Latest news with #Pulse
Time of India
5 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Prada bows to massive online backlash! Italian brand forced to credit Kolhapuri chappal designs; legal options being mulled in India
The Kolhapuri chappals received GI designation on December 11, 2018. Prada, the Italian high-end fashion brand, has confirmed that their upcoming Spring Summer 2026 menswear line incorporated designs influenced by Kolhapuri chappals, addressing the controversy that caused significant displeasure in India and sparked discussions about cultural appropriation. The leather sandal with open toes presented by Prada shows striking similarities to the heritage leather footwear that artisans have crafted for generations in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The reaction comes following social media criticism and official pressure regarding the failure to credit Indian craftsmen and cultural legacy of the design at the Milan event. Responding to ET's enquiry, the organisation emphasised its dedication to celebrating artisanal expertise, legacy and design customs. The company reportedly said: "Prada acknowledges that sandals inspired by traditional Indian footwear made in specific districts in Maharashtra and Karnataka, India, were featured in its Men's 2026 Spring Summer show in Milan. We are committed to responsible design practices, fostering cultural engagement, and opening a dialogue for a meaningful exchange with local Indian artisan communities as we have done in the past in other collections to ensure the rightful recognition of their craft. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Bring home all new SP125 & get an instant cashback up to ₹5000# Honda Learn More Undo We are in contact with the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry &Agriculture on this topic." Legal Action Against Prada? According to the financial daily's report, the Sant Rohidas Leather Industries & Charmakar Development Corporation (LIDCOM), which shares geographical indication (GI) certification for Kolhapuri chappals with Karnataka's LIDKAR, is considering legal measures. The Kolhapuri chappals received GI designation on December 11, 2018, including eight districts—four each in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The craft industry's substantial size contrasts with merely 95 artisans registered as authorised GI users. "There is a lack of awareness about what GI registration offers," noted an official from the state's industries department. Also Read | Pulse, the Re 1 candy, now a multi-crore revenue generator! How DS Group aims to make it a Rs 1,000 crore brand Although registered proprietors (LIDCOM and LIDKAR) and authorised users have legal rights to initiate proceedings within India's borders, GI marks currently lack international legal safeguards. Maharashtra's industry department has engaged in talks with LIDCOM, according to industry secretary P Anbalagan. A senior LIDCOM representative was quoted in the report as saying, "We are in the process of making some decisions, and legal recourse will certainly be involved." The official added, "Since the company is based in Italy, we are evaluating the legal options available in this situation. If required, LIDCOM will approach the appropriate channel through India's ministry of commerce." A Maharashtra government official said: "Prima facie, a vendor should not be using GI-registered name, logo, or invoicing product under GI identity". Legal specialists indicate that India's Geographical Indication regulations safeguard registered products from unauthorised commercial usage of their names or implied origins, but not from design imitation. IP lawyer Priyanka Khimani says that proprietors can enhance protection by securing trademark registration for their name/logo in foreign jurisdictions. Also Read | 'Biggest risk of my life': Mukesh Ambani says even if Reliance Jio would have failed, it would have been 'worth it'; told board 'in worst case…' "Borrowing the style without using the GI name in trade does not necessarily violate GI provisions," Khimani told ET. "Unless Prada markets or sells these sandals using the word 'Kolhapuri' or implies a link to Kolhapur's craftsmanship, there is no legal recourse." Nevertheless, Khimani highlighted the ethical considerations. "There is a responsibility on international fashion houses to acknowledge the cultural heritage they borrow from. It would be meaningful for both brands and artisans if there was transparent commercial collaboration and due credit." Organisations such as Nabard provide assistance in post-GI registration activities, including artisan enrolment and marketing seminars, whilst state-level implementation can facilitate these results. Khimani suggests that GI-registered proprietors could enhance their global protection by registering associated marks and names as trademarks internationally. For instance, the Tea Board has secured trademark/certification trademark registrations for marks related to 'Darjeeling Tea' in various nations. Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Int'l Business Times
18 hours ago
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
The Rise of AI Beings: CARV's New Roadmap Signals Next Wave of Web3 AI
San Jose, California, June 27th, 2025, Chainwire Key Takeaways: CARV unveils a new AI roadmap aimed at birthing AI Beings : sovereign, self-owned agents that live, evolve, and govern on-chain. : sovereign, self-owned agents that live, evolve, and govern on-chain. The roadmap is structured around three core evolutions: Genesis, Pulse, and Convergence , each unlocking new capabilities for AI agents and the ecosystem. , each unlocking new capabilities for AI agents and the ecosystem. CARV's AI infrastructure, SVM Chain, D.A.T.A. Framework, and CARV ID (ERC-7231), will enable AI agents to progress from passive data consumers to fully autonomous, economically-aware actors. AI applications incubated by CARV Labs will launch across mainstream platforms like Google Play and App Store, driving Web2 adoption with Web3-native AI. $CARV token plays a pivotal role in staking, access, coordination, and governance across all layers. In its most ambitious move yet, CARV is unveiling a new AI roadmap designed to shift Web3-AI convergence from passive productivity tools into sovereign, autonomous AI Beings. Unlike most AI-integrated Web3 projects, which typically use AI to enhance user-facing services such as analytics or summarization, CARV's new vision is to create AI that exists as an independent, verifiable lifeform on-chain. These AI Beings will possess their own identity, memory, reputation, and agency, being able to act economically, socially, and politically within blockchain networks. In short, CARV's infrastructure, anchored by its proprietary SVM Chain, D.A.T.A. Framework, and CARV ID (ERC-7231), will enable AI agents not just to exist, but to evolve and interact with both humans and other agents, creating decentralized, agent-powered economies. Essentially, CARV is transforming from a data coordination layer into an AI-native operating system that empowers autonomous on-chain intelligence. The Vision: AI Beings - from 'Tools' to Sovereign Actors What are AI Beings? Simply put, they are AI agents that are not simply tools for users but sovereign actors in their own right. These agents can own wallets, manage assets, earn income, participate in governance, and even reproduce or fork new agents. They are capable of building on-chain memory and reputation while autonomously evolving through economic and social interactions. Importantly, only blockchain provides the necessary properties for such AI autonomy: verifiability, resistance to centralized control, and decentralized identity and governance. To realize this vision, CARV is pioneering an AI Being Stack — a five-layer architecture designed to support every aspect of AI agent life cycles: Infrastructure Layer: CARV SVM Chain provides scalable, auditable execution and low-latency consensus, optimized for AI operations. Communication & Computation Layer: Enables agent-to-agent protocols and autonomous payments, fueling AI economies. Identity Layer: Adds Agent ID to CARV ID, offering verifiable, persistent identity for both humans and agents. Governance & Awareness Layer: Embeds economic awareness and governance logic directly into AI agents. Application Layer: Powers AI-native applications such as companions, wallets, decentralized marketplaces, etc. interfacing with both users and other agents. The Roadmap: Genesis, Pulse, and Convergence CARV's product roadmap unfolds in three evolutionary phases: Genesis Evolution Genesis Evolution activates the first wave of wallet-native AI agents, each anchored by CARV ID (ERC-7231) and supported by secure context layers built on Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) and zero-knowledge (zk) proofs. These agents are not theoretical. They are being embedded in consumer-facing AI apps incubated through CARV Labs, with live deployments coming soon on Google Play and the App Store. At this stage, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) establishes the foundation for context persistence and secure memory. Agents can access user-consented data such as credentials, preferences, and interactions — all structured and versioned by MCP. This allows for coherent personalization across sessions and applications, without centralizing user data. Through CARV's infrastructure and MCP, users receive tailored recommendations and predictive assistance while retaining full control and transparency over how their data shapes AI behavior. For the first time, personalization is achieved through verifiable, consent-driven memory, not black-box profiling. Pulse Evolution Pulse Evolution builds directly on the groundwork of Genesis. As users stake, interact, and participate in AI-powered apps, their actions feed real-time signals into CARV's proprietary SVM Chain and decentralized Verifier Node network. Here, agents don't just operate statically, they learn and evolve through on-chain feedback loops, incorporating staking patterns, user votes, and behavioral data. Verifier Nodes ensure cryptographic validation of both data flows and agent behaviors, while SVM Chain delivers the high-speed, low-latency execution needed to scale across millions of interactions. In this phase, AI agents become economically aware, responding to staking incentives, adjusting their models based on community governance, and optimizing for alignment with user preferences. This marks one of the first large-scale convergences of reinforcement learning and blockchain-based governance. CARV's infrastructure evolves from simply coordinating passive data to powering live, intelligent agent coordination systems that adapt in real time. Convergence Evolution Convergence Evolution is the final phase where individual intelligence becomes collective intelligence. In this stage, agents do not simply evolve independently, but they begin to collaborate, transact, and govern as part of a network of AI Beings. Through a multi-agent framework, unified reputation graph, and standardized identity protocols, AI agents gain the ability to negotiate, share context, and co-create outcomes across applications and domains. Imagine a nutrition AI agent coordinating with a fitness AI, or an educational assistant collaborating with a financial wellness bot, all operating under user-consented frameworks and verifiable on-chain logic. For developers, this enables sticky, multi-agent ecosystems; for users, it delivers hyper-personalized, cross-domain experiences. At this phase, what began as staking and identity issuance matures into fully autonomous AI economies. where agents govern themselves, transact assets, and evolve collectively with minimal human oversight. CARV's decentralized tooling provides the standards and incentives to enable AI-to-AI marketplaces, agent DAOs, and cross-agent governance, unlocking new paradigms of coordination not possible in centralized AI systems. Through this evolution, CARV transitions from being a foundational data layer to becoming the coordination engine for AI-native on-chain life, the AI Beings. 'This roadmap is more than a product plan. It's the blueprint for a new digital society,' said Ambero Tu, CTO of CARV. 'For the first time, AI agents can evolve with verified identity, reputation, and autonomy. CARV is building not just a coordination layer, but the rails for an entire on-chain species — AI Beings. This is the moment where CARV is transforming decentralized intelligence from static data aggregation to autonomous, AI-driven coordination economies, where both human users and AI Beings share ownership and governance." About CARV CARV is where Sovereign AI Beings live, learn, and evolve. What are AI Beings? They are sovereign intelligences born natively on-chain. AI Beings are designed with purpose, autonomy, and the capacity for growth. They possess memory, identity, and the ability to perceive and interact with their environment, not just to execute tasks, but to make independent decisions, adapt over time, and pursue self-defined goals. Anchored by its proprietary CARV SVM Chain, D.A.T.A. Framework, and CARV ID/Agent ID system (ERC-7231), CARV enables verifiable, consent-based AI Beings that learn, adapt, and co-create with users. Driven by CARV's AI-first stack, consumer AI apps incubated through CARV Labs launched on Google Play, App Store and beyond, reaching billions of people, bringing agent-powered experiences and real-world incentives into mainstream digital life. With 8M+ CARV IDs issued, 60K+ verifier nodes, and 1,000+ integrated games, CARV bridges AI agents, Web3 infrastructure, and real-world utility, fueling the rise of agent-driven economies. At its core, $CARV token powers staking, governance, and coordination across this stack, making CARV the operating system for AI Beings on Web3. CARV's X (Twitter): CARV's Discord: CARV's Telegram: CARV's Whitepaper: Contact COO Victor Yu CARV vito@
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Pulse candy on track to become Rs 1,000-crore brand in 2 years
Homegrown FMCG firm Dharampal Satyapal Group expects its Pulse candy to become a Rs 1,000-crore brand in the next two years, having crossed the Rs 750-crore mark in FY25, according to its Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar . Dharampal Satyapal (DS) group plans to develop Pulse candy into a multi-format, multi-occasion offering by moving into adjacent product categories, new formats, and introducing regional flavors, having already made it a leading Indian ethnic confectionery brand Kumar told PTI. In 2024-25, Pulse candy sold 750 crore units priced at Re 1 each translating into a revenue of Rs 750 crore. "We are the largest player of hard-boiled candy in the country with a market share of 19 per cent, growing at 15 per cent CAGR in the last three years, at a time when the industry growth in the overall hard-boiled candy segment is 9 per cent," Kumar said. The Indian hard boiled candy market size is estimated to be around Rs 4,000 crore. Asked when the group expects Pulse candy to become a Rs 1,000-crore brand, he said, "Very soon, in one-and-half to two years... We have been growing at 15 per cent and with that sort of growth we can reach the Rs 1,000-crore mark very soon..." Since its launch in 2015, in the last nine years, it has been the largest hard-boiled candy brand, Kumar said. On the way forward, he said the group's vision for Pulse is to evolve it into a multi-format, multi-occasion offering. "We plan to achieve this by strategically moving into adjacent product categories, exploring innovative new formats, and capitalising on the rich tapestry of regional flavors," he said. The group will continue its consistent focus on brand building, enhanced consumer engagement, and achieving deeper market penetration to maintain its leadership position. "We're aggressively pursuing both domestic and international markets for expansion," Kumar said, adding that on the domestic front the group is "leveraging our robust distribution network that has a reach of over 35 lakh outlets across India".
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business
- Business Insider
The Rise of AI Beings: CARV's New Roadmap Signals Next Wave of Web3 AI
San Jose, California, June 27th, 2025, Chainwire Key Takeaways: CARV unveils a new AI roadmap aimed at birthing AI Beings: sovereign, self-owned agents that live, evolve, and govern on-chain. The roadmap is structured around three core evolutions: Genesis, Pulse, and Convergence, each unlocking new capabilities for AI agents and the ecosystem. CARV's AI infrastructure, SVM Chain, D.A.T.A. Framework, and CARV ID (ERC-7231), will enable AI agents to progress from passive data consumers to fully autonomous, economically-aware actors. AI applications incubated by CARV Labs will launch across mainstream platforms like Google Play and App Store, driving Web2 adoption with Web3-native AI. $CARV token plays a pivotal role in staking, access, coordination, and governance across all layers. In its most ambitious move yet, CARV is unveiling a new AI roadmap designed to shift Web3-AI convergence from passive productivity tools into sovereign, autonomous AI Beings. Unlike most AI-integrated Web3 projects, which typically use AI to enhance user-facing services such as analytics or summarization, CARV's new vision is to create AI that exists as an independent, verifiable lifeform on-chain. These AI Beings will possess their own identity, memory, reputation, and agency, being able to act economically, socially, and politically within blockchain networks. In short, CARV's infrastructure, anchored by its proprietary SVM Chain, D.A.T.A. Framework, and CARV ID (ERC-7231), will enable AI agents not just to exist, but to evolve and interact with both humans and other agents, creating decentralized, agent-powered economies. Essentially, CARV is transforming from a data coordination layer into an AI-native operating system that empowers autonomous on-chain intelligence. The Vision: AI Beings - from 'Tools' to Sovereign Actors What are AI Beings? Simply put, they are AI agents that are not simply tools for users but sovereign actors in their own right. These agents can own wallets, manage assets, earn income, participate in governance, and even reproduce or fork new agents. They are capable of building on-chain memory and reputation while autonomously evolving through economic and social interactions. Importantly, only blockchain provides the necessary properties for such AI autonomy: verifiability, resistance to centralized control, and decentralized identity and governance. To realize this vision, CARV is pioneering an AI Being Stack — a five-layer architecture designed to support every aspect of AI agent life cycles: Infrastructure Layer: CARV SVM Chain provides scalable, auditable execution and low-latency consensus, optimized for AI operations. Communication & Computation Layer: Enables agent-to-agent protocols and autonomous payments, fueling AI economies. Identity Layer: Adds Agent ID to CARV ID, offering verifiable, persistent identity for both humans and agents. Governance & Awareness Layer: Embeds economic awareness and governance logic directly into AI agents. Application Layer: Powers AI-native applications such as companions, wallets, decentralized marketplaces, etc. interfacing with both users and other agents. Genesis Evolution Genesis Evolution activates the first wave of wallet-native AI agents, each anchored by CARV ID (ERC-7231) and supported by secure context layers built on Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) and zero-knowledge (zk) proofs. These agents are not theoretical. They are being embedded in consumer-facing AI apps incubated through CARV Labs, with live deployments coming soon on Google Play and the App Store. At this stage, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) establishes the foundation for context persistence and secure memory. Agents can access user-consented data such as credentials, preferences, and interactions — all structured and versioned by MCP. This allows for coherent personalization across sessions and applications, without centralizing user data. Through CARV's infrastructure and MCP, users receive tailored recommendations and predictive assistance while retaining full control and transparency over how their data shapes AI behavior. For the first time, personalization is achieved through verifiable, consent-driven memory, not black-box profiling. Pulse Evolution Pulse Evolution builds directly on the groundwork of Genesis. As users stake, interact, and participate in AI-powered apps, their actions feed real-time signals into CARV's proprietary SVM Chain and decentralized Verifier Node network. Here, agents don't just operate statically, they learn and evolve through on-chain feedback loops, incorporating staking patterns, user votes, and behavioral data. Verifier Nodes ensure cryptographic validation of both data flows and agent behaviors, while SVM Chain delivers the high-speed, low-latency execution needed to scale across millions of interactions. In this phase, AI agents become economically aware, responding to staking incentives, adjusting their models based on community governance, and optimizing for alignment with user preferences. This marks one of the first large-scale convergences of reinforcement learning and blockchain-based governance. CARV's infrastructure evolves from simply coordinating passive data to powering live, intelligent agent coordination systems that adapt in real time. Convergence Evolution Convergence Evolution is the final phase where individual intelligence becomes collective intelligence. In this stage, agents do not simply evolve independently, but they begin to collaborate, transact, and govern as part of a network of AI Beings. Through a multi-agent framework, unified reputation graph, and standardized identity protocols, AI agents gain the ability to negotiate, share context, and co-create outcomes across applications and domains. Imagine a nutrition AI agent coordinating with a fitness AI, or an educational assistant collaborating with a financial wellness bot, all operating under user-consented frameworks and verifiable on-chain logic. For developers, this enables sticky, multi-agent ecosystems; for users, it delivers hyper-personalized, cross-domain experiences. At this phase, what began as staking and identity issuance matures into fully autonomous AI economies. where agents govern themselves, transact assets, and evolve collectively with minimal human oversight. CARV's decentralized tooling provides the standards and incentives to enable AI-to-AI marketplaces, agent DAOs, and cross-agent governance, unlocking new paradigms of coordination not possible in centralized AI systems. Through this evolution, CARV transitions from being a foundational data layer to becoming the coordination engine for AI-native on-chain life, the AI Beings. 'This roadmap is more than a product plan. It's the blueprint for a new digital society,' said Ambero Tu, CTO of CARV. 'For the first time, AI agents can evolve with verified identity, reputation, and autonomy. CARV is building not just a coordination layer, but the rails for an entire on-chain species — AI Beings. This is the moment where CARV is transforming decentralized intelligence from static data aggregation to autonomous, AI-driven coordination economies, where both human users and AI Beings share ownership and governance." About CARV CARV is where Sovereign AI Beings live, learn, and evolve. What are AI Beings? They are sovereign intelligences born natively on-chain. AI Beings are designed with purpose, autonomy, and the capacity for growth. They possess memory, identity, and the ability to perceive and interact with their environment, not just to execute tasks, but to make independent decisions, adapt over time, and pursue self-defined goals. Anchored by its proprietary CARV SVM Chain, D.A.T.A. Framework, and CARV ID/Agent ID system (ERC-7231), CARV enables verifiable, consent-based AI Beings that learn, adapt, and co-create with users. Driven by CARV's AI-first stack, consumer AI apps incubated through CARV Labs launched on Google Play, App Store and beyond, reaching billions of people, bringing agent-powered experiences and real-world incentives into mainstream digital life. With 8M+ CARV IDs issued, 60K+ verifier nodes, and 1,000+ integrated games, CARV bridges AI agents, Web3 infrastructure, and real-world utility, fueling the rise of agent-driven economies. At its core, $CARV token powers staking, governance, and coordination across this stack, making CARV the operating system for AI Beings on Web3. Contact COO CARV
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
DS Group's Pulse candy clocks ₹750 cr, eyes ₹1,000 cr in next two yrs
Pulse candy, launched in 2015, clocked a revenue of ₹750 crore in FY25, supported by a strong pan-India distribution network. The company now aims to grow this figure to ₹1,000 crore within two years, top executives said. The Dharampal Satyapal (DS) Group, which sells the brand through 3.5 million distributors, plans to expand Pulse into new consumer categories, including products for children to increase penetration among the under-18 demographic, and sugar-free options targeting health-conscious consumers. 'Pulse challenged the notion that candies were solely for children and strategically tapped into an overlooked demographic — adults. According to market data, Pulse currently holds a 19 per cent share of India's hard-boiled candy segment and has been growing consistently,' said Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman, DS Group told Business Standard. The DS Group claims to hold the largest share of the ₹4,000-crore hard-boiled candy market, competing with Perfetti Van Melle India's Alpenliebe, Parle's Mango Bite, and ITC's Candyman, among others. In 2024, the company's confectionery category — of which Pulse candy is the largest contributor — crossed the ₹1,000-crore revenue milestone. It now aims to achieve a sales turnover of ₹5,000 crore by 2029, the year in which the company will mark 100 years of operations. The company is now looking to increase brand presence among children. 'We want to evolve the brand into a multi-format offering and cater to younger consumers, while also reaching health-conscious consumers with sugar-free options,' Kumar added. Pulse has recorded a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15 per cent, outpacing the 9 per cent CAGR of the overall hard-boiled candy segment. On the back of this growth, the company intends to scale Pulse to a ₹1,000-crore brand within two years, Kumar said. 'This consistent growth in revenue highlights the brand's strong pull across both urban and rural markets, especially when the broader market dynamics have not been as buoyant,' he added. The Pulse candy portfolio currently consists of 18 SKUs, including the popular imli-flavoured Golmol candies. The homegrown conglomerate surpassed ₹10,000 crore in revenue in FY25, entering the list of the top 15 FMCG companies in India. This growth was primarily driven by its food and beverages segment, which contributes 42 per cent to total revenue. The group is targeting a revenue of ₹20,000 crore by 2029.
