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The Cockroach Janta Party, a social media-driven collective built around humour, mock manifestos and political parody, has surged across Instagram, X and short-video platforms within days of its launch. What began as an online response to courtroom remarks by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has become a wider expression of frustration over jobs, living costs, institutional distrust and the limited space many young citizens feel they have in public debate.

The phrase took off after remarks during a Supreme Court hearing on May 15, when the bench was dealing with a petition linked to the designation of a lawyer as Senior Advocate. Comments referring to some unemployed young people, social media users, media figures and RTI activists as “cockroaches” and “parasites” triggered anger online. Justice Surya Kant later said he had been misquoted and clarified that his criticism was directed at people using fake or bogus degrees to enter professions, not at the youth of the country.

By then, the phrase had already escaped the courtroom. Memes, posters, mock campaign material and parody slogans began circulating at high speed. The Cockroach Janta Party, widely abbreviated as CJP, framed itself as the “voice of the lazy and unemployed”, turning a disparaging label into a collective identity. Its creator, Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old based in Boston, positioned the project as peaceful, satirical and democracy-oriented rather than a conventional political outfit.

The scale of the online response has been striking. The group’s Instagram presence crossed the 10 million mark and was later reported to be nearing 15 million followers, temporarily putting it ahead of several established political accounts in visibility. More than 400,000 people were said to have signed up through its online channels, with a large share of participants falling in the 19–25 age group. The numbers also triggered scepticism, with claims that overseas users or bots had inflated the following. Dipke rejected the allegations, saying the overwhelming majority of followers were from India.

The movement’s appeal lies partly in its absurdity. A creature usually associated with dirt, survival and infestation has been reimagined as a metaphor for resilience. Supporters have used the cockroach to signal that a generation facing unstable work, high rents, exam pressure and limited upward mobility is refusing to disappear. The image has proved adaptable: it works as a meme, a protest costume, a party logo and a joke that can carry political weight without sounding like a formal campaign speech.

That flexibility has helped the trend move beyond online humour. Young volunteers in Delhi dressed as cockroaches while taking part in a Yamuna clean-up activity near Kalindi Kunj, linking the meme to civic action. Satirical spin-offs, including rival parody groups, appeared almost immediately. The trend also crossed borders, with users in Pakistan and Bangladesh adapting similar cockroach-themed political humour to their own domestic frustrations.

The timing has sharpened its resonance. Youth unemployment in the 15–29 age group stood at 9.9 per cent in 2025, with the urban youth rate higher at 13.6 per cent. A formal decline from the previous year has not erased anxiety among graduates and first-time job seekers, many of whom say the labour market offers either low salaries, insecure contracts or intense competition for public-sector posts. Inflation in housing, education and transport has added to the strain.

Gen Z’s political language in India is also changing. Earlier protest cultures relied heavily on student unions, party fronts, street marches and television visibility. The new pattern begins on reels, memes and comment threads, where humour lowers the cost of participation and helps users test political ideas before attaching their real identities to them. The Cockroach Janta Party sits within that shift: it is not a registered party with electoral machinery, but it has generated a recognisable symbol, a support base and a vocabulary of dissent.

A 2026 software supply chain security assessment shows that about 65 per cent of organisations in India cannot detect malicious packages, while 71 per cent do not use container security tools. The findings underline a widening gap between the speed of AI-led software development and the controls needed to secure code, dependencies, models and deployment pipelines before they reach production systems.

Security teams are facing a more complex threat environment as AI coding assistants, model registries, agent frameworks and machine-learning libraries become embedded in day-to-day software engineering. AI is no longer confined to application features or analytics layers. It is becoming part of the software supply chain itself, influencing how code is written, tested, packaged and deployed.

Enterprises in India have been quick to adopt AI tools to improve developer productivity, reduce repetitive work and accelerate product releases. Yet the same shift has increased reliance on open-source packages, pre-trained models, plug-ins and automated build systems. Each of these components can introduce hidden risks if provenance, integrity and behaviour are not continuously verified.

Global software repositories are now attracting sustained attacks because they provide a direct route into enterprise development environments. Malicious npm packages rose by 451 per cent during 2025, while more than 48,000 new Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures were disclosed worldwide, a rise of about 20 per cent from the previous year.

The pressure on security teams is being amplified by the volume of AI-generated code. Developers in India are spending about 51 per cent of their time reviewing, validating and hardening code produced by AI tools. About 53 per cent treat such output only as a starting point and review every line before use, while 11 per cent rewrite AI-generated fixes from scratch.

This shift has altered the economics of software engineering. AI may reduce the time needed to draft code, but it can also transfer effort to verification, testing and security review. Weaknesses such as cross-site scripting, SQL injection and missing authorisation checks can still be reproduced by automated tools, particularly when developers rely on generated code without adequate scrutiny.

Governance is emerging as another area of concern. Nearly 97 per cent of organisations surveyed said they had certified AI model governance programmes, but only 59 per cent claimed full provenance visibility across production environments. About 48 per cent still needed a week or longer to produce audit-ready compliance evidence.

That gap points to a difference between policy and enforceable control. Many enterprises have AI governance frameworks on paper, but fewer can prove where every model, library, container image and software artefact came from, how it changed, who approved it and whether it complies with internal policy.

CERT-In has also warned that software supply chain compromises are increasingly targeting developer tools and trusted repositories. Its April 2026 activity note referred to attacks affecting npm, PyPI, GitHub Actions and container registries, including incidents involving Checkmarx, Trivy, LiteLLM, Axios, Telnyx and npm packages linked to the CanisterWorm campaign. The payloads observed in these attacks included credential harvesting, data exfiltration, remote execution and persistence within developer systems.

Model registries have added another layer to the risk. Around 1.4 million new AI artefacts were published on Hugging Face during 2025, representing 58 per cent of all new software packages tracked in one assessment. Researchers identified 495 malicious AI models in public repositories with active payloads capable of credential theft, command execution and reverse-shell activity, along with 969 malicious AI-agent skills designed to exploit developer environments and automation workflows.

For enterprises in India, the challenge is sharpened by the country’s role as a major software engineering and global capability centre hub. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Gurugram host large engineering teams serving banking, retail, telecoms, manufacturing and cloud services. These centres are increasingly responsible not only for maintenance work but also for product development, AI integration and security-sensitive digital platforms.

Regulatory and customer expectations are also tightening. Buyers are asking for software bills of materials, vulnerability disclosure processes, provenance records and proof that build pipelines are protected. CERT-In’s technical guidance on SBOM, QBOM, CBOM, AIBOM and HBOM has emphasised regular updates, vulnerability exploitability exchange documents and staff training around software supply chain visibility.

Security leaders are therefore moving towards stronger controls across development pipelines. These include automated malicious package detection, container image scanning, secrets detection, signed artefacts, dependency pinning, model provenance checks, policy enforcement in CI/CD systems and continuous monitoring of developer environments.

The investment case is becoming harder to ignore. Software supply chain attacks can bypass perimeter defences because they enter through trusted development channels. Once inside, malicious packages can steal credentials, alter builds, move into cloud environments or compromise downstream customers. AI raises the stakes because it can accelerate both legitimate development and attacker experimentation.

The New York-founded company, led by Shayne Coplan, is seeking to open discussions around whether event-based contracts can be permitted under Japan’s financial and digital-asset framework rather than treated purely as gambling. The move comes as prediction markets draw heavier institutional interest, stronger trading volumes and sharper scrutiny from regulators over consumer protection, market integrity and the legal boundary between betting and derivatives.

People familiar with the matter said the company’s Japan strategy is at an early stage and would require engagement with officials, lawmakers and industry participants before any formal market entry. Japan does not have a dedicated framework for cash-based prediction markets, leaving platforms that allow users to trade on political, economic, sports or cultural outcomes exposed to uncertainty under gambling and financial laws.

Polymarket allows users to buy and sell contracts tied to the outcome of real-world events, with prices reflecting market-implied probabilities. Its markets have covered elections, central bank decisions, geopolitical events, sports, entertainment and cryptocurrency milestones. The platform gained global visibility during the 2024 US presidential election cycle, when trading volumes surged and its odds were widely cited as an alternative gauge of political sentiment.

Japan would offer Polymarket a large, sophisticated retail market with deep participation in equities, foreign exchange and digital assets. The country has also built one of the world’s more structured crypto regulatory regimes, requiring registration for crypto-asset exchange service providers and imposing rules on custody, anti-money laundering controls and customer protection. That framework may give the company a potential route for engagement, although prediction markets remain a separate and more politically sensitive category.

The company’s global push has accelerated after a period of regulatory pressure in the United States. Polymarket settled a case with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 after being accused of offering off-exchange event-based binary options without proper registration. It blocked US users for several years before moving to rebuild a domestic regulatory path through acquisitions and licensing efforts. Its purchase of a derivatives exchange and clearinghouse gave it a route to pursue compliant US operations.

Institutional backing has also strengthened its position. Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Polymarket in a deal that valued the business at about $8 billion before the transaction. The partnership gave Polymarket a powerful market infrastructure ally and signalled that event-driven data may have value beyond retail speculation, particularly for investors seeking real-time sentiment around political, economic and corporate developments.

Competition is intensifying. Kalshi, a regulated US prediction market operator, has expanded rapidly by framing event contracts as financial instruments under commodities law. Its growth has triggered legal disputes with state regulators, some of whom argue that sports and election-linked contracts resemble gambling products. That debate is likely to influence Japan’s assessment of whether prediction markets can be supervised as finance, gaming, information markets or a hybrid category.

Polymarket’s Japan plan faces several obstacles. Gambling is tightly restricted, with permitted activity largely confined to state-authorised sectors such as horse racing, bicycle racing, motorboat racing, lotteries and pachinko-linked structures. Online betting carries heightened enforcement risks, and any product involving wagers on uncertain outcomes would need careful legal classification. A crypto-funded model could add further complexity because regulators would need to examine custody, settlement, identity checks, sanctions screening and investor suitability.

Supporters of prediction markets argue that they create useful public signals by aggregating dispersed information into tradable prices. Traders who believe a market is mispriced can buy or sell contracts, pushing prices closer to collective expectations. That model has appealed to political analysts, hedge funds, economists and technology investors seeking faster indicators than polls, surveys or conventional research.

Critics counter that thin liquidity, anonymous participation, insider access and coordinated trading can distort outcomes. Questions have intensified around markets linked to sensitive events, where participants may possess non-public information or where the existence of a market could create troubling incentives. Japan’s regulators are likely to examine whether surveillance systems, position limits, disclosure rules and dispute-resolution mechanisms are strong enough to reduce those risks.

As a full-stack self-developed provider of enterprise-grade AI infrastructure (AI Infra) and solutions, QingCloud Technologies Corp. deeply understands enterprise demands and implementation scenarios, and has built end-to-end digital and intelligent solutions. With deep roots in livelihood services, TECSUN SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY CO.,LTD. boasts integrated capabilities of “Data + Algorithms + Scenarios”, self-developed innovations such as government affairs large models and AI-powered employment services, as well as profound industry customer resources and operational experience. Oriented by solution collaboration, the two parties will combine TECSUN’s scenario-based intelligent applications with QingCloud’s private cloud, information technology application innovation cloud, intelligent computing platform and MaaS services to form solid technological synergy.

Focusing on core sectors including employment, healthcare and government services, the two sides will promote the integrated deployment of employment Agent and intelligent computing platform to achieve precise job matching and intelligent recommendation; advance the implementation of a fusion architecture of contactless medical payment systems and edge AI inference cloud; and accelerate the joint optimization of government affairs large models and intelligent guidance systems in the information technology application innovation cloud environment.

In terms of delivery, the two parties will jointly conduct compatibility tests and performance verification to ensure the compatibility and stability of the joint solutions, and jointly deliver secure, controllable and ready-to-use intelligent livelihood solutions. Meanwhile, they will actively explore the co-construction of regional intelligent computing centers in mature areas to consolidate the computing infrastructure for “AI + Livelihood Services”.

Looking ahead, the two sides will take joint solutions as the anchor, jointly explore the closed-loop operation model of “Urban Livelihood AI Operation Base”, connect the full chain from computing supply, model iteration to service delivery, help elevate the intelligence of urban governance, and jointly build a new engine for livelihood services.

Hashtag: #Tecsun

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

At the China (Hainan Free Trade Port)–U.S. (San Francisco) Economic and Trade Exchange Meeting, the delegation highlighted the policy advantages and innovative achievements of the Hainan Free Trade Port to American enterprises. The two sides engaged in extensive exchanges in areas such as international trade, modern services, high-tech industries, and cross-border investment.

The head of the delegation noted that since the Hainan Free Trade Port began island-wide special customs operations on December 18, 2025, policy dividends have been steadily unleashed. The customs supervision model of “freer access at the first line, regulated access at the second line” has been fully implemented. The number of zero-tariff commodity items has been expanded to 6,631. Additionally, the policy of exempting tariffs on processed goods with a value-added rate exceeding 30% has created new cost advantages for cooperation between Chinese and U.S. enterprises.

Sean Randolph, a representative of the Bay Area Council, stated that direct exchanges between companies are essential for establishing long-term cooperative relationships. He noted that the San Francisco Bay Area, as a key gateway for Pacific trade, has maintained long-standing economic ties with Asia, particularly China. As the Hainan Free Trade Port continues to develop, sectors such as services, life sciences, and tourism are creating new opportunities for collaboration with California-based businesses.

During the visit, the delegation also participated in the 2026 China-California Economic and Trade Forum and held business negotiations with U.S. companies. The CCPIT Hainan signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Sino America Business Information Center to support the establishment of a platform for bilateral economic and trade cooperation and exchanges.

In addition, the delegation visited institutions such as the American-Chinese CEO Society, the Huamei Business Information Center, the Silicon Valley Open Intelligent Culture Foundation, and Sidley Austin LLP, engaging in in-depth exchanges on cross-border investment , specialized industry development, and commercial legal matters.

In June 2020, China unveiled a master plan to build the whole of Hainan Island into a globally influential and high-level free trade port by the middle of the century. The initiative reached a major milestone in December last year with the launch of island-wide special customs operations, which marked the completion of the first key step toward that goal.

The move has turned the island into a special customs supervision zone, allowing freer trade between Hainan and areas outside China’s customs borders, while enforcing standard customs controls for goods moving from Hainan to the mainland.Hashtag: #CPITHainan

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

As AI, data analytics, and virtualization platforms continue to reshape how Singapore enterprises operate their IT infrastructure, storage is no longer merely a place to keep data. It has become the foundation behind core operational applications. As a result, organizations are placing greater demands on access speed, service continuity, and long-term operational stability. This is also why enterprises are increasingly seeking high-performance storage platforms that can maintain reliable operations over time.

“PAS7700 reflects Synology’s 25+ years of experience in storage and our close collaboration with enterprise customers to address evolving requirements for high availability, performance, and scalability,” said Bie-i Chu, Executive Vice President of the Synology NAS Group. “After a year of extensive real-world validation through our enterprise proof-of-concept program, PAS7700 is field-proven to deliver high reliability and performance, while helping customers lower total cost of ownership (TCO).”

A Storage Platform for Mission-Critical Systems
PAS7700 is equipped with dual controllers and 48 NVMe SSD bays in a 4U chassis, and can scale up to 1.65 PB of raw storage capacity with up to seven expansion units. The system supports both file and block storage and offers broad protocol support, including NVMe-oF, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, SMB, and NFS.

With up to 2,048 GB of memory* and 100GbE networking, PAS7700 delivers up to 2 million IOPS, latency of under 1 millisecond and sequential throughput of up to 30 GB/s.

PAS7700 is designed for environments that require real-time data processing, such as virtualization, databases and large-scale data processing environments. It also targets performance-intensive and always-on workloads such as VDI, EDA and AI.

In addition, the solution is well suited for organizations operating data-intensive infrastructure in sectors such as data centers, manufacturing, semiconductor design, game development, and healthcare. These environments typically process large volumes of data concurrently and require systems that can sustain consistent performance and continuous service availability.

Designed to Minimize System Disruption
One of PAS7700’s most notable strengths is its active-active architecture, which enables both controllers to operate simultaneously rather than relying on a traditional active-standby model. If one controller or a network component fails, the system can continue delivering services, significantly reducing the risk of business disruption.

The system is built with multiple protection layers to ensure high availability, including triple-parity RAID, mirrored write cache protection, IP failover, and automatic failover mechanisms.

PAS7700 also includes Continuous Availability Manager that enables enterprise IT teams to visually monitor the health status of each system component and detect and address issues quickly before they affect services.

Multi-Layer Data Protection for Enterprises
Synology places strong emphasis on enterprise data protection. PAS7700 supports Self-Encrypting Drives (SEDs), providing hardware-level protection without compromising system performance.

The system also supports WORM folders and immutable snapshots, allowing snapshots to remain protected from unauthorized modification or deletion after creation, thereby reducing the risk of tampering and unauthorized data interference.

In addition, PAS7700 features Snapshot Replication and Hyper Backup that enable enterprises to build multiple layers of backup and recovery between production environments and secondary systems. This helps strengthen cyber resilience and improve data recoverability in the event of incidents or cyberattacks.

Lower Cost, Greater Efficiency
Beyond performance, Synology also addresses the challenge of optimizing long-term storage investment for enterprises. As many businesses in Singapore continue expanding their data infrastructure, virtual machines and internal AI workloads, the cost of high-speed storage is exerting increasing pressure on IT environments.

PAS7700 supports both inline and offline deduplication technologies to help reduce unnecessary data usage and extend SSD lifespan. This mechanism can significantly improve storage efficiency in large-scale data environments.

In the near future, the system will also support Synology Tiering, which automatically moves infrequently accessed data to high-capacity storage systems. This helps free up high-speed NVMe resources for active applications and hot data.

The entire platform runs on DSM Enterprise, Synology’s operating system developed specifically for enterprise storage, and is designed for environments that require high performance while maintaining intuitive management and operational simplicity.

PAS7700 is now available globally through Synology’s network of partners and distributors.

For more product information, please visit: www.synology.com/products/PAS7700.

*Memory module is upgradable to 1,024GB per node; 2,048GB for the whole PAS7700 system.

Hashtag: #Synology, #PAS7700

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Synology

Founded in Taiwan in 2000, Synology is a technology company specializing in network-attached storage (NAS), data backup and recovery, video surveillance, and networking solutions for businesses and individuals worldwide. Over the past two decades, Synology has continuously expanded its ecosystem to help users manage, protect, and unlock the value of data more effectively in the era of cloud, AI, and big data.

Synology’s core philosophy is to build a comprehensive hybrid-cloud ecosystem that enables businesses to protect, synchronize, and manage data through a centralized, intuitive, and easy-to-operate platform. From enterprise storage, data backup, file sharing, and collaboration to video surveillance and network infrastructure, Synology’s solutions are designed to simplify IT management and accelerate digital transformation.

Alongside ongoing technology innovation, Synology also focuses strongly on long-term stability, security, and scalability for data infrastructure. More than half of Fortune 500 companies use Synology solutions, reflecting the brand’s credibility and ability to support large-scale data operations worldwide.

Website: https://www.synology.com/en-sg

What seemed like an accidental glitch turns out to be a clever stunt celebrating Domino’s new brand idea, “Unbox Your Cravings.”

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach Newswire – 21 May 2026 – What seemed like an accidental on-air glitch during Era FM’s Petang Era broadcast has been revealed as a cheeky stunt by Domino’s Pizza Malaysia. During the live segment, the usual flow of the show came to a sudden halt, replaced by faint chatter and laughter drifting through the airwaves, leaving listeners both puzzled and curious.

It all started when Haziq mentioned his pizza craving with co-hosts Muna and Der. Then the aroma of freshly delivered pizzas drifted into the studio, and his craving got the better of him. He stepped out of the studio, while Muna and Der kept the show going, unaware that their mics were still on, leaving listeners to hear every bit of their conversation. The moment felt real, and it struck a chord with listeners nationwide.

Naturally, the internet had questions. Clips from the unexpected on-air moment quickly spread across social media, with listeners and creators reacting in real time to what many believed was an actual live radio slip-up.

“On-air can wait. Cravings can’t”

Era FM eventually addressed the incident in a statement, explaining that listeners had accidentally overheard an off-air conversation between the DJs about a topic very close to their hearts and stomachs. “Our team always strives to deliver entertaining and engaging content for listeners, but sometimes the most authentic human moments naturally shine through,” the station shared.

“Live radio is unpredictable, and sometimes, cravings simply get the better of you.” Era FM also thanked listeners for embracing the moment in good spirit while encouraging continued support for Haziq, Muna, Der, and the entire Petang Era team.

What audiences may not have realised at the time is that the moment was part of Domino’s Pizza Malaysia’s introduction of its refreshed brand idea, ‘Unbox Your Cravings.

A New Bold Direction Built Around Real Cravings

The ‘Unbox Your Cravings’ is built on a simple truth that cravings don’t wait. They show up unexpectedly during work, study, gaming, or even live radio broadcasts. Domino’s understands these cravings aren’t tied to special occasions but to everyday, spontaneous urges when you deserve to reward yourself.

Cravings are emotional and hard to ignore, pulling you away from what you’re doing and demanding your attention. Domino’s encourages Malaysians to embrace these cravings and indulge in what they truly want without hesitation. By highlighting how cravings disrupt daily life, Domino’s shows how treating yourself can turn an ordinary experience into something memorable.

Ringo Joannes, Region CEO of Domino’s Pizza Malaysia, Singapore & Cambodia, shared, “Cravings are among the most honest signals we have. They are immediate, emotional, and impossible to ignore. With ‘Unbox Your Cravings,’ we wanted to reflect that truth in a way that feels real to people today. This is about recognising those small but meaningful moments when you choose to listen to what you want, instead of putting it off and being there, ready, when that decision is made.”

Introducing Domino’s New Thick Crunch Pizza : The first pizza to fill the whole box

As part of its brand refresh, Domino’s Malaysia is introducing three exciting flavours of its latest innovation, the Thick Crunch Pizza. Inspired by Detroit-style pizzas and crafted to satisfy even the strongest cravings, this new offering features bold and indulgent options.

The New Thick Crunch Pizza is a bold new experience that is thick, airy, fluffy, and irresistibly crunchy, delivering a multi-textural bite pizza lovers have long been craving. Designed in a signature rectangular shape, it is also Domino’s Malaysia’s first-ever pizza to completely fill the whole box, turning every inch into pure satisfaction with no empty space left behind.

From its golden, crispy bottom to its soft, chewy, airy dough, every layer is built for maximum enjoyment. The experience is elevated further by its caramelised red cheddar edges, a standout feature that delivers a deeply satisfying crunch in every bite, making it impossible to stop at just one slice.

Aloha Salsa features Domino’s signature pizza sauce layered with cheddar cheese sauce and mozzarella, topped with Aloha Chicken and finished with a tangy salsa drizzle on a thick, fluffy base. Mac & Cheese combines rich cheddar cheese sauce and creamy mac and cheese for the ultimate comfort food experience. Cheesy Pepperoni elevates a classic favorite with Domino’s signature pizza sauce, cheddar cheese sauce, mozzarella, 24 generous slices of beef pepperoni and all three pizzas is complete with the irresistible crunchy red cheddar crust.

Available Nationwide

The New Thick Crunch Pizza is now available at Domino’s Pizza outlets nationwide for delivery, takeaway and dine-in. Orders can be made via the Domino’s website, Domino’s App or in-store at any Domino’s outlet. Whether shared with friends or enjoyed solo, the New Thick Crunch Pizza promises to satisfy every craving from the very first bite.

For more updates, visit www.dominos.com.my or follow @dominosmy on Facebook and Instagram.

Hashtag: #DominosPizza

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Domino’s Malaysia

At Domino’s Pizza, we take PRIDE in our commitment to enrich the lives of our customers, employees, partners, shareholders and communities. As one of the most lovable brands in Malaysia, we will go the extra mile for your smile as well as uphold our culture to ‘sell more pizza, have more fun’. Embracing our company’s philosophy of smart hustle, Domino’s is committed to provide customers with the ultimate pizza delivery experience, with its product satisfaction guarantee,

30-minutes delivery guarantee and 15-minutes take-away guarantee. To date, there are over 270 Domino’s Pizza stores in the country.

Forging ahead as an e-commerce entity, Domino’s Pizza has led many firsts in its digital platforms. Domino’s Pizza Malaysia has leveraged on the digital world to the best of its advantage, and this began when it was certified as the first QSR company to provide an online ordering platform by the Malaysian Book of Records with the launch of its website in 2003.

The stock rose to ₹5.25 on Wednesday as traders reacted to online chatter around Modi gifting Meloni a packet of Melody toffees during his visit to Rome. The moment spread quickly after Meloni posted a video thanking him for the gift, with the two leaders smiling as the confectionery was shown to the camera. Meloni called it a “very, very good toffee”, feeding a social-media burst around the long-running “Melodi” meme built from the two leaders’ surnames.

The market reaction, however, appeared to rest on a misunderstanding. Melody is made by Parle Products, the privately held consumer goods company behind brands such as Parle-G, Monaco, Hide & Seek and Mango Bite. Parle Industries, the BSE-listed penny stock that rallied, is a separate entity and is not connected to the toffee brand.

Trading volumes reflected the intensity of the speculative move. More than 8 lakh shares changed hands, sharply above the stock’s one-week average of about 2 lakh shares and its one-month average of about 3 lakh shares. The counter’s low price and limited liquidity made it particularly vulnerable to abrupt moves driven by social-media narratives rather than company fundamentals.

Parle Industries was formerly known as Parle Software and was incorporated in 1983. The company changed its name to Parle Industries in 2019 and has been associated with infrastructure, real estate and paper-related activities after earlier links to technology services. Its business profile bears little resemblance to Parle Products, which remains privately owned and is not available for direct stock-market investment.

The episode underlined a recurring weakness in retail trading behaviour, especially in penny and small-cap counters. Brand-name familiarity, partial information and fast-moving online trends can combine to create price action detached from corporate reality. Similar cases have occurred in global markets when investors bought shares of companies with names resembling better-known brands, digital assets or takeover targets.

The Modi-Meloni exchange took place during the Prime Minister’s visit to Italy, where bilateral talks covered political, economic and strategic cooperation. The confectionery moment, however, overshadowed the formal agenda online, with users recirculating earlier “Melodi” memes that gained popularity after previous public appearances by the two leaders.

For Parle Products, the viral clip amounted to unpaid visibility for one of its best-known confectionery labels. Melody has long been associated with the advertising line built around the question of why the toffee is so chocolaty, making the brand instantly recognisable to consumers across the country. The company did not need to be listed for the publicity to become a market event; traders simply found a listed company carrying the Parle name and pushed it to the exchange limit.

Market participants said the movement showed how quickly meme-driven attention can spill into thinly traded stocks. In such counters, even modest buying can produce exaggerated percentage gains because of narrow order books and daily circuit filters. The 5 per cent upper circuit capped the day’s rise, preventing the stock from moving higher during that session.

The rally also raised questions about investor due diligence at a time when retail participation in equity markets remains elevated. Millions of new demat accounts have entered the market over the past few years, with many first-time investors using mobile platforms, social-media tips and short-form videos as part of their trading decisions. While this has widened market access, it has also increased exposure to rumour-led activity.

By combining Phancy’s comprehensive full-stack AI capabilities with Huanxi Media’s extensive film and television data, intellectual property (IP) assets, and production expertise, the two companies aim to drive the entertainment industry’s shift from digitalization to true intelligence.

Under the framework agreement, the parties plan to set up a joint venture as the collaboration platform. They will pursue in-depth cooperation across several key areas, including data collaboration, development of large models and Agents for film and television, exploration of AI applications in new entertainment scenarios, AI-powered joint production and content creation, IP derivative development, and broader resources collaboration.

In addition, the two parties have signed a framework agreement for large model API services. Huanxi Media intends to adopt Phancy’s advanced large model and API services, with a targeted cumulative service value of no less than US$200 million through Token consumption over the next three years. The substantial long-term commitment highlights strong market confidence in the reliability and commercial strength of Phancy’s AI Platform, and is expected to provide the Company with stable, recurring revenue streams.

Dr. Dai Wenyuan, Founder and CEO of Phancy, said: “The entertainment sector is one of the most valuable and promising application scenarios for AI. This in-depth strategic partnership with Huanxi Media represents a strong alliance between our two companies and our shared vision to build a new industry ecosystem. As a leader in full-stack AI infrastructure and technical services, we at Phancy will fully leverage our core strengths in large model development, Agentic AI, heterogeneous computing power scheduling, and our Token ecosystem to empower the entire value chain of the entertainment industry. Moving forward, we will work closely with Huanxi Media, combining our respective technological advantages and industry resources to unlock new growth potential in the AI-powered entertainment sector.”

Strategic Significance of the Partnership

Phancy’s full-stack AI capabilities have taken a major step forward, moving from general platform services into deep vertical integration within the entertainment ecosystem. By embedding its self-developed AI technologies into Huanxi Media’s rich data, production environments, and IP assets, Phancy can integrate cutting-edge tools directly into content creation and daily operations, turning advanced technology into real business impact.

The film and television industry is going through a fundamental transformation. From assisted creation to intelligent production, and from virtual actors to interactive film and gaming experiences, AI is reshaping the entire content production process. The two parties will collaborate on frontier areas such as co-productions, digital human actor development, AI-generated realistic dramas, and interactive film-game projects. This partnership will move AI beyond a supporting tool and make it a core driver of content creation. Leveraging Phancy’s strengths in domestic computing power adaptation and integrated hardware-software solutions, the collaboration will significantly reduce the barriers and costs of using AI in the entertainment industry and speed up its adoption in actual productions.

This strategic alliance is an important move for Phancy as it expands its presence in real-world AI applications and deepens its industry impact. It is also expected to set a new benchmark for intelligent transformation in the entertainment sector. The two companies will continue to explore innovative ways to integrate AI with entertainment, create high-quality intelligent content, and help drive the industry into a new stage of high-quality intelligent development.

Hashtag: #PhancyGroup

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Phancy Group

Phancy Group (6682.HK) is a leading full-stack AI cloud services platform, providing comprehensive solutions for the AI 2.0 era. Our offerings include SageAIOS, HAMi vGPU and ModelHub XC, delivering efficient and scalable AI infrastructure with end-to-end capabilities. We provide a complete solution from heterogeneous compute resource management and optimization to the deployment of intelligent agent models. These solutions empower digital transformation across a wide range of industries, supporting our vision of building a large-scale and efficient “Token Factory.”

Guided by the mission of “AI for Everyone” and positioned as the “Navigator of AI,” Phancy Group is committed to becoming a global leader in Artificial General Intelligence.