Now New Feature in Google Maps with Wish List of Favourite Places

The Google Maps application has come up with a feature with which people can create and share lists of their favourite places in their city or any place across the globe, Agency reports from New Delhi.

The new feature will allow users to create lists of “places they love and the places they want to recommend to friends” without quitting the application.

“You can now create lists of places, share your lists with others, and follow the lists of your friends and family when shared with you,” the company said.

Available for both Android and iOS devices, the Lists feature also allows the creation of a wish list of places that one might want to visit in future. The recommendations, which range from fashion and food to art and movie theatres, can be a “list of weekend getaways, or a list of best street food joints, or best fashion boutiques in a particular area”.

Agencies

Upto 85% Price Cut of Medical Stent; Decision Effective Feb 14, 2017

In a major relief to heart patients, the government has reduced prices of coronary stents by up to 85%. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has fixed the ceiling price of bare metal stents (BMS) at Rs 7,260 and that of drug eluting stents (DES) and bio resorbable vascular scaffold (BVS)/biodegradable stents at Rs 29,600, Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers Ananth Kumar told reporters here.

The price cap came into force on the midnight of February 13. A coronary stent is a tube shaped device placed in the arteries that supplies blood to the heart. It keeps the arteries open in the treatment of coronary heart diseases. So far, the maximum retail cost of a stent ranged from Rs 45,000 to Rs 1,21,000.

Data on the NPPA website showed that hospitals made the maximum profits on stents, with a trade margin up to 654%. “If any hospital or pharmacist charges more than the ceiling price, stern action will be taken against the guilty. This includes withdrawal of licence,”Kumar warned.

The NPPA fixed the ceiling prices after taking into account cost of manufacturing and their profit, the minister said. The price cap will also be applicable on imported stents. This step is a major decisive action on the unethical margins charged at each stage in the supply chain of coronary stents, the minister said. Health groups have welcomed the decision.

“After months of consultations, we welcome the strong and determined action of the government, particularly in the face of a concerted campaign by industry and profit-oriented hospitals to prevent any form of effective price control,”Malini Aisola of the All India Drug Action Network said.

“The most shocking revelation that came to light through the extensive deliberations of the NPPA were about the massive cuts being taken by cardiologists and hospitals,” said G S Grewal of Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare in a statement.

Centre of Excellence in Aerospace, Machine Leaning and IoT in Karnataka

Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge said that a Centre of Excellence in Aerospace, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things, will be set up soon.

Speaking at a session on Manufacturing Startups at the concluding day of Make in India - Karnataka Conference here, the minister said that the idea behind this was to become future-ready and create a vibrant ecosystem. 

Stressing the importance of incubators, who are the most important stakeholders in the startup ecosystem, Joint Secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Shailendra Singh said, “We aim to have 1,000 world class incubators to take this startup ecosystem forward.” “We want to take care of startups right from their registration, funding, and mentoring to exit,” he said. 

While funding is a vital issue of startups, Singh said that a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore is created in line with the ‘Startup India Action Plan’. “Also, patent filing fees for startups have been reduced by 80%, and startups have to spend only 20%,”Singh said. Earlier, Founder and CEO of Qikpod Ravi Gururaj moderated the session in which 10 prominent startups shared their ideas, and their journey. 

Boeing Showcases Range of Advanced Military & Commercial Capabilities at Aero India 2017

Boeing will showcase a broad range of aerospace capabilities at the upcoming Aero India 2017 show, to be held Feb. 14-18 at Air Force Station Yelahanka in Bengaluru.

Boeing’s participation at the show will highlight its enduring defense and commercial footprint in India and demonstrate alignment with the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

Boeing’s exhibit in Hall E will feature large scale models and interactive displays to showcase the company’s advanced commercial and defense products and services capabilities of interest to India. A KC-46A Air Refueling Operator System (AROS) will be available to visitors for demonstrations.

Boeing subject matter experts will be on hand to discuss the defense capabilities of platforms such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet, KC-46 tanker, C-17 Globemaster III, P-8I aircraft, AH-64D Apache, CH-47F Chinook, V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and ScanEagle and Integrator unmanned airborne system. In addition, experts from Boeing’s services business will be on hand to discuss training and support solutions for Indian customers.

The company will feature models of commercial airplanes such as the 777-9X, 787-9 Dreamliner, 737 MAX 9 and 737 MAX 8.

Elders Knock Delhi High Court Doors Over Oswal Family Feud

Its new and probably most significant turn in Oswal’s family feud so far; Pankaj Oswal, the eldest son of Late business tycoon Abhey Oswal has filed a petition with Delhi high court on February 4, 2017 claiming his absolute proprietary rights to the extent of 1/4th undivided share in the estate of his father being class-1 legal heir. Pankaj has alleged in the petition that rest of the 3 heirs, his mother Aruna oswal, younger brother Shailendra Oswal and sister Shalu jindal are attempting to oust him from the estate of his father including suit properties.

For Oswals, acrid time in the family began as soon as Abhey Oswal died of heart attack on March 29th last year. Business tycoon of his time Oswal died in Russia while he was on a business tour. He left his enormous empire without a will or testamentary document regarding disposition of his assets, interest in businesses, movable and immovable properties. Since then a succession battle broke out between his widow Aruna Oswal and eldest son Pankaj Oswal. Both have been staking their claims to run his business empire that includes two listed firms Oswal Agro Mills and Oswal Greentech.

In the petition filed with Delhi high court Pankaj claims that while he along with his wife had moved to Australia, there was no partition, formal or informal, between him and his father. In fact, both son and father shared good relations and he and his parents used to visit each other often. He also claimed him being made to wear the traditional pagdi (turban) of the family in the Pagdi rasm held on April 3rd 2016 after the death of his father. Wearing Pagdi was a sign that the Oswal family recognized him as the main heir to head the business empire. Petition says that after the Pagdi rasm was over a board meeting of OAML and OGL was secretly convened behind Pankaj’s back. Very recently he came to know that a resolution was passed in the said meeting of Board of Directors of OAML and OGL appointing his mother Aruna Oswal as the additional Director and Chairperson of both the companies. Interestingly, OAML and OGL have considerable assets and hold substantial shares in other companies, inter alia, PC Media Systems Ltd., New Delhi Television Ltd., News Nation Network Pvt. Ltd., Monnet Ispat and Energy Pvt. Ltd. and other group companies.

Unaware of the sabotage taking place behind him Pankaj oswal proposed to convene a meeting with rest of the 3 heirs on April 4, 2016 at OAML’s office at Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi to formally execute the consensus arrived at on April 3, 2016 after Pagdi rasm. Also a draft memorandum of family settlement was prepared by him for formal execution and for sharing with them. As soon as Pankaj reached at the said place for meeting he was taken for surprise that none of the other 3 had turned up. His surprise soon turned into shock as he called up his mother to ascertain the reason for not turning up. On phone her mother Aruna asked him to leave India immediately and not seek any share in the assets of Abhey Kumar Oswal. Astonishedly his brother and sister too supported her mother and asked that he should forget about his share in the estate of his late father. Deeply upset and shocked Pankaj then came to know the dirty truth and ulterior motives of his own blood relations to oust him from the family assets.

On April 6^, 2016 after getting confirmed of the ulterior motives of his own mother, brother and sister, Pankaj got a legal notice served to them seeking their confirmation that no action inconsistent with his rights be taken as regards the assets comprising the estate of his late father. Unfortunately till date none of them have responded to the said legal notice. Further on October 21 & November 7, 2016 through his lawyers, he got another legal notice issued to the Companies, Banks and third parties where or with whom Late Abhey Kumar Oswal had substantial holdings or business dealings asserting his rights as Class I legal heir of late Abhey Kumar Oswal. Clearly no evidence is required anymore to establish Pankaj Oswal’s right to 1/4^th share in his late father’s estate is undisputed as none of the rest of the 3 heirs responded so far to any of the legal notices.

In the petition Pankaj has alleged that rest of the heirs are looking for prospective buyers to alienate the assets, properties and business interests of his late father by masquerading such disposal of assets as transactions in ordinary course of business. Accordingly he has sought instant interference of the court in partition and has requested court to direct the rest of the heirs to transfer and/or hand over exclusive possession of such properties which fall in his share. Also granting permanent injunction restraining rest of the heirs, their agents and representatives from transferring, alienating or creating any third party interest of whatsoever nature in respect of the his share of the assets. Seeing the nature and importance of the petition Delhi high court has listed the hearing of the matter on the 8^th of February 2017.

Almitra Karnik Takes Charge as Head of Marketing of CleverTap

CleverTap, the leading platform for behavioral analytics and user engagement, announced today the expansion of its leadership team with the appointment of Almitra Karnik as Head of Marketing & Global Growth. Almitra will oversee growth across CleverTap’s global markets, actively managing brand strategy, digital, content and partner marketing along with public and analyst relations efforts.

Almitra is a prominent member of the Silicon Valley startup community, having led product marketing at Twilio, and most recently building out Splunk’s global brand recognition. She brings experience in cross-market growth development, having also served as marketing manager for Fortune 500 companies like Cisco Systems and EMC Corporation.

“We are at a very exciting phase in the CleverTap journey, with the potential for massive growth in the upcoming year,” said Sunil Thomas, CEO of CleverTap. “The app economy is extremely competitive today. With our rapid engineering innovations, we’re positioned to become the go-to solution for mobile app engagement and analytics. We’re thrilled to have Almitra on board to lead our global marketing efforts.”

“I strongly believe user analytics and customer engagement should be the cornerstone of every user lifecycle strategy,” added Almitra Karnik. “The CleverTap platform recognizes this market need and gives customers the best of both worlds as a single cohesive solution.  I’m really excited to be onboard and look forward to driving our global growth strategy.”

CleverTap plans to continue to expand globally, building off of its existing client presence in North and South America, Asia and Europe. With Almitra at the helm of its marketing efforts, the company is poised to continue its winning streak in 2017 and beyond.

Five New Main Themes at Computex 2017; TAITRA Seeks Huge Indian Tech Firm’s Participation

TAITRA, the Taiwanese Government Body promoting trade between Taiwan and other countries has organised an event in Bangalore to promote Computex 2017. The event is hosted to invite Indian ICT companies to participate at Computex, which is scheduled to be held between May 30 and June 3, 2017 at Taipei, Taiwan.

The event is hosted to invite Indian ICT companies to participate in the much coveted ICT and IoT trade show and entrepreneurial event. While evolving in sync with global ICT industry trend, Computex 2017 positions itself as building Global Technology Ecosystems, focusing on 5 main themes: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Innovation and Startups, Business Solutions, IoT Applications, and Gaming and Virtual Reality.

The Bangalore witnessed the unveiling of Computex 2017 and highlight Taiwan’s global leadership position in Information and communication technology, internet-of-things applications, innovation and startup technologies for India. The event will also demonstrate the show’s new positioning, themes, featured exhibits and unveil the latest states of the show; attract new potential exhibitors and buyers from India to attend the world’s leading technology stage – Computex Taipei 2017.

Startup Ecosystem

India is currently a startup hotbed for technology and generously poised at a watershed moment in terms of technology, innovation and service best practices.  The event is beneficial for all parties involved. Computex is a complete end-to-end solution meant to meet the needs of all ICT professionals and more. It builds strategic alliances and ecosystem partners for ICT companies and bridges global startups with investors and manufacturers.”

4 Featured Exhibits

Computex 2016 saw participation from 1,602 exhibitors, 5,000 booths and 40,969 international visitors from 178 countries. Furthermore, 4 Featured Exhibits are the highlights at Computex 2017 that compliment the new position and themes of Computex 2017.

1.   InnoVEX at Computex, held for the first time in 2016, debuted with 217 startups from 22 countries, turning out to be the biggest and most influential startup gathering event in Asia. This new established area is an ideal place for innovative and young entrepreneurs to meet investors, manufacturer. A series of events including forum, pitch, demo, meet ups are exclusively for startups only.

2.     SmarTEX is the stage for the latest IoT applications.

3.     iStyle, is a special showcase for Apple MFi-certified peripherals.

4.    Gaming and VR is the ultimate gaming platform for the coolest high-performance gaming products.

Investment and Industry between India and Taiwan

Economic cooperation in areas of trade, investment and industry between India and Taiwan has been very close in recent years. India ranks as Taiwan’s 16th largest export destination and 21st largest source of import. The bilateral trade relationship is further enhanced by frequent exchanges of visits by business delegations. Bilateral Economic Consultations Meeting between India and Taiwan is held annually and have proven to be a success in bringing various mutual beneficial opportunities to both sides. Governments and industries of India and Taiwan will continue to engage closely in “Make in India,” “Digital India,” “Skill India,” and “Startup India” initiatives for collective growth.

Thomas Huang, Deputy Director, Exhibition Department, TAITRA said, “We are extremely excited to host the introductory event at Bangalore, India’s ICT hub. We really look forward to top the overwhelming success we saw last year, in this year. Computex 2016 saw participation from 1,602 exhibitors, 5,000 booths and 40,969 international visitors from 178 countries. InnoVEX at Computex, held for the first time in 2016, debuted with 217 startups from 22 countries, turning out to be the biggest startup gathering event in Asia. We want to relive the achievement this year in an even better, grander and bigger way.”

Computex is the total solution to meet the needs of all ICT professionals and more. It builds strategic alliances and ecosystem partners for ICT companies and bridges global startups with investors and manufacturers! Visit the most significant ICT/IoT and startup trade show in Asia from May 30 to June 3, 2017. InnoVEX runs for 3 days, from May 30 to June 1, 2017