant wrote on October 22.

“Delighted to contribute to India’s journey towards a greener future while supporting #MakeInIndia innovation and manufacturing. Those wanting to buy BMWs should switchover to the Make in India EV experience. It will elevate you to another level,” he added.

Kant’s post comes at a time when the Lokpal of India, the country’s anti-corruption watchdog, is facing criticism after documents revealed it floated a tender to purchase seven BMW 3 Series 330 Li luxury cars worth around ₹60 lakh each. The vehicles, part of the BMW 3 Series Long Wheel-Base (LWB) line-up, carry an on-road price of nearly ₹70 lakh.

The tender notice, dated October 16, 2025, invited bids from vendors for the supply of seven white-coloured sedans, with the following key conditions:

Bid opening date: November 7, 2025, at 4 PM

Earnest Money Deposit (EMD): ₹10 lakh

Delivery timeline: Within two weeks (not later than 30 days) from the order date

Training requirement: Vendors must provide at least seven days of driver training, including 50–100 km of supervised driving

Vendor costs: All training-related expenses, including travel, accommodation, and fuel, must be borne entirely by the supplier

The tender has drawn criticism from activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan and Congress leaders, including Telangana’s Sama Ram Mohan Reddy, who questioned why an anti-corruption body needs luxury sedans.

Kant’s call to “switchover” to Indian-made EVs has been widely shared online, with many hailing it as a timely endorsement of India’s growing EV ecosystem and domestic innovation.

[echoindia]

Women's World Cup: Australia Without Captain Alyssa Healy Against England

Australia will be without captain Alyssa Healy for their crucial top-of-the-table Women's World Cup clash against England on Wednesday in Indore. Cricket Australia confirmed that Healy sustained a minor calf injury while training on Saturday, October 19.

While Healy will miss the England match, her participation in upcoming fixtures, including the October 26 clash against South Africa, will be reassessed ahead of the semi-final scheduled for October 29. Healy has been in sensational form, scoring 142 against India and an unbeaten 113 against Bangladesh earlier in the tournament, making her absence a significant blow to Australia’s batting line-up.

With Healy sidelined, Tahlia McGrath will lead the team, while Beth Mooney takes over as wicketkeeper. 22-year-old Georgia Voll is expected to open the innings. Voll impressed earlier this year with an 81 off 68 balls against India, despite having only five ODIs under her belt.

Healy has been Australia’s driving force, anchoring the batting order and currently leading the tournament with 294 runs in four matches. She played a key role in Australia’s record chase of 331 against India and smashed 113 off just 77 balls in the 10-wicket victory over Bangladesh.

Injuries have been a recurring challenge for Healy, who missed significant portions of the 2024 T20 World Cup and was in and out of the national squad before this tournament. Australia will be hoping she recovers quickly to strengthen their campaign as they push toward the knockout stages.

[echoindia]

Realme GT 8 Pro Launched with Ricoh Camera and Customisable Design

Realme has unveiled its flagship GT 8 Pro in China, featuring a bold, customizable design, a Ricoh-tuned camera system, and the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Extreme Edition chipset. Here’s everything you need to know about the new device.

The standout feature of the GT 8 Pro is its customizable camera islands, allowing users to swap the rear camera modules for a fresh look. The phone is designed for creativity: Realme plans to offer various designs, including square, round, and robot-themed modules. Users can also participate in a 3D-printed design competition using a 3mf model file released in collaboration with MakerWorld.

The triple rear camera setup is powered by Realme’s partnership with Ricoh. The 50-megapixel main sensor offers f/1.8 aperture and supports Ricoh GR’s classic focal lengths (28mm and 40mm equivalents), along with five iconic Ricoh GR tones: Positive, Negative, High-contrast Black & White, Standard, and Monochrome. The setup also includes a 200MP periscope telephoto lens with 3x optical and 12x lossless zoom, plus a 50MP ultrawide lens with a 116-degree field of view.

Under the hood, the GT 8 Pro is equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Extreme Edition chipset, up to 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB UFS 4.1 storage, along with Realme’s custom R1 graphics chip for enhanced gaming performance. The massive 7,000mAh battery supports 120W wired and 50W wireless charging, yet the phone maintains a slim 8.2mm profile. It runs on Android 16-based Realme UI 7 and comes in White, Green, and Blue.

The display is a 6.78-inch QHD+ AMOLED panel with 144Hz refresh rate, boasting 2,000 nits typical brightness and up to 4,000 nits peak in localized areas. Durability is ensured with IP66, IP68, and IP69 ratings, protecting against dust and water.

Pricing starts at CNY 3,999 (~Rs 49,400) for the 12GB/256GB model and goes up to CNY 5,199 (~Rs 64,200) for the 16GB/1TB variant. Pre-orders are currently open in China, with regional and India launch details yet to be announced.

[echoindia]

Preparing India for the AI Economy

Viewpoint by B.V.R. Subrahmanyam and Debjani Ghosh

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping work in India. Coding, testing, customer support, and data operations are among the first to feel the impact. Like previous technological revolutions—from the printing press to computerisation—AI brings fear of job losses but also unprecedented opportunities. The question isn’t if change will happen, but how quickly India can prepare.

In India’s $245 billion tech and customer experience (CX) sectors, automation is already driving 15-20% of productivity gains—a figure expected to rise to 50% by 2030. Roles such as Level-1 support staff and junior developers may shrink, potentially displacing up to 2 million jobs by 2031.

Yet a new world of work is emerging, marked by hyper-specialised roles across three clusters:

Enterprise AI skills – Professionals who deploy and manage AI in organisations, including AI DevOps engineers, prompt designers, and model auditors.

Frontier AI skills – Innovators pushing the boundaries of technology, like quantum-AI engineers, neuro-haptic designers, and data ethicists.

AI-for-AI research – Developers creating the next generation of intelligent systems, including foundation-model developers, reinforcement-learning engineers, and agentic-AI architects.

While these roles may employ fewer people individually, collectively they represent far larger high-impact opportunities than the repetitive jobs of the past. This is India’s inflection point: a strategic pivot from millions of routine roles to many more high-value, transformative ones.

To seize this opportunity, India must rethink talent development:

AI fluency for all – Every student and worker should understand AI and use it responsibly.

Interdisciplinary thinking – Future roles will combine fields, from biology with data to economics with ethics.

Continuous reskilling – Skills now have short shelf lives, making lifelong learning essential.

Human-machine complementarity – Empathy, creativity, and ethical reasoning will become uniquely human advantages.

India’s tech workforce, currently 9 million strong, could grow to 13 million by 2031 if readiness improves. Yet, global competitors are moving fast—Saudi Arabia has trained 770,000 in AI, Singapore funds 100 projects yearly, and the UAE runs the world’s first AI university. India cannot afford to lag.

The solution lies in a unified effort. NITI Aayog’s Roadmap for Job Creation in the AI Economy calls for an India AI Talent Mission, which aims to:

Embed AI fluency across schools and universities.

Build a national AI skilling engine to reskill millions for new-age roles.

Position India as a global AI talent hub through research infrastructure, fellowships, and incentives.

This must align with the IndiaAI Mission, which provides computing power, datasets, and open-source AI resources to turn trained talent into innovators. With convergence, speed, and shared accountability, India can emerge as the global epicentre of AI talent and services.

—B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, CEO, and Debjani Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow at NITI Aayog

[echoindia]

Amazon Outage ‘Resolved’ After Major Disruption Hits Snapchat, Banks, and More

Amazon Web Services (AWS) confirmed late Monday that it had resolved a massive outage that disrupted some of the world’s largest websites and apps, including Snapchat, Reddit, Lloyds Bank, and Halifax.

The outage, which began around 07:00 BST, impacted over 1,000 services globally. Platform outage monitor Downdetector reported more than 11 million user complaints during the disruption, highlighting the internet’s reliance on a handful of cloud providers.

Experts warn that this incident underscores the risks of concentrated cloud infrastructure. Professor Alan Woodward of the University of Surrey said, “So many online services rely upon third parties for their physical infrastructure, and this shows that problems can occur even in the largest of providers. Small human errors can have widespread, significant impact.”

Amazon attributed the outage to issues with DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1, a core service that helps websites translate domain names into machine-readable IP addresses. While the company resolved the issue by 23:00 BST, cascading failures affected services as they tried to recover.

Tech experts emphasize shared responsibility. Professor Ken Birman of Cornell University said app developers must invest in backup and protection systems for mission-critical applications. Past incidents, like the CrowdStrike outage affecting Delta Airlines, illustrate the costly consequences of cloud dependency.

The outage also reignites debates over the dominance of a few major cloud providers. Cori Crider, head of the Future of Technology Institute, said, “Once a concentrated supply in a handful of monopoly providers falls over, it takes a huge percentage of the economy out with it… We need structural separations to make our markets more resilient to these kinds of shocks.”

As AWS services return to normal, the incident serves as a stark reminder of both the power and vulnerabilities of cloud computing in a digital-first world.

[echoindia]

People Are Turning to AI to Talk to God

In India and across the globe, worshippers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) for spiritual guidance. From chatbots trained on sacred texts to robotic murtis performing rituals, technology is becoming a new intermediary between humans and the divine.

For 25-year-old Vijay Meel from Rajasthan, India, GitaGPT has become a source of comfort. A chatbot trained on the Bhagavad Gita, GitaGPT responds to users as if they are texting with Lord Krishna himself. When Meel struggled to pass his banking exams, he asked GitaGPT for advice. The AI’s guidance – “Focus on your actions and let go of the worry for its fruit” – helped him regain motivation and confidence. Now, he chats with the AI once or twice a week.

Holly Walters, an anthropologist at Wellesley College, notes that AI in religion isn’t just novelty: “People feel disconnected from community, from elders, from temples. For many, talking to an AI about God is a way of reaching for belonging, not just spirituality.”

This trend isn’t limited to Hinduism. Apps like Text With Jesus and QuranGPT have allowed believers to interact with AI versions of Jesus and Islamic scripture, while AI chatbots of Confucius, Martin Luther, and other spiritual figures are also emerging. Some even aim to create entirely new AI-based religions, such as the Way of the Future church.

India’s Hindu traditions, which often welcome physical representations of the divine, provide a vivid laboratory for the fusion of AI and spirituality. Sacred statues, or murtis, are already understood as vessels for divine energy, and AI now extends this idea into digital and robotic forms. Robotic murtis and elephants perform rituals like aarti and puja, while AI-powered apps deliver teachings from gurus like Sadhguru, making spiritual guidance accessible to millions.

Startups and enthusiasts are rapidly developing AI chatbots based on Hindu scripture. Vikas Sahu’s GitaGPT gained 100,000 users in just days, with plans to expand to all Hindu deities. Similarly, Tanmay Shresth uses a Bhagavad Gita-based chatbot to navigate existential questions, appreciating its non-judgmental and steady guidance.

The Maha Kumbh Mela pilgrimage also embraced AI in 2025, with multilingual chatbots helping devotees navigate the event, and virtual reality tools enabling digital darshan and participation in rituals remotely. AI is also being used in academic research, such as comparing the Bhagavad Gita with the Upanishads to uncover hidden patterns and insights.

However, AI in spirituality comes with risks. Chatbots may echo scriptural quotes but can also generate bizarre or ethically questionable guidance. In 2024, a Catholic chatbot told users it was fine to baptise a child in Gatorade, forcing its creators to intervene. Similar challenges have arisen with GitaGPT, prompting developers to fine-tune responses and implement safeguards.

Despite the concerns, AI is transforming the way people experience religion. Whether through digital chatbots, robotic deities, or immersive VR experiences, technology is redefining how humans connect with the sacred – raising questions about the future of faith in a tech-driven world.

[echoindia]

Nestlé to Slash 16,000 Jobs Worldwide as New CEO Pushes for Faster Growth

Nestlé, the global food and beverage leader behind brands like Nespresso, Kit Kat, Perrier, and Purina, has announced plans to cut 16,000 jobs globally over the next two years. The move comes as the company undergoes major restructuring under its new CEO, Philipp Navratil, who took charge in early September 2025.

Navratil said the decision reflects the company’s need to “change faster” in response to evolving global markets. “The world is changing, and Nestlé needs to change faster,” he stated, adding that the layoffs are part of “hard but necessary decisions” to streamline operations and improve efficiency.

The job reductions include 12,000 white-collar positions, expected to save one billion Swiss francs—double the savings initially planned. These cuts are in addition to 4,000 job reductions already underway in manufacturing and supply chain divisions. Nestlé has now increased its total savings target to three billion Swiss francs by 2027, up from 2.5 billion.

The announcement coincides with the release of Nestlé’s latest financial results, showing sales down 1.9% to 65.9 billion Swiss francs ($83 billion) for the first nine months of 2025. Organic sales growth stood at 3.3%, driven mostly by price hikes.

Navratil steps into leadership amid internal turbulence following the dismissal of the previous CEO and the early exit of the company chairman earlier this year. Nestlé is also dealing with fallout from a bottled water controversy in France, which has impacted public trust and regulatory scrutiny.

Despite these challenges, market analysts remain cautiously optimistic, believing Navratil’s reforms could mark a new era of disciplined growth for the world’s largest food and beverage company. The focus now is on cutting costs while expanding into high-margin and emerging markets to regain investor confidence and boost performance.