Latest news with #Odia
Time of India
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Odia film Lahari selected for screening at IFFM 2025
Bhubaneswar: Odia film 'Lahari' has been selected for screening at the prestigious Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) 2025. The festival, now in its 16th edition, will be held next month in Australia. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Celebrated for showcasing the diversity and cultural richness of Indian cinema, IFFM provides a global platform for regional films to connect with international audiences. "It's a great feeling to have the film selected for IFFM, more so because not many of my movies have reached viewers in Australia. I have been closely following the festival for years and it has a great reputation worldwide. I hope Lahari will strike the right chord with those attending the festival," Amartya Bhattacharya, the film's director and writer, said. The coming of age film, which follows the lives of the central characters as they navigate the complexities of relationships, personal growth and the challenges of life in a rapidly changing world, was produced by Jhilik Bhattacharjee. The cast includes Choudhury Jayaprakash Das, Choudhury Bikash Das, Dipanwit Dashmohapatra, Smruti Ranjan Mahala (child artist), Susant Misra, Swastik Choudhury and Zeinab Doer, alongside a range of prominent names from the Odia film industry. The film's music has been composed by Kisaloy Roy, while sound design has been helmed by Anindit Roy and Adeep Singh Manki. Actor Dipanwit Dashmohapatra said, "From Odisha's rivers to Melbourne's shores, Lahari now flows with the tides of world cinema. Honoured to be part of this journey where our stories find new skies to echo under."
The Hindu
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Dhan celebrates 11 years of ‘Namathu Mannvasam' magazine
Dhan Foundation in Madurai celebrated the 11th anniversary of their monthly Tamil magazine – 'Namathu Mannvasam' – here on Monday. The magazine, retaining its unique identity, has kept up with its promise of promoting mostly new women writers and readers, said M.P. Vasimalai, Executive Director of Dhan Foundation. As reading habit among students has gradually diminished, the magazine should produce engaging contents based on Tamil literature found only in bits and pieces in school syllabuses, he added. When some of the important and essential Tamil literatures were present just as stand-alone poems in subject books, the students would barely think of reaching out to the whole work of literature, Mr. Vasimalai stated. 'By producing content in the form of story reading, the students, who are the target readers, could be largely engaged,' he added. Further, speaking about the magazine's novel effort, he said that the writers who contributed to the magazine were mostly ground-level workers. Through this, the magazine has proved that it could sustain the content that comes organically from working class people, he added. Appreciating the tremendous hard work behind every published magazine, he said that publishing houses should also consider coming up with at least five translated works of writers which have hardly reached the public. Madhan Kumar, of Padiparivu Pathipagam, said the magazine which was being published in Tamil, Kannada and Marathi, is to be expanded to other languages like Odia and Telugu. 'As a uniqueness of the magazine, of the 500 writers, 200 of them were women. Also, every year's March month edition would be a by-women and for-women edition,' he noted. Adhering to the famous philosopher Antonio Gramsci's perspective about organic intellectual, he said, 'The magazine runs solely on the organic intellectuals - women writers also the field workers.' Magazine's editor B. Thirumalai recalling the efforts of the magazine to continue its work during Covid-19 pandemic, said that even the mainstream magazines could not sustain during the critical few months of the pandemic. 'It was possible because of the readers who pushed us to expand our horizons out of our comfort zones,' he added. Now, the aim of the magazine would be reaching 50,000 copies from the current 25,000 copies and their work in the following days would be towards that, he said. During the event, a compilation of the 12 magazines was released.
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Krutrim layoffs continue as Ola-backed AI startup looks to build ‘leaner' teams
Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal's AI venture, Krutrim, has reportedly laid off several employees in the company's linguistics department in its second round of job cuts this year. More than 100 employees have been impacted by the layoffs after being hired six months ago as part of Krutrim's strategy to make its workforce leaner, according to a report by Economic Times. 'As part of a strategic realignment and our commitment to efficient capital deployment, we are building leaner, more agile teams. This transition aligns with evolving business priorities and reflects our long-term vision to build India's own full-stack AI platform,' a Krutrim spokesperson told The Indian Express in a statement. The AI startup did not confirm exact figures on how many job roles have been cut in this round of layoffs. 'We urge you to refrain from publishing unverified reports that are not substantiated by accurate facts,' it added. Krutrim reportedly hired linguists for full-time roles to train its AI models and evaluate its responses in at least 10 Indian languages, including Tamil, Odia, Telugu, and Marathi. The company's linguistics team comprised over 600 people, as per the report. In June this year, Krutrim reportedly axed dozens of linguist roles after the introduction of its agentic AI app called Kruti. which is capable of autonomously booking cabs and ordering food on the Ola platform. It also has plans to enable ride bookings and food delivery orders on rival platforms such as Uber, Zomato, Swiggy, etc, through the AI agent. Earlier this year, Krutrim released a handful of new 'open-source' AI models with the aim of making India have a stronger presence in the AI race which is currently dominated by the US and China. Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of the company, had announced a $230-million injection of funds into Krutrim and said he was seeking an additional investment of $1.15 billion by 2026. He also announced Krutrim AI Labs to carry out frontier AI research with a focus on 'developing India's first frontier-scale AI models, creating state-of-the-art multimodal AI systems, and publishing breakthrough research in top-tier AI conferences like NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, Interspeech, and CVPR,' as per the official website. In May this year, a machine learning engineer at Krutrim was found dead in Bengaluru. Allegations cropped up on social media suggesting that the 25-year-old died by suicide due to 'work pressure'. However, the company responded to the social media posts, saying that the employee, Nikhil Somwanshi, was 'on personal leave at the time of the incident.'
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Ola's AI venture Krutrim lays off over 100, axes Kruti's linguistics team
Bhavish Aggarwal's artificial intelligence (AI) startup Krutrim has initiated a second wave of layoffs, just weeks after launching its flagship assistant Kruti. According to a report by The Economic Times, more than 100 employees, primarily from the linguistics division, were let go last week, following a smaller round of job cuts in June. The downsizing comes even as Krutrim positions Kruti as India's answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, with ambitions rooted in localisation, multilingual capabilities, and voice-first interactivity tailored to the Indian market. Kruti's language training nears completion In a statement, Krutrim said the layoffs are part of a 'strategic realignment' to build 'leaner, more agile teams", aligning with evolving business priorities. The company declined to confirm exact figures but cautioned against 'publishing unverified reports.' Citing multiple sources, The Economic Times reported that the cuts heavily impacted linguists hired for full-time roles across 10 Indian languages, including Tamil, Odia, Telugu, and Marathi. Many employees had relocated to Bengaluru just months ago. The linguistics team had reportedly grown to around 600 people before the reductions. The linguistic hires were deemed unnecessary as the AI assistant's training is almost complete. The report also cited delayed fundraising and lack of product traction as key reasons behind the restructuring. Krutrim had become a unicorn in 2024 after raising $50 million from Z47 Partners. Around the same time, it launched Krutrim AI Labs and announced a ₹2,000 crore investment into AI development, with founder Bhavish Aggarwal pledging to scale this up to ₹10,000 crore by next year. While Krutrim had initially aimed to raise $500 million, the target was reduced to $300 million due to tepid investor interest. The company's large language model and cloud services, launched in 2024, have reportedly struggled to gain momentum, with several startups opting instead for more mature platforms offered by global hyperscalers. Leadership changes have also added to challenges as nearly a dozen senior executives exited the company in 2024, with further departures taking place in early 2025. Kruti: India's first agentic AI assistant Despite the operational shakeup, Krutrim continues to claim Kruti as India's first agentic AI assistant —designed not just to respond to prompts, but to perform tasks such as booking cabs, paying bills, or ordering food. It currently supports 13 Indian languages. 'Our key differentiator will come with integrating local services,' said Sunit Singh, Senior Vice-President for Product at Krutrim, as earlier reported by Business Standard. 'That's not something that will be very easy for global players to do.' Krutrim aims to embed Kruti into everyday Indian digital life by offering voice-driven services that cater to regional and non-English-speaking populations. While Kruti is powered by Krutrim's proprietary Krutrim V2 model, the company employs a hybrid architecture that includes open-source systems and external models. Krutrim competes with global players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, as well as Indian startups such as Sarvam AI and
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Ola's AI venture Krutrim lays off over 100, axes Kruri's linguistics team
Bhavish Aggarwal's artificial intelligence (AI) startup Krutrim has initiated a second wave of layoffs, just weeks after launching its flagship assistant Kruti. According to a report by The Economic Times, more than 100 employees, primarily from the linguistics division, were let go last week, following a smaller round of job cuts in June. The downsizing comes even as Krutrim positions Kruti as India's answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, with ambitions rooted in localisation, multilingual capabilities, and voice-first interactivity tailored to the Indian market. Kruti's language training nears completion In a statement, Krutrim said the layoffs are part of a 'strategic realignment' to build 'leaner, more agile teams", aligning with evolving business priorities. The company declined to confirm exact figures but cautioned against 'publishing unverified reports.' Citing multiple sources, The Economic Times reported that the cuts heavily impacted linguists hired for full-time roles across 10 Indian languages, including Tamil, Odia, Telugu, and Marathi. Many employees had relocated to Bengaluru just months ago. The linguistics team had reportedly grown to around 600 people before the reductions. Krutrim cuts funding target amid tepid investor interest Krutrim had become a unicorn in 2024 after raising $50 million from Z47 Partners. Around the same time, it launched Krutrim AI Labs and announced a ₹2,000 crore investment into AI development, with founder Bhavish Aggarwal pledging to scale this up to ₹10,000 crore by next year. While Krutrim had initially aimed to raise $500 million, the target was reduced to $300 million due to tepid investor interest. The company's large language model and cloud services, launched in 2024, have reportedly struggled to gain momentum, with several startups opting instead for more mature platforms offered by global hyperscalers. Leadership changes have also added to challenges as nearly a dozen senior executives exited the company in 2024, with further departures taking place in early 2025. Kruti: India's first agentic AI assistant Despite the operational shakeup, Krutrim continues to claim Kruti as India's first agentic AI assistant —designed not just to respond to prompts, but to perform tasks such as booking cabs, paying bills, or ordering food. It currently supports 13 Indian languages. 'Our key differentiator will come with integrating local services,' said Sunit Singh, Senior Vice-President for Product at Krutrim, as earlier reported by Business Standard. 'That's not something that will be very easy for global players to do.' Krutrim aims to embed Kruti into everyday Indian digital life by offering voice-driven services that cater to regional and non-English-speaking populations. While Kruti is powered by Krutrim's proprietary Krutrim V2 model, the company employs a hybrid architecture that includes open-source systems and external models. Krutrim competes with global players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, as well as Indian startups such as Sarvam AI and
