The Union of Media Persons for Change has accused News18 Tamil Nadu of allegedly forcing employees to resign under threat of termination. In a letter to the management, Union General Secretary Haseef Mohamed said compelling staff to submit resignation letters through the company’s portal under intimidation is illegal and cannot be treated as voluntary. He alleged the practice was aimed at bypassing statutory retrenchment procedures and depriving employees of legal rights. Mohamed urged the management to halt the process, warning of legal action if it continued. Speaking to Influencing, an employee who claimed to be affected said that after serving the organisation for over a decade, they were called to the HR department on July 8 and asked to submit a "separation letter". According to the employee, both HR and their reporting head told them to either resign or face termination. When asked if the decision was linked to performance, they were allegedly told it was “not the p

Senior journalist and author Dr Anubha Jain has been conferred with the Falcon Media Excellence Award for her outstanding contribution to journalism and her commitment to truth, fairness, courage, and public service. The award was presented on July 14 by the Bengaluru Press Club and Rotary International District 3191. The honour was bestowed by Karnataka Agriculture Minister Ramalinga Reddy, filmmaker and columnist Dr Chandrashekhar Nagtihalli, Rotarian Dr Anil Gupta (District Governor, Rotary International District 3191), Rotarian K.P. Nagesh (Rotary International Director, Zones 4 and 7), and R. Shridhar, President of the Bengaluru Press Club. Dr Jain was recognised for her impactful and responsible journalism, particularly her extensive coverage of space, science, technology, health, and public‑interest issues. She said: “This honour is far more than an award. It is a recognition of the purpose that has guided my two decades in journalism… credible journalism has the p

Albanese’s AI U-turn: tougher rules for data centres, jobs and copyright Anthony Albanese has pivoted to back a “world-leading” AI regulatory framework, with proposed standards that would bite on power-hungry data centres and clamp down on copyright theft used to train models. The shift signals Labor is moving from encouragement to enforcement on AI—raising big questions about investment, energy infrastructure and how Australia protects local creative industries while staying aligned with global tech rules. Covered by: The Australian, Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian. Budget credibility fight: surplus maths ‘hinges’ on public service job cuts Jim Chalmers’ budget projections are under pressure amid claims they rely on assumed public service job cuts and other constraints that economists and the Parliamentary Budget Office warn may be difficult to deliver. The dispute goes to the heart of whether Labor can credibly promise a pathway bac

Verve Media has won the digital and creative mandate for Maple India, a premium retailer of pre-owned smartphones, tablets and laptops.  Under the mandate, the agency will handle Maple India's social media marketing, AI-SEO and GEO, performance marketing across Google Ads and Meta Ads, and creative design. The partnership aims to strengthen the brand's digital presence, enhance customer engagement and drive growth through an integrated strategy spanning content, design and paid media.

The non-profit behind the gender sensitivity movement Laadli, has announced that entries for the 16th edition of the Laadli Media & Advertising Awards for Gender Sensitivity (LMAAGS) will close on July 31, 2026.  The awards recognise gender-sensitive work across journalism, advertising, films, television, web series, books and other media. Open to entries from across India, the journalism category accepts submissions in 14 languages, with winners to be announced at both regional and national levels.  Entries must have been published, released or aired between January 1 and December 31, 2025. There is no entry fee.

You can't buy your way into an AI answer – you have to earn it. That's the logic behind the prediction currently preoccupying many in the PR industry: Gartner's forecast that by 2027, mass adoption of large language models as a replacement for traditional search will drive a two-fold increase in PR and earned media budgets. Gartner's analysis found that more than 95 per cent of the sources AI answer engines cite are non-paid and 27 per cent come directly from earned media. When ChatGPT or Gemini recommends a brand, it isn't reading the ad spend. It's reading what journalists wrote. The budget call is the headline act of Gartner's Predicts 2026: Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies, five forecasts for chief communications officers, spanning everything from chatbot-led internal comms to AI-powered misinformation defence. Behind the headline prediction sits stark usage data – Gartner cites ChatGPT traffic growing 608 per cent between the first halves of 2024 and 2

Wednesday, 15 July 2026 #1  ·  Times City  ·  In-depth feature A Month On, Noida Airport Waits For Wind In Its Sails By Saurabh Sinha   ·   The Times of India, New Delhi  ·  Page 9 One month after opening, Noida International Airport (NIA) is struggling with low passenger footfall, route withdrawals by Akasa Air and IndiGo, and the fundamental handicap of competing with the better-connected IGI Airport. The story uses week-by-week traffic data, airline-specific route changes, and comparisons with Navi Mumbai airport to analyse why India's first second-city international airport faces structural headwinds unlikely to ease before 2030. Rich with original traffic data broken down by week, passenger category, and airline, the piece goes beyond a launch-anniversary peg to diagnose systemic causes — Pakistani airspace closure, US-Iran oil shock, rupee weakness — that compound NIA's structural disad