Jammu, February 20, 2026 – Zscaler, Inc., the leader in cloud security, in partnership with Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), one of India’s largest telecommunication service providers, today announced the launch of the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India. This multi-stakeholder digital initiative is dedicated to advancing national cyber resilience, protecting sectors, industries and assets that are essential to India’s economic and national security, such as telecommunications, banking, and energy, as well as digital users, and accelerating trusted AI adoption across India’s rapidly expanding digital ecosystem. 

India has long been a key hub for Zscaler’s technology innovation and cyber research, with a significant share of Zscaler’s research talent based in the country. The research center will serve as an expansion of Zscaler’s operations into a national platform for collaboration between the private sector, public sector, academia and the government. The center is designed “In India, For India,” with the goal of strengthening the nation’s cyber defenses and building a future-ready talent pipeline to support India’s progress toward Viksit Bharat and a peaceful, secure, and digitally self-reliant future.

India is in the midst of a generational digital transformation, building systems not at enterprise scale, but at population scale across critical sectors – dramatically expanding the national attack surface. At the same time, the threat landscape is evolving at machine speed, with nation state and financially-motivated attackers increasingly leveraging AI to probe, target, and weaponize vulnerabilities in minutes. Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, has observed millions of infiltration attempts each month, including notable campaigns such as:

● Nation-state cyber espionage activity using the theme of regional geopolitical tensions, which attempted to target multiple Indian entities;

● A surge in attempts to infiltrate India’s private and public sectors, with 1.2 million intrusion attempts originating from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities; and 

● An increase in zero-day exploit attempts aimed at multiple industries in India. 

As threats grow in sophistication, traditional perimeter-based security models are no longer adequate, and disruptions to essential services can threaten national economic stability – making secure-by-design foundations and a modern architectural shift imperative to protect national digital systems in an increasingly borderless, AI-enabled environment.

The objectives of the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India are anchored in four strategic pillars: 

1. Protect: Deliver real-time, actionable intelligence to strengthen India’s national cyber resilience and digital-first businesses.

2. Remediate: Partner directly with government agencies to neutralize and prevent cyber-attacks.

3. Facilitate: Drive the adoption of modern security frameworks, specifically focusing on AI-driven defenses and Zero Trust architecture.

4. Build: Strengthen the cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialized AI and Zero Trust certifications to bridge the national skills gap. 

As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine the former’s global intelligence with the latter’s local operational reach to create a stronger, faster research-to-response loop for India. Zscaler will deploy a specialized threat research team focused on India. This team will leverage the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™ platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions, to extract threat intelligence to secure India’s public and private sectors. Airtel will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, collaborating with Zscaler to monitor networks and develop new solutions, enabling faster identification of suspicious activity and more effective coordination with ecosystem stakeholders. Looking ahead, additional members from India’s critical public and private sectors will be invited to join the center to expand collaboration and strengthen cyber resilience across India.

“At Airtel, our commitment has been to safeguard our customers and the nation’s digital fabric. This partnership with Zscaler marks a significant extension of this commitment that will combine the power of our AI capabilities and deep scale for cybersecurity research to protect the country’s expanding digital ecosystem,” said Gopal Vittal, Executive Vice-Chairman, Bharti Airtel. “We will focus on addressing challenges unique to our market to build a safer, more resilient digital India where every citizen and enterprise can connect and thrive with confidence. Our research-backed preventive mechanism will also encourage peaceful and secure engagements on digital platforms.”

“India is building digital systems at an unmatched population scale. You cannot secure this level of ambition with legacy firewalls and VPNs that were never designed for a hyper-connected world. It demands a modern Zero Trust architecture that is secure-by-design,” said Jay Chaudhry, CEO, Chairman, and Founder, Zscaler. “With the AI & Cyber Threat Research Center – India, we will bring the full power of the world’s largest security cloud to protect the nation’s public and private sectors. By combining actionable intelligence from over 500 billion daily transactions with local expertise, we aren’t just building readiness; we are empowering a new generation of defenders to stay ahead of the adversary.”

Jammu & Kashmir: Once facing the possibility of abandonment amid legal and environmental hurdles, the world’s highest railway bridge over the Chenab river has emerged as one of India’s most iconic engineering achievements. The historic Chenab Rail Bridge was formally inaugurated as part of the Katra–Srinagar railway section when Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the Vande Bharat Express between Katra and Srinagar on June 6, 2025.

Towering 359 metres above the riverbed — 35 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower — the 1,315-metre-long steel arch bridge is a central component of the 272-km Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL), aimed at integrating the Kashmir Valley with India’s broader railway network.

A Project Once on the Brink

The bridge’s journey was far from smooth. Around 2008, amid legal challenges and environmental concerns that escalated to the Supreme Court of India, the project was suspended for over 90 days. The Railway Board reportedly explored alternatives, including replacing the arch bridge with a tunnel.

At that critical juncture, the Board informed Afcons Infrastructure Limited that it could exit the contract if it chose to do so. The company, however, decided to stay despite mounting financial risks.

Executive Chairman Krishnamurthy Subramanian recalled deliberations with then chairman Cyrus Mistry, who later died in a road accident in 2022. “If we walked away, there would be difficulties in completing it. We took the risk to stay put and finish the job,” Subramanian said, describing the project as one of international significance.

Engineering Against the Odds

The original plan always envisaged an arch bridge, but environmental litigation temporarily halted progress before the Supreme Court restored the original alignment. Over time, additional technical requirements — including blast load considerations — were introduced, requiring design adjustments as construction advanced.

Subramanian noted that no bridge of this magnitude had previously been built in India. “Where everybody thought it was not doable, if we could show that it can be done, the company could establish itself as a pioneer in engineering,” he said.

Completed after more than two decades from contract signing in 2004 to inauguration in 2025, the Chenab Arch Bridge now stands as a testament to persistence, innovation and complex project execution under extreme geological and climatic conditions.

Beyond Chenab

Afcons has also delivered other landmark infrastructure projects, including India’s first underwater metro tunnel beneath the Hooghly River in Kolkata. The company is currently engaged in constructing an undersea tunnel in Thane, Maharashtra, for the Mumbai–Ahmedabad bullet train corridor.

With the operationalisation of the Chenab Bridge and the Katra–Srinagar section, the USBRL project has achieved a milestone long envisioned — physically linking Kashmir to the rest of the country by rail and showcasing India’s growing engineering capabilities on the global stage.

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday announced that the government will initiate the process of regularising daily-rated, ad hoc, and other temporary employees in a legally and financially sustainable manner in 2026. The move comes alongside efforts to fill nearly 30,000 vacant posts across government departments this year.

Addressing the Assembly during the discussion on departmental grants and cut motions, Abdullah acknowledged that the issue of temporary workers has persisted for decades. “These employees have been struggling for 20, 30, and even 40 years. No government has been able to fully resolve the issue,” he said.

He added that a committee under the Chief Secretary has been constituted to examine the matter and ensure that any policy framed avoids legal or financial roadblocks. “Once the committee submits its report and the groundwork is completed in a transparent manner, we will place everything before the people,” Abdullah said.

The Chief Minister emphasized that regularisation cannot be achieved overnight. “I am not willing to mislead these employees by merely signing a paper without proper preparation,” he noted, adding that the total number of workers to be regularised — whether 70,000, 80,000, or one lakh — will be determined according to a proper timetable.

Currently, over one lakh daily wagers and casual labourers are engaged across various departments in Jammu and Kashmir. The registered workforce includes:

• 69,696 casual labourers
• 8,836 daily-rated workers
• 8,534 seasonal labourers
• 5,757 food and civil supplies helpers
• 2,153 part-time sweepers
• 1,929 hospital development fund employees

On employment generation, Abdullah clarified the distinction between the creation of posts and actual appointments. While the government has created posts, it has already filled around 6,000–6,500 positions and aims to fill nearly 30,000 vacant posts this year without creating additional positions.

He assured the Assembly that all recruitments will be conducted in a transparent and time-bound manner, coordinated with the Selection Board and Public Service Commission, to avoid legal challenges that have derailed past recruitment drives.