Category technology

Travel in India often coincides with family visits, planned holidays, and spontaneous getaways. However, periods of high demand can lead to a sharp rise in airfares, making flight bookings a challenging decision for many travellers. To ease this, several travel platforms are currently offering attractive discounts, cashback deals, and limited-period offers to help flyers save on ticket costs.

Whether you’re travelling home, planning a short break, or exploring a new destination, choosing the right booking platform can make a noticeable difference to your overall travel spend.

Here’s a look at the top five travel websites offering some of the best flight ticket deals right now combining smart technology, user-friendly features, and value-driven offers to make your travel planning smoother and more affordable.

1. Wego 

Wego stands out as one of the most user-friendly and data-rich platforms for finding real-time flight comparisons across airlines and travel agencies. This festive season, it’s rolling out exclusive app-only deals and fare alerts that help you book smarter and cheaper. Whether you’re planning a domestic getaway or an international escape, Wego ensures you never miss a low fare.

2. MakeMyTrip

MakeMyTrip’s festive campaigns are a traveler’s delight, offering cashback on select credit cards, wallet discounts, and coupon codes on flight bookings. Their “Festive Sale” often includes limited-time flash deals and discounts for round-trip bookings.

3. Cleartrip 

Cleartrip’s festive flight offers are powered by exclusive partnerships with banks like HDFC, ICICI, and Axis, offering additional discounts when you pay via select cards. Plus, their Cleartrip Rewards program lets you earn points for every booking that can be redeemed for future travel.

4. Ixigo 

Ixigo has quickly become a traveler’s favorite for its AI-powered fare alerts and Ixigo Money cashback offers. This festive season, the platform is running limited-time deals on domestic routes and bonus rewards for app bookings.

VietJet Aviation Joint Stock Company (HOSE: VJC) has reported a strong financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year 2025, reflecting the airline’s operational efficiency and resilient business model. As part of its international expansion strategy, VietJet launched two new international routes from India in 2025, strengthening direct connectivity between India and Vietnam and supporting the growing demand for tourism and business travel. These results provide a solid foundation for VietJet’s global expansion plans in 2026.

Sustained Profitability Driven by Operational Efficiency

According to its financial statements, VietJet recorded standalone revenue of VND 29,035 billion (approximately USD 1.11 billion) in Q4 2025, marking a 47 percent increase compared to the same period last year. For the full year 2025, standalone revenue reached VND 81,426 billion (approximately USD 3.13 billion), reflecting a year-on-year growth of 14 percent.

The airline’s consolidated revenue for the year stood at VND 82,093 billion (approximately USD 3.16 billion). Pre-tax profit reached VND 2,630 billion, while post-tax profit amounted to VND 2,123 billion, representing growth of 44.3 percent and 51.2 percent respectively. This performance exceeded the company’s annual target by more than 120 percent.

During the year, VietJet also issued 50 million new shares, increasing equity by VND 5,000 billion (approximately USD 192.6 million). This capital infusion will support the airline’s long-term growth and expansion plans.

Network Expansion Strengthens Market Presence

In the fourth quarter of 2025, VietJet operated 36,100 flights, serving over 6.7 million passengers. For the full year, the airline operated 153,000 flights and carried 28.2 million passengers, representing year-on-year growth of 9 percent in flights and 11.2 percent in passenger numbers. Total cargo transported during the year reached 113,923 tonnes.

In 2025, VietJet operated a total of 254 routes, including 52 domestic and 202 international routes. The airline launched 22 new routes, notably introducing direct services from Hyderabad and Bengaluru to Ho Chi Minh City, further enhancing connectivity between India and Vietnam.

Strengthening International Partnerships and Long-Term Investments

The fourth quarter of 2025 marked a significant milestone in VietJet’s long-term investment strategy, with the delivery of 22 new aircraft—the largest fleet expansion since the airline’s inception.

Additionally, VietJet signed an agreement with Airbus for the purchase of 100 A321neo aircraft. The airline also entered into a separate agreement with Rolls-Royce for 92 Trent 7000 engines along with comprehensive maintenance services, with a total estimated value of USD 3.8 billion.

Innovation, Technology and Global Recognition

Throughout 2025, VietJet continued to enhance its customer offerings, introducing services such as Business Class tickets, the SkyJoy loyalty program, in-flight retail, multi-channel booking and payment platforms, and the AI-powered virtual assistant “Amy.”

The airline received several international accolades in 2025, including recognition as one of the world’s safest airlines, “Best Ultra Low-Cost Airline,” and the AirlineRatings Sustainability Award. VietJet was also honoured as Asia’s Leading Airline for Customer Experience, ranked among ASEAN’s most valuable airline brands by Brand Finance, listed in Forbes Vietnam’s Top 50 Companies, certified as a Best Place to Work in Asia, and awarded the Gold ESG Transport Award in Taiwan.

Entering 2026 from a position of strength, VietJet is well poised to advance its strategy of sustainable growth and continued global expansion.

VISWAM.AI and SFLC.in Release Draft License for Consultation Aimed at Safeguarding Open Source AI and Community Ownership

Hyderabad, Feb 04: VISWAM.AI (A Joint initiative of Swecha and IIIT Hyderabad), jointly with SFLC.in released the new Draft License for consultation aimed to address critical gaps in current open Source licenses, regarding data usage, attribution, and the definition of openness in the age of AI. This License Draft Release was announced at the roundtable event “Understanding Trust and Safety in AI: From Code to Creativity” stakeholder consultation held at IIIT Hyderabad, jointly by VISWAM.AI, SFLC.in, FOSS United and The Linux Foundation.

Various community initiatives for the publication of datasets for public use have gained traction, exemplified by the community model pioneered by VISWAM.AI and Swecha for Telugu datasets. Nonetheless, the absence of suitable licensing frameworks presents a risk that these datasets could be appropriated by large organisations without appropriate attribution or reciprocal contribution to the community. The consultation highlighted that existing open-source licenses are insufficient for AI. While they cover source code, they fail to protect the training data which is the fuel of modern AI, from appropriation by proprietary giants.

The Key Objectives of the Draft License:

Community Ownership and Reciprocity: The license is designed to prevent the extraction of community-generated data by large corporations without attribution, with the central tenet to ensure that the value generated from the community-owned contributions flows back to the community. This is based on the principles of copy-left licenses like GNU GPL which are popular in the field of software.

Verifiability: It introduces the concept that for an AI to be truly open, the data provenance must be verifiable to detect bias and ensure safety. If the dataset is biased, the “openness” of the source code alone is insufficient.

In the following days, VISWAM.AI and SFLC.in will be conducting a series of online and in-person public consultations to gain feedback on the draft of the license. The draft license for consultation is available at: https://discuss.sflc.in/d/SBNXHa9k/viswam-ai-data-set-license-draft-for-discussion

“The Free and Open Source Software movement has been one of the most successful collaborative efforts in history. However, the licenses that powered this movement like the GPL and Creative Commons were written for a world of copying and distribution. They were designed to answer: “Can I copy this code?” They were never built to answer: “Can I train a neural network on this culture?

Even in the internet era, “to train or not to train” was a context the pre-AI world never envisaged. We are releasing this Draft License for consultation to ensure proprietary models cannot simply appropriate our work without attribution. This paves the way for the release of community-contributed, crowdsourced datasets under a framework that guarantees community ownership and verifiability” said Kiran Chandra Yarlagadda, Center Head and Chief Technologist, VISWAM.AI, Founder, Swecha.

Prasanth Sugathan, Legal Director, SFLC.IN said “We need a license to ensure that the rights of creators are protected and big tech companies do not appropriate the work of individuals and the community without even attributing them.”

By – Mr. Lalit Sharma, Managing Director, Polaris India

“The Union Budget 2026’s emphasis on improving farm credit access and strengthening rural infrastructure is a welcome step towards accelerating farm mechanisation across India. Greater access to credit will enable farmers to invest in modern equipment, helping improve productivity and operational efficiency. At Polaris, we believe these measures will encourage wider adoption of mechanisation solutions, including tractors and implements, ultimately supporting higher farm incomes and sustainable agricultural growth. We remain committed to supporting Indian farmers with reliable and innovative solutions aligned with this national vision.”

Ericsson unveils 5G Advanced location services – unmatched accuracy for enterprise and mission-critical use cases

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) announced the launch of its 5G Advanced location services offering, a comprehensive suite of innovations designed to redefine location-based services across commercial 5G Standalone (SA) networks. Set for release in Q1 2026, this breakthrough places Ericsson as the leader in 5G positioning technology, offering a scalable and fully integrated solution on top of Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core.

By embedding positioning as a core 5G SA network capability, Ericsson 5G Advanced location services enables Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to monetize precise location services and expand beyond traditional mobile offerings into verticals such as manufacturing, healthcare, public safety, automotive, drones, and more.

Key benefits:

• High Accuracy: Down to sub-meter for indoor and sub-10 cm for outdoor positioning, enabling precise tracking
• Scalability: Scalable, precise positioning for outdoor applications (automotive, agriculture, drones)
• Seamless Indoor/Outdoor Coverage: Unified 5G positioning technology for both environments.
• Developer & Device Friendliness: No need for device-side apps; improved battery life compared to satellite-based solutions
• Support for Large-Scale Use Cases: Enables massive geofencing, population density analysis, and tracking use cases.

Monica Zethzon, Head of Core Networks, Ericsson, says: “With the launch of 5G Advanced Location Services we are evolving the value of 5G Standalone networks. This innovation gives CSPs the precision and scalability to create differentiated services based on location capabilities.”

Caroline Gabriel, Partner at Analysys Mason, says: “Ericsson’s integrated approach to indoor and outdoor positioning sets a new benchmark in the industry. It addresses critical pain points for operators and enterprises, particularly in sectors where location accuracy is mission-critical.”

The global market for 5G positioning is in its early stages but poised for rapid growth, driven by demand for enhanced precision in diverse sectors. Ericsson’s solution responds to this demand with scalable, developer-friendly capabilities that improve device battery life compared to legacy systems.

This launch further strengthens Ericsson’s location solutions based on Real-Time Kinematics technology, with related devices from Ericsson planned for Q1 2026.

Ericsson’s 5G Advanced Location Services will be commercially available starting Q1 2026.

SAN FRANCISCO – Feb 3 Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), the AI Data Cloud company, today announced a new collaboration with OpenAI that enables global enterprises to unlock greater value from their proprietary data with AI. This multi-year, $200 million partnership agreement cements Snowflake and OpenAI’s commitment to co-innovation and joint go-to-market (GTM) strategies aimed at deploying AI agents across global enterprises. Snowflake and OpenAI will work closely together to develop and deploy customized AI solutions for joint enterprise customers that deliver tangible return on investment.

The direct, first-party partnership agreement also makes OpenAI models natively available to Snowflake’s 12,600 global customers within Snowflake Cortex AI across all three major clouds. This empowers global organizations like Canva and Whoop to bring OpenAI models to their enterprise data for deep research and instant insights. OpenAI models like GPT-5.2 will be accessible within Snowflake Intelligence, the trusted enterprise intelligence agent that empowers every employee to securely access, analyze, and act on all their organization’s knowledge using natural language.

“By bringing OpenAI models to enterprise data, Snowflake enables organizations to build and deploy AI on top of their most valuable asset using the secure, governed platform they already trust,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO, Snowflake. “Customers can now harness all their enterprise knowledge in Snowflake together with the world-class intelligence of OpenAI models, enabling them to build AI agents that are powerful, responsible, and trustworthy. Together, we’re setting a new standard for AI innovation, helping businesses transform with confidence, while maintaining strong security and compliance standards.”

“Snowflake is a trusted platform that sits at the center of how enterprises manage and activate their most critical data,” said Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications at OpenAI. “This partnership brings our advanced models directly into that environment, making it easier to deploy AI agents and apps, so businesses can close the gap between what AI is capable of and the value they can create today.”

“As we scale our visual AI offering on Canva, both OpenAI and Snowflake have played key roles in how we rapidly empower our users with new creative tools,” said Helen Crossley, Head of Data Science, Canva. “As our platform continues to scale, Snowflake has been foundational to how we manage and activate data, and we’re excited to explore how leveraging OpenAI models in Snowflake Cortex AI can help us extend that foundation. The ability to bridge advanced AI models with our enterprise data allows us to move quickly and test new ideas, without compromising on security or performance.”

“Speed and precision in decision-making are critical for us as WHOOP continues to scale,” said Matt Luizzi, Senior Director of Business Analytics, WHOOP. “Rolling out Snowflake Intelligence to our employees and developing Cortex Agents has provided a secure and governed way for WHOOP to analyze data and make decisions. With OpenAI’s models available directly within Snowflake Cortex AI, we can further enhance those agents with advanced reasoning and analysis, all while maintaining strong security and governance. This partnership will help us continue to make AI a practical, everyday tool for the business.”

Snowflake and OpenAI Help Global Enterprises Deploy AI Agents

By bringing OpenAI models to Cortex AI, global enterprises can gain insights from all their data to deliver richer, more engaging AI agents. Key benefits of the partnership include:

Accelerate Joint Product Innovation: Snowflake and OpenAI teams will partner closely to bring new features that leverage OpenAI Apps SDK, AgentKit, and APIs that support shared enterprise workflows.
Build Custom, Interoperable AI Agents: Snowflake and OpenAI enable enterprises to build state-of-the-art AI agents that reason over governed data and take action across tools and apps. Powered by Cortex AI, these agents run directly on enterprise data, delivering secure, high-impact intelligence at scale.
Democratize Data and Insights with AI: Powered by OpenAI models like GPT-5.2, Snowflake Intelligence is an enterprise intelligence agent that gives every employee instant access to trusted insights. It enables business users to query, interpret, and draw meaning from all their structured and unstructured data with no code required, just natural language.
Enterprise-Ready Governance and Reliability: Snowflake provides built-in business continuity and disaster recovery with a 99.99% uptime service-level agreement, helping ensure that enterprises’ AI initiatives don’t get disrupted by outages or disasters. Users can reliably and securely tap into the power of OpenAI models alongside their most valuable proprietary data in Snowflake, all while benefiting from the governance and responsible AI controls that Snowflake Horizon Catalog provides.
Gain Deep Insights with Multimodal AI: With Snowflake Cortex AI Functions, users can tap into the latest OpenAI models to analyze every kind of data. From rows and columns to text, images, and audio, teams can explore it all seamlessly using SQL, the familiar language of data they already trust.

Snowflake and OpenAI Deepen Collaboration to Advance Responsible AI and Workforce Productivity

This partnership builds on the companies’ existing collaboration, with OpenAI leveraging Snowflake as a secure, scalable data platform for experiment tracking, analytics, and testing.

In turn, Snowflake leverages OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise product internally, empowering employees to harness AI in their day-to-day work and accelerate productivity. As a result, employees can make decisions faster, streamline workflows, and drive stronger cross-functional collaboration through AI-powered insights.

Akshat Rathee, Co-founder and MD of NODWIN Gaming:

“The Union Budget 2026–27’s support for the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) sector through the expansion of AVGC creator labs is a strong step toward building India’s creative and digital talent pipeline. The government’s backing of the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), whose inauguration we were proud to be present for, reflects a clear commitment to equipping young Indians with future-ready skills across animation, gaming and storytelling. As organizers of large-scale cultural platforms such as the NH7 Weekender and Comic Con India, we are constantly seeking skilled talent to shape immersive experiences, and initiatives like these will help widen that pool while accelerating original IP creation and high-quality game development. Greater access to creative technologies will enable more homegrown, culturally relevant content to thrive.”

Animesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, S8UL Esports and 8Bit Creatives:

“Having built teams and businesses in gaming and esports over the years, I’ve seen first-hand how rapidly the AVGC sector is growing and how urgently India needs structured skilling to keep pace. The projection of two million professionals required by 2030 highlights both the scale of the opportunity and the responsibility on industry and institutions to prepare future-ready talent. Initiatives like these will not only create meaningful career pathways for young Indians but also help position India as a global hub for animation, gaming, and digital storytelling.”

Vishal Parekh, Chief Operating Officer, CyberPowerPC India:

“The Budget’s support for AVGC creator labs across 15,000 schools and 500 colleges marks a powerful step toward building a future-ready workforce. With the sector projected to require 2 million professionals by 2030, this initiative can accelerate job creation and empower young Indians to pursue high-value careers in gaming, animation, and visual technologies. Realizing this vision calls for access to high-performance computing environments that match global benchmarks. At CyberPowerPC India, we see this as a defining opportunity to equip the next generation with the tools they need to create, compete, and lead, fueling innovation while strengthening India’s emergence as a global creative and technology powerhouse. We commend the government’s forward-looking commitment to strengthening India’s AVGC ecosystem.”

Sagar Nair, Head of Incubation, LVL Zero Incubator:

“The Finance Minister’s announcement reflects a strong commitment to India’s creative economy. With the AVGC sector expected to require nearly two million professionals by 2030, the rollout of content creator labs across 15,000 schools and 500 colleges can expand early access to future-ready skills and inspire students to pursue careers in animation, VFX, gaming, and comics. When skilling is paired with incubation and clear pathways to entrepreneurship, India can cultivate a generation of creators equipped to build original intellectual property and compete globally. This approach can accelerate job creation, strengthen the talent pipeline, and position the country as a leading hub for creative technology and digital content.”

By:- Akshay Chhabra, CMD, 1Point1 Solutions Limited

The Union Budget 2026–27 signals that India is moving beyond AI adoption to making AI a core engine of economic growth. A key highlight is the recognition of data centres as critical national infrastructure—a timely move that underscores the foundational role of digital infrastructure in an AI-led economy.

The proposed tax holiday until 2047 for global cloud service providers operating data centres in India sends a strong signal to long-term investors and hyperscalers. It encourages sustained capital commitment, accelerates large-scale infrastructure build-out, and strengthens India’s position in the global cloud, AI, and digital services value chain.

For AI-first services companies like 1Point1 Solutions, with operations across global markets and expertise in technology-led BPM and CX transformation, these measures create a powerful enabling environment. Incentives for cloud and hyperscale providers not only expand infrastructure capacity but also enhance institutional capability, talent readiness, and ecosystem maturity.

Together, these steps reinforce India’s readiness to lead responsibly in a digital- and intelligence-driven global economy. For companies with deep AI integration and global operations, this Budget highlights a clear reality: AI is no longer a future roadmap—it is today’s operating reality, and India is ready to lead from the front.

By:- Mr. Satya Yeruva, Co-Founder & CEO of FinStackk

It is a positive step that the Union Budget has enhanced the safe harbour threshold for IT services to Rs 2,000 crore from Rs 300 crore. Bringing all IT companies under a single, uniform safe harbour category will simplify compliance, reduce uncertainty, and make tax obligations far more predictable. This change benefits not just small and mid-sized companies, but larger firms as well, lowering the risk of litigation and enabling them to expand globally with confidence. The allocation of Rs 10,000 crore as a growth fund for startups and MSMEs is equally encouraging, as it provides the capital and support needed to scale their operations, innovate, and contribute to India’s growing digital economy. Measures like these reinforce India as a stable and attractive base for technology-driven businesses while fostering entrepreneurship and long-term growth.

Mr. Rakesh Markhedkar, CMD, Vikran Engineering Limited

“We welcome the Union Budget 2026–27 and appreciate the government’s continued focus on infrastructure-led growth across physical and digital assets. The policy direction and long-term visibility provided in this Budget create a strong foundation for sustained investment in the infrastructure sector.

The 20-year tax holiday for data centres and cloud infrastructure, along with measures such as safe harbour norms for IT and data centre services, is a significant step that will accelerate investments in large-scale data centre development across the country. This is expected to drive substantial demand for EPC capabilities in power, cooling, civil, and integrated infrastructure, creating meaningful opportunities for companies like ours.

At the same time, initiatives such as the Infrastructure Risk Guarantee Fund, new dedicated freight corridors connecting the East and West, the Purvodaya integrated East Coast industrial corridor, seven high-speed rail corridors, the India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, revival of legacy industrial clusters, and the scheme for enhancement of construction and infrastructure equipment collectively expand the execution landscape for mid-sized EPC players. Vikran Engineering sees this Budget as an opportunity to actively participate in building both India’s physical infrastructure and its next-generation digital backbone.”