SBI Life Insurance IPO Opens with Price Band at Rs. 685 to Rs. 700 Per Equity Share

SBI Life Insurance Company Limited ("Company" or "Issuer") proposes to open on Wednesday, September 20, 2017, an initial public offering up to 120,000,000 Equity Shares of face value of ₹ 10 each (“Equity Shares”) which comprises of an offer for sale of up to 80,000,000 Equity Shares by State Bank of India (“State Bank” or the “Promoter Selling Shareholder”) and up to 40,000,000 Equity Shares by BNP Paribas Cardif S.A. (the “Investor Selling Shareholder” and together with the Promoter Selling Shareholder, the “Selling Shareholders”) (“Offer”), including a reservation of up to 2,000,000 Equity Shares for purchase by Eligible Employees (as defined in “Definitions and Abbreviations” at page 5 of the red herring prospectus dated September 11, 2017 registered by the Company with the Registrar of Companies, Maharashtra at Mumbai (“RHP”) on September 12, 2017) at a discount of Rs. 68 per Equity Share and a reservation of up to 12,000,000 Equity Shares for purchase by State Bank Shareholders (as defined in “Definitions and Abbreviations” at page 7 of the RHP). The Offer would constitute up to 12% of post-Offer paid-up Equity Share capital and the net offer shall constitute 10.60% of the post-Offer paid-up Equity Share capital.

The Price Band for the Offer is fixed from Rs. 685 per Equity Share to Rs. 700 per Equity Share, with a discount to Eligible Employees of Rs. 68 per Equity Share on the Offer Price. Bids can be made for a minimum of 21 Equity Shares and in multiples of 21 Equity Shares thereafter. The Offer will close on Friday, September 22, 2017.

The Company and the Promoter Selling Shareholders may, in consultation with the book running lead managers to the Offer ("Lead Managers"), consider participation by Anchor Investors. Such Anchor Investors shall Bid during the Anchor Investor Bid / Offer Period; i.e., one Working Day prior to the Bid/Offer Opening Date, on which Bids by Anchor Investors shall be submitted and allocation to Anchor Investors shall be completed.

The Lead Managers are JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited, Axis Capital Limited, BNP Paribas*, Citigroup Global Markets India Private Limited, Deutsche Equities India Private Limited, ICICI Securities Limited, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited and SBI Capital Markets Limited*.

The Equity Shares offered in the Offer proposed to be listed on BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited.

The Offer is being made in accordance with Regulation 26(1) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2009, as amended (“SEBI Regulations”), wherein not more than 50% of the Net Offer shall be allocated on a proportionate basis to Qualified Institutional Buyers (“QIBs”), provided that our Company and the Promoter Selling Shareholders may, in consultation with the Lead Managers, allocate up to 60% of the QIB Portion to Anchor Investors on a discretionary basis, out of which one-third shall be reserved for domestic Mutual Funds only, subject to valid Bids being received from domestic Mutual Funds at or above the Anchor Investor Allocation Price, in accordance with the SEBI Regulations. 5% of the QIB Portion (excluding the Anchor Investor Portion) shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to Mutual Funds only, and the remainder of the QIB Portion shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to all 

QIB Bidders (other than Anchor Investors), including Mutual Funds, subject to valid Bids being received at or above the Offer Price.

Further, not less than 15% of the Net Offer shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to Non-Institutional Investors and not less than 35% of the Net Offer shall be available for allocation to Retail Individual Bidders in accordance with the SEBI Regulations, subject to valid Bids being received at or above the Offer Price. All potential investors, other than Anchor Investors, are required to mandatorily utilise the Application Supported by Blocked Amount (“ASBA”) process providing details of their respective bank account which will be blocked by the SCSBs, to participate in this Offer.

Rs 14.4 M Investment Committed to Young Startups at IoT Conclave

The IoT India Congress 2017 concluded its 2 days session today with an enthralling series of panel discussions, key note addresses, Healthcare Live exhibition session along with an addition of the uniquely designed Argonaut session. Deva P Seetharam, Founder, DataGlen, Mrinmoy Purkayastha, VP & Head, ALTEN Calsoft Labs and Bahubali Shete, Founder & CEO, IOT Pot India Private Limited were recognised for their excellence and leadership in IoT space. The start-ups Flutura Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Swajal Water Pvt. Ltd., TrakItNow Technologies Pvt Ltd were awarded for their exemplary work in the IoT domain.

As part of this year’s initiative, the IoT India Congress introduced the Argonaut session that provided a platform for startups to interface with angel investors. Twelve of India’s leading angel investors including Ajeet Khurana & VC Karthic committed Rs. 14.4 million of investment to Intelitaap and Swajal.

Elated about the session, Apurva Damani, Director, Artha India Ventures said, “The platform was very useful for the young and blooming entrepreneurs who are in need of grooming, mentoring and validation of their ideas. It is heartening for me to see the B2B space taking off”.

The two day conference was inaugurated by Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, and had keynote sessions by N Sivasailam, Additonal Secretary, Department of Telecommunication, Government of India among others. It witnessed engaging participation from over 320 delegates, IoT enthusiast and thought leaders across industries.

As part of her keynote address, Aruna highlighted the work done by the government to incentivise new investment in related sectors, which will be unveiled in the New Telecom Policy in 2018. She spoke about IoT generating 10-15 million jobs in India through adoption of IoT in the next few years and expressed government’s activeness on the issue of 5G.

N Sivasailam talked about the opportunities for gram panchayat outreach and pressed on the need to increase the number of Indian satellites to satisfy increasing demands. He said, India will cover 100,000 gram panchayats with broadband by later this year.

The Congress hosted multiple tracks on impact of IoT in Healthcare, Telecommunication, Standards, Digital Payments, Ganga Rejuvenation, Manufacturing, Smart Living and Emerging Technologies with participation from industry leaders like TV Ramachandran, President, Broadband India Forum, Dr. Gopichand Katragadda, CTO, TATA Group, Srinivas Prasad, CEO, Phillips Innovation Campus, Juergen Hase, CEO, Unlimit powered by Reliance to name a few.

The Congress witnessed launch of three whitepapers during the course of two days around adoption and growth of IoT in various sectors.

Speaking on the side lines of the Congress, Dr. Rishi Bhatnagar, Chairman of the IET India IoT Panel said, “The environment this year was brimming with excitement and the 2nd edition of the IoT India Congress was a great success witnessing more participation as compared to last year. With the palpable drive of the thought leaders and the insight in the innovative business models of the start-ups, it is evident that India is in the right path.  We are happy that the IoT India Congress is working to influence the future of IoT and is a platform to create future engagement and progress in an IoT enabled India.”

“The internet of things is going to change the way we interact and do business.  It is great to see the progress in the IoT space and we believe that such efforts, initiatives and talent is being acknowledged and encouraged. With more start-ups foraying into the IoT space, it is an opportunity to identify young companies and thought leaders with breakthrough innovation in IoT that are progressing the IoT movement in India.” said Shekhar Sanyal, Director and Country Head of the IET.

Business Leadership Award for “Excellence In Global Entrepreneurship” for Raghupati Singhania

Raghupati Singhania, Chairman & Managing Director, JK Tyre & Industries Ltd, receiving the Business Leadership Award for “Excellence In Global Entrepreneurship” from Patrick O. Santillo, Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs, US Embassy, during the 13^th Indo-US Economic Summit organized by Indo-American Chamber of Commerce in New Delhi. As India’s first company to roll out 10 million truck/bus radial tyres, JK Tyre has grown its presence to over 100 countries under the leadership of Singhania.

Nestlé India Packs the New MILKYBAR with Goodness of Milk!

Continuing with its efforts to provide innovative offerings, Nestlé India is delighted to introduce the country’s favourite MILKYBAR, with increased milk and less sugar. Delivering on the journey of improving nutritional profile of our product, Milk is 1^st in the new recipe. The percentage of milk in the new MILKYBAR has been increased by close to 8% and reduce sugar by about 10%.

Speaking on the launch,  Nikhil Chand, General Manager, Chocolate & Confectionery, Nestlé India, said,“In our journey to improve the nutrition profile of our products, we are adding more milk and reducing sugar in MILKYBAR. Raising consumer awareness and with the intent of being more transparent, we have mentioned GDA on front of the pack. We have also made concerted efforts to promote portion guidance and all our chocolate & confectionery innovations have lighter treats as part of the portfolio several of which are less than 50 calories per serve.”  Chandadded “In line with this, we have used our strength in research and development as well as consumer understanding to develop a tastier recipe for MILKYBAR that is also lower in sugar. MILKYBAR has been amongst the most loved products in our chocolate & confectionery portfolio and is a clear leader in its category.”

The new packaging highlights the message that ‘Milk is 1^st in the recipe’ while indicating the improved taste. The healthier and tastier MILKYBAR will be available at all leading grocery stores across the country at Rs 5, Rs 10 and Rs 20.

CLOUDSEC 2017 India Shed Light on Multifaceted Internet Threats

CLOUDSEC, the leading internet security conference in Asia Pacific and Europe, today held its seventh annual event in Mumbai. Hosted by Trend Micro Incorporated, CLOUDSEC 2017 gathered more than 700 industry experts from across the globe to meet renowned industry thought-leaders who shared their insights to the business community. Over 20 eminent speakers provided next-generation solutions, and instructed the organizations to ‘Level-Up’ their fight against cybercriminals.

"Security can no longer be considered as an after-thought in the larger scheme of things, rather it should be a well-thought out investment by enterprises, looking to catapult themselves in a competitive and technology-driven environment. Companies need to adopt stringent measures to stay ahead of cyber criminals," said Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director and Vice President, APAC, Trend Micro.

He further added, “CLOUDSEC is the best platform for attendees to build their threat intelligence and improvise their knowledge through the track sessions, panel discussion and other activities. It gives them the opportunity to know and be aware of the latest security strategies and the ways to protect against the attackers.”

Present at the event, Nilesh Jain, Country Manager (India and SAARC), Trend Micro said, “Targeted attacks, Ransomware and Business Email Compromise (BEC) are some of the newer and stealthier security challenges faced by enterprises of today. As the cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem become more interconnected, it is essential for organizations to reevaluate and redefine their understanding of threats, risks, and solutions in an ever-changing landscape.”

During the event, Bill McGee, Senior Vice President of Hybrid Cloud Security, Trend Micro, offered insights on the latest and upcoming trends in cloud computing, which may challenge current information security mindset and practices. Simon Piff, Vice President of Security Practice, IDC, explained the future of IT security technologies and focused on the structural changes organizations need to make to ensure that the depth of innovation can be best leveraged to create a holistic and robust enterprise security strategy and Sunil Varkey, Vice President and CISO, Wipro Technologies, elaborated on trust and assurance, in the digital world.

Also present at the event was, Christophe Durand, Police Senior Superintendent, Interpol Global Complex for innovation (IGCI) who explained how an enhanced attribution process could help in mitigating the cyber risk. Vishal Salvi, Chief Information Security Officer, Infosys, shared his perspective on Ransomware and how companies need to treat data protection proactively, getting the right solutions and processes in place to prepare for the inevitable attack.

The event concluded with a closing keynote on evolving era of cloud by Nilesh Jain, Country Manager (India and SAARC), Trend Micro; Mohit Pande, Country Manager – India, Google Cloud and Arun Kumar Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India, who were the panelists.

ITC Infotech and Chirp Announce Strategic Partnership In Data Over Sound Technology

ITC Infotech, a global scale full service provider of technology solutions and a fully owned subsidiary of ITC Ltd, and Chirp, the global leader in ‘data over sound’ technology today announced a strategic partnership which will enable the companies to collaboratively develop solutions  for clients across the globe.

“At ITC Infotech, we are committed to leveraging technology innovations for our clients. Chirp’s ‘data over sound’ solution lends itself efficiently to industries we work with.  This partnership brings in unique synergies, giving us at ITC Infotech an opportunity to offer a significant technology- advantage to our clients.  With Chirp, we are looking forward to accelerated development of client-specific, industry-specific solutions,” said Sushma Rajagopalan, MD & CEO, ITC Infotech.

Transferring data over sound takes advantage of speaker and microphone-equipped devices of any kind, by using these devices as audio encoders and decoders. Any device embedded with the ‘data over sound’ technology can ‘hear’ and ‘share’ the data. The key advantage of this technology is the ability to broadcast small amounts of digital data to multiple devices without the need for pairing the devices or knowing the device ID of receiving devices. The technology also works without the necessity of any other form of connectivity, such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, allowing ‘networking’ of multiple platforms and devices to be done offline in some cases.

Chirp has developed fully interoperable software development kits (SDKs) of their technology on a wide range of platforms (such as iOS, Android, JavaScript, Python and Linux, as well as numerous chipsets such as the full range of ARM Cortex MCUs) with which ITC Infotech will be building further solutions. These solutions will be specifically developed for clients in industries including Banking Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI), Consumer Packaged Goods, Manufacturing & Automotive, Retail, Airlines and Hospitality. Chirp’s technology has already been deployed globally on mass-scale, with hundreds of millions of devices currently connecting and  transmitting data with this technology.

Commenting on the partnership, Moran Lerner, Chief Executive Officer, Chirp, said, “At Chirp, we believe sound and data should be used together to share things. With our partnership with ITC Infotech, we are now looking forward to bringing the Internet of Sound to clients globally at a more rapid scale. The time and resources that ITC Infotech will be investing to integrate Chirp into their suite of services, and those of their clients’, means we now have the scale to deliver Chirp’s unique capabilities to  the leading businesses across multiple sectors and ultimately those businesses’ global consumers. We’re excited to see the first of many imminent deployments of Chirp’s technology through ITC Infotech.”

As part of the partnership, ITC Infotech will be building a team of specialist engineers and technical consultants to enable global sales, service and implementation of Chirp technologies. Chirp will provide further support in joint training, capability building and solution development to fast-track creation of industry specific proof-of-concepts (POCs) and real-world mass-scale projects. ITC Infotech is currently engaged with over 200 world leading businesses globally, with operations spanning North America, Europe, Middle East & Africa, India and Asia Pac. 

Infosys Foundation Inks Rs 5.92 Crore MoU with Visakha Jilla Nava Nirman Samithi

Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Infosys, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Visakha Jilla Nava Nirman Samithi (VJNNS) to construct 100 gravity fed water supply systems in tribal villages of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The endowment of Rs 5.92 crore will be used to promote good sanitation practices and create efficient water management systems in all target villages.

               

VJNNS an NGO in Andhra Pradesh, aims at making potable drinking water available to remote tribal villages in the districts of Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam. Through this partnership, Infosys Foundation intends to provide an impetus to VJNNS’s objective of constructing a gravity fed water supply system that will help 100 tribal villages and 40,000 beneficiaries using pipelines. This will not only help enhance health but also aid in reducing water-borne diseases.

Speaking about the MoU, Sudha Murty, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation, said, “Drinking water supply and sanitation in India continue to be a key concern. The Foundation endeavors to promote good sanitation practices and aims to train local communities to effectively manage water supply systems through workshops. Under this project, local communities will also be taught to manage a village development fund.”

BookMyShow on a Tech Innovation Spree; Testing with WhatsApp

BookMyShow today announced that it has become the first Indian online ticketing brand to participate in the WhatsApp business pilot. As part of this test, BookMyShow has made WhatsApp a default ticket confirmation channel for all its users.

This means that users who book tickets on BookMyShow will now receive a message on WhatsApp with the confirmation text or an M-ticket (mobile ticket) QR Code, along with an email.

Ravdeep Chawla, Head of Product, BookMyShow said, “At BookMyShow, we are constantly taking measures to enhance our users’ experience on our platforms. Keeping up with their changing preferences and habits, we decided to integrate BookMyShow with WhatsApp for its pilot. WhatsApp has definitely become a preferred mode of communication for millions of people in our country and we could identify tremendous value in making it a default ticket confirmation channel. We have already started rolling out this feature and over the course of next few weeks, we aim to scale it to cover our entire user base.” 

BookMyShow had recently introduced ‘Plan-it’, the in-app messaging feature for friends and families to interact with each other in real time, suggesting movies, show times, venue options and eventually complete the movie tickets booking from within the chat window.

Lenovo’s “Killer Note” to Go on Open Sale from Sept 15 on Amazon.in

Lenovo India’s latest edition of its bestselling K Note series, the K8 Note, will go on open sale beginning Friday, 15th September, 2017 on Amazon.in. The K8 Note has received tremendous response from the market and was sold out within 8 minutes of going on sale on Amazon.in last month. The company is now opening the availability of the device for discerning consumers who want a holistic experience from their smartphone.

Targeted at the young and spirited who want more from their device at a pocket-friendly price, the Lenovo K8 Note made history as the first device in Lenovo’s K Note series to run on stock Android and offer dual cameras. Designed with a metal body, it is available in two colors: Venom Black and Fine Gold. The K8 Note is also powered by a 10-core processor, backed by 4GB RAM, 64GB storage (and a dedicated memory card slot), Dolby(R) Atmos(R) sound, as well as a large 4000 mAh battery with a 15W Turbo ChargerTM.

As a special open sale days offer, customers can exchange their old devices for the new Lenovo K8 Note and receive additional Rs 1000 off for their old smartphone. In addition, consumers using a HSBC credit or debit card will also receive a cashback of Rs 1000.

The most outstanding hardware feature of the Lenovo K8 Note - also known as the “Killer Note” for its great photography features - is its dual camera set-up, which is comprised of a 13.0-megapixel primary and 5.0-megapixel secondary depth sensor. The dual cameras work seamlessly together, allowing users to take photographs with amazing depth of field (up to virtual DSLR-equivalent F/1.2), making it one of the best cameras in its class. Samples of images taken by a select group of photographers using the K8 Note can be seen at @KillerShots. And for those who love snapping themselves, there is a 13.0-megapixel selfie camera with a full light LED flash. Additionally, Lenovo K8 Note’s multimedia experience is amazing superior with TheatreMax. 

You can view all the content you want with a much larger virtual screen once you put on a VR headset. Dolby Atmos ensures that you get high quality sound from your device - whether it is the thump of a drum or the buzzing of a bee in a forest. The phone even has a dedicated music key to play, pause, or switch tracks. It also comes with an advanced water repellent coating that protects it from spills, splashed or getting caught in the rain!

Pricing and availability

The Lenovo K8 Note is priced at Rs 12,999/- for 3GB+32GB variant and Rs 13999/- for 4GB+64GB variant and will now be available via open sale, exclusively on Amazon.in.

Mahindra Electric Crosses 50 Million Electric Kms on Indian Roads

Mahindra Electric, a pioneer in the development and manufacture of electric vehicles (EV) and a part of India’s US$19 billion Mahindra Group, today announced the completion of 50 million electric kilometers on Indian roads.

Together, the e2o and e2oPlus electric cars have contributed to a saving of 2,50,000 kgs of carbon dioxide emission into the environment which is the equivalent of planting 25,000new trees. This milestone marks the beginning of a greener future for India and announces the arrival of an Electric Mobility revolution.

Commenting on this milestone, Mahesh Babu, CEO Mahindra Electric “Crossing the 50 million electric kilometers milestone comes at a time when the Government has significantly increased its thrust on electric vehicles and accelerated the process of large scale adoption of electric vehicles through its Electric Mobility Mission 2030.  This is a proud moment for us and reaffirms our role in India’s electric mobility revolution.”

Babu, further said, “To put this 50 million electric kilometers into perspective, imagine the e2o and e2oPlus doing a trip from Earth to Mars. We would like to thank our customers, the EV pioneers of India, for their support that has enabled us to reach the country’s first EV milestone and helped us to set out on the next phase of this exciting journey.”

India’s leading electric car, the e2oPlus has smart technology and telematics integrated into it. These features allow the vehicle to remain connected with the customer as well as Mahindra Electric. Telematics help Mahindra Electric engineers to remotely diagnose and fix any issues that may come up in the vehicle. It also helps collect big data to help fine tune and improve the technology that is at the core of these vehicles.

Second Edition of India’s Largest Internet of Things Platform - IoT India Congress 2017 Held in B'lore

The second edition of India’s largest conclave on IoT, the IoT India Congress 2017 kick-started its two day event today at the Park Plaza Hotel, Bangalore. IoT India Congress 2017 is the platform of platforms for empowering business outcomes using the Internet of Things.  Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India inaugurated the event, which was followed by the formal launch of the Healthcare Live Experience Zone.The two-day session will focus on eight tracks - Healthcare, Manufacturing, Smart Living, Emerging Technologies, Ganga Rejuvenation, Telecom, Standards and Digital Payments & Financial Inclusion along with workshops on topics ranging from inter-device communication using blockchain to Raspberry Pi for IoT applications and essentials of drone flying. More than 80 speakers from various leading companies like GE, Philips, Tata Group, IBM, AT&T Global Network Services, Accenture, Microsoft, Fortis Hospital, Ola, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Zoomcar, Hitachi, Bosch etc. will participate in this event and discuss how IoT is changing the landscape of the industry. 
The congress is observed to be the only platform that can readily impact businesses / revenues not only for the entire ecosystem of technology business beginning from chip manufacturers, gateway providers, telecom operators, system integrators, IoT platform and solution providers, but also those segments / user communities who might not yet look at IoT as a business game changer for them.
Few of the key highlights of the congress will be the Healthcare Live, SME Meets etc., that will bring together an end-to-end ecosystem of the Internet of Things – to work with each other and speed the IoT movement in India. The platform will achieve this through CEO meets, product and solutions discovery for SMEs, funding opportunities and mentorship for startups and academic projects, idea discovery avenues for VCs and incubators, and policy inputs for government agencies.
Few of the eminent speakers at the event are:

 The Congress will also host the prestigious IoT Thought Leadership Award 2017, where Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Founder of Art of Living will be the Special Guest. The IoT Start-Up Awards 2017 will recognise exemplary work done by start-ups in the IoT space.

·         Dr Gopichand Katragadda, Chief Technology Officer, Tata Group

·         Satish Mittal, CTO, Senior VP, Vodafone

·         Monika Gupta, Former CIO B2B, Bharti Airtel

·         Avnish Sabharwal, Managing Director – Digital, Strategy & Innovation, Accenture

·         Bala Girisaballa, MD, Microsoft

·         Dr. Rajkumar Deshpande, Consultant Neurosurgeon, Fortis Hospitals

·         Farhana Haque, Vice President & Business Head IOT Vodafone

·         Jeurgen Hase, CEO, Unlimit powered by Reliance

·         Nigel Fine, Chief Executive, Institution of Engineering and Technology

·         Pradeep David, General Manager, Universal Robots ABB

·         Jeremy Watson, President, Institution of Engineering and Technology

·         Raghuram Joshi, General Manager, Enterprise Business Solutions & Services, Bosch

·         Sanjeev Malhotra, CEO – IOT Centre of Excellence, Nasscom

·         Ravi Ramaswamy, Sr. Director & Head – Health Systems, Philips Innovation Campus

·         Srinivas Prasad, CEO, Philips Innovation Campus

·         TV Ramachandran, President, Broadband India Forum

·         Ankit Jain, Vice President & Head, Ola

·         Vivek Mehrotra, Director, Regional Digital Strategy & Transformation, GE- Predix

·         Greg Moran, Co-Founder,  Zoomcar

·         Rishi Bhatnagar, Chairman of IET India IoT Panel

·         Shekhar Sanyal, Director and country Head of the IET

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Dr. Rishi Bhatnagar, Chairman of the IET India IoT Panel and President, Aeris Communications said, "The IoT India Congress started with a vision to provide people a platform beyond the borders of organizations to come together and create the roadmap for IoT adoption. IoT is a disruptive technology that is connecting and encompassing multiple sectors and we at IET IoT Panel understand the need to connect the industry leaders to further the growth and adoption of IoT technology.  We are happy to see the overwhelming participation of IoT enthusiasts at the second edition of the IoT India Congress. We look forward to the enriching sessions tomorrow."

“This edition of the IoT India Congress is showcasing the outstanding application of IoT deployment in various sectors in India. The internet of things is a platform business and instead of working in silos, it requires businesses to come together and integrate ideas and technologies to create the future.  With this congress, we aim to break barriers, provide a platform to various players to come together and take back the learning that can further the growth of IoT adoption in India. This time we have multiple tracks and with the inclusion of Argonaut and Healthcare Live sessions, the excitement from participants is endearing. With more sectors and areas being IoT enabled, it is great to see the entire tech community come together on one platform to further the IoT revolution. ”said Shekhar Sanyal, Director and Country Head of the IET.

More than 700 Industry Experts Attended CLOUDSEC 2017 in Mumbai

CLOUDSEC, the leading internet security conference in Asia Pacific and Europe, today held its seventh annual event in Mumbai today. Hosted by Trend Micro Incorporated, CLOUDSEC 2017 gathered more than 700 industry experts from across the globe to meet renowned industry thought-leaders who shared their insights to the business community. Over 20 eminent speakers provided next-generation solutions, and instructed the organizations to ‘Level-Up’ their fight against cybercriminals.

"Security can no longer be considered as an after-thought in the larger scheme of things, rather it should be a well-thought out investment by enterprises, looking to catapult themselves in a competitive and technology-driven environment. Companies need to adopt stringent measures to stay ahead of cyber criminals," said Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director and Vice President, APAC, Trend Micro.

He further added, “CLOUDSEC is the best platform for attendees to build their threat intelligence and improvise their knowledge through the track sessions, panel discussion and other activities. It gives them the opportunity to know and be aware of the latest security strategies and the ways to protect against the attackers.”

Present at the event, Nilesh Jain, Country Manager (India and SAARC), Trend Micro said, “Targeted attacks, Ransomware and Business Email Compromise (BEC) are some of the newer and stealthier security challenges faced by enterprises of today. As the cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem become more interconnected, it is essential for organizations to reevaluate and redefine their understanding of threats, risks, and solutions in an ever-changing landscape.”

During the event, Bill McGee, Senior Vice President of Hybrid Cloud Security, Trend Micro, offered insights on the latest and upcoming trends in cloud computing, which may challenge current information security mindset and practices. Simon Piff, Vice President of Security Practice, IDC, explained the future of IT security technologies and focused on the structural changes organizations need to make to ensure that the depth of innovation can be best leveraged to create a holistic and robust enterprise security strategy and Sunil Varkey, Vice President and CISO, Wipro Technologies, elaborated on trust and assurance, in the digital world.

Also present at the event was, Christophe Durand, Police Senior Superintendent, Interpol Global Complex for innovation (IGCI) who explained how an enhanced attribution process could help in mitigating the cyber risk. Vishal Salvi, Chief Information Security Officer, Infosys, shared his perspective on Ransomware and how companies need to treat data protection proactively, getting the right solutions and processes in place to prepare for the inevitable attack.

The event concluded with a closing keynote on evolving era of cloud by Nilesh Jain, Country Manager (India and SAARC), Trend Micro; Mohit Pande, Country Manager – India, Google Cloud and Arun Kumar Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India, who were the panelists.

National Truckers Programme - Eyes OK Please- Unveiled by Sightsavers

Sightsavers, a leading global development organization working in over 30 countries to combat avoidable blindness and promote equal opportunities for visually impaired, unveiled “Eyes OK Please”, a report on National Truckers Programme, named RAAHI – Road Safety and Assurance By Healthy Eyes, in the presence of its honorary brand ambassador and internationally acclaimed actor, Shri Kabir Bedi. The programme will reach out to 500,000 truck drivers and helpers of the laborious 9 million truck drivers and transporters community present in India. This 9 million-truck driver community transports 65% of national cargo by road.    

With an aim to understand the situation of refractive errors and spectacle usage among truckers and transporters who were part of Sightsavers’ interventions, the study spanned across 3 years analyzed vision for thousands of truckers, including a 360-degree testing of all normal visual faculties. Drawing from the research-backed insight that good vision accounts for as much as 95% of all sensory requirements to drive safely, the National Truckers Programme detects visual problems, provides spectacles or other service/ referrals. This intervention is an attempt to pre-empt visual problems among drivers, since road travel accidents have an annual death toll of 1.2 million worldwide and up to 50 million injuries. The findings corroborate an earlier study by road safety experts CSRI-CRRI and IDTR that states that drivers operating trucks have undetected eye problems and live and drive for long periods of time with these problems. The intervention for truckers is as necessary as it is missing, in the country’s road safety discourse.

The data in this report comes from 235 outreach camps that Sightsavers India and its partners conducted over 10 cities in India. From April to December 2016, these eye camps screened 17,546 people. A total of 324 respondents – 268 drivers and 56 staff (including Conductors and Helpers) – from 10 cities were interviewed for this study. The average age of the drivers interviewed was found to be 44.6 years. Among the 268 drivers, 81% were truck drivers, 11.6% were bus drivers, and 7.5% drove other vehicles such as autos, private vehicles or tempos.

The findings of the report states that a very high number of respondents knew that there is a problem. Nearly half, i.e., 48.5% of the respondents said they felt the need to attend the eye camp because of an eye-related problem. Of these, as many as 42.2% said they faced a problem in driving or working. It also states that the respondents have been living and driving with eye problems for as long as 8+ months, with 64.2% of the respondents saying that they were not doing anything about their eye problems. Of the 324 respondents, each one required professional eye care; with 96.6% required spectacles and 3.4% were referred for further treatment.

Unveiling the report, Dr. S.Y. Quraishi, former chief election commissioner (CEC) of India and Honorary Chair of Sightsavers in India said, “I feel proud to be part of this great organization that is undertaking such important studies for the betterment of the country and the citizens. The Eyes OK Please! report on National Truckers Programme brings out that eye conditions such as refractive errors are quite common among truckers and transporters. The effort by Sightsavers in this direction is commendable. The mission that was started more than five decades ago is forging ahead to bring sight to many and lighten up their lives with hope. I pay my respect to Sir John Wilson whose vision had set a course to change the eye health scenario of not only India but globally.”

RN Mohanty, CEO Sightsavers (India) said at the event, “We envisage a world where no one is blind from avoidable causes and where visually impaired people participate equally in society. From this experience, Sightsavers India can confidently state that community-based eye testing, provision of spectacles and referral services for the trucking community have a huge potential for scaling up in India. Sightsavers India will relentlessly work for the betterment of its people and also contribute significantly to Sustainable Development Goal number three (SDGs), especially 3.6 which says that by 2020, 50 percent of the deaths from road accidents will be reduced.”

Declaring the programme open, Kabir Bedi, honorary brand ambassador, Sightsavers India and internationally acclaimed actor said, “Not many in the past have paid heed to such a significant need of having an eye health programme for our truck driver community. It is clearly a welcome intervention by Sightsavers to enhance road safety in India by reaching out to this laborious truck driving community.”

SonicWall and SentinelOne Join Forces to Provide Automated Real-Time Breach Detection, Prevention and Remediation

SonicWall, the trusted security partner protecting more than one million networks worldwide, and SentinelOne, the company transforming endpoint protection, today announced a new agreement to bring together SentinelOne’s next-generation endpoint protection with SonicWall’s next-generation firewall (NGFW) solution. By combining the two powerful offerings, SonicWall and SentinelOne will not only automate the distribution and enforcement of SentinelOne’s Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP), but also ensure automatic remediation of malicious attacks such as ransomware in the event of infection by reversing system and file modifications.

“The outbreak of global high-profile attacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya have established that once ransomware penetrates a network, the damage can spread in a matter of minutes,” said Vikram Phatak, Chief Executive Officer of NSS Labs. “This combined solution has demonstrated that it will detect existing and new threats and automatically respond quickly, all while allowing users to simplify ongoing enforcement of endpoint protection.”

By combining the two solutions, SonicWall and SentinelOne will allow administrators to not only create policies to determine which individuals must run the endpoint solution on their devices, but also add controls to ensure that devices are running the endpoint client, if required.  Through the partnership, SentinelOne and SonicWall will also offer threat intelligence sharing – combining the industry’s fastest conversion from unknown to known malware via the SonicWall Capture Threat Network with the addition of threat intelligence from SentinelOne endpoint data. Additionally, the combined solution brings key features including:

·         Policy-based enforcement, compliance, quarantine and remediation

·         Cloud-based centralized management and analytics

·         Dynamic detection with behavioral models and machine learning

·         Automatic remediation of ransomware and other advanced threats

“Combining our offerings eliminates the need for organizations to purchase separate endpoint solutions and employ specialists to install and maintain endpoint protection. We’re proud to partner with SonicWall to amplify our SMB market coverage, jointly delivering what we believe is the most effective, holistic, and consumable next-generation endpoint protection solution available.” said Tomer Weingarten, Chief Executive Officer of SentinelOne. “Together, we are removing complexity for users and addressing the reality of our users’ business environments while still continuing to stop the most advanced as well as never seen before cyber threats.”

SentinelOne was listed as ‘most visionary’ in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant, received a “recommended” rating for Advanced Endpoint Protection from NSS Labs, and is consistently rated the top EPP product by leading AV testing organizations. For five straight years, SonicWall has excelled in NSS’s Next Generation Firewall testing, the industry's most comprehensive, real-world testing of NGFWs.

“Today’s partnership agreement with SentinelOne marks the beginning of another important chapter in SonicWall’s story, as we offer our customers a new, enhanced level of protection,” said Bill Conner, President and CEO of SonicWall. “Our two powerful solutions bring enterprise-level security enforcement, as well as automated detection, prevention, remediation and compliance, to small and medium sized organizations around the world. The combined offering takes automated real-time breach detection and prevention to the next level, enabling our customers to focus on their core businesses and fear less.”

The combined offering from SonicWall and SentinelOne provides protection to users operating Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and VDI. It will be available for purchase in early 2018.

Register for India’s Largest Vistara Aviation Hackathon Opens Sept 25

Vistara, India’s finest full service carrier, has launched ‘Vistara Hackathon’, the country’s largest of its kind in aviation. The ‘Vistara Hackathon’ is aimed at encouraging the young minds and draw participation from across the country to create innovative solutions that will disrupt the industry in line with the airline’s vision of transforming the flying experience for travellers in India. The all-India ‘Vistara Hackathon’ will be held in Delhi/NCR and Bengaluru from October 7, 2017 to October 8, 2017, the registration for which is open until September 25, 2017.

Organised in partnership with IncubateIND, the ‘Vistara Hackathon’ will involve 20 teams from each city that will compete with each other to create new applications and tools to address aviation-related challenges in areas such as, tracking traveller behaviour, personalisation of air travel, intelligent crowd monitoring at airports, system integration with third-party APIs and software, inflight entertainment and intelligent customer targeting, amongst other challenging aspects. The solutions submitted at the ‘Vistara Hackathon’ will be reviewed by a panel of technology and aviation experts who will hand-pick winners, based on originality, potential for scalability and successful execution.

Phee Teik Yeoh, CEO, Vistara, said, “At Vistara, innovation is at the forefront of everything we do, from design to delivery of our products and service, and in so doing, delighting our customers. Information Technology is our backbone, which helps us stay ahead of the curve and do the right things at the right time and in the most effective way. The ‘Vistara Hackathon’ is a reflection of our innovative approach to leverage on technology in our effort to change the way people travel in India, and therefore, bring them the ‘new feeling of flying’ with Vistara.”

Elaborating the airline’s focus on technology, Ravinder Pal Singh, Chief Information & Innovation Officer, Vistara, said, “Vistara is the first Indian airline to have built an end-to-end IT infrastructure on Cloud. We’re adopting the latest technologies to drive innovation across avenues – from maximising convenience for travellers across customer touchpoints to simplifying internal processes that lead to increased productivity and cost-saving. Technology will help bring about disruptive changes in the aviation industry, some of which we hope to discover at the ‘Vistara Hackathon’.”

Vistara continues to invest in cutting-edge business software, mobility, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, big-data impacting and improving people & quality of its workplace – all with the purpose of delivering an unmatched experience across all touchpoints as well as to optimize processes and operations. In a short span of less than three years, Vistara has developed a robust technological framework to support its growth and to ensure a seamless experience for millions of travellers.