Bharat BillPay, launched by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has on-boarded Banglore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) and Banglore Water Supply and Sewage Board (BWSSB) to empower over 1 crore consumers for secure and easy bill payment.
Currently, 107 billers across India with over 2.4 million agent outlets have been enabled. Nearly thirty thousand agents have been on-boarded in Bengaluru that makes the ecosystem accessible to over 1 crore consumers. Bharat BillPay ecosystem has clocked 4.2 crore (42 million) transactions for September 2018
Key billers in Karnataka besides BESCOM and BWSSB that are part of Bharat BillPay ecosystem are Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company (GESCOM), Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Company (CESCOM) and Hubli Electricity Supply Company (HESCOM). Other major national billers are Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Jio, BSNL- Postpaid, Tata Sky, Dish TV, Sun Direct- DTH etc.
A.R.Ramesh, Chief Project Officer, Bharat Bill Payment System, NPCI said, “BESCOM has partnered with Vijaya Bank for Bharat BillPay which has significantly increased accessibility of consumers to the biller on various channels. Also, BWSSB is one of the new billers that is on-boarded for the first time on an interoperable bill payment ecosystem through Canara Bank. With Bharat BillPay, we strive to make consumer’s life easier by providing a one stop destination for all their recurring bills”.
Dr.R.C.Chetan, IRS, Chief Financial Officer and Director-Finance, BESCOM said, “With Bharat BillPay, BESCOM consumers have a convenient, safe and secure option to pay their bills as it saves time and cost of travelling to various bill collection centres. One can easily pay bills at their own convenience.”
Tushar Girinath, Chairman, BWSSB said, “Paying Water Bills has always been a pain-point for consumers across India. Bengaluru consumers now have the power and control of paying their BWSSB water bills via his/her preferred app/website enabled on Bharat BillPay.”
R A Sankara Narayanan, Managing Director and CEO, Vijaya Bank said, “We are happy to deepen our relationship with BESCOM and increase the accessibility of the consumers to the billers. Going forward Vijaya Bank aims to on board more billers in Bharat BillPay ecosystem. Consumers can be assured of a secure channel for bill payment by using any of the enabled channels under the Bharat BillPay ecosystem. It helps us to serve the consumer better by offering them ease of bill payment and future such collaborations”.
Ashok Kumar Sahu, General Manager, Digital Banking Services, Canara Bank said, “We are happy to collaborate with BWSSB to empower bill payment of water across any of the Bharat BillPay enabled Channels. In future, to increase accessibility we would be offering Bharat BillPay to our consumers on our various platforms like Mobile Banking, Branches etc. along with on-boarding more billers that benefits the entire ecosystem”
Consumers can pay their BESCOM and BWSSB bills in four simple steps as mentioned below:
1. Select to pay your bills via net-banking, website, app or physical outlets of banks/non-banks by just seeing the Bharat BillPay logo.
2. Select BESCOM/BWSSB from the list.
3. Choose your desired payment mode like Card, Wallet, Net-Banking or Cash as enabled by your bank.
4. Receive instant receipt and confirmation with Bharat BillPay logo
The approved categories of billers on Bharat BillPay are: Electricity, Direct-To-Home (DTH), Telecom (Mobile postpaid, Landline postpaid and Broadband), Water and Gas. Once bills are paid, the consumers receive instant confirmation in the form of SMS or/and email or Print receipt with the Bharat BillPay logo.
About Bharat Bill Payment System: Bharat Bill Payment System is a Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) conceptualised ecosystem, managed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which offers integrated, accessible and interoperable bill payment services to consumers across geographies with certainty, reliability and safety of transactions. It offers bill payment service to consumers through a network of agents/ retail shops/ bank-branches and digital channels like Internet banking, mobile apps, websites of banks and non-bank entities. As on date, 62 banks and 10 non-bank entities function as Bharat Bill Payment
Operating Units (BBPOUs) in the country. A BBPOU can be a bank or a non-bank institution which handles payment and aggregation of services related to bill payments under the scope of Bharat Bill Payment System (Bharat BillPay). Non-bank entities include aggregators, prepaid instrument issuers and consumer facing organisations. The pilot phase of Bharat Bill Payment System was launched by former RBI Deputy Governor, R. Gandhi on August 31, 2016.
After successful completion of the pilot run, RBI accorded their approval and subsequently NPCI announced the launch of Bharat Bill Payment System on October 17, 2017.
Tata Motors has officially announced the roll out of the 1st Harrier from its all-new manufacturing line. With this, Tata Motors is now gearing up for the launch of its much awaited SUV in early 2019.
Tata Harrier needed a completely new approach to product development and manufacturing processes. The completely new world-class assembly line has been built in a record time of 6 months with the best manufacturing practices adopted from Jaguar Land Rover. It boasts of 90% automation levels with over 100+ KUKA and ABB robots.
According to Mayank Pareek, President, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors -“We have been receiving a tremendous response from the customers ever since we opened bookings of the Harrier, a fortnight ago. With the all- new assembly line ready and the roll out of the 1st Harrier, we are now gearing up to start deliveries in early 2019. The Harrier, with its stunning design will definitely appeal to customers, especially those who have eagerly waited for the product since its showcase as the H5X concept at the Auto Expo 2018. We are confident that the Harrier will set new benchmarks in the SUV segment, in 2019.”
Born of legendary pedigree with sleek looks and dynamism, Harrier is the first vehicle to sport the IMPACT Design 2.0 philosophy. It will offer an extraordinary exterior design, thoughtfully and intelligently designed plush interiors, future ready connectivity and best-in-class infotainment. The 5 seater monocoque SUV is engineered on the new generation ‘Optimal Modular Efficient Global Advanced’ Architecture , which is derived from the legendary Land Rover D8 architecture and developed in collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover.
Watch the rolling out of the first Harrier from its all- new assembly line on https://youtu.be/5FgTV5T9FLQ
With an aim to bring forth advanced cancer care to the doorstep of millions of people, Manipal Hospitals, India’s leading healthcare provider unveiled its revamped Oncology block ‘Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Centre (MCCC)’ at the hospital’s Old Airport campus. Marking a new beginning, the Centre has introduced state-of-the-art, ultra-modern digital mammography with Tomosynthesis technology to enhance the hospital’s diagnostic capabilities for screening and treating breast cancer and a dedicated surgical Lymphoedema Clinic.
With rising incidence of breast cancer in the country, the revamped Centre will offer super-specialized tertiary care services in medical, surgical and radiation oncology, streamlined into dedicated site-specific teams. MCCC is one of India’s most comprehensive cancer care centres which houses complete treatment protocols under one roof.
The MCCC was inaugurated by leading Indian actors Bharathi Vishnuvardhan, Priyanka Upendra and Aniruddha Jatkar in the presence of Dr. H Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals & Dr. Somashekhar S.P, Chairman & HOD Surgical Oncology, Manipal Hospitals Bengaluru.
Speaking at the launch, Dr. H. Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman Manipal Hospitals said, “We have been championing the cause of cancer awareness for more than two decades now. We launched the new Centre with a steadfast vision - to improve cancer care and help patients get superior treatment to live longer, better lives. We want to create a model of excellence, a place where patients are treated by our physicians with the best of clinical expertise. In our pursuit to provide holistic cancer care, the team will be working in a multi-disciplinary approach with other super specialty departments like Gynecology, Neurosurgery, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, urology and many others for all round support and care provided by a dedicated team of medical and paramedical professionals under one roof.”
About 1/3 of people who undergo total Mastectomy have not received any treatment except Physiotherapy to deal with Lymphodema of limbs. Under the expert guidance of Dr Ashok B C, Consultant Plastic Surgeon who is specializes in quality treatment protocols for cancer patients trained in Japan can now offer an array of treatments. Lymphovenousanastamosis can be done during the Mastectomy surgery or on patients who are already experiencing swollen limbs. This has been successfully done on more than twenty five patients who are leading a normal life. Lymph Nodes Transfer, this can be conducted in patients who are already suffering from heavy limbs. Manipal has so far successfully done four lymph node transfers on patients who are living quality life after mastectomy. The ICG machine with the help of a dye helps the doctor identify blockage .
Interacting with the media Bharathi Vishnuvardhan, Renowned Indian Actress said, “It is an honor to be associated with Manipal Hospitals. The launch of this comprehensive centre coincides with Breast Cancer Awareness Month and with the introduction of Digital Mammography technology, I urge ladies to not shy away and come forward for a check-up. Prevention is always better than cure.”
Manipal Comprehensive Centre has completed over 1500 successful complex robotic surgeries. It is currently Asia’s number one centre to perform HIPEC surgeries, which is the only hope for stage 4 cancers, with more than 300 surgeries performed in last three years. The centre is performing almost 100 HIPEC every year and is the only largest centre for the treatment of Sentinel Lymph node or Breast Lymphoedema in India.
Sharing further details, Dr. Somashekhar S.P, Chairman & HOD Surgical Oncology said, Manipal Hospitals Bangalore said, “While we make advances in technology, we are also creating an environment to accelerate new treatments whether it is with Robotics, Watsons or now with Tomosyntheses. Digital mammography is superior to the conventional mammography because it can detect cancers which are hidden owing to dense breast tissues and overlapping structures. It gives exceptionally sharp images for visualization of the finest details which is a big boon for patients and for us as doctors as well.”
Priyanka Upendra – Indian Actress said, “Manipal Hospitals is always at the forefront when it comes to creating awareness around deadly diseases. I am happy to lend my support and call upon everyone to take charge of their lives by undergoing regular medical checkups and prioritizing their health over everything else.”
Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Centre provides all cancer treatment under one umbrella with expert guidance of world-renowned specialists spanning nuclear medicine to radiation oncology.
India’s largest and fastest growing Functional Fitness Studio Brand ‘MultiFit Wellness Private Limited’, today announced India’s first Gym chain driven fitness incubator program, namely ‘MultiFit Fitness Incubator Program (MFIP)’. To be housed out of its Bangalore and Pune facilities, the program will be a healthy mix of technology-based start-ups and ideas as well as conventional ones across sports, fitness, wellness and nutrition. MultiFit has already commenced incubation of a Fitness CRM, Nutrition program ‘Fitsperts’ and MMA Academy ‘MultiFit MMA Pro-Academy’ – all to be commercially launched over the next three-four months.
Commenting on the Incubator Program, Dr. Samir Kapoor, Founder & MD, MultiFit said: “The fitness business is changing extremely rapidly, driven not just by technology but by the fast-changing socio-economic landscape of the country. It is a known fact that over 400 million will be added to our urban population count over the next decade, over 75-80% of all mortality in the country will be driven by NCDs by 2020 and technology will enter a Machine Learning / AI dominated space, transforming and disrupting everything in the process. If we are not prepared for this change, we will be left way behind. Having said that, while we understand the business of fitness and wellness extremely well we most definitely need to go the collaborative route for the rest.”
“Launching the fitness incubator program was thus imperative. Through this program we aim at tapping into all the brilliant ideas that come up on a day-to-day basis across the country but lack the financial and business experience to take it forward. Add to this the large rapidly growing organic community of fitness enthusiasts we have built over the last couple of years as a native market for these ideas, the probability of getting winners increases. While our program will largely focus on early stage ideas, we would not be averse to established entities coming up with new ideas in the space as well,” added Samir.
Assisting MultiFit in this endeavour would also be its newly inducted Technical Advisory Board comprising 11 International Olympic Athletes including Andy Turner, Marilyn Okoro, Chris Tomlinson, Sarah Stevenson, Mark Lewis Francis, Sebastian Rodger, Zoe Smith, Alyson Dixon, Georgina Cassar, Luke Lennon Ford and Manoj Pingle.
Having started off as a 3000 sq. ft. single studio in 2015, MultiFit currently operates a chain of over 32 large format multi-disciplinary Functional Fitness studios across India, UK & UAE marking a presence in 10 cities. Further it has another 20 more signed up gyms which are slated to go live over the next 4-5 months taking the total count to 52 fitness studios.
At its annual K7 Odyssey event, K7 Computing today announced a strategic repositioning of its business, along with a new brand appearance, marking a strong commitment to helping businesses, from SOHO to large enterprise, secure their digital business.
Building on its success in the consumer segment and recent recognition of its leadership in security technologies by international testing organizations such as AV Comparatives, K7 Computing today announced a set of new products and initiatives to expand and strengthen its presence in the Indian enterprise cybersecurity market.
New products announced are:
K7 Mobile Device Management (MDM)
K7 MDM is a cloud-based service that enables organizations to monitor, manage, and secure employees' mobile devices from mobile malware threats, and enforce compliance with company policies.
K7 line of UTM Gateway appliances
The K7 range of UTM gateway appliances brings together K7 Security’s award-winning anti-malware technology tightly integrated into a cost effective, proven gateway solution for Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), Small Business, Medium Enterprise, and Enterprise networks.
K7 Security for macOS
K7 Security for macOS provides comprehensive real-time and on demand protection from both Mac and Windows-based malware threats. It consumes minimal system resources ensuring uninterrupted computer performance, adhering to the performance benchmark set by K7 Computing over the years.
Medal of Honour Awards
Along with new business and product announcements, the evening also witnessed K7 Computing’s annual ‘Medal of Honour’ initiative. This year the company has recognized 25 industry stalwarts who have played a critical role in contributing to the growth of digital India with the K7 Medal of Honour award. The Chief Guest for the evening was N. Ram, Chairman of Kasturi & Sons Limited and Publisher of 'The Hindu' and the Guest of Honor were Munirathnam, founder-RMK group of Institutions and Lakshmi Narayanan, Former Vice Chairman & CEO, Cognizant Technology Solutions.
Speaking on the occasion, J Kesavardhanan, MD & CEO, K7 Computing said, “Over the years, enterprises have enhanced their levels of mobility by shifting their communications and transactions to the online space, thereby; creating a paradigm shift in the way devices and data need to be protected. We are convinced that our renewed focus and strategy will deliver value, higher performance and a new level of convenience for our clients. Our digital competence will be a true strategic differentiator in the market.” He further added; “By advancing our offerings to the Enterprise segment, our efforts are in tandem with the order by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to promote domestically manufactured Cyber Security Products. We are proud to be the only Cybersecurity player in India having a vast portfolio of indigenously built products. Our products are internationally acclaimed by reputed testing organizations and are built without any external dependencies.”
Diwali, is just around the corner and each of us have dived into the spirit of enjoying the festive season and the perfect time to share gifts with family and friends. This Diwali you can bring joy in the lives of people by giving them some fabulous gadgets as gifts. While you have some tech savvy friends and people around, you would have a hard time figuring out the best tech gift within your budget. Don’t worry, we won’t let your budget dampen down your festive spirit. There are some very exciting products and accessories available in this price bracket that often get lost in the crowd of listings.
Here we are listing down 5 Best Tech Gifts under Rs. 1000 For Diwali Season
Britzo Eco Series Phones (Smart bhi, Kifayati bhi)
Britzo-owned mobile company iVVO has introduced its news ‘Eco Series’ smart feature phones with the tagline “Smart bhi, Kifayati bhi”. All phones under the series are priced below Rs 669, with a starting price of Rs 569 Products under this Eco Series include iVVO IV1801, iVVO IV1805s, and iVVO Eco Beatz (earlier known as iVVO Beatz IV1805/IV1805s). All three devices sport 1.8-inch screen display and pack a storage space expandable upto 32GB. These smart feature phones are powered by a 1000mAH battery. Other features available on the devices include MP3 and MP4 player, LED Torch, Bluetooth support, dual-SIM support, one-touch music access, GPRS web browser, wireless FM and megapixel camera.
Britzo phones’ are segmented across five product categories, namely BEATZ, PRIMO, SELFEE, TUFF, and VOLT. The company will also be launching of its first 4G feature phone ‘Skipper’ along with two Android Go 4G smartphones belonging to the smartphone series ‘Storm’. All of the launched products are priced from Rs. 649 to Rs. 5,999 and extend superlative features aimed at the rural population – including multilingual support, feature phone-based WhatsApp and Wi-Fi tethering, facial recognition, shatterproof smartphone screens.
boAt BassHeads 225 in-Ear Super Extra Bass Headphones
These boAt in-ear headphones, which available at Rs 449 has super extra bass with rich immersive audio. Users can experience detailed high quality sound with its 10mm dynamic drivers which deliver a powerful, precise and natural sounding bass. One of the things that you always wanted to do is to have everything under control with a single touch, boAt BassHeads 230 allows you to do that and more with the inline microphone and one button control.
Nokia 105
This feature phone from Nokia is selling at Rs 942. The phone has a 1.8-inch display, offers 4MB RAM, 800mAh battery and single SIM support. Featuring a curved, ergonomic body and an island key layout for easier dialing and texting, the Nokia 105 gives you the feeling of a solid, quality phone nestled in the palm of your hand.
SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive
The SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive combines faster data speeds and generous capacity in a compact, stylish package. Spend less time waiting and transfer files to the drive up to ten times faster than with a standard USB 2.0 drive.2 With storage capacities up to 256GB3, the drive can accommodate your bulkiest media files and documents.
Intex 11000 mAh Power Bank. Available at Rs 899
Whether you’re travelling or at office, use your smartphone as much as you want without the fear of running out of power. If you’re someone who is always glued to your phone, the Intex IT-PB11K power bank is your go-to option. It features a 11000 mAh battery that ensures your smartphone doesn’t die when you need it the most. Help your friends to charge their devices as well, as it comes with three USB ports.
McAfee, the device to cloud cybersecurity company, today released its Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, which analyzed billions of events in anonymized customers production cloud use to assess the current state of cloud deployments and to uncover risks. The report revealed that nearly a quarter of the data in the cloud can be categorized as sensitive, putting an organization at risk if stolen or leaked. Coupled with the fact that sharing sensitive data in the cloud has increased 53 percent YoY, those who do not adopt a cloud strategy that includes data loss protection, configuration audits and collaboration controls, will endanger the security of their most valuable asset—data—while exposing themselves to increased risk of noncompliance with internal and external regulations.
The study found that while organizations aggressively use the public cloud to create new digital experiences for their customers, the average enterprise experiences more than 2,200 misconfiguration incidents per month in their infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) instances. Cloud service providers only cover the security of the cloud itself, not customer data or customer use of their infrastructure and platforms. Companies are always responsible for securing their data wherever it is, hence highlighting the need to deploy cloud security solutions that span the whole cloud spectrum, from SaaS (software-as-a-service) to IaaS and PaaS.
“Operating in the cloud has become the new normal for organizations, so much so that our employees do not think twice about storing and sharing sensitive data in the cloud,” said Rajiv Gupta, senior vice president of the Cloud Security Business, McAfee. “Accidental sharing, collaboration errors in SaaS cloud services, configuration errors in IaaS/PaaS cloud services, and threats are all increasing. In order to continue to accelerate their business, organizations need a cloud-native and frictionless way to consistently protect their data and defend from threats across the spectrum of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS.”
Cloud Collaboration a Blessing and a Curse:
Cloud services bring a momentous opportunity to accelerate business through their ability to quickly scale, allowing businesses to be agile with their resources and provide new opportunities for collaboration. Cloud services like Box and productivity suites like Office 365 are used to increase the fluidity and effectiveness of collaboration. However, collaboration means sharing, and uncontrolled sharing can expose sensitive data. Findings demonstrate that:
Twenty-two percent of cloud users share files externally, up 21 percent YoY
Sharing sensitive data with an open, publicly accessible link, has increased by 23 percent YoY
Sensitive data sent to a personal email address also increased by 12 percent YoY
To secure sensitive data in cloud storage, file-sharing and collaboration applications, organizations must first understand which cloud services are in use, hold their sensitive data, and how that data is being shared and with whom. Once organizations have gained this visibility, they can then enforce appropriate security policies to prohibit highly sensitive data from being stored in unapproved cloud services and provide guardrails that prevent noncompliant sharing of sensitive data from approved cloud services, such as when data is shared with personal email addresses or through an open, public link.
IaaS and the Risks of Misconfiguration:
With SaaS, securing data, user identity and access to data is primarily the customer’s responsibility. With IaaS, customers take on a much larger share of security responsibility that includes data, identity, access, applications, network controls and host infrastructure. While this provides customers with an opportunity to have greater control over their cloud infrastructure, it also increases the organization’s surface area for security risks and their responsibility for the same. IaaS providers, like Amazon Web Services (AWS), provide several infrastructure and platform services, each having deep and complicated security settings. Magnifying the IaaS/PaaS security challenge is the fact that organizations use multiple IaaS/PaaS vendors running several instances of each vendor’s product. Our research found:
Ninety-four percent of IaaS/PaaS use is AWS, but 78 percent of organizations using IaaS/PaaS have both AWS and Azure
Enterprise organizations have an average of 14 misconfigured IaaS/PaaS instances running at one time, resulting in over 2,200 individual misconfiguration incidents per month
Five-and-a-half percent of AWS S3 buckets have world read permissions, making them open to the public
McAfee recommends that organizations continuously audit and monitor their AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform and other IaaS/PaaS configurations as a standard security practice, while protecting data stored in IaaS/PaaS platforms. IaaS/PaaS use is growing rapidly as an alternative to on-premises data centers. Businesses need to get ahead and address their security responsibilities—data protection and threat defense as they would for SaaS cloud services and also configuration compliance and workload protection for IaaS/PaaS cloud services—before they experience a security incident.
Compromised Accounts and Insider Threats:
Most of the threats to data in the cloud result from compromised accounts and insider threats. The average organization generates over 3.2 billion events per month in the cloud, of which 3,217 are anomalous behaviors and 31.3 are actual threat events. In addition:
Threat events in the cloud, such as a compromised account, privileged user, or insider threat, have increased 27.7 percent YoY
Eighty percent of all organizations experience at least one compromised account threat per month
Ninety-two percent of all organizations have stolen cloud credentials for sale on the Dark Web
Threats in Office 365 have grown by 63 percent YoY
To get ahead of comprised accounts and insider threats, organizations should understand how cloud services are used. They should also identify anomalous behavior, such as when the same user accesses the cloud from disparate locations simultaneously, which could indicate a compromised account threat.
As a first step towards protecting data in the cloud, cloud access security brokers (CASB) should be implemented. CASBs are cloud-native services that enforce security, compliance and governance policies for cloud services. They help organizations leverage and extend their existing security controls where appropriate and define and deploy new cloud-native ones where appropriate to enable enterprises to consistently protect their data and defend from threats across the spectrum of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS.
