New Delhi, June 3: The India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) on Tuesday announced a unique industry-wide initiative to collaboratively foster tech and AI innovation for the benefit of India’s manufacturing sector.

The programme will connect companies with transformative innovations across domains such as advanced manufacturing, AI, IoT, energy efficiency, materials science, and more.

The ICEA launched Venture Access Labs — a technology innovation access programme in collaboration with venture capital fund Caret Capital.

This initiative aims to empower India’s electronics and appliances manufacturing companies by enabling them to discover, curate, and adopt cutting-edge technologies and innovations from across the world.

“Through Venture Access Labs, ICEA is proud to champion and unlock global innovation to strengthen India’s position as a global hub for manufacturing and electronics with a vision to build Indian Champions,” said Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman, ICEA.

“By opening the door to international technological advancements and building an innovation pipeline, we aim to accelerate India’s electronics manufacturing capabilities and global competitiveness so as to capture a larger global market share,” he added.

The comprehensive programme will cover several functions including procurement, planning, manufacturing, supply chain, finance, HR, legal and ESG.

Through this programme, companies will benefit from innovation trend spotting, curated access to high-impact startups and Ips, strategic matchmaking and pilot opportunities, tailored adoption pathways for new technologies, and facilitated investments in strategically relevant, vetted high-potential startups.

“It is time for the Indian electronics and appliances manufacturing to transit to tech first-led global leadership,” said Salil Kapoor, Co-founder and Chief mentor of Venture Access Labs.

It will be the innovation catalyst and partner, scanning and curating the latest tech and game-changing startups from across the world for Indian manufacturing companies to engage with, at a fraction of the cost if they were to do it on their own,” he mentioned.

New Delhi, May 28: Even as SpaceX’s Starship flight exploded during splashdown on its ninth test on Wednesday, the company’s founder Elon Musk blamed it on fuel leaks.

This is the third time in a row that Starship flight has faced issues during the test flight. The company’s last two test flights — the seventh (January) and eighth (March) test flight — also ended prematurely with the destruction of the aircraft.

The ninth test flight of Starship — which blasted off at about 7:36 p.m. EDT (5:06 am IST) from the company’s Starbase launch site in Texas — successfully reached orbit, flying farther than on its two previous attempts.

However, the spacecraft’s payload bay door failed to open, preventing the planned release of simulated Starlink satellites. Around 30 minutes into the mission, SpaceX confirmed a fuel tank leak aboard the vehicle.

The first-stage Super Heavy booster exploded shortly before its expected splashdown, and live video showed the upper-stage vehicle spinning uncontrollably before its planned re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, due to fuel leaks.

“Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase,” Musk shared in a post on his social media platform X.

“Contact with the booster was lost shortly after the start of the landing burn when it experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly approximately 6 minutes after launch, bringing an end to the first reflight of a Super Heavy booster,” SpaceX said in a statement.

However, Musk called the flight an achievement and noted that there had been no loss to the heat shield tiles.

“Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over the last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent. Lot of good data to review,” Musk said.

SpaceX noted that the company “will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test”.

Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall, Starship and heavy booster — the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket system. It will launch the moon lander for NASA’s Artemis 3 mission that aims to land astronauts on the Moon by 2026.

Mumbai, May 19: Railway wagons and components manufacturer Jupiter Wagons on Monday reported a decline of 1.9 per cent in its net profit at Rs 103 crore in Q4 FY25, down from Rs 105 crore in the same period last fiscal.

The profit before tax (PBT) also declined by 8.26 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 127.47 crore from Rs 138.95 crore, according to its stock exchange filing.

The company’s consolidated total income also saw a decline, falling to Rs 1,057 crore from Rs 1,127 crore a year earlier — a drop of around 6.2 per cent.

Similarly, revenue from operations decreased by approximately 6.4 per cent, from Rs 1,115.41 crore in the year-ago period to Rs 1,044.54 crore in the last quarter of FY25.

Despite the revenue dip, Jupiter Wagons managed to reduce its total expenses to Rs 923.34 crore in Q4, down 6.4 per cent compared to Rs 986.41 crore in the same quarter last financial year.

However, on a sequential basis, expenses rose by about 1.56 per cent compared to Rs 909.16 crore in Q3.

The company’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) rose slightly to Rs 153 crore from Rs 147 crore last fiscal, with the EBITDA margin improving to 14.6 per cent from 13.2 per cent.

Shares of Jupiter Wagons Limited fell by Rs 13.1 or 3.1 per cent to close the intra-day trading session at Rs 408.95 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday.

Speaking about the full financial year, Managing Director Vivek Lohia described FY25 as a transformative year for Jupiter Wagons.

He highlighted several strategic wins, including major contracts with Braithwaite for wheelsets.

“The company also secured brake system contracts worth over Rs 215 crore,” Lohia mentioned.

Lohia emphasised the company’s push into electric mobility with the inauguration of a new facility in Pithampur.

“This state-of-the-art plant is expected to drive battery production and supply to Indian Railways and private partners, along with orders for complete Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS),” he said.