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Back open-source AI to guard digital autonomy: Mistral CEO


Back open-source AI to guard digital autonomy: Mistral CEO
Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch

New Delhi: Warning about concentration risk from a few companies dominating AI, Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral, said India should support open-source models and collaborate with global startup labs and researchers to maintain strategic autonomy and ensure the country benefits from AI-driven productivity and economic growth. Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit on Thursday, he said, “AI will contribute significant double-digit growth to GDP in the coming years. It is critical that everyone has access to the on and off switch to ensure business continuity and that countries are not dependent on external providers who can effectively shut off access. The global AI landscape is rapidly evolving and is highly focused on control, surveillance and leverage. Countries need a future grounded in openness, trust, and autonomy. It is a fundamental right for countries to own their AI destiny. This is crucial for preserving digital autonomy and shaping our own future.” He also argued that the leverage of larger players must be curbed, noting that India’s market size gives it the power to build a different pathway for AI progress. Mensch, a key figure in the French AI startup ecosystem and one of the few competing in large language model development, said open source is not a radical idea, pointing out that it underpinned the internet and cloud computing. As of Sept last year, the French AI startup was valued at nearly $14 billion. “Today we are facing a dichotomy between open source, where a few companies like Mistral compete, and models developed by large private corporations that are using them as leverage.” He called for collaboration to build better open-source AI, especially for low-resource languages, with a special focus on India’s 22 official languages. “Our key goal is to ensure that more languages are properly represented in these models. To do this, Mistral works with local ecosystems and labs that can help acquire and curate high-quality text and speech data in these languages. The idea is that by feeding this diverse content into open-source models, they become more accurate and useful for local populations, not just English-speaking users.



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Delhi govt opens 25 Atal Canteens; each to serve 1,000 meals per day | India News


NEW DELHI: The Delhi government on Thursday inaugurated 25 Atal Canteens across the national capital as part of a scheme to serve affordable and nutritious meals to urban poor, labourers and other underprivileged residents. Inaugurating one such canteen at Krishna Nagar, Delhi Chief Minister Gupta said the Atal Canteen Scheme was guided by the vision that no resident of Delhi should go to bed hungry. Union Minister and local MP Harsh Malhotra, Delhi Urban Development minister Ashish Sood, and BJP MLA Anil Goyal were also present at the programme. The chief minister praised officials of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) for executing the project within a short timeframe, and said that the initiative was in line with the ideals of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Each canteen will serve approximately 1,000 meals per day, benefiting over 1 lakh people daily across the city, the CM added.The government has allocated Rs 104 crore for the operation and management of this scheme, which was launched on December 25, 2025 — the birth anniversary of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. PTI



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Michael Vaughan’s ‘No one can beat India’ claim triggers jinx fears around Suryakumar Yadav’s team


Former England stars David Lloyd, Michael Vaughan, Phil Tufnell, and Alastair Cook reacted to India’s dominance in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2026. The former cricketers discussed whether any team can realistically stop Suryakumar Yadav’s side from winning the title in subcontinent conditions.

India defeated the Netherlands by 17 runs in their final Group A match at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Wednesday, February 18. The Men in Blue stayed unbeaten, winning all four group matches. They finished on top of the Group A points table and sealed qualification for the Super 8 stage.

Former England Cricketers Discuss How to Challenge India

Former England cricketers shared their views on how teams might challenge India during the T20 World Cup 2026. Speaking on the Stick to Cricket podcast, Michael Vaughan said that Abhishek Sharma is a dangerous batter despite three consecutive ducks in the World Cup.

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“Abhishek Sharma, who’s been a gun, he’s got four noughts out of five in his last. So he’s due,” Vaughan said.

Phil Tufnell stated that beating India is never straightforward. He said that associate teams pushed India close at times, but added that pressure is the only thing capable of stopping India.

“You’ve got to hope. I mean, it is a bit of a lottery at the end of the day, isn’t it? I know these associates have got close, but you’d like to think, as you were saying Sir Alastair, as the pressure ramps up. Pressure is the only thing beating India in India,” Phil Tufnell said.

USA Are the Team That’s Got the Closest to Them So Far” – Michael Vaughan

David Lloyd asked whether teams should bat or bowl first against India. Alastair Cook said that the best option is to bat first and put runs on the board, then hope to take early wickets and build pressure. Michael Vaughan added that the USA have come closest to troubling India so far.

“What do you want to do? Do you want to bat first or bowl against India tactically?” David Lloyd asked.

“I think you have to put runs on the board. Old school. And just hope that you can get a couple early, and then the pressure of them needing to go at nine or ten per over. The reason they are so good is that they play so much of it in those conditions that for every scenario they come across, they seem to have a way of finding like the first game, 70 for 7 against the USA,” Alastair Cook stated.

“Well, the USA are the team that’s got the closest to them so far,” Michael Vaughan opined.

India Finish Group Stage Unbeaten With 17-Run Win Over Netherlands

India finished the group stage of the T20 World Cup 2026 unbeaten with a 17-run win over the Netherlands. They opted to bat first and scored 193/6 in 20 overs.

India lost an early wicket, but the middle order steadied the innings. Suryakumar Yadav scored 34 off 28 balls, Tilak Varma made 31 off 27, and Hardik Pandya added 30.

Shivam Dube then took control of the innings. He smashed 66 off just 31 balls, hitting four fours and six sixes at a strike rate of 212.9. For the Netherlands, Logan van Beek picked up three wickets, while Aryan Dutt took two.

In reply, the Netherlands fought hard and finished on 176/7 in 20 overs. Varun Chakaravarthy was the pick of the bowlers for India with figures of 3/14, and Dube also claimed two wickets to win the Player of the Match award.

Also read: “I am still not happy…” – India batting coach on Tilak Varma’s struggles in T20 World Cup 2026





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O’ Romeo Full Movie Collection: ‘O’ Romeo’ box office collection Day 7 and Day 8 (LIVE): Shahid Kapoor starrer concludes first week with Rs 72 crore worldwide |


'O' Romeo' box office collection Day 7 and Day 8 (LIVE): Shahid Kapoor starrer concludes first week with Rs 72 crore worldwide
In the cinematic realm, Shahid Kapoor’s latest film ‘O’ Romeo’ has faced an uphill battle at the box office. Despite the actor’s compelling performance, the storyline has left fans underwhelmed, contributing to a steady decline in ticket sales after its debut. As it stands after a week, the film has amassed about Rs 47 crore. Read on to know more in detail.

Shahid Kapoor‘s ‘O’Romeo’ has completed a week since its release in theaters. The film has been showing a downward trend from the beginning as it failed to pull the audience to the theaters. While the performances of the actors are being praised, the story of the film didn’t impress the moviegoers. Now, let’s take a look at its Day 7 collection and how much it will earn on Day 8.O’ Romeo Movie Review

‘O’ Romeo’ box office collection Day 7 (first Thursday)

The Vishal Bhardwaj film was supposed to bring back Shahid Kapoor on top; however, from the box office numbers, it seems like it has disappointed the audience and the actor’s fans. Now, according to the Sacnilk report, the film has earned Rs 3.15 crore on Day 7 (first Thursday).

‘O’ Romeo’ box office collection Day 8 LIVE (Today)

This section will be updated as soon as the numbers are updated.

Total and worldwide collection

According to the report, the total collection of the film now stands at Rs 47.15 crore. Meanwhile, the worldwide earnings of the romantic revenge drama have been reported as Rs 72.25 crore.

Day-wise collection

Day 1 [1st Friday]: Rs 8.5 croreDay 2 [1st Saturday]: Rs 12.65 croreDay 3 [1st Sunday]: Rs 9.00 croreDay 4 [1st Monday]: Rs 4.85 croreDay 5 [1st Tuesday]: Rs 5.35 croreDay 6 [1st Wednesday]: Rs 3.65 croreDay 7 [1st Thursday]: Rs 3.15 croreDay 8 [2nd Friday]: Rs (will be updated)Total: Rs 47.15 crore (This number will increase as the day progresses)

Occupancy

On February 19, 2026, the Shahid Kapoor starrer ‘O’ Romeo’ had an overall 8.14% Hindi occupancy on Thursday.

More about ‘O’ Romeo’

Directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, the film features Shahid Kapoor and Triptii Dimri in the lead roles. The movie also features actors like Nana Patekar, Avinash Tiwary, Tamannaah Bhatia, Disha Patani, Vikrant Massey, and Farida Jalal. It was released in theaters on February 13, 2026.



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Tata Group ties up with OpenAI


Tata Group ties up with OpenAI
N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons with Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI

New Delhi: Tata Group and OpenAI entered into a strategic partnership, placing a significant bet on India’s AI infrastructure playbook. In the first phase, TCS will build AI infrastructure with 100MW capacity, scalable up to 1GW. The platform is intended to support next-generation AI training and inference workloads while advancing India’s ambition to become a global AI hub. As part of the global Stargate initiative, OpenAI and Tata Group will develop local, AI-ready data centre capacity focused on data residency, security, and long-term domestic capability. “The infrastructure is designed as a purpose-built AI compute optimised for training and inference workloads,” said N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, at the India AI Impact Summit here on Thursday. He described the partnership as a unique opportunity for OpenAI and TCS to transform industries. OpenAI will become the first customer of TCS’ HyperVault data centre business. Recently, TCS secured $1 billion from private equity firm TPG to advance its AI data centre strategy in India, aligning with its goal of becoming the largest AI-led technology services firm. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “India is already leading the way in AI adoption, and with its talent, ambition, and strong govt support, it is well placed to help shape its future. Through OpenAI for India and our partnership with Tata Group, we’re working together to build the infrastructure, skills, and local partnerships needed to build AI with India, for India, and in India, so that more people across the country can access and benefit from it. Tata Group also plans to roll out ChatGPT Enterprise to employees over the coming years, beginning with hundreds of thousands at TCS, making it one of the largest enterprise AI deployments worldwide. TCS will adopt OpenAI’s Codex to standardise AI-native software development across teams. OpenAI will expand its certification programme in India, with TCS becoming the first participating organisation outside the United States. The certifications aim to equip professionals with practical, role-agnostic AI skills applicable across industries. As India positions itself at the centre of the global AI transformation, Tata Group is placing a multi-layered bet on intelligence infrastructure. “We established India’s first large-scale AI-optimised infrastructure for next-generation AI training and inference,” Chandrasekaran said. Beyond infrastructure, he identified data as the second pillar. “We are building an AI data insights platform. Intelligence must become accessible across the full diversity of Indian contexts,” he said. TCS and Tata Communications are jointly building what he described as an “AI operating system for industries”. The final pillar is semiconductors.



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Get ready for 3rd phase of SIR in April: EC to 22 states/UTs, including Delhi | Delhi News


Get ready for 3rd phase of SIR in April: EC to 22 states/UTs, including Delhi

NEW DELHI: Election Commission is planning to commence the third round of special intensive revision in April. While the first phase was for Bihar, Phase 2 covered a dozen states and Union territories. The commission wrote on Thursday to chief electoral officers of the 22 remaining states/UTs, including Delhi, saying the SIR process “is expected to start from April 2026” and requested them to complete the SIR preparatory work at the earliest. Weeks before EC announced Phase 2 of SIR on Oct 27, 2025, it had similarly written to CEOs of all states/UTs except Bihar. However, SIR was announced for only 12. This indicates not all 22 pending states/UTs are likely to be included in Phase 3, even though their electorate is only about 39 crore compared to the 60 crore already covered.The states/UTs mentioned in the communication include Manipur and Uttarakhand, where the terms of current assemblies will expire in March 2027. Others on the list are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim, Tripura and Telangana; besides the UTs of Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Ladakh and Delhi. Phase 3 may continue till June or early July in the event of extensions. Significantly, phase 3 will coincide with the houselisting stage of Census 2027, to be held over a 45-day time frame between April 1 and Sept 30 this year as individually notified by the states/UTs. Some states such as Delhi, Haryana and Odisha that have already notified their houselisting timelines may thus need to revise these timelines or request EC for inclusion in the next phase of SIR. Some states/UTs that have not yet notified houselisting dates may choose to schedule the first phase of census after June-July or request that SIR be conducted in a later phase.



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Mukesh Ambani announces $110bn push for AI sovereign infra


Mukesh Ambani announces $110bn push for AI sovereign infra
New Delhi, Feb 19 (ANI): Reliance Industries Chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani speaks during the Opening Ceremony of India AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi on Thursday. (India AI/ANI Video Grab)

New Delhi: Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani on Thursday said his conglomerate has lined up investments of $110 billion (Rs 10 lakh crore) to build India’s sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure. At a scale befitting India’s ambition, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate plans to invest the mega-sum over seven years to build India’s sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure, including data centres and a nationwide edge compute network, Ambani said. Data centres, the backbone of artificial intelligence, house the high-performance chips and servers required to train and run large AI models, a process that demands enormous computing power. They also consume a lot of electricity. Reliance Industries and Jio would “connect India to the intelligence era” after having connected it to affordable broadband, Ambani said. “This is patient, disciplined nation-building capital,” he said, adding that India “cannot afford to rent intelligence” and must reduce the cost of compute as dramatically as it reduced the cost of data. Last month, Ambani had announced large investments in data centres in Gujarat. On Thursday, he said construction has begun on multi-gigawatt AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar, with over 120 megawatts expected to come online in the second half of 2026. The facilities will be backed by up to 10 gigawatts of green energy capacity in Kutch and Andhra Pradesh. A nationwide edge layer integrated with Jio’s telecom network will bring low-latency AI services closer to users, from kirana stores to farms and clinics. The data centres business in India is expected to fire up with the Union Budget 2026-27 introducing a tax holiday until 2047 for foreign cloud service providers using Indian data centres for global operations. “India will emerge as one of the greatest AI powers in the world in the 21st century,” Ambani said. He further outlined five principles guiding what he called “Jio Intelligence,” multilingual AI across Indian languages, data residency and security, productivity-led use cases, job creation through high-skill work, and ecosystem partnerships with enterprises, startups, IITs and research institutions. AI must be driven by “social relevance, not momentary craze,” he said, calling for global cooperation in areas such as chips and critical minerals, warning against hoarding and polarisation. “For the first time, humans are creating human-like systems that can learn, speak, analyse, move and produce autonomously. AI is the Mantra that powers every Yantra or every machine and system. To work faster, better and smarter. I see AI as a modern day Akshay Patra, the legendary vessel in Mahabharat that provided endless nourishment to all,” he said.



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4-year-old locked in school overnight | India News


4-year-old locked in school overnight

Nagpur: A four-year-old boy was accidentally locked overnight inside his school classroom in Nagpur’s Khaparkheda, sparking panic in his family. Himanshu Bagde, living just half a kilometre from the school, had wandered into the classroom while playing Wednesday, unaware that staff would later lock the premises without checking the rooms, reports Soumitra Bose. When Himanshu did not return home, his father lodged a missing complaint. Police launched a search operation involving multiple teams across the city, but he still could not be traced. The breakthrough came around 10am Thursday when school staff visited the premises. Himanshu was found asleep inside the locked classroom. The boy was immediately reunited with his parents. It was a lucky escape for the boy as it was a school holiday and staff visited the school only to oversee some construction work that was underway.



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Sena UBT stakes claim to Rajya Sabha, council seats MVA can win | India News


Sena UBT stakes claim to Rajya Sabha, council seats MVA can win
Aaditya Thackeray (File photo)

Mumbai: The battle for Maharashtra’s limited opposition seats intensified Thursday as Sena UBT’s Aaditya Thackeray virtually staked his party’s claim to the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s lone winnable seats in the upcoming Rajya Sabha and legislative council polls.Pointing to the current strength of the assembly, Aaditya suggested the arithmetic favours his party over its MVA allies Congress and NCP (SP). In the 288-member Maharashtra assembly, Sena UBT has 20 legislators, followed by Congress (16) and NCP (SP) (10).“If you look at the figures, the (RS polls) seat belongs to Sena UBT, and talks will definitely happen in that direction in MVA,” Aaditya said.EC is set to officially notify polls for seven Rajya Sabha seats, scheduled for March 16, on Feb 26. Among prominent members whose term is to expire is NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar. Pawar has already signalled his intent to seek re-election, according to Sena UBT’s Sanjay Raut.RS members are elected by MLAs, and given the massive strength of the Mahayuti, it is likely to win six out of seven seats in Maharashtra in the upcoming polls.



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Bombay HC draws curtain on 1947 land dispute | India News


Bombay HC draws curtain on 1947 land dispute

MUMBAI: A suit dating back to the year India got independence finally stood disposed of by the Bombay high court this month, with the fourth generation of the original land owner amicably settling a property dispute. The estate included vast portions of the village of Dahisar in north Mumbai. The area was a whopping 2,891 acres or over 1,100 hectares. It was 3.5 times the size of Central Park in New York.Over the decades, the legal battle saw repeated pleas against sale of parcels of land in Dahisar to private parties, as well as an acquisition by the state under the Salsette Law and Forest Act.Justice Farhan Dubash, one of the newest judges of the high court, put a quietus via a consent term order to the legal tussle 78 years, or over three quarters of a century later, on a suit filed on Oct 7, 1947.The original suit had sought administration of the estate of one Haji Alimohammed Haji Cassum following his demise, as per personal laws applicable. It was filed by Badrushama, widow of Suleman Haji Alimohammed Haji Cassum, versus Salim Dawood Agboatwala and others.Justice Dubash, began his order with: “This order disposes of probably the oldest Suit that is currently pending before the Bombay high court.”Over the years, several orders were passed in the matter, including a preliminary decree passed on Nov 25, 1952 that determined the legal share of all heirs.Before that, the HC appointed a court receiver in 1950 to look after the property. Successive generations continued the legal battle before the HC. Finally, with the litigation entering the fourth generation, all heirs decided to amicably settle. They filed consent terms before the HC on Feb 5. The terms were accepted, and the suit was struck off from a pendency list to a disposed one.This verdict resulted in one of the longest pending cases in the history of the Bombay HC coming to a close.The HC recorded the agreement arrived at between the parties after hearing Kevic Setalvad, senior counsel with advocate Vijaylaxmi Kulkarni appearing for the plaintiffs, and Anupam Surve, counsel with solicitor Nanu Hormasjee and Co for contesting heirs.The settlement was between Ateeq Anwar Agboatwala, a power of attorney holder for the first plaintiff, and other members of the Agboatwala family.At the end of the settlement, what was payable to the court receiver towards costs and charges in the matter was Rs 7 lakh. After deducting this amount, the rest of the undisclosed amount is to be returned on or before Feb 20, 2026 to the family.



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