US Startup Fines $900,00 for Launching Rogue Satellites on ISRO's PSLV in Jan 2018

If the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tells you not to do something — like launching satellites without their approval, for instance — it's probably in your best interest not to do that thing.

And if you ended up doing it anyway, as US-based startup Swarm Technologies did, you'll likely be hung up to dry and fined an inordinate amount of money — $900,000 in the case of Swarm Technologies, Quartz reported.

The American startup was fined for having launched four unauthorised satellites on an Indian Space Research Organisation 31-satellite rideshare mission in January 2018. Along with ISRO's 100th satellite to be launched into orbit, the mission also held room for 30 commercial satellites, coordinated by ISRO's commercial arm, Antrix Corporation.

Swarm's four 'SpaceBEE' satellites were deployed on ISRO's PSLV rocket despite having its application for launch denied by the FCC a month earlier.

The regulators expressed that the satellites were far too small to be detected in space by terrestrial detectors, threatening the many other satellites in orbit with a higher risk of colliding into them.

An investigation into Swarm Technologies began in March earlier this year, in which the FCC dug up more surprises. The FCC discovered quite a few "unauthorised weather balloon-to-ground station tests and unauthorised tests of its satellite and ground station equipment" following the launch of Swarm's SpaceBEEs.

Over the course of FCC's investigation, the agency gave Swarm approval to start communicating with their satellites in August this year. It also allowed a second, approved launch of the ultra-small satellites in November — this time, on a SpaceX rocket. This, because despite the FCC’s initial concerns, it was possible for Swarm's SpaceBEEs to be detected consistently by commercial radar stations since their (unlawful) January launch, which was the crux of FCC's concerns about the satellites, to begin with.

However, Swarm's illegal launch came home to roost in a case that was settled by them paying a hefty $900,000-penalty to the FCC. This, the FCC said in a statement, was because the “unauthorised deployment and operation of satellites" poses a risk of "satellite collisions and radio frequency interference, threatening critical commercial and government satellite operations.”

Interestingly, Swarm received grants (including one from the American government's National Space Foundation (NSF)) for their technology.

According to the grant, the satellites commissioned by the NSF were intended to support “the world’s smallest two-way communications satellites and associated ground hardware,” with applications focussed in “Internet of Things” devices.

Given the NSF's investment in the “unique launch economics afforded by the miniaturised satellites,” as the grant award calls it, funding from the American government appears to have played a part in the unauthorised satellites' launch.

Swarm appears to be at the tail end of its controversy and gotten away with having four illegally-launched satellites orbiting Earth for all intents and purposes for the time being. But, another takeaway from the episode was the lack of communication between two closely-related arms of the US government, the FCC and the NSF.

With space startups burgeoning in the US, particularly in Silicon Valley, the case has thrown a spotlight on the approaches taken by the US government to regulate space. Both US lawmakers and the Trump administration have announced that they are working to address this gap.

SpaceX’s US National Security Space Mission has an Indian Engineer Touch

SpaceX’s first national security space mission for US, launched on Sunday night (IST) had an Indian link. A young Indian-American engineer, Siva Bharadvaj, who works for SpaceX as an integration and test engineer for the company’s Falcon-9 rocket, co-hosted the nearly two-hour international webcast.

The mission carried the GPS 111 satellite for the US Air Force. During the webcast, Bharadvaj explained the details of the mission, which kept viewers engaged. He was selected in early 2018 to be a part of the SpaceX webcast team. It was his second live webcast of a SpaceX mission. On November 15, 2018, he co-hosted the launch of the Es’ Hail-2 communication satellite by SpaceX for Qatar.

Bharadvaj studied at University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University. He has worked in Boeing, where he was selected as one of the “14 Young Engineers of Tomorrow”. His father, Bala Bharadvaj, is the managing director of Boeing India. An hour after the successful deployment of the air force satellite around 10pm (IST) on Sunday, his mother Ramaa Bharadvaj tweeted: “My son, Siva, is once again face of SpaceX as he co-hosts the international webcast of the Falcon-9 as it takes into space a GPS satellite for the US Air Force. Yayyy!”

On December 5, 2018, SpaceX launched a satellite ExceedSat-1, designed in Mumbai and integrated in Hyderabad, which is mainly for the benefit of ham radio operators.

SpaceX’s ties with India is not restricted to rockets and satellites alone. Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone had, a few days ago, reacted to SpaceX chief Elon Musk’s tweet about ‘Bajirao Mastani’. Elon shared the song ‘Deewani Mastani’ and a GIF featuring Ranveer Singh.

Indian Domestic Airlines Carry 11.5% More Passengers in Nov 2018

GoAir reported the best on-time performance in the month of November 2018. The domestic airlines flew 1.16 crore passengers in November registering a year on year growth of 11.5 per cent over the 1.04 crore passengers flown by the industry in the same period last year.

The latest data released by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show that IndiGo topped the list with 50.06 lakh passengers. Jet Airways took the second position carrying 14.87 lakh passengers while SpiceJet carried 14.55 lakh passengers giving it the third spot.

Air India flew 14.18 lakh passengers, GoAir (10.19 lakh), AirAsia (6.18 lakh), Vistara (4.15 lakh) and JetLite (1.75 lakh) during November.

SpiceJet reported the highest Passenger Load Factor (PLF) among all domestic carriers at 91.1 per cent followed by GoAir (87.6 per cent), AirAsia (86.5 per cent) and IndiGo (84.9 per cent). Passenger load factor shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled.

GoAir reported the best on-time performance (OTP) at 87 per cent at the four metro airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Vistara at 86.1 per cent took the second position followed by IndiGo (79.2 per cent). Jet Airways, Jet Lite (76.6 per cent) and Air India reported an OTP of 64 per cent at the four airports.

The industry paid over ₹3.34 crore to the over 1.44 lakh passengers affected by cancellations, delays and those who were denied boarding in November this year. This includes paying over ₹1.5 crore to over 2,600 passengers from among the 1 lakh who were denied boarding. The industry also paid over ₹1.27 crore to over 1.15 lakh passengers affected by delays.

"Fall in oil prices and holiday sales by airlines will ensure stable airfares and will continue to shoulder the passenger traffic growth in the month of December,” said Aloke Bajpai, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder ixigo.

Yes Bank Unveils 20 Data Driven Products Co-Created with Data Scientists at Yes Datathon

Yes Bank conducted the finale of YES Datathon launched in September 2018 on December 22-23 in Bangalore. This was India’s first bank led Datathon aimed at augmenting Yes Bank’s embedded data analytics & ML units to drive rapid prototyping of AI/ML based products, optimize digital product suite, and enhance product/service design and delivery, in an accelerated 100 day period.

The initiative saw participation from over 6000 data scientists/engineers and developers who participated in diverse Machine Learning challenges. Some of the top models/products developed were based on:

·         Predictive service delivery to enable the bank to provide proactive service
·         Sales recommendation models
·         Customer Transaction Relation Graph, equivalent to a social network of transactions
·         Fraud Detection and analytics for card customer
·         Customer Sentiment Analysis to predict Customer engagement etc.
·         Customer 360 tool to provide comprehensive products & services to each customer
·         Personal Finance Management tool without requiring access to customer SMS

The top 200 teams comprised of students from top technology institutes like IIT Bombay, Chennai, Kharagpur and ISI Kolkata along with professionals from organizations like IBM, Walmart Labs, Siemens and Amazon Development Centre among others. The teams received support from over 20 data science experts from across industries who helped them in the product development process.

At the finale, the top 50 teams showcased their final models which were trained and tested on more than a terabyte of created and tokenized datasets - the 10 best solutions won cash prizes worth Rs.20 lakh. The winning team Oracle was adjudged ‘Data Wizards’, for creating a ‘360 degree model for profiling of every customer to predict next best action’. Team Insight from Sri Lanka was adjudged the best student team and was also one of the top 5 teams. This student team developed a model for ‘predicting customer product and service affinity’. The other teams in top 5 were Finance Data Dons, Reverse Atlas and Django Unchained, who presented models on Predictive Payments to create a Personal Finance and Investment Management Tool + POS Anomaly Detection, Creating a community akin to social media sites using transaction analysis and Predictive model for customer relationship managers to target existing and new customers using transaction nodes, respectively.

The top 20 models identified by the Bank will be taken live within a month and the remaining will be moved to the Bank’s product library to be iteratively developed and taken live within a period of three months. This will also be a first of its kind data product library which will be iteratively expanded to 100+ products within 6 months

Talking about the event, Rajat Monga, Senior Group President, Financial Markets, Yes Bank, said “Yes Bank embarked on a data centered business model as part of our TechTonic initiative and now has a full stack of technology and talent capability built up. In order to leap frog on this data native transformation, Yes Datathon provides us with an opportunity to engage with 6000+ data scientists. It has helped us identify newer use cases as well as statistical techniques and also incorporate cross-industry best practices.

Going forward, Yes Bank will also host AI/ML challenges and data engineering workshops to deepen practical and technical knowhow of future technology leaders and to facilitate this, has partnered with top IITs and BITS Bombay to further develop the data science ecosystem, allowing students the opportunity to build algorithms and data models in a deployment ready environment. The 6 Machine Learning challenges hosted in partnership with the IITs and BITS will lead up to Datathon 2019 to be hosted in June 2019.

Tata Motors on its Way to Win Sustainably in the Passenger Vehicle Business After a Successful 2018

The year 2018 has been a turning point in the history of Tata Motors’ passenger vehicle business with consecutive growth for 35 months. The PV business grew on the back of the new generation products. Commencing with the launch of two new platforms (ALFARC and OMEGARC) and the showcase of the H5X (now christened as Harrier) & 45X concept cars at the Auto Expo in February, 2018, this year was instrumental in paving the path towards enabling Tata Motors to be at the forefront of the Indian automotive industry. The company also introduced the new dual-architecture strategy, which will deliver 7-8 products/ variants from these two platforms ensuring greater coverage and sizable economies of scale.

Additionally, the rollout of the Turnaround 2.0 strategy, laid its focus on ‘winning sustainably’ in the PV Business. Acting as a catalyst, this strategy led to multiple wins for the PV business in this year.

Star launches:

The PV business witnessed a firework of four new product introductions during the festival season, which included the launch of the Nexon KRAZ, Tiago NRG, the all new Tigor and the JTP twins. Launched by JT Special Vehicles (JTSV), the 50:50 joint venture with Jayem Automotives and Tata Motors, the JTP range of performance vehicles – the Tiago JTP and the Tigor JTP are all set to bring back the ‘Joy of Motoring’ in everyday commute. In addition, this year the Nexon and the all new Tigor made their way into various international markets.

Aggressive Marketing Strategy:

In its constant effort to connect with younger consumer groups, this year the PV business fortified its brand presence across key marathon events. However, the highlight of the year was Tata Nexon’s association with VIVO Indian Premier League as their official partner. This year witnessed many strategic digital campaigns that resulted in optimum brand buzz and created more excitement for new products. Additionally, experiential marketing played a key role in increasing customer engagements. Adding some style to the year, Tata Motors also signed-up the popular Bollywood superstar - Hrithik Roshan as the brand ambassador for its all-new stylish sedan, the Tata Tigor. This and lot more led to an improvement of the PV brand in its Net Promoter Score from -1 to +18 this year.

Incredible performance by the manufacturing plants:

The Company’s plants too made it really proud this year, as they continued operating at their optimum levels. While the Ranjangaon plant rolled out its 50,000th Nexon in August, Sanand kept bettering its own record for the highest ever production since its inception. Rolling out its 50,000th passenger vehicle in October 2018, the Sanand plant not only won the Best Plant Safety Performance Award but also received CII’s Greenco Platinum certification.

In addition to the above, for the upcoming, born of pedigree product, the Harrier, Tata Motors set up a new, world-class assembly line in the Pune facility under JLR’s guidance for ensuring high levels of dimensional accuracy and build quality. Top of the line international manufacturing practices like geo pallets, inline measuring robots, MFDC controlled welding, Bosch timers and JLR NUMMI process will ensure every Harrier rolled out from assembly line follows stringent quality standards. With close to 95% automation level, the Harrier assembly line uses 100 ABB & KUKA robots.

Increasing network footprint:

With a renewed focus on increasing its footprint, Tata Motors has currently activated 27 new dealerships in its top 20 serviceable markets with another 17 more under activation. In Kerala and Maharashtra alone, 7 new dealerships each were added. Additionally, in a recently concluded event, the Company also added 6 new dealerships in the state of Rajasthan in a day – the fastest expansion drive done by its PV Business in one day.

All this put together, Tata Motors has appointed an additional count of 59 dealerships and 142 Emerging Market Operations (EMOs) in 2018. These additions have helped the Company to expand its presence to an additional 90 cities this year. Adding to this, Tata Motors has also introduced the ‘Ashwamed Project’ in Uttar Pradesh - an upgradation of EMOs in Uttar Pradesh.

Constantly improving its customer service:

The PV Business constantly explored unique ways to build consumer loyalty. In an effort to do so, the business introduced 24x7 Road Side Assistance service which offers quick assistance to distressed customers within 45 mins. Thanks to the constant training and skilling sessions for its executives targeted at ensuring customer centricity, Tata Motors’ customers now attest to an informed and pleasant experience at the Company’s many dealerships. New digital intervention in customer service like introduction of the Service Buddy app (ready reckoner used by service advisors), Tata Motors Service Connect app (Customer App), Tata Motors Service application (Job card opening  app) were highly appreciated by customers. However, the proof of the pudding was when the PV business bagged the second spot for the second year running, this time doing even better – a clear second position in the JD Power CSI Study, 2018.

Commenting on the fruitful year gone by, Mayank Pareek, President – Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, (PVBU) Tata Motors, said, “We started the year on a high note, as we clocked the highest sales figures in 63 months in January 2018. Moving forward, this year witnessed an array of launches from the PV Business including four new product introductions during the festival season, which helped us to grow our volumes during what was a rather sluggish period for the entire auto industry. While we bucked the trend to a large extent, we have also felt the effects of a few adverse external economic factors, during the last few months. Not being deterred by these headwinds, our PV Business registered a remarkable improvement in brand perception in 2018 owing to our forward-looking market strategy, leaving the close competition significantly behind.

Having said that, we are happy to conclude this year with the unprecedented response by our customers and partners for the Harrier, at our nationwide preview events. With its launch scheduled for early 2019 and with the continuous love showered on our existing new generation product range by our customers, we will continue to strive towards driving volumes and increase our market share as part of our on-going Turnaround journey.”

Tata Motors has been steadily expanding its offerings in the Indian market and manufacturing best-in-class products with its advanced technological prowess. The business manifesto of the passenger vehicle business for 2018 was built on three strong pillars which include sales enhancement, cost reduction and operational efficiencies.

The Company is confident of capturing a larger pie of the domestic market next year by building on the already strong foundation it has laid in 2018. As a challenger brand, Tata Motors will strive to continue to outperform the market and aim to make the Company the most loved and cost-effective company in the world. In the words of Pareek “365 days bring with it 365 new opportunities.” Having said that, with a number of hits in 2018, Tata Motors is all geared to step up its game in 2019.

Police Officer from Muscat with Acute Heart Failure gets a Gift of Life at Narayana Health City

A 37 year old police officer from Oman, Muscat was suffering from chronic heart failure with frequent exacerbations and recurrent hospitalisations since the last 3 years. His search for quality treatment brought him to Narayana Health City, Bangalore. A comprehensive evaluation revealed that his left ventricular function was just 15% (Normal Left ventricular function is 55%). A cardiac catheterisation test was performed and based on the data, he was not a suitable candidate for cardiac transplantation. In view of his clinical condition, he was advised to undergo Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) implantation.

LVAD is a battery-operated, mechanical pump device that is surgically implanted. The LVAD device connects the patient’s failing left ventricle to the aorta. It draws out blood for the patient’s weakened left ventricle and pumps it into the patient’s aorta. An important pre-requisite for implantation of an LVAD is a normal right ventricular function, since the LVAD can support only the failing left ventricle. Patients who suffer from biventricular failure (failure of both left and right ventricles) are not suitable candidates for LVAD implantation and are advised to undergo BiVAD or Total artificial heart (TAH) surgery. This patient’s LVAD implantation surgery was successful and was funded by the Royal Oman Government.

Speaking about the case, Dr. Bagirath Raghuraman, MD, DM (Cardiology), Program Director Heart Transplant at Narayana Health City said, “Mechanical circulatory support devices have become important options in the management of both acute and chronic heart failure conditions. Its value can be gauged from the fact that it is available off the shelf at short notice and is lifesaving in those patients on life support equipment waiting for a donor heart. Apart from this, LVAD is also an option for heart failure patients who are at the other end of the spectrum who are not suitable for a heart transplant due to very high pulmonary artery pressures, like this patient. We are glad that this patient has responded very well to the LVAD device. His condition has improved dramatically from the time he was admitted and now he can manage his work on his own. We will continue to monitor the patient periodically”.

Dr. Julius Punnen, Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic and Transplant Surgeon at Narayana Health City who operated on this patient added “The worldwide prevalence of patients living with chronic heart failure is on a rise. With severe and chronic heart failure, the left ventricle weakens to the point that it can no longer pump enough blood on its own. Then we use LVAD to save these situations. The procedure to implant LVAD is complex and involves risks. However, LVAD can be lifesaving and can emerge as a ray of hope for many patients. We will monitor the patient periodically. Over a period of time, his pulmonary artery pressures will decrease and he may become suitable for a cardiac transplant”.

Dr. Varun Shetty, Consultant Cardiothoracic and Transplant Surgeon at Narayana Health City who also operated on this patient said “Since their inception, there have been marked improvements in the design and technology of the LVAD’s making them a reliable therapeutic option for patients with advanced heart failure. The LVAD’s available today are technologically far superior to their predecessors. A decade ago, LVAD’s required to be charged once in 4 hours. However, the LVAD’s available today can work up to 11 hours after a single battery charge” .

Sharing his experience the patient said, ‘Being a cop is tough and everyone looks up to you for inspiration. When I started having difficulty in managing my day to day work, my life became a living nightmare. Eventually, I could barely complete two sentences without becoming breathless and I needed constant help. Finding the right diagnosis, right doctor and correct treatment option was a tough task and I am grateful that I came to Narayana Health City.  Now after LVAD implantation, under the supervision of Dr. Bagirath and Dr. Julius and the entire team, I can independently perform all my daily routine tasks by myself and it has made me even more confident and optimistic towards life. ’

The biggest advantage of LVAD’s are that they are readily available when required, they do not require immunosuppressive medications or periodic cardiac biopsies and are extremely biocompatible thereby eliminating the risk of rejection.  The advent of mechanical circulatory support devices like the LVAD’s have not only made patients’ life easier but also helped them live a happy and fulfilling life. More importantly, they can live independently with dignity and perform most of their daily tasks without depending on others for help.

Tata Motors Launches the Sixth Season of Delight Star Scholarship Program

True to its moto of ‘Har Kadam Par Khushiyan’, Tata Motors has launched the Season-6 of Tata Delight Star Scholars, a recognition initiative for the children of Tata Motors customers under the Tata Delight loyalty program with a prize money of INR 25000. The company has also gone a step ahead and offered a special prize of 40 Tablets for female applicants based on their performance to encourage education for girl child.

This special program was designed to make a meaningful contribution towards the upliftment of the trucking profession, constantly striving to reward, recognize and delight the commercial vehicles customer, making every interaction a rewarding one.

Commenting on the program, R T Wasan, Head – Sales & Marketing, Tata Motors, said, “At Tata Motors, we strongly believe that education is a fundamental right of every child. Unfortunately, countless bright minds forego this basic right due to a lack of funds. Through this initiative, we wish to reward academic excellence and encourage children to pursue their career ambitions. With upcoming editions of the program, we aim to reach out to more families who require monetary assistance thereby making education more accessible.”

All Tata Delight members’ children are entitled to apply for the scholarship. To avail the scholarship, Tata Delight loyalty program members are required to fill a form and submit it along with the 10th or 12th standard mark sheets of the student and other relevant documents. The student must be between 14 and 20 years of age and have a total score of 70% or above. The applicants are shortlisted and the scholarships are distributed to the winners at Tata Motors dealerships across India.

Since its inception, the program over the last five editions has helped fulfill the dreams and aspirations of over 1,000 deserving children by ensuring that they receive adequate support to pursue their right to higher education. The company to date has granted scholarships to over 1000 students, amounting to approx Rs. 1.5 crores to all the beneficiaries. 

The Tata Delight Star Scholarship program is appreciated by customers as well as by the industry. In a segmented survey conducted, the beneficiaries of the prize money expressed their gratitude to Tata Motors for this initiative and claimed it was of great help in their child’s tuition fees in the subsequent academic year. The Tata Delight program won the Automotive Gold award at the DMAi Awards in 2014, the Order of Excellence award for Best Brand Loyalty Campaign by the Dragons of Asia in 2015 and Leader Certificate by the Direct Marketing Association, Asia in 2015.