NiviCap has been built to fix exactly that. It has been built to solve the real challenges Indian students and their families face when planning education in Australia. More than just a loan provider, it offers straightforward, transparent education loans that cover tuition, living expenses, visa costs, and travel, with loans up to ₹45 lakh and competitive interest rates based on creditworthiness.

Backed by the founders of ZIKSU, Australia’s homegrown fintech, it combines knowledge of the Indian market with on-the-ground experience in Australia so that parents know precisely where their money is going and when.  The NiviCap App goes beyond loans; it helps families with more than just loans. It also makes it easier for them to send and receive money, pick up students at the airport, and hold their hands when they arrive so they don’t have to figure things out on their own in a new nation. Everything from applying to getting money to living in Australia is designed to be quick, straightforward, and digital, with human help when it’s needed most. This way, students can focus on their future and parents can feel their stress levels drop at every stage. Strengthening this bridge of trust is the presence of Justin Langer, former Australian cricket coach, who supports NiviCap as its Brand Ambassador, resonating with the platform’s values of guidance, reliability, and mentorship.

Mr. Karthik Srinivasan, Founder, NiviCap, shared, “As an Indian-born Australian, I’ve lived the same journey that lakhs of Indian students aspire to every year. Today, around 5.2 lakh Indian students want to study in Australia, but only about 1.6 lakh make it, often because the financial process feels overwhelming, fragmented, or unclear. Nearly 80% depend on loans, yet many families struggle with documentation, cross-border regulations, and the emotional stress of managing finances across two countries. Having worked in banking across India and Australia, I’ve seen firsthand how these challenges can make academic dreams feel distant.”

“That is why we built NiviCap App, not just as a loan platform, but as a holistic, industry-led support system for students and their families. ‘Fast. Fair. Family Approved.’ isn’t just our promise, it’s the commitment that shaped this platform.”

The results of the first national survey to investigate research integrity in India, a collaboration between National Academy of Sciences, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – National Physical Laboratory and publisher Springer Nature, indicate broad support for mandatory in-person research integrity training across researcher demographics. The survey found that whilst 53% of respondents stated that their institution offered research integrity related training, 87% felt that research integrity training provided by their institution is effective, and 62% support mandatory training on research integrity for postgraduate students and early career researchers.

Key findings from the survey include:

• When asked to describe Research Integrity, including practices related to it, 85% of the responses focused on positive research traits, the most popular being honesty, ethical, trustworthy, and This is consistent with the survey findings from the UK and the USA.
• 53% of respondents stated that their institution offered research integrity related training, though only 2 out of 3 researchers indicated that their integrity training was mandatory. Further, 70% of post graduate students stated that they have mandatory research integrity training, while only 30% undergraduate students take integrity
• Current training in India has greater focus on foundational elements such as importance of research integrity, authorship guidance, defining research integrity and ethics This contrasts with data related trainings being sought by researchers in the UK, USA and Australia, which aren’t higher up in priority for Indian researchers.
• 80% of respondents feel they are able to provide feedback on training materials, but 9% feel that feedback is not reviewed and 75% of STM researchers feel that training providers in India aren’t given feedback on the quality of research developed.
• For those who had access to training, 64% of Indian respondents reported that the training was mandatory. Most respondents from India agreed that training at some stage in a researcher’s career should be

Dr. Ed Gerstner, Director, Research Environment Alliances at Springer Nature, commented: “I’m really encouraged by the fact that over half of the respondents in our survey of Indian researchers told us that their institutions provided training in research integrity. Although there is room for institutions to do more, this is no small feat for a country that is the third largest producer of scientific research globally today, behind only China and the US. As a publisher, Springer Nature is committed to accelerating solutions to the world’s urgent challenges by supporting our communities. Research integrity is a prime importance to us and a crucial component to foster a healthier research environment. Our survey findings across Australia,

US, UK, India and Japan indicate that researchers everywhere feel that formal training on research integrity will not only help them create a transparent and ethical environment, but will also ensure publishing of more accurate, trustworthy and unbiased work. And it is clear from the results that the Indian research community understands the importance of integrity training and feels that while a lot is being done, much more can and should be done to enhance research output from the country.”

Respondents from India also indicated that they would like more training on the importance of researcher integrity, authorship, issues around statistics, reproducibility, and ethics approval. Whilst these are important as indicated in the survey findings from the US, UK and Australia, the emphasis in these geographies has been on trainings in management and sharing of research data.

The Indian survey was conducted between July and October 2023 as part of Springer Nature’s commitment to support good practices internationally by providing insights into research integrity training and needs. Questions were addressed to both institutional management and researchers/faculty members to deliver a baseline review of perceived levels of training in research integrity and good research practices at research institutions, including training in statistics, data management, data sharing and mentorship. 600+ responses, including from most top institutes and universities in India, were received and analysed.

About Springer Nature:

For over 180 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies.

As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American.

The Supreme Court also ordered the government to extend permanent service – which has only been applicable to men so far – to all women officers, signalling a move towards gender parity in the traditionally male bastion.

With this women will get the same opportunities and benefits as their male colleagues, including ranks, promotions and pensions and be allowed to serve longer tenures.

Currently, women are inducted through a short-service commission that lets them work for up to 14 years and only allowed permanent commission in the army’s legal and educational wings.

“To cast aspersion on their abilities on the ground of gender is an affront not only to their dignity as women but to the dignity of the members of the Indian Army,” judges said in their ruling.

Last week the government opposed women being appointed to top roles such as colonels and brigadiers, saying most soldiers were men from rural backgrounds who were not “mentally schooled to accept women officers in command”.

The government also argued that men and women officers were physically different and could not be treated equally.

The top court rebuked the government, describing its views as “disturbing” and urged “the need for change in mindsets to bring about true equality in the army”.

It, however, did not rule on deploying women in combat roles, saying a competent authority needed to decide.

India, with one of the largest armies in the world, has long resisted including women in combat roles, citing concerns over women’s vulnerability if captured and over their physical and mental ability to cope with front-line deployments.

India’s air force and navy offer a permanent commission to women as well as select combat roles.

Most countries employ women in various roles in their armed forces but only a handful, including Australia, Germany, Israel and the United States, allow them to take on combat roles.

India began recruiting women to non-medical positions in the armed forces in 1992, yet they make up about 4 percent of the army’s more than one million personnel, according to latest data.

Aishwarya Bhati, a lawyer who represented female officers at court, lauded Monday’s judgement as one that would remove discrimination and boost women’s role in the army.

“They (judges) have completely negated all the farcical stands raised by the army to deny women equal opportunities,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“These battles are watershed moments not just for women in the Indian army, but for women across the world.”

Australian officials declared a state of emergency for the capital city of Canberra and surrounding regions on Friday, as soaring temperatures and strong winds threatened to propel a large bushfire beyond the control of firefighters.

Andrew Barr, Chief Minister for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), said the decision to declare the first state of emergency since fatal wildfires in 2003 indicated the potential danger over the weekend.

Officials said an uncontrolled fire in the ACT’s south, on the doorstep of Canberra, had grown to 185 sq km, almost 8% of the territory’s land mass.

“This fire may become very unpredictable. It may become uncontrollable,” Barr told reporters in a televised briefing. “The combination of extreme heat, wind, and a dry landscape will place suburbs in Canberra’s south at risk.”

Australia’s federal parliament is located in Canberra, which is also home to several government and independent institutions as well as national museums. Four people died and almost 500 homes were destroyed in the 2003 Canberra fires.

The state of emergency declared on Friday will run for 72 hours, giving authorities greater powers to order evacuations, close roads and take control of private property.

Heatwave conditions are also expected to sweep through Victoria and New South Wales states over the weekend, where some 80 fires are burning.

In neighbouring New Zealand, where smoke from the Australian blazes has turned glaciers brown, firefighters were battling to contain around 25 fires that spread rapidly to cover around 100 hectares on the South Island. Heatwave conditions were also forecast for much of the country over the weekend.

Australia has been battling bushfires across its east coast that have killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals since September. Around 2,500 homes have been destroyed as more than 11.7 million hectares (117,000 sq km) have been razed.

While there were no new deaths confirmed outside Hubei, the national tally of verified infections rose by 769, about half of them in Hubei, the National Health Commission said. It said 461 of those infected were in a serious condition.

China has sealed off Hubei in the country’s centre, an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people which is intended to slow the transmission of the respiratory virus.

The end of the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s busiest travel season, was pushed back to Sunday from Friday to “effectively reduce mass gatherings” and “block the spread of the epidemic,” a Cabinet statement said. Schools will also postpone reopening until further notice, it added.

Cases have been confirmed in the semi-autonomous territories of Macau and Hong Kong, where the government is turning holiday camps into quarantine centres. South Korea confirmed its fourth case on Monday.

Scattered cases have also been confirmed in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Vietnam, Singapore Malaysia, Nepal, France, Canada and Australia. The US has confirmed cases in Washington state, Chicago, southern California and Arizona.