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Congress’ wait to join the Tamil Nadu Cabinet continues

Union Textile Minister Giriraj Singh | Photo Credit: SIVA SARAVANAN S The Tamil Nadu textile and apparel industry should leverage the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for technical textiles and manmade fibre sector for which the Union government has allocated ₹11,000 crore, said Union Textile Minister Giriraj Singh in Tiruppur on Sunday.Speaking at a meeting organised by the Tiruppur Exporters Association (TEA), he said the Centre has relaxed the norms for the PLI scheme to encourage investments in technical textiles and MMF sectors.“As for the new schemes planned by the Ministry, some have gone to the Cabinet, and others will follow—they are designed to be pro-industry. We have factored in everything—machinery, employment, and other aspects. I hope that the State and the Centre will work together,” he said.The Minister also urged the industry to look at investing in States where there is labour availability.When Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, silk production stood at 26,000 tonnes annually. It is 43,000 tonnes now and by 2030 it will be 60,000 tonnes. India should export more silk-based garments that are blended with other fibres, he added.A. Sakthivel, chairman of the Apparel Export Promotion Council, said that the Textile Ministry is introducing new initiatives every two months and all the seven PM MITRA parks were now operational.According to K.M. Subramanian, president of the TEA, the government should look at early implementation of the Textile Expansion and Employment Scheme (TEEM) and extend benefits under the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies for three more years. Later, the Minister interacted with textile machinery manufacturers and had a meeting with officials of the South India Textile Research Association (SITRA) in Coimbatore. Responding to the demand to extend benefits under the TEEM scheme for the spinning and cotton ginning machines, he asked the industry for details so that the Ministry can study it.The industry in Tamil Nadu should look at tripling exports, he said and called for investments to make indigenous machinery for knitting, weaving, and processing sectors.The Minister also inaugurated a GM Testing Laboratory for cotton and cotton-derived materials at SITRA. The laboratory will meet the growing need for traceability, quality assurance, and compliance in the global cotton trade. It will help exporters meet requirements of organic standards such as GOTS and OCS, which mandate qualitative GM cotton screening.The laboratory has obtained its NABL accreditation in the recent assessment. Published - June 28, 2026 09:51 pm IST

The HinduJun 28

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Technology

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downsaysbetter

Waymo Is Trying to Crack Down on Solo Kids in Driverless Cars

Waymo has recalled its fleet of nearly 4,000 robotaxis to restrict them from driving on highways while it figures out how to make the vehicles behave around construction zones. The recall comes after Waymo identified at least 13 instances of its robotaxis driving into highway sections that were closed for construction. Six of these happened in Phoenix, Arizona in April, and seven occurred in San Francisco, California in May. Waymo pulled its robotaxis from all highways on May 19, and a fix for the problem is “currently under development,” according to filings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The company is not pulling vehicles off the road and is still operating on surface streets, though the company has periodically paused service during severe weather that could lead to flooding. “We identified an area of improvement regarding performance around freeway construction zones,” the company said in a statement to TechCrunch. “We voluntarily restricted freeway operations last month while making improvements, proactively notified state and federal regulators, and decided to file a voluntary software recall with NHTSA.” This is the sixth recall Waymo has issued for its robotaxis. In May, the company recalled its robotaxis after they drove into flooded roads, and in December, it issued one to address its vehicles’ illegal behavior around school buses. Waymo has previously issued recalls to fix low-speed collisions with chains and gates and telephone poles, and one to solve a problem regarding towed trucks. The company’s driving software is currently under investigation by the NHTSA and National Transportation Safety Board regarding its behavior around school buses after one of its robotaxis struck a child near a school in January. Alphabet-owned Waymo says its vehicles have driven more than 170 million miles autonomously, and claims they have demonstrated a 13x reduction in serious-injury-or-worse crashes when compared to human drivers. The robotaxi company is in the middle of a massive expansion, planning to launch in more than 20 cities this year alone, including in London and Tokyo. The expansion has helped highlight a number of edge cases that Waymo’s robotaxi software has struggled with, which now includes highway construction zones. Waymo, which started offering highway rides in November 2025, told the NHTSA that its robotaxis “did not recognize and drove past ramp closure signs into pre-planned freeway construction zones” in mid-April in Phoenix. After a review, the company’s “Field Safety Committee” restricted freeway operations in the city while Waymo worked on a fix, the NHTSA documents show. On May 18, seven Waymo robotaxis drove into highway lanes under active construction in the San Francisco Bay Area because the company’s software was “prioritizing the avoidance of other freeway hazards and/or failing to recognize the construction zone.” The company suspended all freeway driving the following day. Waymo’s safety board decided to issue the recall on June 8. Footage of some of these incidents were shared on social media. On May 19, X user @Elliot_slade posted a video where they claimed a Waymo “blasted through cones,” and said it was “chased” by police. “There were construction signs,” Slade told CBS News last month. “There were lights going on. Police in the distance and it sped up. That’s when I looked at my fiancée, we’re done. This is it. We’re dead. We’re going to die right here in the Waymo.” Waymo offered Slade “three free rides up to $40 each in the future,” according to CBS. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories

TechCrunchJun 18

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Netflix trying to "poison regulators" about WBD merger, Paramount lawyer claims

“More films and series in production means more call sheets, more location days, more transportation, casting, and catering work,” Delrahim wrote. Notably, in a January SEC filing, Paramount said that it expects Paramount-WBD to spend less money on content as a combined company. Content spend would drop by less than 10 percent, and none of the spending reductions would come from “film/TV studios,” the filing said. Paramount CEO and chairman David Ellison has said that post-merger, Paramount would release at least 30 feature films annually, with each film being in theaters for at least 45 days. Ellison has been making this promise publicly since at least February. Paramount-WBD merger would lead to job losses Delrahim’s letter paints a rosy picture of jobs and content spend post-merger; however, Paramount has previously said that a merger with WBD would result in job losses as the merged company looks to save over $6 billion. Cost savings would primarily come from “duplicative operations across all aspects of the business — specifically back office, finance, corporate, legal, technology, infrastructure and real estate,” Paramount said in a January SEC filing. Notably, a merged Paramount and WBD would carry $79 billion in debt. In his note to the DOJ, Delrahim said that the merged company would not reduce headcount in production, “studio operations staff, or the skilled trade labor that the Teamsters and other unions represent.” Delrahim blames merger concerns on fear-mongering, antisemitism Although Netflix backed out of its deal to buy Paramount in February, Delrahim believes Netflix is trying to turn people against Paramount buying WBD. His letter reads: Netflix has tried to persuade the Teamsters and other stakeholders that Disney’s [2019] acquisition of [21st Century] Fox had a negative impact on content production and labor opportunities. Frankly, Netflix’s “sky is falling” narrative departs significantly from the ground-truth reality of what actually happened. In its March letter, The International Brotherhood of Teamsters pointed to Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox as indicative of what would happen if Paramount buys WBD. Disney’s Fox studios merger resulted in “eliminated production units, significant job losses, and canceled projects.”

Ars TechnicaJun 9

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