Latest news with #Gade
Daily Maverick
14 hours ago
- General
- Daily Maverick
Bay teachers stand out at Education MEC's Excellence Awards
Several outstanding educators from Nelson Mandela Bay were celebrated at the annual Excellence Awards Ceremony last Friday night, shining a spotlight on their dedication and impact in shaping the future of pupils. Educators from Nelson Mandela Bay shone brightly this past weekend, taking home top honours at the MEC for Education Fundile Gade's annual Excellence Awards. The ceremony celebrated the province's finest teachers, whose dedication often goes beyond the classroom. In his address, Gade acknowledged the harsh realities many educators face, including challenging working conditions and personal risks. 'Some have fallen precisely because of their commitment to have evening studies, and then they don't come home,' he said. Gade also praised the province's school governing bodies for their steadfast support and 'zeal for stability', stressing that their efforts do not go unnoticed. Ray Tywakadi, Deputy Director-General of the Eastern Cape Department of Education, confirmed that winners were chosen not only for their dedication, but for exceptional performance nationally. 'So they are also the cream of the crop in South Africa,' he said. He said the department had also incorporated e-learning and excellence in innovation in their decision. The Nelson Mandela Bay award winners are:
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Freshworks bets on agentic AI to drive enterprise growth in 2025
Nasdaq-listed SaaS firm Freshworks is positioning artificial intelligence (AI) as a growth catalyst—not a disruptor of traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS)—with plans to expand its agentic AI services by the end of 2025, according to senior executives. 'We've been doing a lot of work in generative AI (GenAI) and are using about 40 foundation models. We are using a lot of those models to build out our own stack and then make it accessible to the people. By the end of 2025, we're going to launch a lot of agentic AI services as well,' Shelton Rego, vice president - India business at Freshworks, told ET. He was speaking on the sidelines of Freshworks' experience event in Mumbai, which showcases the company's latest tools aimed at improving customer, employee, and agent interactions. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 금액 상관없이 빚이라면 딱 6%만 갚으세요 법무법인 벗 더 알아보기 Undo Freshworks, which began developing AI capabilities in 2019—well before the current hype cycle—has already rolled out GenAi copilots across its product suite, he said. In the third quarter of 2024 alone, it added 2,400 new Freddy AI copilot customers globally. The company is now focussed on expanding into full-fledged agentic AI—where autonomous agents can retrieve information, take actions, and soon execute multi-step workflows across domains. Live Events 'On the CX side, we have agents where we are already seeing close to 40-50% deflection where they are able to independently answer the questions and resolve customer queries,' said Sreedhar Gade, vice president, engineering and responsible AI at Freshworks. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories "In the next, maybe two quarters, we will be able to execute complex actions on behalf of a user request like booking an airplane ticket or a holiday package,' Gade added. This evolution in AI capabilities is also expected to influence how the company prices its products, moving away from subscription- or usage-based models toward value-based pricing. 'Instead of talking about 1,000 bot sessions, I would ask how many resolutions have you made? Or how many customers said thumbs up, indicating their problem was solved, versus how many times the issue was handed off from AI to a human agent? We can translate it that way,' Gade said. Freshworks currently works with more than 73,000 customers in over 120 countries across multiple verticals, including ecommerce, logistics, financial services, auto and manufacturing. India continues to play a key role in Freshworks' AI strategy—not just as a market, but as a centre for talent and product development. 'India is a strategic market also because of the talent pool that we have in AI here. A lot of the AI talent today, a large majority of that, sits in India. We see that a lot of customers are also ahead of the curve in their adoption of AI and technology. So, we see a lot of that potential in India as well," said Rego. Freshworks reported a 19% year-on-year (YoY) increase in revenue to $196.3 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, up from $165.1 million a year earlier, buoyed by higher operating efficiency and increased customer adoption.
Time of India
17-05-2025
- General
- Time of India
Ancient traditions unfold at Poinguinim's Gadyaanchi jatra
Canacona: Gadyaanchi Jatra was celebrated recently with thousands of devotees flocking to Mahalwada, Poinguinim. The jatra, held every three years in May, celebrates Lord Betal , a deity of Poinguinim and neighbouring villages. A ritual called 'Jevnni' is performed in the first year. In the second year, a procession called 'Ttakaa' takes place, and in the third year, the Gadyaanchi Jatra is celebrated with religious fervour. It is believed that Betal had conquered 12 talukas in Goa, along with Poinguinim, in the 13th century. The villagers asked him to live in Poinguinim and offered a jatra every three years in return. Since then, the famous Gadyanchi Jatra has been celebrated. The two Taranga, Satri and Pillkucho (peacock feathers), are brought to the place before the jatra. Two exceptionally large tree trunks called Khaamb, around 40-45 feet tall, are put in front of the Betal temple. A huge wooden spindle called Raat with four arms is fixed on the Khaamb. On the day of the jatra, the image of Betal in the temple is decorated traditionally. The decoration of the temple has remained unchanged for years. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Villas Prices In Dubai Might Be More Affordable Than You Think Villas In Dubai | Search Ads Get Quote Undo Four males dressed in white – a dhoti and turban with a sword in the right hand and a piece of cloth in the other – known as Gade, take part in the ceremony. They are brought to the temple dancing on the beats of ancient songs with dhol and taso (musical instruments) along with other devotees of their community. The Gade, with their community, sing and dance with their swords in front of the temple. The four Gade are pierced with a metal hook into their back muscles, and other devotees from their community are pierced in their stomach. The Gade climb the Khaamb holding their sword and a piece of cloth. They are then tied to the arms of the Raat and rotated for some time. They are kept in the temple till their wounds are healed. At midnight on the day after the jatra, two Redde (cape buffaloes) are brought to the temple. One enters the temple, while the other departs. The buffalo that enters is then sacrificed to Betal. The temple remains closed for a week after the jatra for all devotees. Only their chief is allowed to enter. According to the folklore, in early centuries, one of the Gade would fall off the Raat while rotating and would be sacrificed to Betal. But that ritual is now banned.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
UnitedHealth announces surprise CEO exit, pulls annual forecast
(Reuters) - UnitedHealth Group announced the surprise exit of CEO Andrew Witty on Tuesday and suspended its 2025 forecast due to surging medical costs, sending its shares down more than 10% premarket. Former CEO Stephen Hemsley, who has been with the healthcare conglomerate for 28 years, is returning to the top role. Witty was leaving for personal reasons, the company said, without elaborating. Under Witty, UnitedHealth has met with a series of challenges in the past year - including the murder of its top health insurance executive, Brian Thompson, last December. Earlier in 2024, it was the target of a cyberattack at its tech unit that shut the U.S. healthcare processing system for days, affecting 200 million Americans. Witty was also at the helm in April, when the company posted its first earnings miss since the 2008 financial crisis and lowered its annual outlook citing higher-than-expected medical costs and "unanticipated changes" in its Optum business that impacted planned 2025 reimbursements. "The abruptness (of Witty's exit) certainly is a surprise but no one should be surprised given the unique struggles of UNH versus peers. At a certain point, leadership must be held accountable," said Kevin Gade, chief operating officer at Bahl and Gaynor. The U.S. health insurance industry has been grappling with increased costs since mid-2023 due to a surge in demand for healthcare services under government-backed Medicare plans for older adults or individuals with disabilities. Tuesday's announcement also pulled down shares of other health insurers such as Humana, CVS and Elevance between 4% and 6%. The guidance suspension wasn't much of a surprise, said Gade. "As utilization spikes, you can assume improvement, stabilization or worsening on your forward guide. Unfortunately in this environment, UNH expressed a worsening/spike in utilization of benefits which is causing this suspension," Gade said. The company was also sued earlier this month for allegedly concealing how backlash from Thompson's killing was damaging its business. UnitedHealth expects to return to growth in 2026, it said on Tuesday.
The Print
13-05-2025
- General
- The Print
Goa is silent on caste. It's invisible, and not in English
Less than an hour south of Dicholi lies Ponda's Keri village, where the Mahar community buried their dead in two communal graves: one for men, and the other for women. Every time a new death occurred, the villagers exhumed the remnants of the previous corpse, and buried the new one. The remnants are believed to be taken away by ghosts. At the Gade festival, celebrated and widely Instagrammed during Holi, groups of men fall into a 'spiritual trance' and run toward the woods, following the light of the Devchar, a protective spirit. In places like Dicholi, this took a morbid turn, where the Gade dug out human remains – often of women – tied them to a stick and returned to the village for a final dance. Dadu Mandrekar saw these rituals for what they really were: terrifying and degrading practices that were inextricably linked with caste. The late journalist, writer, and Ambedkarite activist spent years travelling through Goa, often in an autorickshaw, mapping its Dalit vastis and visiting the houses of the state's poorest and most destitute. He documented this parallel geography of the state in Bahishkrut Gomantak, a slim Marathi volume that was first published in 1997. Twenty-seven years later, Untouchable Goa, an English translation by Nikhil Baisane, published by Panther's Paw Publication, was launched here last week. Silence around caste The strident, incandescent book maps the contours of a Goa that exists so far away from the dive bars, heritage tours, and laid back beach shacks, so as to be almost invisible. There is little room for the realities Mandrekar recorded, when most of Goa is imagined as a palm-fringed backdrop to Bollywood fantasies. His Goa is of extreme poverty, illiteracy, and inherited humiliation, of communities like the Mahars who bear the weight of caste hierarchies even in death. The squall that slips off Mandrekar's pages is an excavation of how a society maintains its myths. The silence around caste in Goa – a state that takes great pride in positioning itself as India's most liberal – becomes its own form of oppression. But even here, caste is inescapable. This month, the state government notified The Goa Prisons (First Amendment) Rules, 2025, prohibiting caste-based discrimination in prisons and correctional institutions. The new rule states: 'It shall be strictly ensured that there is no discrimination, classification, or segregation of prisoners on the basis of their caste, and it shall be strictly ensured that there is no discrimination of prisoners in the allotment of any duty or work in prisons on the basis of their caste.' The amendment also calls for a binding effect of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. In such a backdrop, Untouchable Goa remains as relevant as when it was first published. The book launch, which drew a large crowd, was accompanied by a conversation between Baisane, Kaustubh Naik, a doctoral scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, independent researcher Amita Kanekar, and publisher Yogesh Maitreya. Baisane later told me that a few of the attendees, who didn't understand English, had come for the launch. 'They told me they wanted Dadu's words to reach many more people,' Baisane said. 'I was quite surprised and touched by that. We tend to forget the impact of English.' Baisane's journey into Mandrekar's world began as an act of faith. A writer from North Maharashtra, based in Pune, he had never been to Goa when Maitreya approached him in January 2024 with the manuscript. Baisane's challenge was to translate Mandrekar's unique voice – a prose that was simultaneously straightforward and layered with bitter irony. This was writing that employed the classical flourishes of dominant Marathi literature while using them to document experiences that literature had studiously ignored. 'He describes the beauty of the river like a mother,' Baisane explained, 'but in the next paragraph, he describes the pain of marginalised people. It has a very hard-hitting effect.' In the book's introduction, Mandrekar speaks of his disconnection from the Ambedkarite literary movement because of his physical location, leaving you with a picture of a man who was isolated and sad. 'But he is also worried and anxious for the future of his caste fellows. He has a fire in his belly, that is very motivating,' Baisane said. Mandrekar's writing speaks to universal experiences, and the texture of marginalisation that transcends geographical boundaries. Also read: Goa didn't choose to become a casino city—now it's a state-sponsored moral gamble Goa's Stockholm syndrome This isn't the first time a translation of Bahishkrut Gomantak has been attempted. Journalist and publisher Frederick Noronha, who knew Mandrekar well, was keen to have the book translated. That project unfortunately never materialised, but Noronha is glad that it has now seen the light of day, even 'as a snapshot of those times, which aren't very remote from today.' Noronha notes that some of these issues aren't even noticed, partly because they're not available in English, which contributes to the broader silence around caste. 'Two issues strike me here,' he said. 'Forces like access to education and heavy out-migration have helped to avoid the focus on caste issues, because a wider section feels they can ascend in life. Besides, in post-1961 Goa, and even pre-1961, the focus has been more on (then) soft-communalism (later harder-communalism) rather than caste.' 'So even while the MGP claimed to speak out for the Bahujan Samaj, it mostly did not include minority community (Catholic) Bahujans under its umbrella, or wasn't very successful in doing so,' Noronha added. When Goa's literature engages with caste at all, it faces active resistance. 'A literary award to Vishnu Wagh's poetry collection 'Sudirsukt' (Hymns of a Shudra) created a huge uproar and even the most progressive (or so they claimed) of the Konkani writers came out against writing of such divisive literature, because it hurled abuses at the Saraswat community in Goa,' Naik told me. Goa's overall identity has also created what Naik calls a 'Stockholm syndrome' among the marginalised communities, who often participate enthusiastically in rituals that reinforce their own subordination. Across the state's temples, caste-based labour was codified through the Regulamento das Mazanias, 19th-century Portuguese regulations through which 'the Mahars were expected to beat the drums during temple ceremonies, the devadasi women were expected to sing and dance in front of the palanquins, or the cleaning of the temple was relegated to certain families.' Although, some of these practices have stopped now. Some temples built on tribal lands allow these communities entry once a year, only to close the next day for purification rituals. As Naik observed, marginalised and Bahujan communities now often embrace these same rituals – a tragic irony that would have troubled Mandrekar deeply. This institutionalised blindness thrives in conjunction with Goa's tourist-friendly image. The state's liberal credentials become a convenient shorthand that allows people to say that Goa isn't as bad as UP or Bihar. But this deflection obscures the fact that in Goa, caste operates through subtlety. 'The moment you start analysing Goa's landholding, control over temples, cultural dominance, things start becoming clear,' Naik said. 'I mean, the most sought after culinary experience in Goa is the so-called Saraswat thali. That is also caste and one should question how something like the Saraswat thali has come to stand-in for a cuisine of an entire state?' Similarly, the Kunbi saree, traditional dress of a labouring, bahujan community, is now eagerly commodified into a heritage consumable shorn of the community's historical marginalisation. 'To what extent does the community get to decide how they want to shape the course of their own sartorial history?' Naik asked. In this landscape, Mandrekar's voice acquires an almost archaeological significance that continues to echo well into the present – demanding recognition, urging us to see what has been rendered invisible. The dead in Goa may not die and neither do the truths they carry. This article is part of the Goa Life series, which explores the new and the old of Goan culture. Karanjeet Kaur is a journalist, former editor of Arré, and a partner at TWO Design. She tweets @Kaju_Katri. Views are personal. (Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
