The cement industry is showing early signs of a pricing revival, particularly in South India, according to Jashandeep Singh Chadha from Nomura.

“Fourth quarter is usually a volume push quarter, so price hikes don’t sustain. But after GST cuts, prices fell more than expected in south and east. The industry attempted price hikes in January and February. In February, Rs 15-20 price hikes were announced, out of which Rs 10 have sustained. This is a positive step for South India,” he said.

Chadha noted that demand is largely in line with expectations. “The demand is strong as usual in the fourth quarter, but there’s no significant uptick. Price hikes are more about major players maintaining discipline and coming off a lower base.”

Looking ahead to FY27, management focus is shifting from volume to value, which could support sustainable price gains. “Top management is moving towards more value than volume. In April-May, we might see price hikes of Rs 40-50 per bag in South India, compared to Rs 10-15 in recent years,” he explained.

Rural demand is expected to drive volume growth next year. “Rural revival is key. We expect FY27 volume to be 7-8% higher than FY26. State and central capex delays could be negative, but rural recovery should offset that,” Chadha added.

Over the next three years, Chadha expects significant improvement in both volume and value. “With consolidation and pricing strength, the industry should report far better results than FY25-26,” he said.
With price discipline returning and rural demand poised for recovery, the cement sector could finally see a long-awaited combination of volume growth and profitability.

More than 12,000 adult bed rails were recalled over entrapment hazards that could lead to serious injury or even death, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The recall affects about 12,355 Vive Health Bed Rails, the CPSC said in an alert last week.

When the bed rails are attached to a bed, users can become trapped inside the bed rail or between the bed rail and the side of the mattress, which poses a “serious entrapment hazard and risk of death by asphyxiation,” the commission warned.

MORE THAN 191,000 AROEVE AIR PURIFIERS RECALLED OVER OVERHEATING, FIRE RISK

The commission also said the bed rails do not feature the required hazard warning labels.

The items were sold online at Amazon.com and ViveHealth.com between August 2023 and December 2025 in the price range of $45 and $80. Only bed rails purchased after Aug. 21, 2023, are included in this recall.

220,000 MEDICAL KING PORTABLE ADULT BED RAILS RECALLED AFTER A DEATH, MARKING 9TH RELATED RECALL IN 3 YEARS

This recall impacts models LVA1024 and LVA3031BLK. Model LVA1024 comes in a white frame with a black handle and measures 20 inches wide by 32 inches tall. Model LVA3031BLK comes in a black frame with a black handle and measures 13 inches wide by 18 inches tall.

Consumers are urged to stop using the bed rails and to contact Vive Health for a full refund.

No injuries or deaths have been reported thus far in connection with this recall.

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Vive Health is just the latest company to issue a recall of adult bed rails.

Last month, about 26,200 Sangohe brand adult portable bed rails sold online at Amazon and Walmart were recalled over the same “entrapment hazard and risk of death by asphyxiation.”

A similar recall was also issued in December for about 12,000 JOKOSIS branded bed rails.

Anthropic has accused several China-based companies of using its AI model Claude without authorization. This immediately re-ignited debates over AI ethics, intellectual property, and competitive control.

Moreover, the allegations center on so-called “distillation attacks,” a practice that can replicate AI capabilities through illicit means.

Understanding Distillation Attacks in AI

Gizmodo explains that distillation is a standard AI process where a “teacher” model provides outputs that a “student” model uses to learn, often producing smaller or more efficient AI systems.

Anthropic distinguishes distillation attacks as attempts to extract model knowledge without permission, bypassing legal and contractual safeguards.

According to Anthropic’s Monday blog post, Shanghai-based companies MiniMax, Moonshot, and DeepSeek conducted such attacks. MiniMax reportedly processed more than 13 million exchanges, while Moonshot and DeepSeek processed 3.4 million and 150,000, respectively.

Undoubtedly, these activities allegedly violated service terms and regional access rules. They also sparked concerns over ethical AI deployment and intellectual property protection.

Legal and Ethical Implications of ‘Distillation’

Anthropic emphasized that these actions are not criminal but constitute breaches of contractual agreements and U.S. export controls. Circumventing restrictions allows foreign labs, including those linked to government influence, to erode competitive advantages intentionally designed to safeguard American AI innovations.

OpenAI has also raised alarms over similar practices, accusing DeepSeek of “free-riding” on U.S.-based AI research.

AI Volatility

DeepSeek is set to launch its new flagship model, DeepSeek V4, imminently. Analysts warn that its release could increase volatility in AI-driven markets, especially on Wall Street, where investor sensitivity to emerging technologies remains high.

With China’s AI sector expected to boom, the AI industry in the country would remain high for the next few years.

Of course, Anthropic should also be consistent in its claims against Chinese AI firms while dealing with Claude’s ethical limits on military use.

Originally published on Tech Times

As India navigates the evolving dynamics of corporate earnings and global technological disruption, investors are keenly watching whether the recent earnings revival can sustain itself. According to Manish Gunwani, from Bandhan AMC, FY27 could mark a stronger period for corporate earnings, driven by nominal GDP growth and rupee depreciation.

“From a top-down perspective, FY27 should be better on earnings because of two-three things. One is that the nominal GDP will pick up partly because inflation will go up. So, we kind of bottomed out nominal GDP at 8-9%. It will be 10-11% going forward. And corporate earnings obviously have a decent correlation to nominal GDP,” Gunwani explained in an interview to ET Now.

He highlighted that rupee depreciation against the dollar and other Asian currencies is a key factor supporting earnings, particularly for pharma, IT, refining, and oil and gas companies. “Rupee depreciation is good for earnings. So, whether it is pharma, IT, refining, oil and gas—whatever—all that benefits from rupee depreciation. Overall, basis earnings should do better.”

However, Gunwani cautioned that recent market action has been influenced more by global uncertainty around artificial intelligence than by earnings themselves. “If you see, it is not that earnings have been knocked off in the past two-three weeks, but the terminal value of a lot of businesses is under question. So, to my mind at least in the near term, that is a bigger question rather than earnings honesty,” he said.

When asked about sectoral leaders for the potential earnings uptick, Gunwani noted that both domestic and export-oriented sectors are poised to benefit. “Since nominal GDP domestically is up, I guess the domestic sector should do better—banking and whoever is either an exporter or import substitution or pricing of dollars. So, for example, whether it is pharma, IT, refining, metals, all those sectors should benefit from the fact that they effectively have a lot of dollar earnings, and today you are converting that at, let us say, 90-91 rather than 86-87 one year back. So, it is going to be pretty broad-based to my mind.”

He emphasized that while earnings potential is improving, market sentiment is heavily influenced by AI’s impact on IT services. “I do not think earnings is driving this market right now. The whole global market is trying to grapple with what are the sectoral impacts of AI. If it starts from IT services, does it mean that there will be a broad-based slowdown in India because obviously IT services is the biggest export sector we have?”
Gunwani expressed caution regarding traditional IT services companies, noting disruption in areas such as BPO, application development, and infrastructure services. “No, obviously on hindsight we will find some companies doing much better. Question is, is it possible to differentiate those companies adjusted for valuation? Some of these companies are obviously growing faster today, but then they are also valued like that. So, as a stock, out of 10 IT services stock, will there be differentiation in next one year? Obviously, there will be. But is it honestly very easy to pick the winner stock? I think it is very difficult when it is such a sectoral disruption that is happening.”On foreign investor flows, Gunwani remains optimistic. “I am a bit more optimistic right now on foreign flows. One is the rupee has taken a fair amount of beating, probably the worst performing major currency in last six months. Even if IT services is disrupted, if you see the monthly data on services which includes GCC and all other things, that still seems quite strong. So, it is not like our current account is under stress. Now, our capital account has been under stress because foreigners have been selling, but also because Indians have been buying a lot of gold and silver.”

He added that recent volatility in gold and silver prices could help stabilize the capital account, alongside potential shifts in global dollar flows. “Whether it is debt, equity, FDI, I do think that the prospects of getting foreign flows look much-much better at this point of time,” he concluded.

With earnings revival on the horizon, domestic sectors poised for growth, and global AI disruption casting a shadow over IT, investors may need to navigate a complex landscape, balancing short-term uncertainty with medium-term opportunity.