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Parliamentary Panel to review media laws | India top market for Nano Banana | India home to lakhs of millionaires
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We bring you top five news updates from the world of advertising, marketing, and business of brands.
Parliamentary Panel to review media laws, fake news challenges on September 24
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, chaired by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, will meet on September 24 to deliberate on the implementation of laws related to all forms of media and the growing challenge of misinformation.
Officials from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) and the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) are scheduled to provide evidence before the panel. The committee’s findings will be tabled in the upcoming winter session of Parliament.
The discussions could range from fake news and paid news to the challenges posed by sensationalism in TV channels, and the decline of traditional newspapers amid digital disruption. The panel could also examine the role of media trials in shaping public opinion and affecting ongoing legal proceedings.
India becomes top market for Google's Nano Banana
India has emerged as the global leader in the adoption of Google’s new Gemini 2.5 Flash Image model, also known as Nano Banana. The AI's popularity has propelled the Gemini app to the top of the app store charts in India, where millions of users are engaging with the technology in uniquely creative and localized ways, as per reports.
Reports further suggest that according to David Sharon, a lead at Google DeepMind, India's usage of Nano Banana has surpassed all other countries. The model's virality has been fueled by a series of uniquely Indian trends, most notably users generating retro portraits inspired by 1990s Bollywood. This trend, often featuring users reimagining themselves in period-specific fashion and hairstyles, is exclusive to the Indian market.
India home to 8.7 lakh millionaires, 360 billionaires in 2025: Hurun India report
India’s affluent class is expanding at a record pace, with the number of millionaire households, net worth equal to or above Rs 8.5 crore, surging 90% since 2021 to reach 8,71,700 in 2025, according to the Mercedes-Benz Hurun India Wealth Report 2025. This accounts for 0.31% of Indian households, up from 0.17% in 2021.
Moreover, India is home to 360 billionaire households, each with net worth above Rs 8,500 crore ($1 billion)--collectively commanding Rs 185 lakh crore.
Between 2017 and 2025, the number of Indian households crossing the millionaire mark ($1 million or Rs 8.5 crore) grew 445%, while those exceeding Rs 10 crore wealth rose over 200%. Yet, upward mobility into the ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) bracket remained selective—only 5% of 2017 millionaires moved into the Rs 100 crore tier, and just 1.3% crossed the Rs 200 crore threshold.
Sundar Pichai joins Jensen Huang in praise for Google’s 'Nano Banana' AI tool
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has publicly acknowledged Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang’s enthusiastic praise of “Nano Banana,” Google Gemini’s image-generation feature that has unexpectedly become a viral talking point in the tech community.
Speaking at an event in London, Huang lauded the tool’s capabilities with trademark excitement, “How could anyone not love Nano Banana? … It’s so good. Tell me it’s not true!” His remarks quickly gained traction online, amplified after Google DeepMind’s Nicole Brichtova shared them on X.
Eternal faces GST demand orders worth Rs 40.32 crore
Eternal Ltd, formerly known as Zomato Ltd, on Thursday informed the exchanges that it has received three demand orders from the office of the Joint Commissioner (Appeals-4), Bengaluru, covering the period July 2017 to March 2020. The orders confirm a total GST demand of Rs 17.19 crore, along with interest of Rs 21.42 crore and penalty of Rs 1.71 crore.
According to the filing, the company has been directed to pay GST of Rs 89.92 lakh, interest of Rs 1.30 crore, and penalty of Rs 8.99 lakh under Section 73 of the CGST Act, 2017 and the Karnataka GST Act for the period between July 2017 and March 2018; Rs 11.27 crore, interest of Rs 14.54 crore, and penalty of Rs 1.12 crore from April 2018 and March 2019, and Rs 5 crore, interest of Rs 5.57 crore, and penalty of Rs 50.19 lakh between April 2019 and March 2020, respectively.
“The demand order has been received with respect to excess availment of input tax credit with interest and penalty thereon,” Eternal said in a statement.
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