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IIT Madras signs off milestone year with 3,518 degrees awarded

His Excellency Dr. Hussein Ali Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar presents ‘President of India Prize’ to Mr. Ashwin Subramanian Murugan during IIT Madras’ 63 Convocation on 17 July 2026 The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras) hosted its 63rd convocation ceremony here on Friday, where 3,518 degrees (including Joint and Dual Degrees) were awarded to 3,106 graduating students. The institute also awarded 511 doctoral degrees for the second consecutive year which V Kamakoti, Director IIT Madras suggests will be a significant step to address the faculty shortage across the higher educational institutions in the country. Addressing the graduating class, Kamakoti mentioned that 2026 had been a milestone year for the institute which has been consistently ranked as India’s number 1 engineering college. The convocation ceremony was presided over by Hussein Ali Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar, where the institute hosts its first international campus. “The establishment of IIT Madras Zanzibar, the first international campus of IIT-Madras, represents far more than an educational milestone. It reflects a shared belief that knowledge should know no borders and that excellence should never be confined by geography. Today, students from Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, India and several other African countries study side by side. They bring different cultures, different experiences and different perspectives, yet they are united by a common pursuit of excellence,” Mwinyi said. “In the academic year 2025-26, IIT Madras expanded its undergraduate portfolio with the introduction of BS programs in Mathematics, Aeronautics and Space Technology, Management and Data Science. At the postgraduate level, the institute launched M.Tech programs in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering and Semiconductor Materials Technology among others,” Kamakoti said. During the year, the Institute also launched IIT-M Global Foundation, an initiative to launch campuses and centres of the IIT-Madras ecosystem internationally, he added. IIT-M Global has launched an AI Innovation Center in Dubai, a $7.5 million Deep Tech Hub in California. IIT-Madras is also expanding its campus footprint with the establishment of a sustainability campus of 100 acre in the Auroville township and International Industry Innovation Campus I4C of 91.5 acre in Puducherry to strengthen research, innovation, technology transfer, industry academia collaboration and regional economic development. Beyond academics, the institute has also emerged as a major entrepreneurial ecosystem with IIT Madras incubating 100+ startups for the second year in a row in 2025-26. It also launched a 600 crore venture capital fund in partnership with Unicorn India Ventures to strengthen India’s deep tech innovation ecosystem. Pawan Goenka, Chairman of the Board of Governors at IIT-Madras highlited some of the noteworthy ventures emerging from the institute’s ecosystem including Ather Energy, Agnikul Cosmos, and GalaxEye.“This campus does not merely produce graduates and publish papers. It builds industries, creates jobs, and turns research into enterprise,” he said. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

IIT Madras signs off milestone year with 3,518 degrees awarded
Europe
The Guardian

This program gives Black single moms $1,000 a month for a year. The results are undeniable

Amaya Jones and her two children. Photograph: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today/Courtesy of Springboard to OpportunitiesView image in fullscreenAmaya Jones and her two children. Photograph: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today/Courtesy of Springboard to OpportunitiesMississippiThis program gives Black single moms $1,000 a month for a year. The results are undeniableThe Magnolia Mother’s Trust is the first to target low-income families led by Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi Three months after giving birth to her son, Amaya Jones moved into a new apartment complex. She knew no one else in the building, but it was a fresh start for her and her two children. One day, someone put up a flyer on her unit’s door, notifying her about a program called the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT). Launched in 2018, the MMT is the longest-running guaranteed income program in the country, and the first to target extremely low-income families headed by Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi. With no strings attached, the program provides mothers with $1,000 a month for 12 months. While she was pregnant, Jones experienced homelessness. She applied for the program, knowing that it could be life-changing. When she found out that she had been selected for that year’s cohort, Jones “burst out into tears”, she said. “I went from full-time to part-time to barely making ends meet. I was like: ‘Oh, my God. Lord, you hear my cry.’ It was rainbows after bad weather.” When Jones’s son was younger, he was frequently sick, and the family was living paycheck to paycheck. Missing a day of work, even to care for an infant, meant that her check would be short, and Jones struggled to ensure she was covering the day-to- day expenses for her children. View image in fullscreenAllonnah Hawkins, seven; Alonzo Hawkins, nine; and their mother, Cheryl Gray, in their apartment in Jackson on 6 August 2019. Gray received support from Springboard to Opportunities and was working on buying a house through Habitat for Humanity. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty ImagesNow, she’s able to exceed it. “It was a sigh of relief,” Jones says of the guaranteed income. “I was actually able to take my kids out of town, stuff I wouldn’t be able to do. It’s more time with my children. It’s still helping me today because I’m not struggling and I can prepare myself for the future. My kids are still taken care of.” Being in a cohort with other single moms who receive assistance from MMT has also helped her build community. The MMT is “bigger than the money”, Jones said. “We had meetings. We talked about mental health,” she said. “I found new people who lived in the apartments, because I knew no one. It’s like a very big sisterhood and familyhood to this day. “When my baby was in the hospital, they would check on my baby: ‘Do you need anything?’ Even if I didn’t reply, they would text me again. Some people don’t like to talk about their problems. Some people don’t like to talk about things that they may be going through … But when they say this is an open space, everything stays in this room. We’ve talked about so many things. If you need a little free time, bring the kids to me. We build relationships and friendships. That’s what the trust is.” The MMT is an initiative from Springboard to Opportunities, a non-profit organization that Aisha Nyandoro, from Mississippi, co-founded in 2013. Springboard works directly with families who live in federally supported affordable housing in Jackson. Nyandoro calls it a “radically resident-driven approach”. But by 2017, Nyandoro became concerned that Springboard wasn’t moving the needle enough on poverty. Though the organization has after-school programs, workforce development, reading circles and other programing, she started wondering what else they needed to offer.

This program gives Black single moms $1,000 a month for a year. The results are undeniable
North America
CNBC Finance

Record heat, crowds drive offseason boom in international travel

Sick of the heat, crowds and high prices, more U.S. travelers are discovering the offseason of international travel — and airlines and hotels are fighting for a windfall. Flights to once-seasonal European vacation destinations now start when there's still snow on the ground in the U.S. and wrap up when leaves are falling off the trees, if they end at all, instead of following traditional late-spring to late-summer travel seasons. For example, American Airlines' flight to Edinburgh, Scotland, from New York began in March. United Airlines' nonstop route to Palermo, Sicily from Newark, New Jersey, will end in December and Delta Air Lines' service to Rome from Minneapolis, Minnesota, will run into January, months later than they have in past years. With this year's surge in jet fuel expected to take a $100 billion bite out of airline profits this year, according to the International Air Transport Association, it's crucial for the industry to maximize on travel trends that attract high-spending customers. Investors are upbeat that airlines can take the fuel hit from earlier this year after they trimmed unprofitable or less profitable flights and airline executives have said strong demand has helped them pass some — but not all of those expenses along. Shares of Delta and United, the two most profitable U.S. airlines, each hit records in recent weeks, and American's shares touched an 18-month high. Airlines start reporting second-quarter results and providing third-quarter updates this month, with Delta kicking the season off on Friday. Industry executives told CNBC that international vacation seasons used to be more defined. The new trends are forcing them to rip up decades-old playbooks. "It used to be so much lumpier. There used to be more: good season, bad season," Delta President Peter Carter said in an interview. "There are so many places you can go in Europe year-round and still have an amazing experience, and that's why we're seeing such good demand into Europe." "We've seen this massive, what I would call, the creep of the seasons — the shoulder season is blending into the full season," Patrick Quayle, United Airlines' senior vice president who designs the carrier's network, said in an interview last month. Shoulder season refers to the period between a destination's peak tourist season and its offseason. International flights to Europe generally carry more premium seats like lie-flat pods than smaller jets that are used for domestic travel — and airlines are planning to expand those options further. Business-class fares on some of those routes can cost $10,000 for a round-trip instead of less than half that on a domestic route. Airfare overall is up this year compared with last as airlines try to pass along as much of their rising costs to customers as possible, but there are signs that prices are moderating, particularly as the industry braces for the peak summer travel period in July to pass.

Record heat, crowds drive offseason boom in international travel
North America
CNBC Finance

Trump’s Freedom 250 draws corporate sponsors with business before his administration

WASHINGTON — On the National Mall this week, Freedom 250 signs pointed visitors toward temporary state pavilions, a Ferris wheel and mobile, transitory history exhibits. Sponsor names appeared beside Trump-aligned programming. Some states were represented by official delegations. Others had opted out, leaving replacement displays or stripped-down booths in their place. As the country prepares to mark its semiquincentennial, or 250th birthday, the splashiest celebrations in Washington are being shaped by corporate money. A CNBC analysis found 14 companies backing both America250, the nonprofit supporting the congressionally created U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, and Freedom 250, the Trump-backed public-private partnership behind some of the administration's most visible anniversary events. Of those companies, only John Deere responded to a CNBC request for comment, but it did not address specific questions about its sponsorship of both organizations. John Deere said it was eager to celebrate the people whose work helped "build power, feed and sustain" the U.S. Several of those companies have major business before the federal government, including defense contracts, technology contracts, regulatory interests, merger considerations, tax issues and other policy matters shaped by the Trump administration. CNBC did not find any evidence of a connection between the Freedom 250 sponsorships and the companies' dealings with the administration. But it's another example of the complex intersection of corporate America and politics under a president who's been increasingly close with companies. Watchdogs and ethics experts have said the structure gives companies with business before the administration a new way to seek access to President Donald Trump, with much of the money hidden from public view. "The concern is not that companies are sponsoring a national celebration. The concern is that this celebration appears to offer access to the president while some of those companies have business before his administration," said Bruce Freed, the president and co-founder of the Center for Political Accountability that advises companies on political spending. Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee released a report this week criticizing the president and Freedom 250, accusing it of diverting funds and misleading sponsors. Freedom 250 fundraising materials, first reported by The New York Times, described tiered sponsorship: Donors giving at least $500,000 were offered VIP access, invitations and preferred seating at events, according to the New York Times. A $1 million contribution came with an invitation to a private "thank you" reception hosted by Trump and a photo opportunity, the Times reported, and donors giving $2.5 million or more were offered speaking roles at a July 4 event in Washington. For $10 million or more, companies got VIP access to all Freedom 250 events, logo rights, a tailored press release, a July 4 speaking role and a private Trump-hosted reception with a photo opportunity, according to the Times report.

Trump’s Freedom 250 draws corporate sponsors with business before his administration
Europe
BBC Business

Vapes to have less enticing names and flavours to protect children

Image source, Getty ImagesByMichelle RobertsDigital health editorPublished10 July 2026, 03:15 BSTUpdated 2 hours agoVapes with colourful packaging, or with names or flavours inspired by sweets and cocktails, could be banned as part of plans to stop them being marketed to children. The government is launching a 12-week consultation, external about its plans "to make vaping less attractive for children and young people". Health Secretary James Murray said it was clear too many were being lured into experimenting. Under the new proposals, packs would need to be plain with strict limits on branding and only simple flavour descriptions like "apple" or "cola" used. Other restrictions would move vapes out of sight in shops, similar to how cigarettes and tobacco are currently sold. There is no legitimate reason for nicotine products to come in neon packaging, feature cartoon images, or use flavours and branding designed to catch a child's eye, say health experts. Murray said: "The evidence is clear: there are too many young people experimenting with vapes, attracted by the array of flavours, bright colours and marketing displays. "Vapes are less harmful than cigarettes and can play an important role in helping adult smokers to quit, but they should never be designed or marketed in ways that tempt children. "These proposals are about striking the right balance and I urge everyone to have their say." The 100 day consultation follows the recent passing of the Tobacco and Vapes Act, which sets out proposals to create the UK's first smoke-free generation, protecting children from nicotine addiction, while ensuring adult smokers can still access vaping products to help them quit. Children aged 17 or younger now face a lifelong ban on buying cigarettes, since it will be illegal for shops to sell tobacco to anyone born after 1 January 2009. And it gives the power to ban vaping in cars carrying children, in playgrounds and outside schools and at hospitals, expanding smoke-free laws. It follows a ban on single-use vapes and comes ahead of future bans on the sale of vapes from vending machines and a planned end to the advertising and sponsorship of vapes.

Vapes to have less enticing names and flavours to protect children
North America
CNBC Economy

Christine Lagarde leaves door open to early ECB exit, as she mulls French politics

The European Central Bank's Christine Lagarde has declined to rule out an early end to her term as president, as she mulls a foray into French politics. Lagarde, whose term as ECB President ends in October 2027, told French newspaper Les Echos an early departure is "possible" ahead of the country's presidential elections that year. "I think a European voice must be heard in the French presidential debate," Lagarde said. "If this debate were to present a perspective that diminishes France's place within Europe, I think it would be necessary to explain why this would be a painful path for our country and our citizens." Asked whether she would consider personal involvement in the French Presidential campaign, to support a candidate or run herself, Lagarde said: "I'm going to ask myself some questions." Leader of the far-right National Rally party Jordan Bardella is currently the frontrunner in polls to replace President Emmanuel Macron, who entered office in 2017 and is not running for re-election. The first round of voting will take place in April, with a runoff to follow between the top two candidates if none wins 50%. Macron faced the National Rally, then called Front National, at the runoff stages in both 2017 and 2022. Bardella has pledged a realignment of France's place in the European Union, promising to put the European Commission and the EU "back at the service of nations and no longer the other way around". The euro sold off in February in the wake of a Financial Times report that Lagarde was considering making an early exit from the ECB. The ECB said at the time that no such decision had been made. The ECB declined to comment on Lagarde's latest remarks when approached by CNBC. Lagarde told Les Echos that she is committed to her role at the bank in the short term: "My term ends in October 2027. And I believe my mission is to maintain price stability. As we are once again in a period of turbulence, I believe the captain of the ECB ship must remain on board." Even if she remained at the ECB until the end of her term, Lagarde could still involve herself in the Presidential debate.

Christine Lagarde leaves door open to early ECB exit, as she mulls French politics
North America
Yahoo Finance

CRM Stock Has Bounced From This Price Before. Now What?

After a punishing slide, Salesforce stock has landed on a price floor that has launched major rallies before, forcing investors to decide if history is a guide or a trap. Salesforce (CRM), the application software giant, has seen its stock slide to trade around $165 a share, a level about 54% below its two-year high. The trailing twelve-month return of -37.9% stands in stark contrast to the S&P 500’s gain. But this particular price level carries historical weight. The stock now sits inside a support zone between $157 and $174, a neighborhood where buyers have mounted a defense five separate times before. History says buyers show up here. The question every investor must now answer is: Will they this time? The five previous times Salesforce’s stock fell to this level, the subsequent rallies were significant. In April 2020, buyers who stepped in saw a peak gain of 90.6%. More recently, a defense of this zone in February 2023 preceded a rally that eventually peaked with a 128.6% gain. Even the shorter-term bounces have been sharp, including a 26.4% gain over just 19 days in May 2026. Across all five episodes, the average peak gain after holding this level was 56.1%. A floor holds or breaks based on the health of the business arriving at it. On paper, Salesforce looks solid. Revenue over the last twelve months grew 11.0%, outpacing the S&P 500 median, and its operating margin is a healthy 21.9%. The company’s push into AI is showing explosive adoption, with management reporting it processed 28.6 trillion tokens in the last quarter, up 152% from the previous quarter. Its Agentforce product now has an ARR greater than $1 billion. Some wonder if the market is ignoring the real growth story in Salesforce stock. This AI momentum is the core of the bull case. Yet, this is where the honest catch comes in. While the AI story is strong, there are signs of drag elsewhere. The investor debate centers on whether this new growth can offset softness in other areas. As one analyst noted on the company’s latest earnings call, “bookings trends are lagging a little bit,” with specific weakness in its Tableau and Commerce cloud offerings. This is the business reason buyers might hesitate: the new AI engine is firing, but parts of the established business are sputtering, making the path to overall growth acceleration less certain. For investors who see potential in the broader software industry but are wary of single-stock risk, a software ETF like IGV offers a diversified alternative. A support level is a historical pattern, not a physical law. The floor will hold only if investors believe the company’s future growth can justify the price. For Salesforce, the entire debate hinges on one specific promise from management. The company has stated it expects to “drive organic revenue reacceleration in the second half of FY 27.” That is the test. If the AI-driven businesses can pull the entire company’s growth rate higher as promised, this floor will likely be defended again. If that reacceleration fails to materialize, history may not be enough to stop the slide. If pullbacks to defensible levels are your kind of setup, our Buy the Dip screen ranks the dips where the underlying business still holds up. Buying at defended levels works often enough to be tempting and fails often enough to hurt, and no chart can tell you in advance which visit to the floor is the last one. The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio removes that guess: about 30 quality names held on the strength of their fundamentals rather than their chart levels, rebalanced with discipline. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines all major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Keep an eye on the setups; let the system carry the conviction.

CRM Stock Has Bounced From This Price Before. Now What?
North America
Yahoo Finance

Is Google Cloud Officially Driving the Train?

Let’s be honest. When a stock you own doubles, you feel like a genius. When it’s a behemoth like Alphabet (GOOGL), and it returns +105% in a year, you might wonder if you’ve misread the chart. You haven’t. Over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 gained a respectable 21%, Alphabet left it in the dust. It also trounced its mega-cap peers; Microsoft (MSFT) stock returned -21.9%, and Meta Platforms (META) returned -16.2% over the same period. So what on earth happened? The answer isn’t the one you’d expect. It’s a story about the division that for years looked like an expensive, third-place hobby. Yes, the core Search business is humming. Its revenue grew 19% in the latest quarter, and the company says user queries are at an all-time high. That’s a fantastic result for a business of its scale. But that’s not the headline. The real story, the one that re-rated the entire company, is what happened in the cloud. For the first time ever, management confirmed that its “enterprise AI solutions have become our primary growth driver for cloud.” The side project just took the wheel. The numbers are startling. Google Cloud revenue accelerated, growing 63% to exceed $20 billion in a single quarter. Even more surprising was the profitability. A year ago, the segment’s operating margin was 17.8%. This year, it hit 32.9%. What made the growth so remarkable was its profitability, powered by a nearly 800% year-over-year surge in revenue from products built on its advanced artificial intelligence models. The market has spent a decade wondering if Alphabet could build a second meaningful business. It turns out, it just did. This might be the single most important figure. Google Cloud’s backlog of contracted future revenue nearly doubled from the prior quarter to $462 billion. Think about that. This isn’t wishful thinking; it’s a mountain of committed sales from customers locking in capacity and AI services. It signals that the rapid demand isn’t a fluke. It’s a durable trend that the market can now see and value, stretching out for years. We’ve looked before at what it would take to get the stock moving, and this appears to be it. But this torrent of demand creates its own high-class problem. Management admits they are “compute constrained in the near term,” and that cloud revenue would have been even higher if they could have met all the demand. To catch up, they plan for 2027 capital expenditures to “significantly increase” over 2026’s already large $180 billion to $190 billion budget. Alphabet proved it can build a world-class second engine; now, can it actually afford the fuel? Knowing why a stock ran is one thing; knowing whether the run has legs is another. The most durable moves are the ones a rising forecast is actually backing, rather than a good week of sentiment. Our Guidance Momentum screen tracks the S&P 500 names where a raised outlook meets real price momentum, so you can judge which runs are built to last. If you would rather own the whole theme than ride this one winner, a communication services ETF like XLC holds the entire group. Catching the reason behind a run is a good skill; relying on catching the next one is a risky plan. Durable returns come from owning quality with discipline and letting the winners do the work over time, rather than betting the outcome on a single name and a single catalyst. That is exactly how the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio is run. It weighs the full picture of quality across thousands of names, holds the 30 strongest, and sizes and rebalances them with rules. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000.

Is Google Cloud Officially Driving the Train?
Europe
BBC Business

We've saved £6,000 on holidays by swapping homes with strangers

Would you swap homes with a stranger in exchange for a cheaper holiday? Or would the idea of someone sleeping in your bed and using your kitchen while you were away put you off? Henry Vanderpump, 42, his wife Elliw, 39, and their two young children have had two home exchange holidays in the past two years and have another planned this summer. In each case, they have stayed in another family's home, while that family stays in theirs, a five-bedroom house in Tarporley, rural Cheshire. Neither side pays anything for their accommodation, although they do pay an annual membership fee to Home Link, the listings site they use to book the trips. So far, the Vanderpumps have stayed in similarly sized properties in Hamburg and Copenhagen, and Henry says they have saved around £2,500 on accommodation per trip, plus a further £700 on transport, as they also swapped cars. "We used to have one holiday a summer, now we have two [because of the savings we make from home exchanges]. And the kids love the idea of living in someone else's house while that person is living in theirs." Home exchanges have been around since at least the 1950s, but an increasing number of people seem to be embracing them because of the rising cost of living, or simply to experience a new type of travel, commentators say. Henry says the best thing about swapping homes isn't the savings but getting to visit places off the tourist trail and have a "really authentic experience". When the family visited Hamburg in 2024, they stayed in a suburb and lived "like a German family" for a week, exploring lakes on the edge of the city recommended by their hosts. Last year, they stayed in "a very Scandinavian house" in suburban Copenhagen, which was "all on one level and had no clutter". "They also left us several electric bikes to use," Henry says. "We cycled to the beach, swam in the Baltic and tried restaurants they recommended." Some people are not comfortable with the idea of strangers staying in their home, and for those who are, there's a lot of preparation and tidying to do before their guests arrive.

We've saved £6,000 on holidays by swapping homes with strangers