Raymond Group, a leading diversified group with business interests in textile, apparel and realty, has announced the Raymond 100 Autofest as part of its centenary year celebration.

The three-day event organised by Super Car Club Garage (SCCG) starting from 10 January 2025 will take place at JK Gram, Thane, Maharashtra. The Raymond 100 Autofest will bring together supercars, superbikes, vintage classic to modern rivals, showcasing a range of automotive design language. Global racing icons, Mika Hakkinen and Narain Karthikeyan, alongside motorsport veteran Gaurav Gill are also expected to be part of the event. Amongst the various classic vehicles present over at the event, the centre piece will be cricket legend Ravi Shastri’s iconic Audi 100, restored by the Super Car Club Garage (SCCG).

The third-gen Audi 100, which went on sale internationally around 1982, was declared as a ‘national asset’ by Shastri himself after Gautam Singhania, Chairman & Managing Director, Raymond Group, handed over the restored vehicle to him.

“The Raymond 100 Autofest is more than a showcase of automobiles; it’s a celebration of passion, ingenuity and our deep connection with the community. This event encapsulates our ethos of excellence and evolution, much like the automotive world we’re celebrating – a perfect ode to our remarkable 100-year journey,” said Singhania.

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Bajaj Auto Foundation, the CSR arm of Bajaj Auto Limited, has announced a significant INR 4 billion commitment over the next decade to support women engineers through the Rupa Rahul Bajaj Scholarship for Women in Engineering (RRBSWE). The initiative is aimed at increasing female participation in core technical fields.

The scholarship, recognised as India’s largest such programme for women in core engineering, targets meritorious students pursuing disciplines like Mechanical Engineering, Electronics, Industrial Instrumentation, Mechatronics and Robotics. Scholars at 40 leading institutes, including IITs, NITs, IIITs and reputed state and private universities, can receive up to INR 800,000 in financial aid throughout their engineering education.

Beyond monetary support, the programme focuses on holistic leadership development. It offers structured mentorship, industry immersion and professional networking opportunities to cultivate future women leaders in engineering and manufacturing sectors. The launch event at Bajaj Auto Ltd.’s Pune headquarters also celebrated the first cohort of 506 scholars, with chief guest Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Rajiv Bajaj in attendance.

The foundation highlighted that this effort tackles the persistent underrepresentation of women as advanced manufacturing and deep technology grow critical for India’s economy. Unveiling its overarching proposition, ‘Where there’s a skill, there’s a way’, the foundation reaffirmed its dedication to skilling and education for the nation’s future workforce.

Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto Limited, said, “Women possess inherent skills of patience, empathy and diligence, which are very strong attributes to excel in core engineering jobs. We identified this long back and made women engineers a significant part of our workforce. In fact, from virtually no women in our operations till around a decade back, today they account for nearly 20 percent of our workforce. This has brought a meaningful difference to our way of working and contributed to Bajaj Auto’s global scale, thereby making us the World’s Favourite Indian. This programme would extend our learning with the larger manufacturing industry.

“The Rupa Rahul Bajaj Scholarship for Women in Engineering holds a special place in my heart, as it carries the name of my beloved mother, Rupa Rahul Bajaj. Her dedication to education and her belief that women can drive change in their communities inspire this programme. The Rupa Rahul Bajaj Scholarship is an investment in talent, ambition and the belief that opportunity can unlock extraordinary potential. We are deeply committed to ensuring that women play a far greater role in shaping the future of engineering and manufacturing.”

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon Limited, said, “The future of science, engineering and manufacturing must be built on inclusion and equal opportunity. Encouraging more women to pursue core engineering disciplines is not just a social imperative but an economic one. Initiatives like the Rupa Rahul Bajaj Scholarship can help create a stronger and more diverse innovation ecosystem for India.”

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Autodesk has overhauled its India digital storefront into a complete self-service procurement hub targeting startups, freelancers, entrepreneurs and small businesses. The redesign lowers barriers to professional design software and reflects a broader digital-first sales strategy for how local customers buy and manage licenses.

Internet usage in India has reached 958 million active users, fundamentally changing professional technology purchasing. The updated platform introduces flexible consumption models for the country’s growing digital economy. Emerging firms and first-time users driving the Viksit Bharat initiative are primary beneficiaries.

Launched in 2017, the online store is now a critical customer acquisition channel. Startups, freelancers and smaller enterprises account for over half of first-time buyers. Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities contribute more than one-fifth of online customers, making smaller hubs engines of digital adoption.

The platform adds monthly subscriptions starting at INR 1,062 for AutoCAD Web, plus Autodesk Flex token packs at INR 29,300 for 100 tokens, valid one year and shareable. Users can generate quotes, complete multi-product checkouts, renew subscriptions and manage GST compliance without callbacks.

Autodesk has expanded payment options to include UPI alongside debit cards, credit cards and net banking, making professional software procurement seamless for India’s creator community.

Kamolika Gupta Peres, Vice President, Autodesk India and SAARC, said, “India has nearly a billion active internet users – and for this generation, digital is not a channel. It is the expectation. Today, the Autodesk creator community that includes designers, animators, manufacturers want to explore, evaluate and purchase professional technology instantly, just as they would any other product or service online.

“Over the past year, we analysed the online buying behaviour and preferences of our customers and Autodesk’s creator community across India. The insights and feedback have shaped the evolution of the Autodesk Store into a more intuitive, inclusive, seamless and locally relevant experience, designed around the needs of modern Indian businesses and professionals. As Autodesk’s reach expands across Bharat, we are making it easier to access professional design technology, regardless of where they are located.”

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Chinese automotive major BYD (Build Your Dreams), one of the leading manufacturers of new energy vehicles (NEVs) across product categories, has outlined an ambitious target to become the No.1 automaker in the next five years.

The statement was made by Wang Chuanfu, CEO, BYD, who told investors in China, according to a Reuters report.

In 2025, BYD surpassed American automotive major Ford Motor Co in terms of sales, with 4.6 millions sold globally, thanks to robust domestic demand, as well as its aggressive expansion in global markets such as Europe and Asia.

The company now aims to surpass Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation, which continues to be the No.1 automaker (in terms of volumes), consistently selling over 10 million vehicles.

In 2025, Toyota Motor Corporation sold 11.32 million vehicles, Volkswagen Group sold 8.98 million units, Hyundai Motor Group sold 7.27 million units, GM (including SAIC-GM-Wuling) sold 6.18 million units, Stellantis sold 5.6 million units, while Ford had sales crossing 4 million units.

BYD Showcases DM-i Electric-First Hybrid Technology In India

For the unversed, the Shenzen-headquartered automaker had stopped producing Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles in 2022 and solely focused on electrification and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV).

Since then, the company has consistently expanded its customer base and tech upgrades.

In fact, BYD has recently started expanding its flash-charging station across Germany, which are capable of delivering up to 1,500 kW of charging speed. This allows its EVs (using Blade Battery 2.0 and Flash Charging 2.0 tech) to be charged from 10 percent to 70 percent in under 5-minutes and upto 97 percent in 9-minutes. The company is targeting to build 6,000 such flash-charging stations outside China by the end of 2026, with Europe expected to get half of it.

As per industry reports, BYD has already set up over 6,000 flash-charging stations across 300 cities in China till last month.

Interestingly, the company sold 383,453 EVs last month, taking its cumulative sales to 16.5 million EVs to date.

To further make smart inroads in the European market, BYD has also started conversations with automakers for acquiring their under utilised production facilities.

Also read: BYD Overtakes Tesla And BMW To Become UK’s Best-Selling EV Brand

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WACKER is presenting a portfolio of battery electric vehicle safety innovations at the Battery Show in Stuttgart, Germany, running from June 9 to June 11. Among the products featured at the company’s Hall 1, Booth K45, are a ceramifying silicone for thermal barriers, thermally conductive potting compounds for power electronics and materials under the ELASTOSIL, SEMICOSIL, SILRES and WACKER Silgel brands. The ceramifying silicone notably enhances heat and flame resistance, while the potting compounds enable effective temperature control with minimal sedimentation, allowing processing after long storage without complex pretreatment.

New potting compounds for thermal management take centre stage as another key exhibit. The spotlight falls on ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC and ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC, both filled addition-curing silicone elastomers that cure at room temperature, enabling energy-saving handling of large components. ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC offers a thermal conductivity of 1.6 W/mK, while ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC achieves 2.4 W/mK.

Thermally conductive potting compounds must balance on-spec thermal conductivity with low viscosity, but low viscosity can cause particulate fillers to sediment and cake after prolonged storage. Redispersing such fillers is time-consuming and may require special mixing equipment. WACKER has now eliminated these concerns with the optimised rheological properties of its new products, making sedimentation and agglomeration effects irrelevant for customers.

Even if fillers settle under unfavourable transport or storage conditions, standard mixing equipment can easily redisperse them. ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC and ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC feature low viscosities of 5,500 and 8,000 mPa•s, respectively, allowing quick, bubble-free filling of gaps as small as a few hundred micrometres. Their room-temperature curing eliminates the need for ovens regardless of component size.

These heat-resistant, low-emission formulations are primarily used in electromobility battery chargers, DC/DC converters and inverters for thermal management of discrete components like coils or inductors. Other silicones for electromobility include SILRES MK, a methyl silicone resin for mechanical and thermal barriers and ELASTOSIL CM 18x potting compounds for side potting of cells and top potting of pressure-relief vents, providing electrical and thermal insulation without impairing vent function.

ELASTOSIL R 531/60, a ceramifying silicone rubber for busbar insulation in high-voltage batteries, rounds out the offerings. This extrudable material improves electric vehicle safety by ceramifying in a fire, encasing busbars in a ceramic layer to maintain electrical insulation. WACKER is demonstrating all these solutions live at the Stuttgart exhibition.

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