“The Future of India will be Driven by the Young Population”: Ratan Tata

Recently, at the commemoration of the 50th year of Population Foundation of India, eminent industrialist and Tata Group Chairman Emeritus Mr. Ratan Tata highlighted the role of India's youth in accelerating economic growth and the importance of investing in their education, health and well-being.

Speaking at this event, Mr. Tata said, “There is no doubt that the future of India will be driven by the young population of more than 370 million people. If we are to meet our commitments to achieve population stabilization and contribute to the national aspirations of the $5 Trillion economy by 2024, we must focus and invest in the young citizens of the future.”

The visionary industrialist emphasized on the need to create employment opportunities for the youth as well as address the issue of gender discrimination that denies women equal opportunities in every sphere.

He urged citizens and the government to work together to ensure a better future for the country.

Mr. Tata felicitated Dr. Rani Bang and Dr. Abhay Bang with the first JRD Tata Award for Excellence in Public Service instituted to commemorate Population Foundation of India's 50th year. He congratulated them for their pioneering research and contribution to promoting the well-being of communities and public health.

The Bangs dedicated the award to the people of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra.

“We also dedicate this award to our co-workers who inspire and enable our work,” Dr. Rani Bang said.

Speaking of their vision for public health in India, Dr. Abhay Bang said, “The Indian word for health is ‘Swa-stha', which is being Self-reliant. Hence, our vision is Aarogya-Swaraj which means that people's health must remain in their hands.”

Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India, said, “We at Population Foundation of India are committed for young people to have the knowledge and resources to make the right choices about their health and well-being, thereby ensuring that they become a powerful driving force of change.”

The celebrations premiered Feroz Abbas Khan's highly acclaimed new romantic musical ‘Raunaq & Jassi'.

Prepostseo Plagiarism Checker Review 2020 Is it Only for Students & Educators?

A major ratio of plagiarism checkers is meant for education personnel and students only. However, the tool designed for scanning copied content is a definite exception. It proves the fact that these soft wares can be used by anyone who needs to check copied content. In terms of reputation and quality level, this is surely one of the best alternatives’ users can get their hands on. The best thing is that this plagiarism checking software would come in handy for you even if you are not working on a dissertation or grading one. For content writers, a plagiarism checking tool is an essential need.

Let us have a look at the core offerings of this plagiarism checking application.

A detailed plagiarism report generated

Simply knowing whether an article, academic paper or blog is plagiarized or not is insufficient information. If a particular section of the content is copied, the writer should know about it. This tool generates a full scaled plagiarism report. It can also be downloaded in PDF and HTML forms. The purpose of this report is providing a complete insight to the user. For example, if the literature review of a thesis has plagiarism problems, the student should have clarity about it. If the problem area is not identified, you would have to search through each line and extract the plagiarized areas. Hence, writers are able to save precious time by using this tool.

Link to paraphrasing feature

When the plagiarized content areas are identified, they have to be rephrased. This is one of the few tools that redirects the user to the paraphrasing screen. Consider that you have performed a plagiarism check and some part of the content is copied. By clicking the “make it unique” button, you would be redirected to the paraphrasing screen. Once you click the “paraphrase” button, the process of rewriting would start.

• Paraphrasing is yet another time-consuming task which users have to complete. It is hard to find a plagiarism checker that has an additional paraphrasing option as well. Normally, students use a plagiarism checker and then rewrite the problematic content sections. You do not have to rewrite anything after using this tool. If some part of the content is plagiarized, the paraphrasing option would rewrite it. People working on different writing categories benefit from this. Research writers need plagiarism checking tools so that they do not have to face any penalties. This application would not only detect plagiarism for them but also rephrase the content area which needs rewriting.

Exact phrase match and plagiarism percentage features

• If you have written an article and figure out that it has plagiarism issues, what other things would you need to know. How much of the content is plagiarized? This is the first thing that pops up in the minds of writers. They need an estimate of the corrections needed. This plagiarism checker gives the exact percentage of plagiarized content. If 40 percentage of the written information has paraphrasing deficiencies, this figure would be shown after the scanning process is completed.


• At times, exact phrases are detected when the written material is compared with what has already been published online. Through the “exact phrase” match, you can view this detail. It shows the percentage of content that has not been rephrased at all. There is a difference between paraphrasing not being up to the mark and 100% copied content. With the “exact phrase” feature, you can see the percentage of content copied without any changes being made.

Word Count and Readability options

Do you know that readability is a very critical factor for success / failure of written content? Lack of readability gives a negative vibe to the reader and he does not bother about going through the content with interest. If a blog presents some very interesting facts but has readability problems, readers would lose interest and exit before going through the details. The higher the readability percentage, the better would be the response from the readers. Usually, there is lack of readability when the flow of the content is not natural. Keyword stuffing is a major reason due to which the flow is spoilt. With this tool, you can get a basic idea of the response which the readers would give about the written content.

• What is the word count of the written content? Word limits are very important whether you are working on a term paper, blog or project scope. All forms of writing have a word limit. If you are writing a thesis paper, there will be an individual word limit for each chapter. This tool shows the word count of the content checked. This is a helpful feature because if the word count is less than the minimum or more than the maximum limit, changes can be made by the writer.

The parameters of efficiency and accuracy

Is this tool completely efficient? There are no reliability problems with this tool. Unlike a lot of substandard plagiarism checking soft wares which ignore parts of the content, this checker scans each line.

• College and university students find this tool quite helpful. They have to use plagiarism checkers on continuous basis. Students are always working on research assignments, essay papers and other similar academic tasks. All of them involve plagiarism checking.  A term paper, dissertation or any other academic assignment cannot be submitted until there is an assurance that the content is original. Once you use this checker and it shows that there are no plagiarism findings, there is no need to recheck anything. 

What kinds of content uploading options are available?

• The first step for performing a plagiarism check is uploading content. The standard option is selecting the content, copying it and then pasting it in the provided text box. In some cases, this is a cumbersome option. We can take the example of a term paper which has a word length in thousands. Copying so many words is definitely not the easiest of tasks. Is there an alternate uploading option available? The answer to this question is yes.


• This tool allows content to be uploaded in the form of a file. It supports various commonly used formats including PDF, DOC and TXT. If your content is already saved in one of these formats, the additional task of selecting the content can be ignored. The tool would scan through the uploaded file and determine plagiarized sections. After that, you can advance to the paraphrasing stage and get the content rewritten instantly.

Time factor for plagiarism checking

Slow running tools can prove to be a major problem for any user. A lot of plagiarism checking tools go into a “not responding” mode for an indefinite time span. Some of them take a very long duration to completing the checking process. This time lag can be a problem for writers who do not have a lot of time on their hands. Most people do not have the patience of waiting for the tool response.

• This plagiarism checker is far better than most other alternatives in terms of time efficiency. Whether you have uploaded content with a word count of 500 or 5000 words, the stage of checking copied content would be concluded in less than a minute. Corporate professionals need to prepare original content for their presentations and reports. They need tools which are 100% efficient and consume optimized time frames. 


• In order to meet timelines, they cannot afford to opt for slow paced plagiarism checking tools. This tool is one of the finest alternatives for all forms of writing including articles, web content and academic assignments.
  
  

  No charges applied for any quality features

  
  There is no doubt that this plagiarism checker is equipped with some of the best features. For writers, it is nothing less than a blessing. To start with, they do not have to worry at all about facing plagiarism consequences. When you talk about students, they are even rusticated if involved in plagiarism. With this tool, they get a guarantee that the content is not plagiarized and can be submitted. The best thing is that no charges are applied when you are using this checker. You can check as many content pieces as you want without paying any cost. It is quite hard to find a free tool with so many features for checking copied content.
  

  Conclusion

  
  It is an undoubted fact that plagiarism is a huge issue that impacts academic writing professionals, students and several other users. Manual proofreading is not an effective method even if you can afford the time consumption. This plagiarism checker is the perfect way out for anyone who wishes to submit original content. It actually eliminates all the worries and apprehensions. In an overall manner, it is a must have if you want to produce unique content without tolerating any stress.

IACC to bring in American companies to further strengthen the Aerospace and Defence Sectors in Hyderabad:Mr. Shrikant Badiga, Chairman, Indo-American Chamber of Commerce – AP & TS

Indo–American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) AP & TS organized a Round-Table Discussion on “Overcoming Challenges in Aerospace and Defense sectors for sustainable business growth at Hyderabad” on Friday at Novotel Hotel Airport, Hyderabad. The Round-table discussion supported by GMR Aerospace & Industrial Park was attended 35 people comprising of MDs / Directors / CEOs / CFOs of sectors. The round table saw people from different sector put forth the problems they face and opportunities they foresee in the Aviation, Aerospace and Defence sectors.


[caption id="attachment_142308" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] View of the Round Table on Aerospace and Defence organised by IACC and GMR Aerospace and Industrial Park at Hyderabad[/caption]

Giving details in a press note issued in city today Mr. Shrikant Badiga, Chairman of IACC – AP & TS said that Aerospace and Defence sector play a very important role and to compliment and accelerate economy more industries need to come up. Hyderabad has a very good potential and the GMR Aerospace and Industrial Park is complimenting the growth of the sector for India. The eco-system is there but minor issues have to be addressed and ironed out for the sector to bloom. Most international companies are looking at Hyderabad as a potential hub for setting up industries, he said. 

There is a huge business potential for Aerospace and Defence sectors in Hyderabad. With the encouragement and the positive policies of the Telangana Government a huge eco-system of Aerospace and Defence sectors can be created in Hyderabad. There is a very investor-friendly environment in Hyderabad. The Aerospace and Defence sectors have taken off smoothly and have a promising journey ahead. IACC would coordinate with American companies to bring in a good number of American companies to develop a very positive ecosystem and further strengthen it, said Mr. Shrikant. 

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Praveen PA, Director, Aerospace and Defence, Government of Telangana said that Aerospace, Defence, IT and Pharma are the thrust areas of the Telangana Government. More companies are looking at Hyderabad as it has the people with right skill sets, infrastructure, vendor base and a proactive government. Aerospace and Defence companies are looking at Hyderabad to set up their manufacturing bases, he said. With GMR Aerospace and Industrial Park, Adibatla, Hardware Park, etc. the south of Hyderabad city is becoming home to 4-5 strong clusters in these sectors, Mr. Praveen said. 

Hyderabad will be a hub of aerospace and defence where all activities, including R&D, manufacturing, etc. will happen, Mr. Praveen opined. The government is having a multi-pronged approach with tie-ups with universities to setup need based education programs, setting up of centres of excellence and promoting lot of startups and related activities, he stated. 

Some other things discussed, shared and suggested by the eminent leaders from State Government, Industry leaders and other stakeholders were: Regulatory Certification processes to be streamlined; Tax structure in Engine MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul) to be rationalized as compared to other countries; Delay in processing of tax rebates by various ministries to be addressed; Focus on Aerospace and Defence industry for youth; Startup ecosystem in Aviation, Aerospace and Defence to be created; Skill development programs to be strengthened; Skill development programs between MSMEs Tier1 and Tier2 suppliers to be developed; etc. 

Dr. Ramkumar Rudrabhatla, MD, P&P Nexgen Tech P. Ltd. sharing his thoughts said that Hyderabad has a huge potential and it needs to be tapped. The private sector has a critical part to play, he said. He opined that we need to integrate R&D to the industry operations. Though there are a lot of issues and challenges, but the defence industry is going from an era of self-sufficiency to self-reliance, Dr. Ramkumar said. 

Mr. Rajendra Velagapudi, MD & CEO, Cyient DLM lamented that it is a challenge and takes a lot of time to get approvals from the Government. Support is needed in this regard, he said. Giving example of them, he said that it took 1 year’s time for approvals from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MIETY). 

Mr. Gaurav Kamath, Head, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd.-Boeing (TASL-Boeing) stressed on skill and quality of STEM education; he said that it is a challenge to find and retain the right talent. Aerospace requires intellect, but with so many easier options available for youth, it is taking out much talent, he opined. We have defence offset but maybe civil offset will give the industry a nudge, he said. 

Mr. Vijaya Sai Meka, Senior Vice Chairman, IACC AP & TS said that the objective of the program is to highlight the challenges and to discuss the solutions for the sustainable business growth of Aerospace and Defence sectors at Hyderabad. The findings will be shared with the Government of Telangana and further steps will be taken to mitigate the problems. 

IITM Incubation Cell Hosts ‘Start-up Exhibition’ for the National Entrepreneurship Awards 19 Winners (MSDE)

IITM Incubation Cell (IITMIC) hosted a 'Start-up Exhibition' today (28th February 2020) featuring the Pan-India Winners of the Fourth Edition of the National Entrepreneurship Award (NEA) 2019, conferred by Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India. IITMIC is the lead partner for NEA 2019.

The objective of ‘National Entrepreneurship Award’ is to recognize and celebrate work by ‘Young Entrepreneurs’ and ‘Ecosystem Builders’ from across India and instil the entrepreneurial attitude among the future-generations and the youth.

The Ministry partnered with twelve premier institutes and organization including IIT Madras (Lead Partner), IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, XLRI, TISS, NSIC, IIT Guwahati, IRMA, MANAGE, NIF, NABARD, and RSETI. These institutions were responsible for mobilizing nominations and evaluation process. A total of 4,136 applications were received various regions of India including the North East - Manipur, Sikkim and Meghalaya – besides the Andaman and Lakshadweep. They were rigorously evaluated by the partner incubators/institutes.

Delivering the Keynote Address, Padma Shri. Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Institute Professor, IIT Madras, said, “There is visibly lot of change in the country, where youngsters are aspiring to become job providers and not job seekers. However, as a start-up founder, your job is of very high responsibility where you are accountable and answerable to your employees. It is key to have a vision and get your team aligned to that vision at every stage of your start-up journey.”

Congratulating the winners for their work and efforts, Prof. Jhunjhunwala added, “Winning awards are great motivation, but your success depends on your continuous hard work and efforts. Start-up success should be measured by the economic impact and wealth creation which enables you to create true social impact.”

Around 12 teams participated in the exhibition of the NEA winners including- Planys Technologies, Unexplored Bastar, Eco 365 Neo Systek, Green Biotech Solution, Devrai Art Village, Global Enterprises, StreeSwabhiman Sanitary Napkins, AN Spice Industry, JS Enterprises, ScoutmyTrip, SURA and Aspartika. Several IITMIC Incubated start-ups also participated in the expo.

Entrepreneurship Development Institute of Innovation, TamilNadu, also won the award in ‘Ecosystem Builder’ category. The list of start-ups that participated in the expo can be obtained from - https://dochub.com/iitmic-events/yzEeDZn/nea-workshop-demo-list-pdf?dt=amYDr3WriFLYECQzzRgV

About IIT Madras

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) was established in 1959 by the Government of India as an institute of national importance. The activities of the Institute in various fields of Technology and Science are carried out in 16 academic departments and several advanced interdisciplinary Research Academic Centres. The Institute offers undergraduate and post - graduate programmes leading to the B.Tech., M.Sc., M.B.A., M.Tech., M.S., and Ph.D., degrees in a variety of specialisations. IITM is a residential institute with more than 580 faculty and 9,500 students. Students from 18 countries are enrolled here. IITM fosters an active entrepreneurial culture with strong curricular support and through the IITM Incubation Cell.

IITM has been ranked No.1 in the Overall Institutions category in India Rankings 2019 released by National Institutional Ranking Framework, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India. The Institute has also been ranked No.1 in the Engineering Institutions category in the same Rankings for four consecutive years – 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. It was also adjudged as the ‘Top innovative Institution’ in the country in the Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) 2019 launched by Innovation Cell of MHRD.

Ad-Tech Firm Affle to Acquire Mediasmart in € 5.12 Mn Deal

Ad-tech company Affle on Friday said it will acquire Spanish firm Mediasmart in a EUR 5.12 million (Rs 40.87 crore) deal.

Mediasmart provides advertisers, trading desks and agencies an integrated mobile advertising platform.

Its proximity marketing solutions allow it to deliver location targeted campaigns with real time footfall tracking and offline attribution.

Its total revenue for the financial year ended December 31, 2019, was EUR 5.95 million.

"A total consideration of EUR 5.12 million including contingent consideration to be paid for the acquisition of 100 per cent shares and economic rights of employees (subject to certain performance conditions over 4 years period and also subject to certain closing
adjustments)," Affle said in a regulatory filing.

It added that this also includes the payments to employees (other than economic rights of employees) amounting up to EUR 0.62 million, to be paid over a period of four years.

As per the deal, 94.78 per cent shares are to be transferred by March 31, 2020 and the balance 5.22 per cent shares to be transferred on or before March 31, 2021, the filing said.

Mediasmart has the perfect team, culture and tech platform for Affle to build greater strategic presence in Europe, Latin America and US, according to Affle Chairman, MD and CEO Anuj Khanna Sohum.

"Their proximity marketing programmatic platform strengthens our omnichannel platform to enable marketers to drive incremental online and offline conversions in both developed and emerging markets," he added. PTI SR

BETiC- IIT B innovator Aneesh Karma wins Aarohan social innovations awards for 2019

BETiC (Biomedical Engineering and Technology incubation Center) IIT-Bombay, Aneesh Karma won the Infosys foundation - 2nd Aarohan social innovations awards in the healthcare silver category. The award function took place in Bengaluru on 19th February 2020 in a compact setting.

[caption id="attachment_142295" align="alignleft" width="450"] Aneesh Karma - Aarohan Social Innovations Awards 2020[/caption]

The awards were organized by the CSR arm of Infosys called the Infosys foundation. Infosys foundation established the Aarohan Social Innovation awards in 2018 to recognize and reward individuals, teams, and NGOs for creating innovative solutions to support the underprivileged in India, at scale – as affirmed by the source (https://www.infosys.com/newsroom/press-releases/2020/aarohan-social-innovation-awards-winners-announcement.html)

Native to UP’s Bulandshahr district with a humble family background, Aneesh and his wife are both polio patients. The UP government provided low-cost drop-lock calipers, but they were uncomfortable and inefficient. Aneesh started modifying the design, filed a patent in 2015 with the help of National Research Development Corporation (NRDC). With a vision to help the 1.2 million polio cases in India, he joined BETiC-IIT-Bombay in 2018.

Aneesh’s innovation, the knee ankle-foot orthosis (KAFO) offers a solution for those affected by polio, paralysis, cerebral palsy, neuromuscular disorders and accidents. His KAFO is versatile, with a 135-degree angle flexion for squatting, walking and cycling. It weighs only 1.3 kg and can provide support to an individual weighing up to 120 kg. Along with all of this, it is multiple footwear compatible and is affordably priced. Imported orthotics, with intelligent sensor systems which control the knee joint through pneumatics, linear springs, hydraulics and torsional rods are too expensive.

Aneesh's innovation has also won awards such as NCPEDP- Mphasis Universal Design Awards 2019, The Big Idea Summit and Expo 2020, IIT Kanpur’s 2018 Techkriti Innovator award and many others. In 2019, Aneesh also won the BIRAC Biotechnology Ignition Grant.

Together with the award, Aneesh and his team were rewarded with a prize money of 10 lakh INR by the hands of the chairperson of Infosys foundation, philanthropist and renowned author Mrs. Sudha Murthy and non-executive chairman of Infosys Nandan Nikleni, reflecting token of appreciation and encouragement to create more low-cost innovative healthcare devices for the underprivileged society.

On receiving the award, Aneesh said, “For any innovator, the initial years are swamped with financial issues that do not necessarily limit but definitely slow down the pace of developing the innovations. Such monetarily assistance ease the pressure on that front and allows a smooth channel for the process of innovating a device."

Prof. B. Ravi, Founder of BETiC says, "Anyone can be a successful innovator- assuming they have enough fire and have access to a supportive eco-system. This award is a validation of our efforts to nurture promising innovators from rural areas, and to make low cost medical innovation a reality."

ABOUT AROHAN AWARDS

The awards were identified across four categories: Healthcare, Rural Development, Destitute Care and Sustainability. The awards comprised of a promising jury panel including Mrs. Sudha Murthy, Chairperson – Infosys Foundation, philanthropist and renowned author, Padma Shri Mr. Arvind Gupta, an Indian toy inventor and science expert, Padma Shri Prof. Anil Gupta, visiting faculty member, IIM Ahmedabad, a globally renowned scholar of grassroots innovations, and Founder of the Honeybee Network and four others. The winners were shortlisted from a pool of over 1,700 submissions and evaluated by the distinguished jury. The ten social innovators were awarded with a total prize money of INR 1.50crore for their breakthrough innovations.

About BETIC:

The Biomedical Engineering and Technology Innovation Centre is located at IIT Bombay, with satellite centers in six engineering colleges and seven medical institutes across Maharashtra. The initiative is envisioned and supported by S&T Council of Maharashtra Government and DST, New Delhi, to accelerate indigenous development of affordable medical devices suitable for local manufacture and use. In the last five years, the BETIC team developed and filed patents for over 50 devices, and licensed 20 of them to start-up companies or industry partners.

Tech-logistics solutions provider LetsTransport acqui-hires Pixlcoders

LetsTransport, a leading tech-logistics solution provider today announced the completion of acqui-hiring Pixlcoders, a Bengaluru-based web and mobile app development company. LetsTransport has on-boarded the ​​team of the Pixlcoders with an aim to strengthen the supply chain, boosting technology and enhancing its applications.

With this acqui-hire decision, LetsTransport aims to further build on disruptive technology for logistics and expand its presence in India. Pixlcoders, a team of 10 tech-enthusiasts along with its senior management will also help the brand in customised solutions such as user research, market validation, enriched UX and branding. Founded in 2016 by Suresh P and Punam Garu, this startup offers affordable customised software, digital products, e-commerce shops, and mobile applications across industries. They have helped develop websites, mobile apps and software for clients in India, US, UK, and UAE.

Commenting on the acquisition, Pushkar Singh, CEO of LetsTransport, said “We are re-shaping the last-mile delivery for businesses in India, and mobile solutions are key to building the network and scale-up effectively. We welcome the team of PixlCoders on our rocketship, as we look to build momentum in 2020.”

Commenting on the same, Sudarshan Ravi, Founder and CPO of LetsTransport, said, “I believe technology is having a great impact in logistics, making it an improved, automated, efficient and transparent process. Pixlcoders are an extremely talented and high-performance team and it feels great to add disrupting minds of technophiles to our growing team. With a disruptive tech focus in the logistics space, we, at LetsTransport aim at improving the efficiencies of logistics. We are quite excited to have a values-aligned team joining hands with us.”

Technology has played a significant role in boosting the logistics sector, making it more organised and predictable. This acqui-hiring will also boost the innovation in LetsTransport’s existing technology, moving the company a step closer to engaging 1,00,000+ truckers by next year. This will further enable enterprises to reach their consumers faster.

Suresh Pattu, Co-founder and CEO of Pixlcoders, highlighted further, “LetsTransport is doing great work in ensuring on-time delivery for brands in India. We are glad to collaborate with them and look forward to helping the brand expand in new geographies with enhanced applications and technology. Emerging technologies in logistics are pushing the boundaries and evolving the mechanism of the industry. We are excited to work with this renowned brand.”

LetsTransport, one of the market leaders in the tech-logistics sector offers an intra-state aggregation of light commercial vehicles for industry sectors like organized retail, FMCG and e-commerce, distribution and 3PL companies. This last-mile delivery service has been coupled with customized logistics solutions for enterprises along with other value-added services such as audited and GPS-enabled vehicles, point-to-point billing, status updates, 24x7 service at economical pricing. In fact, LetsTransport are the first movers to identify and empathize with the underserved urban trucker community and thereby making them a part of the mainstream economy.

About LetsTransport

LetsTransport was founded in 2015 by IIT-Kharagpur alumni Pushkar Singh, Sudarshan Ravi, and Ankit Parasher. It is a series-B funded, last-mile tech-logistics solution provider for intra-city deliveries based in Bangalore. It offers reliable, affordable, and professional services, structured to serve enterprises.

LetsTransport aggregates light commercial vehicles for urban logistics and have onboarded 55,000+ truckers on its platform across 14 cities. LetsTransport works across industry sectors like organized retail, FMCG and e-commerce, distribution and 3PL companies. Some of its clients include Amazon, Flipkart, Bisleri, Vishal Mega Mart, Future Supply Chain, Coca-Cola, Delhivery, and Udaan.

The company offers customized logistics solutions for clients, along with other value-added services such as screened drivers, audited and GPS-enabled vehicles, point-to-point billing, status updates, 24x7 service, and greater efficiency, all at transparent and economical pricing.

LetsTransport, as a brand, is known as one of the market leaders in the enterprise segment, and first movers to identify and empathize with the underserved urban trucker community, playing a huge role in making them a part of the mainstream economy. This series-B funded tech-logistics company aims to disrupt the primitive $35bn+ urban-logistics industry by leveraging technology and help enterprises to reach consumers faster.

With a growth of over 10% month on month LetsTransport is India's largest enterprise urban-logistics provider in India, with 55,000+ Light Commercial Vehicles on its platform.

LetsTransport has raised US$20 million funding till date from leading investors like Fosun RZ Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Mitsubishi Corporation and others.

LetsTransport is investing in geographical and technological expansion and integrating technology to add more clients and for scaling up the company’s operations.

Great Learning Launches 'Data Science Fellows Program' in Partnership With Great Lakes Institute of Management

Great Learning, India's leading EdTech company for working professionals has launched a new program, the Data Science Fellows Program, aimed at providing unmatched learning and career outcomes to students and recent alumni (graduated less than 3 years ago) from the top 150 engineering colleges in the country. This competitive, seven-month program will arm the learners with skills that are perfectly calibrated with premium jobs in Data Science and Analytics.

With this program, Great Learning has made a strong commitment to invest in the learners' future, and is offering a 'PAY LATER' option modelled on Income Sharing Agreements to students selected for the program. All qualified and interested candidates will have the opportunity to go through the rigorous evaluation process, including a 3-week preparatory bootcamp course called 'DS Foundation Track'.

The Data Science Fellows Program builds on Great Learning's pedigree in Analytics and Machine Learning, where they have consistently been ranked the best in India. The program will help learners transition to highly competitive roles such as Data Scientist, Business Analyst, Data Analyst, Data Engineer, and Machine Learning Engineer. Over the course of 7 months, learners hone these skills through quality learning material, personalized mentorship and support, rigorous assessments, and hands-on application of their learnings on industry-relevant problems and case studies.

While the demand for professionals in this field is high, organizations face a shortage of skilled professionals which is slowing down their business. This new program, introduced by Great Learning bridges this gap in applicable skills through multiple mini-projects, capstone projects and hackathons. Learners will also develop proficiency with tools and technologies such as Python, Tableau and SQL. While the Data Science Fellows Program is intense and comprehensive, it is also designed to allow participants to learn with minimal disruption to their professional and academic commitments.

Speaking on the launch of this new program, Mr. Hari Krishnan Nair, Co-founder, Great Learning said, "Data Science is expected to add significant growth and value to the world's economy and it will impact organizations across sectors. Data is a big asset for organizations today, which are increasingly relying on the application of Data Science and Machine Learning to gain a competitive advantage. To help them make the most of these technologies, these organizations are looking for high-quality talent with ready-to-use Data Science skills. To bridge this gap, and to help young professionals boost their career in Data Science, we have collaborated with Great Lakes Executive Learning to create this program. Our endeavour is to find the best talent from the top engineering colleges, equip them with the skills that companies are looking for, and connect them to corporates seeking such talent."

In 2020, India is expected to be one of the top markets for Data Science in the world, and there has been a 60 percent rise in demand for data science experts in the industry over the last 2 years. According to NASSCOM, there are presently over 1 lakh job opportunities for professionals skilled in data science, and these jobs are among the best paying jobs in the industry today.

About Great Learning:

Great Learning is India's leading ed-tech company focused on upskilling working professionals and students. It offers comprehensive, industry-relevant programs in Business Analytics, Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Digital Marketing, Design Thinking and more. Great Learning's programs are developed in collaboration with the world's foremost academic institutions like Stanford University, IIT Bombay, the University of Texas at Austin and Great Lakes Institute of Management, and are constantly reimagined and revamped to address the dynamic growth in the skills and technologies in these areas of study. Great Learning is the only ed-tech company to provide these programs in a blended mode, classroom mode and purely online mode, relying on its vast network of expert mentors and highly qualified faculty to deliver an unmatched learning experience for learners in India and the world over. Having delivered over 11 Million learning hours and with 16,000+ learners, Great Learning believes it is still in the initial phase of its avowed mission - to enable transformative career success in the digital economy for professionals and students across the globe.

McDonald’s India – North and East focuses on delivery, partners with Swiggy

With a focus on Delivery, McDonald’s India – North and East has partnered with Swiggy, one of India’s leading food delivery platforms. The partnership with Swiggy will allow McDonald’s to reach out to new customers, offering additional growth potential for its business. The service will be available through more than 125 McDonald’s restaurants in North and East India.

“We are excited to be available for customers on Swiggy and are committed to deliver a great experience every time they order from us,” said, Robert Hunghanfoo, Head, Connaught Plaza Restaurants Pvt. Ltd.

Delivery is one of the key growth drivers for McDonald’s, not only in India, but also globally. “Delivery provides us a way to both attract new customers and regain customers who have not ordered from us for a while. It also enables us to service and win over those customers who are seeking convenience in this increasingly fast paced world,” added Robert.

“We know our consumers love the convenience of getting their favorite dishes right at their doorstep. Through this partnership, we look forward to delighting our consumers in the North and East of India who can now order their McDonald’s menu favourites seamlessly through Swiggy,” said Srivats TS, VP Marketing at Swiggy.

With one of India’s leading food delivery platforms Swiggy on board, McDonald’s will offer increased accessibility and availability of McDelivery to its customers in North and East India. 

As a launch offer, customers on Swiggy can avail up to 30% off for a limited time period using the code: SWIGGYIT*. 

About McDonald’s India – North and East: McDonald’s restaurants in North and East India are operated by Connaught Plaza Restaurants Pvt. Ltd. McDonald’s is committed to deliver the highest quality restaurant experience to its customers in India and serves a variety of menu options made with quality ingredients sourced locally. McDonald’s serves millions of customers annually at its more than 150 restaurants across North and East India and provides direct employment to over 6,000 people. With a customer-centric approach, McDonald’s operates through a variety of formats and brand extensions including standalone restaurants, Drive-thru’s, 24/7 restaurants, McDelivery for customer convenience and experience. 

About Swiggy: Founded in 2014, Swiggy is India’s leading on-demand delivery platform with a vision to elevate the quality of life for the urban consumer by offering unparalleled convenience. It connects consumers to over 160,000 restaurant partners across 520+ cities. Using innovative technology, Swiggy provides a hassle-free, fast and reliable delivery experience. Every order delivered by Swiggy’s fleet of 2.5 lakh+ active delivery partners engaged on a principal to principal basis, the largest in India, ensures a host of customer-centric features like lightning fast delivery, no minimum order value, live order tracking, and 24/7 customer support.

India Post Payments Bank Crosses Milestone of 2 Crore Customers

 

• Milestone achieved in 17 months since launch of operations


• With Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS), IPPB single largest platform in providing interoperable banking services 

The Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & IT and Law & Justice Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad today announced that India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has achieved an important milestone of 2 crore customers, providing a major impetus to Government’s efforts in furthering financial inclusion in unbanked and underbanked areas across the country.

In August last year, IPPB had reached the landmark of 1 crore customers in just its first year of operations. The next 1 crore customers have been acquired and onboarded in just 5 months. On an average, IPPB has been opening/maintaining a run rate of 33 lakh accounts per quarter.

Speaking on the milestone of 2 crore customers, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & IT and Law & Justice said, “The success of IPPB’s business model underlines the Government’s intent in creating an interoperable banking infrastructure for the public good contributing toward changing the financial inclusion landscape in India. Since its launch, IPPB has enabled more than 1.36 Lakh Post Offices and 1.9 Lakh Dakiyas to provide a complete suite of banking services at the doorstep of the customer providing access to any Aadhaar linked bank account, leading to an increase in rural banking infrastructure by almost 2.5 times.” 

“IPPB has been a harbinger in realizing Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of ushering economic transformation by bringing banks to the doorsteps of the villagers and the poor. While Jan Dhan Yojana was the first step in bringing crores of Indians into the financial mainstream, IPPB’s ability to provide Interoperable Doorstep banking services to customers of any bank including the over 38 crore Jan Dhan account holders captures the essence of IPPB’s motto of Aapka Bank, Aapke Dwaar. I wish DoP and IPPB all the success in their journey of creating newer milestones,” he further said.   

With the launch of Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) Services in September 2019, IPPB has now become the single largest platform in the country for providing interoperable banking services to the customers of any bank. With AePS services any common person with a bank account linked to Aadhaar can perform basic banking services such as cash withdrawals and balance enquiry irrespective of the bank they hold their account with. To avail these services, a customer with an Aadhaar linked account can simply authenticate his/her identity with fingerprint scan & Aadhaar authentication to complete a transaction. AePS services are bank-agnostic and are driven by an inexpensive infrastructure enabling low cost delivery of doorstep banking services to every section of the society without discrimination.

IPPB has implemented one of the largest ever digital financial literacy program by investing over 1 crore man hours in training and certifying more than 250,000 Postal Assistants, Postmen and GDS as Banking Service providers. The Bank has also digitized all the post office counters through a simple QR Code to accept electronic payments and also enabled direct payments into various post office saving schemes and purchase of postal products.

About India Post Payments Bank

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has been established under the Department of Posts, Ministry of Communication with 100% equity owned by Government of India. IPPB was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on September 1, 2018. The bank has been set up with the vision to build the most accessible, affordable and trusted bank for the common man in India. The fundamental mandate of India Post Payments Bank is to remove barriers for the unbanked & underbanked and reach the last mile leveraging the Postal network comprising 155,000 Post Offices (135,000 in rural areas) and 300,000 Postal employees.

IPPB’s reach and its operating model is built on the key pillars of India Stack - enabling Paperless, Cashless and Presence-less banking in a simple and secure manner at the customers' doorstep, through a CBS-integrated smartphone and biometric device. Leveraging frugal innovation and with a high focus on ease of banking for the masses, IPPB delivers simple and affordable banking solutions through intuitive interfaces available in 13 languages.

IPPB is committed to provide a fillip to a less cash economy and contribute to the vision of Digital India. India will prosper when every citizen will have equal opportunity to become financially secure and empowered. Our motto stands true - Every customer is important, every transaction is significant and every deposit is valuable. 

For further details, visit www.ippbonline.com 

Indian Angel Network Invests in MinionLabs - An Energy Device Maker

Indian Angel Network, the largest horizontal seed-stage platform in India, has recently invested an undisclosed amount in MinionLabs. The funding round was led by prominent IAN investors Kaushik Rajan of Kochi Holding Private Limited and R. Mohan Kumaramangalam.

The Bengaluru-based startup specializes in providing real-time insights into the energy consumption of electric appliances through Minion, the world’s smallest energy monitoring device. Minion leverages a machine learning-based approach to power its cutting-edge algorithm to generate a comprehensive report on predictive analytics. Users can then apply these insights delivered by Minion’s analytical platform to drive maintenance, reduce electricity costs, and improve the productivity of their electricity-run devices.

[caption id="attachment_142275" align="alignleft" width="200"] Gokul Shrinivas[/caption]

“We are part of the two most promising & exciting Industries of future - Energy & Internet of things. And we are working in sexiest technologies like Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence,” Gokul Shrinivas, Founder, MinionLabs. “Our team of minions is changing the world by delivering energy efficiency through its state-of-the-art technology-based product. We work hard, are focused, have an open office culture, have guidelines but no rules and policies, celebrate successes, and enjoy hackathons and get-togethers.”

Speaking on the investment, he added, “We are delighted to receive the support of IAN investors. We will utilize the capital infusion to ramp up our production, bolster sales, and expand our geographical footprint in the coming years.”

Commenting on the investment Lead Investor Kaushik Rajan of Kochi Holding Private Limited and R Mohan Kumaramangalam, said, “At IAN, we are committed to supporting startups that are leveraging technology to providing innovative solutions to some of the most pressing pain points in society. Energy conservation is one such challenge and MinionLabs is one such startup. Besides its cutting-edge IP, we were also attracted to the founding team’s dedication and industry expertise. We wish them continued success.”

In 2016, MinionLabs had raised an undisclosed seed amount from Subhash Dhar, Former Senior Vice President and Corporate Head (Innovations) and Group Head of Sales and Marketing of Infosys. The startup gave him a successful exit in 2019.

It was among the five startups selected by Facebook, WhatsApp India and Invest India to win INR 35 lakh each (USD 50,000) as seed funding to further indigenous products.

MinionLabs' rich client portfolio includes prominent names such as Clients like Fortis Hospital, Accenture, Brigade Construction, Prestige, Educational Buildings, EY and Societe Generale Bank, among others. It works with Cisco Systems in integrating minions with Cisco's Smart City, Connected Utilities, Cisco Energy and Asset Management. The startup has partnered with Honeywell UAE to minimize the energy consumption in Airport Runways. It also works with EESL for Smart Energy Meters.

Moving ahead, MinionLabs anticipates hitting a million-dollar-mark in terms of revenue generation within two years. It is eyeing to raise its next round of funding this year. It is also working to launch Solar Minion, an AI-based smart energy management solution which will help users to manage the energy generated by roof-top solar panels along with existing capabilities of the minion.

About Indian Angel Network:

Indian Angel Network is India’s first and world’s largest business angel network with close to 500 members across the world, comprising the who’s who of successful entrepreneurs and dynamic CEOs. With investors from 11 countries, IAN’s presence spans 7 locations, which includes cities in India and the UK. The network is sector agnostic and has funded start-ups across 17 sectors in India and 7 other countries growing global footprint companies. With an excellent track record, IAN has been giving excellent cash exits year-on-year to its investor-members. Some of its marquee investee companies include WebEngage, Druva, Box8, Sapience Analytics, WOW Momos, Consure amongst many others.

Indian Angel Network has been a pioneer in the seed and early-stage investing. The network now also has SEBI registered VC Fund of ₹375 Crores. Together with IAN Angels & IAN Fund, the platform is the single largest platform for seed & early stage, where entrepreneurs can raise from Rs. 25 lakhs to Rs. 50 crores (with co-investors), thus making IAN the platform of choice!

Roorkee Water Conclave 2020 begins at IIT Roorkee

• IIT Roorkee is organizing this three day conclave in association with NIH Roorkee


• Experts from several countries like USA, Spain, Germany, Japan, Netherlands and UK are attending the conference.


• Conclave aims at finding sustainable solutions to the hydrologic challenges.

Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) is organizing the Roorkee Water Conclave (RWC) in collaboration with National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee (NIH Roorkee). RWC-2020, the first edition of this bi-annual event started today at IIT Roorkee. It would culminate on the 28th of February. The focus of the first edition of RWC-2020 is on “Hydrological Aspects of Climate Change”. 

Climate Change and the resultant impact on water resources is one of the most critical global environmental challenge. Various studies predict a rise in global temperature due to climate change over the next hundred years. This makes the issue all the more pertinent. The paucity of water resource is likely to have a global effect but countries in the nascent stage of development are likely to be impacted more due to climate change due to dependence of their economy’s on agriculture. 

Shri R. K. Jain, Chairman, Central Water Commission, Ministry of Jalshakti, Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India, New Delhi was the Chief Guest of the Inaugural Event of the Conclave.  Many dignitaries including the Director-General, NMCG, also graced the Conclave. 

Speaking about the government’s resolve on optimum utilization of water resources during the inaugural session, Shri R.K. Jain emphasized on problem of water resources management being faced in the country. He said, “India has about four per cent of world’s freshwater resources despite having only 2.4% land area making it a better placed country on the global average.  But due to high population, temporal and excessive variability we are facing very high stress as far as water is concerned. The planning and projections of the past have failed miserably. We need to formulate new mechanisms to address the challenges that lie ahead in the wake of the impact of global warming on water resources."

Prof. V P Singh, Distinguished Visiting Professor, IIT Roorkee and the Guest of Honour congratulated the chairman and co-chairman of the conclave and said, “This series will go a long way in contributing and sustaining the rich culture of excellence for which Roorkee has come to be known worldwide. The schedule and programmes suggest a possibility of quite a few invigorating sessions and paper presentations which will present great learning experience. This will prove to be beneficial for both the academicians and students, even I look forward to gaining from the stimulating sessions.”

The inaugural session was followed by a plenary session-I which covered several topics related to water resource management. The session was chaired by Shri G Ashok Kumar, NWM and co-chaired by Shri R. K Pachauri, CWC. Er. R. K Jain was among the keynote speakers of this session and he gave an ‘Overview of Water Resources Management in India’. Professor Ramesh Kanwar spoke on Climate Change and Water Security: Policy Issues. The keynote session was followed by parallelly technical sessions which dealth with various themes like Monitoring of Hydrological & Hydro-Meteorological data and its Management, Climate Change, Climatological Modelling & Prediction, Hydrological Modelling under Climate Change and Assessment of Water Resources and Climate Change. 

A special feature of RWC-2020 is an exhibition on the activities of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) under the Namami Gange Program - a flagship program of the Government of India. NMCG is organizing a mega two-day exhibition for school students immediately after RWC i.e. on 29th Feb and 1st March, 2020. This exhibition for school students would enhance the knowledge and understanding of budding future engineers and managers. 

Speaking on the sidelines of the event Dr Sharad K. Jain, Director, NIH Roorkee said, “The anticipated global warming and its resultant impact on freshwater resources is a grave challenge that is expected to have a massive impact on the global populace. Deliberating and discussing strategies is of utmost importance considering the severity of the situation. In this conference, we would deliberate with researchers to come up with better solutions for water management.”

Some reputed national and international agencies dealing with hydrological instrumentation are showcasing their products and services at the conclave.

A large number of academicians and researchers, both from India and abroad, policymakers, field practitioners and NGOs, students, and other stakeholders are participating in the conclave.

At the end of the first day’s proceedings a visibly delighted Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director IIT Roorkee said, “The first day of RWC was focused on the theme and I am delighted that important keynotes were presented by some of the best experts from India and abroad. We hope that the upcoming days of the event would be equally productive and the fraternity would be benefitted by the deliberations.”

About IIT Roorkee (https://www.iitr.ac.in/)

IIT Roorkee is an institute of national importance imparting higher education in engineering, sciences, management, architecture and planning, and humanities and social sciences. Since its establishment in 1847, the Institute has played a vital role in providing technical human resources and know-how to the country. In the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2019, the institute has been ranked 3rd among the IITs, while on the citations criterion, it has been ranked 1st among all the Institutes in India.

About NIH Roorkee (http://nihroorkee.gov.in/)

National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) is a premier Research and Development organization under the Ministry of Jalshakti, Government of India. It was established as an autonomous society in 1978 with its headquarters at Roorkee. The main objectives of NIH are to undertake, aid, promote, and coordinate systematic and scientific work in all aspects of hydrology. With a large team of Scientists and well-equipped laboratories, the Institute is undertaking field and desktop studies to address a range of problems in water sector. NIH is also organizing training courses and providing technical advice to the government bodies, practitioners, courts, and others on the topics that are referred to it. 

Airtel Payments Bank rolls out Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS) across 250,000 Banking Points

Airtel Payments Bank has enabled Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) at over 250,000 of its Banking Points across India. With AePS, along with customers of Airtel Payments Bank, customers of any bank with Aadhaar linked bank accounts can undertake financial transactions at the designated banking points of Airtel Payments Bank. Customers of Airtel Payments Bank can also do financial transactions at any AePS enabled bank.

AePS allows customers to carry out financial transactions on a Micro-ATM by using their Aadhaar number or virtual ID to access their Aadhaar linked bank account. Transactions will be authenticated only if the customer’s Aadhaar number and fingerprint match the records. With AePS, Airtel Payments Bank will be able to offer a wide range of banking services to its account holders as well to customers of other banks who will now be able to withdraw, make balance enquiries and request mini-statements at the 2,50,000+ AePS enabled banking points of Airtel Payments Bank. Similarly, Airtel Payments Bank customers will be able to avail these services from any other AePS enabled bank. 

AePS will increase the security layer of the banking processes at Airtel Payments Bank as customers complete their banking transactions with just their Aadhaar number without revealing their bank account or debit card details to anyone. 

Mr. Ganesh Ananthanarayanan, Chief Operating Officer, Airtel Payments Bank, said, “We are excited to be a part of AePS, which will allow us to service customers of any bank who have a Aadhar enabled Bank Account. The AePS platform offers an ease of secured banking to everyone by using only their Aadhaar. AePS roll-out is one more step by Airtel Payments Bank to contribute towards the Government of India’s vision of financial inclusion."

Airtel Payments Bank Ltd.

Airtel Payments Bank is India’s first Payments Bank that launched in January 2017, now boasts of over 40 million+ customers and over 500K banking points across the country. In addition to having a presence in all 29 states of India, Airtel Payments Bank also has an app for Android and iOS users to make banking easier for its rural and urban customers. Airtel Payments Bank aims to take digital banking services to the doorstep of every Indian, particularly in unbanked rural areas, and contribute to the Government’s vision of Digital India and Financial Inclusion. 

Cashfree strengthens API Banking Platform ‘Payouts' by Increasing Partnerships with Leading Banks

Cashfree, India's leading business payments platform, has announced partnerships with HDFC Bank, Kotak Bank and IndusInd Bank to strengthen Payouts, its bulk disbursal platform. Payouts, an API based banking solution, is a simple and automated way to send money in bulk to any company's bank account in India, instantly in real-time, 24x7 and even during bank holidays. Businesses can send money to other bank accounts, cards, Amazon Pay, Paytm and UPI IDs.

Akash Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO of Cashfree said, “Through our strategic partnerships with India leading banks, we continue to strengthen our platform and enable businesses to manage and automate bulk payments. By fortifying our network of banks, Cashfree's disbursals in the form of refunds, vendor payments and more will become faster and easier than ever.
Digital payments are witnessing tremendous growth in the country. In the last five years, we have witnessed the growth of unique internet businesses that are growing rapidly and changing the lives of their consumers. In such a scenario, it is imperative for money to move faster than ever before. Cashfree's Payouts is a true enabler of this movement, allowing businesses to make bulk payments instantly 24x7, even on bank holidays. The strong partnerships that we have forged with India's leading banks on our platform allows our merchant partners to have a higher success rate for online transactions, enabling them to focus on growing their business."

Payouts by Cashfree is used by thousands of businesses such as Delhivery, Xiaomi, Club Factory, and Shell, for use cases like vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty & rewards. More than 20 million bank accounts have received a payout through Cashfree.

Benefits of Payouts:

Instant beneficiary addition and money transfer 24x7, even on bank holidays: Businesses can instantly add beneficiaries and make bulk transfers through Cashfree. Money can be sent instantly, 24x7, even on bank holidays.

Robust APIs for automated Payouts: Cashfree's API can support millions of daily transactions to handle the scale of business. A user can simply use the API or opt to use the Payouts' simple excel file upload option via Cashfree's dashboard and make bulk payments.

Pay salaries, vendor payments and refunds directly from your internal product or ERP:

Users do not have to juggle between their ERP and banking applications to make payments. Bank current account holders can simply integrate Cashfree's Payouts API with their product or internal ERP and trigger the payments from their linked current account. Businesses with a maker-checker workflow can continue to authorize their payments in the Bank's Corporate Internet Banking portal.

Automated reconciliation of failed transfers:

Cashfree's intelligent algorithms can analyse a users' bank statement to reveal payment failure and automatically reconcile the same.

Bank Account Verification: Cashfree helps identify if the name of the account holder and if the bank account number is correct.

About Cashfree

Cashfree is a payments and banking technology company that enables businesses in India to collect and send money around the clock. Founded by IIIT Hyderabad alumnus Akash Sinha and IIT Kharagpur graduate Reeju Datta, Cashfree enables more than 50,000 businesses with payments collections, vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds, expense reimbursements, loyalty and rewards. Incubated by payments pioneer Paypal, Cashfree is backed by Smilegate and Y Combinator.

Connected Vehicle 2020 to Be Held in Bengaluru

• Three-day event will witness the participation of more than 60 speakers & 80


• Industry stalwarts will share their experiences and thoughts on unfolding business opportunities

Telematics Wire is organising the fifth edition of the biggest Connected Vehicle show on 3rd, 4th & 5th March 2020, at Radisson Blu. The international conference and exhibition will have participation of more than 1200 registered delegates, 80 exhibitors, and 60 speakers. Vehicle displays and the exhibition will be open to visitors. There will be 10 sessions discussing the pressing issues and the future of the automotive industry, i.e., connected, autonomous, smart, shared & electric mobility.

India is a fast-emerging market for connected vehicle business along with vehicle telematics which is developing quite promisingly in the country. Telematics-enabled mobility is the key to the implementation of Intelligent Transportation System, which is expected to drive the future of connected transportation. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has taken laudable initiatives regarding road safety to reduce road accidents.

Government policies encouraging and mandating the provision of a certified vehicle location tracking device and one or more emergency buttons in public transport vehicles is likely to enhance safety and security. As the ministry is also planning to make ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) a mandatory feature in the upcoming vehicles by early 2022, the time has come for the industry to step up and support the government to incorporate these technologies in the ITS infrastructure.

“Over the next few years, we will see many applications and services based on ‘Connected Vehicle'. Also, the automotive & transportation industry will see huge investment in cyber security, blockchain, data analytics and AI/ML. All this call for continued deliberations amongst the subject matter experts and interest groups on Connected Vehicle platform,” said Maneesh Prasad, CEO, Telematics Wire.

His Excellency, Brendan Ward, the Ambassador of Ireland to India said, “The technology sector in Ireland is leading the mobility revolution, be it disruptive technologies, hardware and/or data services that support autonomous, connected, electric and shared technologies. Through our participation in the CV2020 conference, we aim to reach out to the Auto industry to showcase the Irish technology ecosystem and share all the latest developments in the sector, while welcoming Indian companies to visit Ireland to witness the ecosystem themselves.”

Topics such as Intelligent Connectivity, ADAS Adoption & Exploring Vehicle Autonomy, Simulation & Testing, Emerging Technologies like AI, ML, Blockchain, Speech & Voice Recognition, Intelligent Cloud & Data Management, M2M & IoT Solutions in Smart City Mobility, Connected Vehicle Cyber Security and Automotive Telematics are just a few among many of the hot topics that will give the audience an insight into the future of vehicles. Utmost care has been taken in choosing the topics that are relevant to the present times and will help in coming out with the solutions to make the future more connected and sustainable.

“With an aim to create a highly interactive, knowledge-sharing and networking platform for the connected and autonomous vehicle ecosystem, Connected Vehicle 2020 will drive new business opportunities and foster innovation,” further added by Maneesh Prasad.

Industry experts from Maruti Suzuki, Daimler, Groupe PSA, Tata Motors, Ford Motor Company, Mahindra Electric, Volvo Group, Škoda Auto Volkswagen India, Piaggio Vehicles, Mercedes-Benz, VE Commercial Vehicles, TVS Motor Company, Hero MotoCorp, Mahindra and Mahindra, Renault-Nissan, Eicher Motors, Hyundai, and Royal Enfield, among others are some of the leading automobile manufacturers participating in the three-day conference and exhibition.

Thomas Fricke, Managing Director, Daimler Buses India said, “As a global market leader, Daimler Buses drives innovative solutions for its customers. India provides a perfect framework for connected mobility solutions. Thus, here in India, we have now with BS VI, the chance to bring an intelligent Passenger-Transport-Ecosystem to the customers, which enables Fleet Operators and Customers to ride with our Buses unconditionally. Our BusConnect app for passengers enables them to live track their bus and get alerts as it reaches their boarding location. Our BusConnect portal helps fleet owners to manage their fleet more efficiently and reap better profits. We are happy to have the chance to explain this cutting-edge technology at Connected Vehicle 2020.”

“I would like to thank Telematics Wire for organizing ‘Connected Vehicle 2020' which brings the connected vehicles industry closer to the stakeholders and gives an opportunity to showcase the emerging technologies in the connected vehicle space. At Piaggio, we believe in providing path-breaking solutions in the last mile transportation segment with best in class technology offerings to our customers. Taking forward the same philosophy, we have recently launched Ape' Electrik brand, under which, we are developing both Swappable & Fixed Battery technology solutions to serve the varied needs of the customer,” said Diego Graffi, MD & CEO, Piaggio Vehicles Pvt Ltd.

Connected Vehicle 2020 has already confirmed the attendance of sponsors such as SecureThings, MSC Software Corporation (Part of Hexagon), Elektrobit, Tata Communications, Aptiv, Wind River, MathWorks, Western Digital, Intel, Zilogic Systems, IDA Ireland, SBD Automotive, ESCRYPT, Infineon Technologies, Escort Monitoring Systems, LitePoint, Umlaut, Continental, Trak N Tell and Omnicomm. In order to bring together all the major stakeholders, domain experts, thought leaders, government officials, and industry professionals, Connected Vehicle 2020 has opened registration for Visitors. Those interested automotive enthusiasts can visit the conference website at www.CV2020.in and register online to book their seats.

Round-Table Discussion on "Overcoming Challenges in Aerospace and Defense sectors for sustainable Business growth at Hyderabad"

American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) AP & TS to host a Round-Table Discussion on “Overcoming Challenges in Aerospace and Defense sectors for sustainable Business growth at Hyderabad” on 28th February 2020 at Novotel Hotel Airport, Hyderabad. The Roundtable Discussion is supported by GMR AEROSPACE & INDUSTRIAL PARK, disclosed Mr Shrikanth Badiga, Chairman of the IACC.

IACC AP & TS under its Aerospace and Defence Committee is headed by Mr. Sourabh Jain, Vice President & Head Leasing – Aerospace, Industrial & Warehousing Airport Land Development, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd is organizing this focused discussion with MD/ Directors/ CEO/CFO of Aerospace and Defence Companies and other Stakeholders. 

The objective of the program, Mr. Vijaya Sai Meka, Senior Vice Chairman, IACC AP & TS,  is to highlight the challenges and to discuss the solutions for the sustainable business growth of Aerospace and Defence sectors at Hyderabad.  

Dr. Ramkumar Rudrabhatla, Vice Chairman, IACC AP & TS mentioned that the program will be addressed by the eminent leaders from State Government, Industry leaders and other stakeholders.

Lenovo Launches 4 New Audio Products with EQ Technology in India

• HT10 Pro HT20 HE18 and HD116 the iconic audio range (TWS Earphones Headphones) with EQ mode at an affordable price range.


• Available on Flipkart 25th February onwards

Lenovo a Chinese multinational technology company is strengthening its portfolio in India by launching a wide range of audio devices under EQ technology to render exceptional experience to the customers in a promising price bracket. Lenovo is redefining the seamless integration of advanced technology and varied variations in the audio category. The company is coming up now with upgraded versions of previously launched earbuds and headphones. Equipped with advanced features and EQ Technology the latest range includes TWS Wireless Earphones and headsets which are HT10 Pro HT20 HE18 and HD116.

Lenovo HT20 earbuds at INR 3799 on Flipkart

Lenovo introduces EQ Technology in its latest range which enables the user to experience different frequencies of music in the same device such as for light music the clarity of sound matters the most but for dance numbers heavy beats music you need heavy bass for the thumping sound. Both the experience is possible in these devices by changing the mode between Pure Music and Extra Bass by pressing a single button. The Technology allows two preset equalizer frequencies in the same device this is a technology breakthrough for low-cost devices. However earlier this was only possible in very high-end devices. This new advanced audio range from Lenovo is sure to set a benchmark in the market with an exciting price bracket.

Lenovo HT 10 Pro earbuds at INR 4599 on Flipkart

Lenovo has partnered with Aodishi Technology Limited a leading technology importer to market and distribute these audio devices in India.

Interestingly priced between INR 1999/- to INR 4499/- the EQ range includes - TWS and Headsets with impressive sound quality strong Bluetooth connectivity and outstanding battery life.

Lenovo audio category had received an overwhelming response from the Indian market last year. To continue the momentum among Indian customers we are excited to launch a diverse offering in the audio devices to give unique and phenomenal experience to the customers. We believe that our product with advanced EQ technology will address the critical market requirements catering to an affordable price range. We are confident that it will resonate well with the Indian customerssaid XieSenchu CEO International Business at Shenzhen Aodishi Technology Limited Lenovo Beijings authorized Channel Partner for Sales in India.

Adding to this Naveen Bajaj Head India Business Aodishi Technology Limited says We are happy to add this latest audio range to our growing portfolio from Lenovo. The new advanced range equipped with EQ mode will provide an overall experience to the customers infused with great technology and impressive battery life.

The latest audio devices come with sleek designs and IPX5 water and sweat proof.

All these newly launched products are available at a special discount for next 2 days on Flipkart; HD 116 at INR 2199/ HT 10 Pro at INR 4199/ HT 20 at INR 3399 and HE 18 at INR 1899/.

Here are the key specifications for the range:

HT10 Pro Specifications (TWS)

• Dual EQ Mode Support extra bass mode and standard Mode


• 48 hours playing time (including battery backup of charging case) with 200H standby time.


• Excellent compatibility with Bluetooth 5.0 and 20M range


• Price- Rs 4499/-

HT 20 Specifications (TWS)

• Dual EQ Mode Support extra bass mode and standard Mode.


• 25 hours of playing time (including battery backup of charging case) with 200h standby time.


• IPX5 sweat and water-resistant.


• Price - Rs 3799/-

HE18 Specifications (Earphone)

• Dual EQ Mode support extra bass mode and standard mode.


• 12 hrs of playing time with 240H standby time.


• Price - Rs 1999/-


• Pairing with two devices at same time.

HD116 Specifications (Headset)

• Dual EQ Mode Support extra bass mode and standard Mode


• Excellent Bluetooth 5.0 support HSP/HFP/AVRCP/A2DP


• Strong Bluetooth connectivity.


• 24 hrs playing time with 240H standby time.


• Price - Rs 2499/-

About Lenovo

Lenovo Group Limited often shortened to Lenovo is a Chinese multinational technology company with headquarters in Beijing.

Wordpress Web Building Platform Elementor Raises $15 Mn in Funding Led By Lightspeed Venture Partners

Elementor, the leading WordPress website builder platform, announced today that they raised $15 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners in their first round of institutional funding. This comes as Elementor's intuitive web building platform continues to rapidly extend its market share, with a significant portion of all WordPress sites built last year using its platform.

Elementor was founded in 2016 by Yoni Luksenberg and Ariel Klikstein to enable professional web creators to easily and painlessly build stunning websites according to their specific needs. Elementor's open-source, drag-and-drop platform quickly struck a chord with design, development and marketing professionals frustrated with the existing convoluted options and within just two years the first million websites had been built using the no-code editing platform.

Elementor's growth rate is only accelerating, now adding more than one million sites built every six months. Overall, over 4 million websites have been built using the platform which is available in 55 languages. The driving force behind Elementor's rapid and quickening rise has been their passionate and active community of dedicated users who have generated 70 percent of Elementor's nearly 300 features deployed over the past 12 months and fervently evangelize for the solution.

"What we have achieved, thanks to our dedicated team and wonderful community, has been truly extraordinary," said Yoni Luksenberg, CEO of Elementor. "In addressing a very real need, we have claimed a growing stake in a $300 billion market. With this round of funding, we accelerate our goal of allowing every web creator to easily build professional websites."

"Elementor's growth is a wonderful example of the power of community and open-source software," said Tal Morgenstern, Partner at Lightspeed. "The founders set out to solve their own problems as web professionals and ended up with a global, highly-involved fan base that kept pushing and shaping the product from the very onset. Every single metric we looked at indicated an exceptionally strong market fit and we're extremely happy to partner with this team for the next chapter of their journey."

Elementor will use the funding to accelerate the expansion of its operation and its global community, with 500 meetups planned around the world for 2020. The company will also grow its team by 50% and is gearing up for major product launches which will change the way websites are built.

About Elementor

Elementor is the leading website builder platform on WordPress. Serving over 4 million websites, Elementor serves a rapidly growing customer base of web professionals including web developers, designers, and marketers in 152 markets, and boasts a new website created every 10 seconds on its open-source platform. Elementor's mission is to radically simplify web building, enabling web professionals and agencies to unleash their creative and business potential. For more information visit www.elementor.com or follow us on Facebook.

About Lightspeed Venture Partners

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise and Consumer sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 350+ companies globally, including Snap, Nest, Nutanix, AppDynamics, MuleSoft, OYO, Guardant, StitchFix, and GrubHub. Lightspeed and its affiliates currently manage $7.9B across the global Lightspeed platform, with investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, Israel, India, China, and Europe. www.lsvp.com

Microsoft Says will Take Financial Hit from Coronavirus Epidemic

Microsoft on Wednesday lowered its revenue estimates for the current quarter, saying it will feel the impact of the coronavirus epidemic with lower sales of Windows software and Surface devices.

The US tech giant became the latest global firm to warn of a financial hit from the global outbreak of the disease which has killed thousands worldwide.

"Although we see strong Windows demand in line with our expectations, the supply chain is returning to normal operations at a slower pace than anticipated," Microsoft said in a statement.

As a result, Microsoft said that in the current fiscal quarter its revenues will fall short of earlier forecasts, with Windows and Surface "more negatively impacted than previously anticipated."

Nexus backed Hasura Raises $9.9 Mn in Funding led by Vertex Ventures US

Hasura, the San Francisco and Bangalore-based company providing data access and data flow tools and services via GraphQL APIs announced today that it has raised $9.9 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures US. The round also saw participation from SAP.iO Fund, the early-stage venture arm of SAP, existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Strive VC. Several angels also participated, including James Tamplin (founder of Firebase), Sam Lambert (VP of Infrastructure Engineering at GitHub), Amod Malvia (co-founder of Udaan, ex CTO Flipkart), and Michael Stoppelman (ex-SVP of Engineering at Yelp).

GraphQL has emerged as an API solution to accelerate product and data delivery and is beloved by API consumers and application developers. Hasura automatically generates a real-time GraphQL API using declarative metadata configuration and authorization policies that gives consumers instant use. Hasura’s event engine makes it easy to integrate cloud-native/serverless business logic to the GraphQL API. This allows organizations and teams to use GraphQL in production and mission-critical applications (alongside existing and modern cloud-native infrastructure) without the significant cost of building and maintaining a GraphQL server.

Building GraphQL APIs in enterprise (where a majority of use-cases are platform-centric and data-centric) has been challenging. It creates complexity for engineers who struggle to keep databases from being swamped by malformed queries which can cause outages and delays, not to mention security/privacy concerns.

Hasura’s technology, powered by a highly concurrent just-in-time compiler, can process GraphQL queries and efficiently map them into queries to multiple underlying systems (like SQL databases, REST APIs etc). This approach allows Hasura to perform user-given transformations, apply security policies and implement caching requirements in an efficient and scalable way that is cloud-native. Front end engineers, often the consumers of a GraphQL API, truly feel the power of ‘serverless’ design with GraphQL+Hasura. Hasura’s enterprise product also adds GraphQL API management and governance features, including monitoring, traffic management and testing, and integrations for SSO and APM vendors.

Stoplight, an API Design Management Platform, moved their boilerplate GraphQL and authorization into Hasura from their own GraphQL server. “Hasura has significantly reduced the time our engineers spend writing boilerplate GraphQL code. However, what really drove adoption of Hasura at Stoplight is the powerful and flexible permissions system it provides out of the box, and how easy it is to incrementally introduce to an existing tech stack,” said Marc MacLeod, Founder & CEO at Stoplight.



“Hasura’s out-of-the-box support for real-time data via GraphQL subscriptions, granular access-control system and support for geospatial data has dramatically accelerated our efforts to modernize our data access layer for internal API consumers,” says Dr. Andreas Sindlinger, Solution Architect at Jeppesen (A Boeing Company).

Hasura’s open-source traction and developer adoption has grown steadily, crossing over 28M downloads and 15k GitHub stars. The Hasura GraphQL engine was one of last year’s fastest-growing projects as per the 2019 JavaScript Rising Stars report. Hasura has seen widespread adoption across some of the world’s most exciting organizations, from fast-growing startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, including some of the largest healthcare and financial services organizations.

“Hasura makes it possible for front-end teams to use GraphQL and move fast without breaking things on the back-end,” said Sandeep Bhadra, Partner at Vertex Ventures US. “We invested because of the incredible velocity of their product engineering, the tremendous community the founders built in such short order, and the pull from enterprises who want to empower their engineers to move with FAANG-like agility while supporting ops teams with performance management, security, and data access.”

With this funding, Hasura will invest heavily in engineering and product development, notably providing more ready-made integrations with databases and other data sources, in addition to hiring across sales and marketing.

“Hasura has an amazing fit with Postgres and the Postgres vendor ecosystem including new age distributed SQL Postgres vendors,” said Tanmai Gopal, CEO and co-founder at Hasura. “While we double down on the Postgres ecosystem, these funds will help us bring the Hasura and GraphQL experience to other databases to mobilize data in organizations by making high-performance and secure data access a reality.”

Online Content Marketplace Platform Pepper Raises Rs. 2.2 Crores from Snapdeal Founders’ Titan Capital and other Marquee Investors

Emerging from a dorm room in BITS Pilani, the founders who are yet to graduate, have been able to aggregate over 1.75 crores of revenues and have a network of over 25,000+ content creators.

Content marketplace platform, Pepper, recently revealed that it has raised INR 2.2 crores as part of its seed round led by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal backed Titan Capital. Other marquee investors who participated in this round include YourStory, Padma Shri Dr Saurabh Srivastava (Co-founder of IAN and NASSCOM), Amit Ranjan (Co-founder, Slideshare), Alok Mittal (Co-founder & CEO, Indifi and former Jobs Ahead founder), Sidharth Rao (Chairman, Dentsu Webchutney), Ritesh Malik (Co-founder & CEO, Innov8), Sanjay Tripathy (Former CMO, HDFC Life and CEO, Agilio Labs), Manan Maheshwari (Co-founder, WYSH) and Hemanshu Jain (Co-founder, Diabeto).

With the infusion of new funds, Pepper is looking to expand its team in Mumbai and focus on product and its technology platform that will enable content creation ‘on-demand’. Founded in November 2017 by then second-year BITS Pilani students, Anirudh Singla and Rishabh Shekhar, the Mumbai-based startup aims to be India’s largest content marketplace platform and plan to make content creation, right from strategy to execution, accessible through an on-demand virtual workforce at any scale, vertical, and language.

Speaking about the platform, Anirudh Singla, CEO of Pepper, said. “With Passion Economy as a growing trend, it is important that you are able to enterprise your creators and help them grow. Through Pepper’s technology platform, it will not only be able to scale content creation to the tunes of hundreds of thousands of content pieces but also be able to create a framework that allows virtual collaboration of creators through tools on the platform. We are building the future of work for content!”

Anirudh also added that Pepper is now also expanding into graphics as a vertical and are launching a first-of-its-kind ‘content-as-eCommerce’ model which brands itself as the fastest content experience ever. Brands, SMEs and individuals can now order content in custom formats and get automated deliveries in available content genres, verticals and languages.

Alok Mittal (Co-founder & CEO, Indifi) who invested said, "Pepper got my attention as soon as it was pitched to me. But what made me convinced were the founders, who at such an early age have made it into something formidable. They have been able to crack a lot of things, unit economics being one and I believe that is the best start anyone can have for their company."

Amit Ranjan (Co-founder, Slideshare) who also invested also added that "Pepper is building out an innovative digital content marketplace catering to the needs of Indian corporates, SMEs & startups. Started by a bunch of enterprising students from their college hostels, it is aggregating, organising and standardising the supply side of the content to meet the ever-burgeoning and diverse demand from industry. In a short timeframe, Pepper has notched up an impressive revenue run rate, is building relevant editorial tools and looks poised to scale up their business model. I'm happy to participate in their seed funding round and help Anirudh and his team on this journey!"

Pepper has been a part of Tech 30 at TechSparks 2019 hosted by YourStory and a Finalist at the Lufthansa Startup Expo by TiE Delhi NCR.

About Pepper
Pepper is currently working with Swiggy, InfoEdge, Urban Company, BookMyShow, Times Internet, India Today Group, Digit, Businessworld, Zivame, Bharat Matrimony, Simplilearn and 250+ other brands. Pepper aims to target over 1000 businesses and 200,000+ content creators over the next 18 months across domains and create an ecosystem for creators across graphic, voice and video. Pepper is actively looking to hire talent in tech and product.

CoFynd, Global Aggregator of Coworking spaces Flagged Off Its Operations in Delhi, Gurugram and Noida

CoFynd, the emerging aggregation platform for the booking of coworking spaces, have commenced its operations in Delhi, Gurugram and Noida. With the launch of their platform, CoFynd aims to offer event spaces, training rooms, meeting rooms, conference rooms along with the co-working spaces. They provide these spaces and work environment for start-ups, young/small-medium sized enterprises, and professionals.

Launching a company all on your own can be thrilling, but also quite tough. One may feel isolated in the home office, but hesitant to look for permanent traditional office space because of the high rates. For those sailing in these uncharted waters, CoFynd, a global aggregator for workspaces, will act as an anchor. Whether you are a solopreneur, freelancer or a young team of enthusiastic entrepreneurs, a CoFynd is a perfect place to start and grow.

Coworking is a global phenomenon and it has completely changed the way we work forever. Almost, 2 million people are reported to be working out of Co-working spaces in 2019. This industry has been growing at 23% since 2010 and number of co-working spaces is expected to double till the year 2022.

However, there are still a lot of challenges in this sector. For instance, there is a lack of a user-friendly platform that can provide standardized information on all co-working spaces.

There is still inability to book spaces online with ease and there is an absence of neutral customer mechanism support. Also, there is absolutely no presence of reviews on spaces to aid correct decisions.

CoFynd recognised all those loopholes and has come up to address and solve those challenges. CoFynd created unbiased platform with standardises listings. It provides the facility to book spaces online with super-ease. The user has the complete support and also has the access to the detailed reviews on co-working spaces.

Putting his thoughts on the same, Atul Gupta, Founder & CEO, CoFynd, said, " CoFynd has been launched to give startups and enterprises a platform where they can find the spaces according to their needs. We provide customised solutions as per their needs. Coworking spaces have become the lifeline of millennials and startups today. The growing demand from freelancers, consultants, and corporates has led to a growth in the co-working sector like never before. The workspaces to be future-ready should be networked, flexible, integrated and innovative, and CoFynd helps you to find one."

Recently, CoFynd has also raised 1.25 crores of seed funding from some reputed corporates. The funds raised round will be invested across territory expansion plans, technology and marketing strategies.

Speaking about the funding, Atul said, “We are extremely excited to raise the seed funding round. The funds raised by the company will further accelerate the growth of our network and will allow us to broaden our reach and expand our services".

The strategically located spaces at CoFynd offer access to nearby business centres, provides competitive corporate culture and opportunities to its members for sustained growth. The space is designed to cater to businesses of any size and form to boast diverse working environments having both private offices, cubicles, spacious cabins, meeting rooms, training rooms, and event spaces enabling the clients to choose as per their needs.

This unbiased and unified platform of listing coworking spaces strives to offer ease of discovery and bookings to the user along with 100% offline support for visits, negotiations and closure. It endeavours to give access to like-minded, close-knit, and success-focused professionals who are all driving towards the same goal.

Currently, CoFynd has its presence in Gurugram, Delhi and Noida and are planning to expand in other metro cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai.

About CoFynd

CoFynd, founded in 2019 by Mr Atul Gupta, is into aggregation and booking of coworking spaces. It is a global network and community to find Shared Office Spaces, Coworking Spaces, Private Offices, Business Centers and Meeting Rooms, Training Rooms, for Startups, Entrepreneurs, Freelancers, and Small/Medium Businesses.

Battery Waste Management - Centre Proposes Draft Rules, Seeks Suggestions from Public

The Centre on Tuesday proposed draft rules on battery waste management directing manufacturers and importers to ensure that used batteries are collected back against the new ones they sell and environment is not harmed during their transportation.

In its draft notification, Battery Waste Management Rules 2020, the Ministry of Environment has given 60 days to public to make objection or suggestion to the rules after which the government will bring the notification into effect.

There are four chapters in the notification which are divided into eight rules.

The rules fix the responsibilities of manufacturer, importer, assembler and re-conditioner.

"It shall be the responsibility of a manufacturer, importer, assembler and re- conditioner to ensure that the used batteries are collected back as per the schedule against new batteries sold excluding those sold to original equipment manufacturer and bulk consumer(s)," the ministry notification said.

It shall be their responsibility to "ensure that used batteries collected back are of similar type and specifications as that of the new batteries sold, it said, adding that collection centres must set up by them either individually or jointly at various places for collection of used batteries from consumers or dealers.

"They must ensure that used batteries collected are sent only to the registered recyclers. Ensure that necessary arrangements are made with dealers for safe transportation from collection centres to the premises of registered recyclers. Ensure that no damage to the environment occurs during transportation of used batteries and no acid should be drained in case of used lead acid batteries," the rules said.

The notification also says the manufacturers and others responsible must create public awareness through advertisements, publications, posters or by other means with regard to hazards of Lead, Cadmium and Mercury; obligation of consumers to return their used batteries only to the dealers or deliver at collection centres and instructions for handling and disposal of the equipment after its use.

As per the rules, 'battery' or 'accumulator' means any source of electrical energy generated by direct conversion of chemical energy and includes disposable primary batteries or rechargeable secondary ones.