MAGGI Turns 35 - Rolls out new thinking under ‘Kuch Achha Pak Raha Hai’

The most iconic food brand in India, MAGGI has turned 35 years. MAGGI began its journey in 1983, with the launch of MAGGI 2-minute noodles. Since then MAGGI has brought about constant innovation in the food category through a host of launches in a number of categories, such as the taste-enhancer ‘MAGGI Masala-ae-Magic’, MAGGI Tomato Ketchup and Hot & Sweet, MAGGI Vegetable Atta Noodles, and many more.

Over the years, MAGGI has become a much-loved brand across the country. In-sync with the changes in society, MAGGI aspires to embody contemporary thinking by recognizing the larger impact women have on the society. Along these lines, on this Women’s Day, MAGGI rolls out its new campaign “Kuch Achha Pak Raha Hai” that recognizes the changing status of women (http://bit.ly/2IdXMsi)

MAGGI as a brand believes that cooking does not stop in the saucepan. The simple act of cooking does not just make us more curious, creative and empathetic, it also teaches us independence, resourcefulness and awareness. Through “Kuch Achha Pak Raha Hai” MAGGI aims to drive advocacy on this thought, supported through multiple initiatives.

For starters, MAGGI will launch a new campaign to reveal this thought with MAGGI ‘Masala-ae-Magic’. The ad revolves around a story of a mother and son, wherein the mother encourages her son to let his wife work after marriage. This campaign makes the point, just as recipes are changing, so are relationships.

Another key initiative as part of this changing MAGGI, is a campaign where we will be opening up “our kitchen”, branded “From Our Kitchen To Your Kitchen”, where consumers will be invited to learn about our products and how they are made.

Speaking on the roll out Maarten Geraets, General Manager, Foods, Nestlé India said “Our consumers are seeking more information on our products than ever before, and this campaign will allow consumers to get the understanding they seek. MAGGI aims to show-case the product journey, right from procurement of raw materials to the manufacturing, and the role it plays in your diet. The style of storytelling is aimed at eliciting interest amongst consumers and inviting them to ask any question. This campaign will leverage our 24x7 Consumer Engagement Services team and our digital asset – www.maggi.in. We are very happy to have partnered with Rocky and Mayur to make a series of digital films as part of this campaign.

CRY Indicates Working Child Reduced by 56% in Rural Karnataka

According to the latest  available figure released by government instances of child labor in Karnataka has reduced by 49 percent.  This wave of change is been led by rural Karnataka with almost 56 percent of decline in terms of child labour instances in that sector. However nearly 2 million girl child in Karnataka are battling their childhood consumed by the agriculture, forest and in urban set-ups. The fight against child labour needs to continue till we can ensure right of childhood for the last child of our nation and mitigate this problem completely.

Gender specific child labour roles see a girl child mostly working in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors amounting to almost 62.8 percent. The next highest sectors with the largest number of working girls is Arts, Entertainment and recreation, Activities of Households as Employers, Undifferentiated Goods and Services and related sector taking another chunk of more than a quarter (27.9 percent) of working girls.

Child Rights and You (CRY) has been one of strongest voices for children and working in tandem with local bodies to ensure that this problem can be fought.  Raichur which is second in terms of total number of working girls fall among CRY’s intervention area where the organization has been working to bring long terms sustained changes.

In Karnataka, CRY is working intensively on a targeted 99 villages or slum areas out of which 52 of them are in Raichur. CRY has been successful in reaching out to 12882 children between 0-18 years out of which 6312 of them are girls in the last one year.

In the domain of CRY’s working area there are still 1050 number of children engaged in child labour activities and 127 of them are from the troubled district of Raichur where instances of girl children working are more

CRY believes in long term and sustainable change. Spreading awareness and convincing the family on the importance of education and thereby discouraging them from engaging their child from any form of labour is the first layer of intervention. This is circumferenced by promoting education in the area. From upgrading existing schools to setting up of schools in that area is taken with utmost importance. Also, providing services like transport and tracking of families from a door-to-door approach is been taken up to ensure positive results.

CRY’s experience working on the issue for a long time shows that under the purview of labour all children might not be covered due to exemptions in law, lack of societal willingness to come and discuss about this issue and unavailability of a child due to their long engagements with work and study making the data an indication than an actual representation of the problem.

At CRY we don’t segregate children in terms of age and have a no-tolerance attitude towards child labour. Our experience shows that lot of instances of child labour go unnoticed. There are children who are working before and after going to school and thus being exposed to unparalleled mental and physical strain. We need to provide education and bring awareness within the family bring a systematic change,” said Suma Ravi,

Regional Director of Child Rights and You (CRY).
In the hindsight, there is another worrying trend that shows child labour in Karnataka is becoming increasingly urbanized, with a close to 56 percent  increase in  girls engaged in labour activities over the last decade 2001-2011. The worrisome data is backed by the highest number of girl child working being from Bangalore.

The top 5 districts for working girls between 5-14 years in Karnataka are given below. Together these 5 districts account for 45% of the working girls in the state.

Overall picture:
10.13 million child laborers are between 5-14 years in India (2011 Census data). Child labour in 2011 has decreased by around 20% from 2001 Census Figures. When compared with the 2001 figure percentage of girls and boys decreased by 23% and 17% respectively in 2011 .

Karnataka is the state with 9th highest no of working children, accounting to almost 4.2% of all working children in India

QuEST Global Aquires EXILANT Technologies to Blster Capabilities in Converging World and Enter New Markets

QuEST Global Services (QuEST Global), a global leader in providing premium engineering solutions, has announced the acquisition of EXILANT Technologies, an advanced technology provider, based out of Bengaluru, India. The acquisition, a significant move for QuEST Global’s 2020 diversification strategy, will strengthen QuEST Global’s advanced technology capabilities, and expand our footprint into the Hi-Tech industry.

 EXILANT is QuEST’s fourth acquisition this financial year after the acquisition of DETECH Fahrzeugentwicklung GmbH, IT Six Global and Mobiliya Technologies headquartered in Germany, Romania and Singapore, respectively. Each acquisition has added high value skills and focus to create one of the broadest portfolio offerings of any engineering services company.

 Founded in 2004, EXILANT has over 900 employees worldwide with locations in India, Singapore, London and Silicon Valley in the US. EXILANT provides software products and services for product engineering services, mobility and social media applications, business intelligence and analytics, and cloud-based services.

 Sreenath Murthy, CEO of EXILANT said, “This is a big milestone in the journey of EXILANT and forms a perfect launch pad for accelerated growth in a converging world. EXILANT's capabilities in developing new solutions, and rapid adoption of next generation technologies, combined with QuEST’s expertise in the industrial and mechanical world will help us enable our mutual customers to adopt advanced technologies and win in their respective markets.”

 Ajit Prabhu, Chairman & CEO, QuEST Global said, “QuEST is a leader in the industrial and mechanical world. We will continue to extend our position into adjacent vertical markets, and help all our customers embrace and integrate new technologies to lead their industries. Our acquisition of EXILANT Technologies is strategic as QuEST broadens our customer base and expertise to meet our customers’ needs in rapidly changing markets.”

Iconic Bridge Project Connecting Hong Kong to Zhuhai and Macau Adopts BIM Methodology, Reducing Construction Costs by 12%

The Leighton-Chun Wo joint venture standardized on a BIM methodology to drive consistency on this large multi-discipline design project that will connect Hong Kong, Macau, and Zhuhai. This revolutionary project includes 50 kilometers of bridges and tunnels and will create a distinctive entry point to Hong Kong. Leighton Asia conducted the civil, electrical, mechanical, structural, subsurface, and building work as the lead contractor for this ambitious project. The 130-hectare site will include site formations, roads, bridges, clearance buildings, footbridges, steel roofs, and various public facility buildings. Despite the challenge of a project team spread across several countries using a range of software applications, Leighton Asia provided consistency and uniformity for the design, survey, and construction of this transportation gateway, scheduled for completion in 2018.

For this USD 4.6 billion project, Leighton Asia leveraged Bentley technology to meet a variety of construction challenges. By standardizing on MicroStation’s DGN format, architects, engineers, contractors, and surveyors had simplified access to their design models and associated data. For the roadway design, the team used OpenRoads for conceptioneering the proposed designs. It then cross-referenced against the as-built, which ensured accuracy and improved error resolution. iModels were used as the data exchange format to ensure fidelity and integrity of engineering data. Bentley Navigator was used for clash detection and analysis, which resolved errors and issues prior to construction, reducing construction costs by 12 percent. Moreover, the team used ProjectWise as the connected data environment ensuring the engineering data could be access by a distributed project team.

Implementing BIM processes enabled a new method for working, which created a new culture within the organization that improved efficiency and streamlined workflows. By following BIM processes, project participants were trained using the same comprehensive modeling environment and BIM applications. Additionally, surveyors and design teams used Bentley’s reality modeling solution to capture and enliven digital photographs and point-cloud data of the existing site conditions. Leighton Asia contracted The Earth Solutions for technical and training support to integrate the reality mesh into the engineering environment, ensuring 3D BIM models could be cross-referenced with continuously surveyed models. This coordination reduced the cost associated with surveying by 15 percent by streamlining their workflows and adding expertise.

“Bentley’s civil BIM advancements bring BIM to the next stage by multiplying its benefits, especially in challenging and large-scale infrastructure projects. This platform has enhanced our collaboration with various stakeholders to import, acquire, and exchange valuable information.” says  Michael Kin Wong, Survey Manager, Leighton Asia

Indian Startup Liv.ai Races Ahead of Apple, Microsoft and Amazon in Building Speech Recognition AI Technology

Technology has never been so omnipresent in the lives of people as it is now. You already talk to your phones, computers, speakers, appliances and many other devices, seeking information or asking to complete a task. You may also have spoken to a robot while seeking customer service from a company and may have even got satisfactory results. One may ask, what next? Would you get similar results if you speak in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi or any other Indian language?

Until now it was not possible for machines to understand any language other than English. Now, add another dimension to that - is it technologically possible for two illiterate persons to text chat in their native language? The answer is yes. Thanks to Bangalore based start-up Liv.ai.

The start-up has developed breakthrough speech recognition technology in nine Indian languages besides English. Liv.ai has developed this technology with a vision of empowering every Indian to communicate with people and devices in their own language. The biggest of technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google have barely gone beyond English where speech recognition is concerned. This technological feat has been achieved by Liv.ai in just three years, a much shorter time frame when compared to the time taken by many big tech firms building speech recognition products.

The India Challenge:
India holds an immense opportunity for technology companies to bring about change as it is home to almost one fifth of humanity with just under 35% Internet penetration. One of the major roadblocks for big technology companies of the world is the sheer diversity of spoken languages in India. While metros and tier I cities have higher usage of technological products, when it comes to villages and remote areas, language becomes a barrier. The internet is bound to grow with the recent tariff wars among telecom companies and government’s push to make broadband available in every village. The only frontier that remains to be won is the simplification of technology in order to facilitate its adoption by people who do not speak English.

Native Language Speech Recognition:

Founded by IIT Kharagpur alumni - Subodh Kumar, Kishore Mundra and Sanjeev Kumar in 2014, Liv.ai aspires to assist non-English speaking Indians in finding their voice through a multi-lingual speech recognition technology. The start-up provides speech API / SDKs to facilitate the conversion of speech to text. "Our API recognizes 10 major languages that are widely spoken in India - English, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. This speech recognition technology picks up most accents and is adept at cutting out background noise as well," informed Subodh Kumar, Cofounder, Liv.ai. "While Microsoft and Apple do not support regional Indian languages, and Amazon's Alexa supports only English, we're proud to be pioneering extensive speech recognition technology development in Indian languages," he added.

One of the driving forces behind the founding of Liv.ai was the incapability of Indians to communicate with machines in their mother tongue. With this motivation, the team started working on developing more humane and intuitive machine learning technology. Especially in India, a populous country with a plethora of spoken languages, the start-up predicts that speech is likely to be the next pervasive interface.

It is touted that the speech recognition API market could grow into a billion-dollar market over the next five years. Besides speech to text, Liv.ai is also working on Speech Synthesis and conversational systems.

Milestones So Far:
Last year, the start-up had brought out the speech to text APIs into the market. "The API has a decent traction with an approximate of two million API hits per day across 10 languages. We have partnered with over 10 large businesses belonging to multiple domains to take their product to the masses. The domains encompass e-commerce, BFSI, consumer devices, speech analytics, robotics and consumer apps. Owing to the demand for the API, plans are underway to upscale from two million API hits per day to 100 million API hits by this year end," said Kishore Mundra, one of the founders of Liv.ai.
With a continued focus on Indian languages and dialects, liv.ai aspires to put together the best AI team in India. The start-up is looking to develop disruptive speech-based technology solutions to overcome some of the biggest AI hurdles. Being rooted in India gives liv.ai a far better user insight than any other large global company would.

Pioneering AI Work in India
Liv.ai is proud of the engineering culture that it is creating in India. The start-up is one of the rare companies working in the core Deep Tech space and inventing cutting edge AI algorithms. It has solved a lot of hard science and tech problems in Deep Learning to create Speech recognition and dialogue systems for multiple Indian languages which suffer from such a variety of accents. Liv.ai will continue to attack the hardest problems in this field with a desire to put India on the global AI map.

"India has traditionally been an IT outsourcing hub with very little tech innovation while most of the global wealth generation in technology has been to the pioneering companies in Silicon Valley. We wish to change that impression through our work. The slowing growth rate of our leading IT companies means that the days of exploiting labor arbitrage is over. Now we need to aim higher and build world class tech product companies in India. Our engineers and scientists should not be dependent upon the whimsical immigration norms of another country to work on intellectually challenging problems and creating an impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Companies like us are the agents of change in this process," said Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, Co-Founder and CTO of Liv.ai.

Mobile Commerce on Rise; Contributing 45% of Total Online Transactions: Criteo Report

Criteo, the leading commerce marketing technology company, today debuted findings from its Global Commerce Review, analyzing shoppers’ activities, behaviors and preferences across all devices and browsing environments. The report, which highlights a growing importance of mobile apps among shoppers, reinforces the “mobile-first” mindset, and will help inform omnichannel commerce marketing strategies worldwide. Another key finding includes the relevant touchpoints for a shopper’s journey.

Expressing his views on the findings of the research, Siddharth Dabhade, General Manager, Criteo India said, “With increase in smartphone usage, app adoption and mobile browsing is the largest media consumption for Indian consumers.  And with this, an interesting omnichannel shopping pattern has also emerged.  He further added, “Our latest study also illustrates this, where smartphones are seen contributing to nearly fifty percent of the total online transactions in India. It is the perfect time for brands and retailers to leverage the rise of mobile-commerce in India and invest in mobile apps and mobile advertising, to effectively connect with shoppers to yield greatest possible commerce results”

Research Highlights:

Mobile Growth
Mobile web usage has reached a maturity point, but shoppers rarely stay in one place for long, moving in and out of walled gardens, and are still buying on-the-go, with varying levels of frequency, on all connected devices. Also with rise in the mobile usage, the frequency of the shopper engagement is also increasing.

In India, smartphones contributes 45% of total transactions (App excluded). Smartphone usage has been increasing at 6% since Q4 2016, showing that smartphones continue to be the most preferred environment.

Omnichannel Matters
The omnichannel strategies help educate shoppers during their winding journey, which in turn drives positive online results.

 Global omnichannel customers offer the highest lifetime value to brands and retailers, generating 27 percent of all sales, despite representing only 7 percent of all customers.

Globally, retailers that are successful in combining offline and online data are able to apply more than four times (4X) as much sales data to improve marketing efforts.

 App Opportunity
App has now become a crucial touchpoint for a shopper’s journey. Owing to this fact, apps are presenting a huge opportunity in terms of reaching out to the mobile first shoppers. In order to better connect with these mobile-first shoppers, enhance mobile shopper engagement and get substantial sales, retailers and brands need to invest in mobile app optimization and build a targeted marketing strategy.

 Conversion rates are 5 times higher on app, about 20% then on mobile web, which is 4%, in the Asia-Pacific region. Globally, advertisers saw nearly a 50 percent year-over-year increase of in-app transactions, climbing to 46 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017.

 Shopping Moments
Consumers continue to trade desktop for mobile, and back again, depending on the time and day they are shopping online.

 Retailers looking to target the busy working customer cannot ignore the dominance of desktop during business hours, especially between 9 a.m. - noon. Alternatively, optimizing for smartphone and tablet targeting remains critical in the evenings and throughout the weekend.

 Cross Device Data
Cross-device data combinations can help retailers make up lost ground from lower shares of mobile sales. It also helps in revealing where the shopper will go based on where their journey began.
 In India, 25% of post click sales are preceded by a click on another device.

 Combining cross-device data to better understand and target shopper intent allows marketers to capture higher-value shoppers. This trend is apparent in Travel & Retail category.

SAP Ariba Makes Procurement a Snap for Mid-Market in India

When it comes to taming the complexity of procurement, size doesn’t matter. Mid-market companies face the same challenges in managing their spend and suppliers as their larger peers and should have access to the same enterprise-class technology they use to overcome them. Now they do, thanks to SAP Ariba Snap, a new, packaged offering from SAP Ariba that provides fast-growing companies with everything they need to drive a simple, efficient buying process that quickly delivers results. The company will showcase the solution – and the success it is driving for companies around the world – at SAP Ariba Live, the premier business commerce conference that kicks off today at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

 “Procurement innovation and excellence are not the exclusive domain of large enterprises,” said Jason Wolf, Global Head, Strategic Growth Initiatives, SAP Ariba. “With SAP Ariba Snap, mid-market companies can leverage the full strength of SAP Ariba’s market-leading cloud-based applications and business network to digitize the source-to-settle process from end to end and run simpler and smarter than ever.”
 Doing the Heavy Lifting

SAP Ariba Snap provides simple, affordable and scalable implementation options led by SAP Ariba partners that enable growing enterprises to quickly get on the path to digitization and begin delivering results. And there’s nothing light about it. Using the solution, mid-market companies can leverage decades of best practices alongside market-leading software to automate every step of the source-to-settle process and beyond savings and efficiencies, drive real business value.

 Sourcing: Collaborate with trading partners, compare bids side-by-side, and award business to suppliers that can deliver what’s needed, when needed, on the most optimal terms.
 Orders: Access the world’s largest network of more than 3 million companies to find and immediately buy millions of items from vetted suppliers around the world.

 Invoicing: Replace tedious manual processes with efficient digital ones to speed accuracy, approvals, payments and delivery.

Contracting: Create a simple, consumer-like experience that makes it easy for end users to buy from preferred vendors in line with company policies to increase spend under control and drive compliance.

 Supplier Management: Find and onboard trading partners around the world and automatically update their information to accurately match opportunities with capabilities and manage performance.

 Working Capital Management –Accelerate payments for approved invoices to key suppliers in return for a discount to improve cash flow and management.

 Partnering for Success
 Many SAP Ariba partners around the world currently offer SAP Ariba Snap packaged solutions. “Premikati has developed several industry-specific SAP Ariba Snap implementation packages to accelerate time to value no matter the vertical the client is in,” said Chad Buchanan, COO of Premikati.  “And we can have a customer using the solution in as little as eight to 12 weeks.”

 And mid-market companies are reaping the benefits of the collaborative approach. “SAP Ariba came in with the resources on day one to do the heavy lifting and get us up and running and take care of our customization requests,” said Matt Volker, Vice President of Supply Chain for NatureSweet, who has implemented SAP Ariba Snap with the help of SAP Ariba partner Nitor Partners . “And we are confident it can be a solution in the long term for managing our aggressive growth.”

Everstone Backed Servion Acquires Innoveo AG, Leading OmniChannel Cloud Software Provider in InsurTech Space

The Everstone Group backed Servion Global Solutions has acquired Innoveo AG (formerly known as Pactera Switzerland AG), an InsurTech Cloud software provider, headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland.

Founded in 2007, Innoveo AG has offices in Zürich, Hong Kong and Budapest and services some of the world's largest insurance companies with its product Innoveo Skye. This is a multifaceted, cloud-based technology suite, which enables digitalization of insurance processes and accelerates insurance product launch cycles; up to ten times faster as compared to other solutions. This enables businesses to enhance their Customer Experience significantly.

The powerful Innoveo Skye Business Canvas, a tool designed to be used by non-technical business users, allows insurance companies to streamline new product development and maintenance activities. Furthermore, the Innoveo Skye® solution expands the product delivery options by offering omni-channel digital capabilities, as well as improved agent and consumer user experience.

The InsurTech space is growing rapidly: according to recently published World Insurance Report, nearly one third (over 31%) of insurance customers globally use InsurTech solutions.

Puneet Pushkarna, Chairman, Servion Global Solutions and new Chairman of Innoveo AG, stated: “Innoveo’s cutting-edge solutions, backed by their outstanding team, offer a unique and strong investment opportunity. We are excited to work with the management and employees and look forward to leveraging our deep understanding of the sector, to help the company strengthen its leadership position in the InsurTech space.”

Nick Stefania, co-founder and CEO at Innoveo, said, “This is an extraordinary turning point in our company’s history since we started in 2007. We’ve already demonstrated our solution’s capability in creating value for insurance companies across the world. Now, we’ve found the right partner, it will enable us to scale and play an important role in the global InsurTech market.” 

Sameet Gupte, CEO of Servion Group stated, “The acquisition of Innoveo not only strengthens the group’s focus on Omnichannel Cloud offerings, but also propels us in the InsurTech space. We are very excited to leverage the Innoveo Skye software platform globally along with our existing platforms such as ServIntuit, ServInsights, LCM, U-Nexsys, iAssit, and RapCTI.”

 Everstone Capital, through a SPV owns majority stake in Servion Global Solutions.

Microsoft Announces First Renewable Energy Deal in India

Microsoft Corp. has announced the completion of its first renewable energy deal within the Karnataka state of India. The agreement will see Microsoft purchase 3 megawatts of solar-powered electricity from Atria Power to help power its new office building in Bangalore. This will meet 80 percent of the projected electricity needs at the new facility. This deal is part of a state government of Karnataka program to encourage investments in local solar energy operations, in line with the larger Indian government goal to ramp up solar power generation to 100 gigawatts by 2022, as part of India’s efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“Investing in local solar energy to help power our new Bangalore office building is good for Microsoft, good for India and good for the environment,” said Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India. “We are proud to be deepening our long history of partnership and investment in India with this agreement. This deal will help us grow sustainably and supports the growth of the Indian solar energy industry, so that the entire country can more easily and reliably access clean electricity.”  

“Microsoft, like India, has ambitious commitments to use more renewable energy,” said Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist, Microsoft. “By purchasing local solar power to meet some of our local electricity needs, we’re not only meeting our goals but also supporting the growth of local clean energy industries. This growth leads to more clean electricity capacity, which will help India meet its targets for the Paris Agreement, reduce carbon emissions and provide clean electricity to its growing population. We’re proud to play a small role in this Indian energy transformation.”

This is Microsoft’s first solar energy agreement in India, and one of the first in Asia — the company completed a new solar agreement in Singapore last week. Once completed, this project will bring Microsoft’s total global direct procurement in renewable energy projects to nearly 900 megawatts. The deals in Asia follow wind projects in Europe and a substantial portfolio in the United States, and mark continued momentum toward the corporate clean energy commitments set by the company in 2016. Microsoft’s goal is to rely on wind, solar and hydropower electricity for at least 50 percent of its energy usage worldwide by the end of 2018. 

Moonbow New Technologically Advanced Alpheus UV + UF Water Purifier for Areas with Low TDS level of Water

Moonbow has expanded its product portfolio of water purifiers with the launch of Alpheus UV + UF - India’s most powerful UV water purifier. Priced at Rs 9,490 the water purifier has been certified by TUV, world renowned German certification lab. The purifier removes up to 100 crore microbes per 1 litre of water as against 1 crore microbes removal by ordinary aluminum based UV water purifiers. Alpheus UV + UF Water Purifier has been designed especially for areas with low TDS levels as RO purification in these areas can lead to depletion of essential natural minerals from the drinking water, hence making it unhealthy.

RO based water purifiers remove essential minerals present in the water along with heavy metals and all other impurities. Hence, when RO water purifiers without Mineral Fortification technology are used in areas with low TDS water supply, the mineral content of purified water falls below necessary requirement for the body. Whereas, UV water purifiers are capable of removing all the impurities in low TDS water while maintaining essential natural minerals. UF when combined with UV filter acts as double protection shield against bacteria and cysts. Hence, UV + UF is the ideal combination of water purifier for cities with low TDS water supply.

Rakesh Kaul, President & Chief, Consumer Products Division, HSIL Ltd. said, “Industrialization and urbanization have led to a rapid increase in the levels of water pollution and water borne diseases, making water purifiers a basic necessity. As a result, the current market size of the organized market of water purifiers in India today which is currently pegged at INR 4500 crore is poised to grow by 20%.”

He further added, “Consumers often perceive that RO water purifiers are the best option for water purification. Ideally, before buying a Water Purifier, one should get the water TDS checked & accordingly select a Water Purifier. UV water purifiers are better suited for areas with low TDS levels as they help in maintaining the water’s natural mineral contents whereas RO Water Purifiers with Mineral Fortification Technology are better suited for high TDS levels. With the launch of Alpheus UV+ UF, we expect an increase in our share of revenue from water purifiers and hope to be among the top 3 players by 2021 in the country. Moonbow water purifiers aim to deliver not only the purest water but mineral enriched healthy drinking water. Our advanced modern age features like Mineral Fortification, Hexapure and DigiSense technology enable us to be a step ahead of other water purifier brands in the Indian market.”

The water purifier is the best in its category as it comes with a single body stainless steel UV sterilizer as compared to existing aluminum body UV water purifiers. The stainless steel UV sterilizer makes the water purifier’s performance much more efficient and its single body design ensures zero leakage of UV rays from the sterilizer barrel. Also, unlike aluminum UV sterilizers, it further protects from unhealthy leaching of heavy metals like aluminum and lead in water, thus making the water 100% safe and healthy. The water purifier is stylish, sleek with 7 litre storage tank and comes with user friendly interface with Power, Tank Full, Failure Alert and Filter Replacement Indicators.

Moonbow Alpheus UV + UF offers lifetime warranty on its stainless steel UV sterilizer thereby reassuring consumers of its performance, whereas, other UV water purifiers available in the market come with a warranty of only 1 year on UV barrels.

HSIL Limited makers of iconic sanitary ware brand Hindware, entered the water purification segment with the launch of Moonbow Water Purifiers in mid of 2016 calendar year. Today, the brand has six different models priced between Rs 9,490 to Rs 24,990  Moonbow water purifiers are available across key retail outlets pan India. 

Godrej's Wi-Fi Enabled Solutions -EVE - Ushers New Trebds 'SmartLife' in Bangalore

Embarking on a high growth strategy in the Indiani market, Godrej Security Solutions (GSS) has unveiled -Safety Design in Buildings, Smart Home Pavilion, Drone Pavilion, Wearable Security Pavilion and Job & Career Pavilion.

Amalgamating the need to make security chic and the ease of wireless security that empowers consumers to confidently state - 'I Am Secure', GSS has introduced the wireless range of home cameras - EVE Series. EVE - which is a contraction of the product's USP, 'Easy Viewing Everywhere' - encompasses five variants, EVE Mini (1.3 MP), EVE Cube (1MP & 2MP) and EVE PT (1MP & 2MP). The EVE series is capable of directly streaming live feeds of a premise to the smartphones of home owners, and helps one to not only watch over their loved ones but also listen in on what's happening there, remotely from anywhere in the world.

Mehernosh Pithawalla, Vice President and Global Head - Marketing, Sales & Innovation, Godrej Security Solutions, said, "The year 2017 saw smart devices leading to #SmartLife. From Smartphones to Smart Homes - every innovation has brought about a seamless life experience. Home security solutions too have been undergoing a makeover. Consumers' buying decisions have evolved over the last decade in line with the rising per capita spending capacity. Bangalore is the city of dreams for many and has always been one of the top cities to usher in lifestyle trends - hence we launched our EVE range of home cameras that will provide consumers an experience of utmost convenience and ensure peace of mind. the city has a huge working population, hence a product like Eve Series will be ideal to watch over loved ones back home or watch over your premises here while you are away for a short trip to your home country."

EVE home cams are equipped with auto-record function based on motion sensing and will trigger notifications to the owner's handset every time they sense some suspicious motion. They are built as plug-and-play devices. All functionalities can be controlled from the app resting on the owner's smartphone. They can be charged on the go by a power bank.