Karnataka’s Department of Health & Family Welfare, together with NIMHANS and other stakeholders, has drafted a policy to tackle excessive and unsafe digital technology use among students. With nearly one in four adolescents showing problematic internet use, the policy acknowledges the rising mental health concerns linked to excessive screen time, including anxiety, sleep issues, poor academic performance, and social isolation, along with increased exposure to cyber risks like cyberbullying, grooming, and online exploitation.

The policy aims to promote digital well-being, emotional resilience, and responsible technology use through a structured, school-based framework. It emphasizes prevention, early identification, and management by integrating digital literacy, mental health awareness, and cyber safety into schools. A multi-stakeholder approach involves schools, teachers, parents, students, and government systems.

Schools are directed to conduct teacher training programs on healthy technology use and maintain proper communication with parents. Digital wellness will be embedded in life skills and ICT education, covering social media literacy, cyber safety, mental health impacts, and ethical use of technology. Each school will set screen-time norms (≤1 hour per day recreational use), address cyber misconduct, provide counselling, and train teachers to identify behavioural or academic red flags with clear referral pathways to mental health services. School-level bodies will oversee implementation, awareness, and incident management, alongside regular sensitization programs for students, teachers, and parents.

The policy encourages physical activity, hobbies, and tech-free periods for balanced development, and includes mechanisms to track digital distress, handle cyber incidents, and access support services such as Tele-MANAS (14416). A Training of Trainers (ToT) model will equip teachers to understand technology addiction (5C model: Craving, Control, Compulsion, Coping, Consequences), identify early warning signs, and implement classroom and peer-led interventions. Parents are recognized as key stakeholders, encouraged to enforce screen-time rules, create device-free zones, promote offline family engagement, and model responsible digital behaviour, supported by guidance from schools.

The draft policy defines clear roles and responsibilities: students practice responsible digital use and seek help when needed; teachers integrate digital wellness and monitor well-being; parents supervise technology use; schools implement policies and support systems; and the government provides guidelines, funding, and oversight.

The policy aims to improve digital literacy, encourage responsible technology use, reduce technology addiction and related mental health issues, enable early detection of mental health concerns, and strengthen school-parent collaboration. It represents a proactive, scalable approach to fostering a safe, balanced, and resilient digital environment for students.
Disclaimer: This image is taken from ANI.

Ghaziabad-based DroneYards Aerial Solutions has boosted the Indian Army’s operational capabilities by delivering over 200 advanced First-Person View (FPV) drones and training more than 350 soldiers in their use within just three months. This rapid deployment highlights the growing importance of indigenous technology in strengthening India’s defence preparedness.

The drones are fully developed in India and deliberately exclude Chinese components, ensuring greater security and self-reliance. Built for modern combat environments, they are equipped with Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities, secure telemetry systems, and an extended operational range. These features allow troops to conduct surveillance, reconnaissance, and tactical missions more efficiently, even in challenging and hostile conditions.

To ensure effective utilization, DroneYards conducted intensive training programs at the Manipur-Assam border and other strategically sensitive areas. Soldiers were trained in real-time operations, enabling them to seamlessly integrate the drones into mission-critical tasks. A key feature of these drones is their triple radio redundancy, which enhances communication reliability and ensures continued operation even if one or more channels are compromised.

This initiative aligns with the broader ‘Make in India’ vision aimed at modernizing the armed forces through locally manufactured, secure technologies. DroneYards, along with other Indian firms like InsideFPV and DroneAcharya, is contributing significantly to reducing dependence on foreign defence systems while promoting innovation within the country.

The company’s efforts have already received recognition, with its drone platforms showcased by the Western and South Western Commands of the Indian Army. Overall, DroneYards’ contribution reflects the strategic importance of home-grown defence solutions in equipping India’s military to meet evolving security challenges and operate effectively in contested environments.
Disclaimer: This image is taken from Indian Defence News.

Austria’s conservative-led, three-party government plans to ban social media use for children under 14, officials announced on Friday. Members of the cabinet from the ruling parties agreed on the principle of the ban, which aims to protect children from addictive algorithms and harmful content, including sexual abuse. However, the government has not specified when the ban will take effect or finalized how it will be implemented.

Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler of the Social Democrats emphasized the urgency of the measure, saying the government will “decisively protect children and young people from the negative effects of social media.” He added, “We can no longer stand by while these platforms make our children addicted and often unwell. The risks linked to this usage were ignored for too long, and now it is time to act.”

Austria would join a growing number of countries considering restrictions on underage social media use. Australia became the first nation to enforce a ban for under-16s in December. France’s lower house of parliament approved a similar measure for under-15s in January, and other countries are exploring comparable rules.

Babler and Alexander Proell, the conservative junior minister for digitization, said draft legislation for Austria’s ban is expected by the end of June. Instead of naming individual platforms, the government plans to apply the ban based on how addictive a platform’s algorithms are and whether it contains content such as sexualized violence.

The initiative reflects concerns about children’s mental health and exposure to harmful content online. By focusing on the design of platforms and the nature of content rather than specific apps, Austrian authorities aim to create a flexible framework that addresses the evolving digital landscape and protects minors from potential risks.
Disclaimer: This image is taken from Reuters.

Razorpay has announced a partnership with the Bengaluru-based startup Sarvam AI to create voice-first, conversational commerce experiences in India. The collaboration leverages Sarvam’s AI models and agentic stack alongside Razorpay’s payment infrastructure, allowing users to browse products, place orders, and complete payments through natural voice commands in multiple Indian languages.

The system is designed to understand user intent and manage the entire transaction flow without relying on traditional app navigation. The initial rollout will feature Swiggy on the Indus App, enabling users to order food simply by speaking to an AI assistant. According to a CNBC report, businesses can also integrate these voice-based commerce features into their own platforms. As part of an early deployment, a conversational assistant has already been implemented on The Derma Co website, allowing customers to explore and purchase products using voice commands.

Sarvam’s technology will also be integrated into Razorpay’s Agent Studio, giving developers the ability to build multilingual AI agents capable of interacting in languages such as Hindi and Hinglish. The goal of this collaboration is to make digital commerce more accessible to India’s multilingual population, with AI agents handling everything from product discovery to checkout in a seamless conversational flow.

Last month, Razorpay also partnered with Indian AI startup Gnani.ai, which focuses on a more specific application compared to the broader conversational commerce initiative with Sarvam AI. Together, they launched an agentic AI collections platform that helps businesses complete payment transactions during live customer calls. The AI agent can assess intent, generate payment requests (like UPI links), and confirm payments within the same interaction.

Unlike the Sarvam AI partnership, which covers end-to-end conversational commerce from discovery to checkout, the Gnani.ai platform is targeted at automating payment collections. It integrates Gnani.ai’s voice AI with Razorpay’s payments infrastructure to manage the full payment workflow in real time, including verification, link generation, tracking, and confirmation, focusing on financial operations rather than general consumer transactions.

Sarvam AI is a Bengaluru-based startup developing speech, language, and multimodal AI systems specifically for Indian use cases. Rather than a single general-purpose chatbot, the company builds specialized models for tasks like speech recognition, text-to-speech, translation, and document understanding, with a strong emphasis on Indian languages. Its portfolio includes Saaras (speech recognition), Bulbul (text-to-speech), Saarika (transcription), Mayura (translation), and Sarvam-M (multilingual reasoning model). On the vision front, Sarvam Vision handles OCR and document analysis, while applications like Samvaad enable voice-based interactions.
Disclaimer: This image is taken from Business Standard.

In 1998, tobacco companies in the United States were made responsible for the damage caused by the products they produced and sold through the Tobacco Settlement. Today, a similar question arises for Big Tech: it is not only about the content on their platforms but also whether these platforms were intentionally created to keep users addicted. Daniel Martin explores this issue with Rajesh Sreenivasan, Head of Technology, Media, and Telecommunications at Rajah and Tann Singapore.

Disclaimer: This podcast is taken from CNA.

In Singapore, mental health professionals are noticing a small but increasing number of patients showing delusions, paranoia, or emotional dependence seemingly connected to frequent AI chatbot use. Although “AI psychosis” is not an official medical diagnosis, clinicians acknowledge that the issue is genuine. How does extensive interaction with AI blur the boundaries between reality and reinforcement? Who is most vulnerable, and what signs should families be aware of? Andrea Heng and Hairianto Diman discuss these questions with Dr. Amelia Sim, Senior Consultant at the Department of Psychosis, Institute of Mental Health.

Disclaimer: This podcast is taken from CNA.

With decisions delegated, chatbots replacing friends, and nature sidelined, Silicon Valley is shaping a life stripped of real connection. Escape is possible—but it will require a united effort.

Disclaimer: This podcast is taken from The Guardian.

Google has revealed plans for a significant increase in its AI investments in Singapore, featuring the launch of Majulah AI – a collection of training and innovation initiatives aimed at developing an AI-ready workforce. Daniel Martin speaks with Ben King, Managing Director of Google Singapore, about how these efforts will help Singapore achieve its goal of becoming an AI leader and accelerate AI adoption across the nation.

Disclaimer: This podcast is taken from CNA.