Falabella Group and ThoughtWorks Partner to Accelerate the Digital Commerce Journey of Latin America’s Leading Integrated Retail Brand

Falabella Corporate Services India Pvt. Ltd., part of retail giant S.A.C.I. Falabella, South America’s largest integrated retailer partners with ThoughtWorks India, a global software consultancy to fast track the ecommerce platform of the Falabella Group. The strategic partnership will give Falabella competitive advantages of customized, scalable and a secure platform that will integrate with its existing systems.

In line with the Group’s aspirations of being a formidable digital commerce player in the countries it serves – Chile, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Mexico, Falabella Corporate Services India will drive data driven and personalized customer shopping experience through ThoughtWorks digital platform strategy. This transformative journey will champion rapid experimentation, adoption of innovation and leverage principles of agile software development, design thinking, data analytics, product thinking, elastic infrastructure and evolutionary architecture – this digital platform architecture will be core to the Group’s vision.

Ashish Grover, Head eCommerce for Falabella and India Technology Head, reflecting on the e-commerce market in Latin America, stated, “The LatAm e-commerce market is expected to grow dramatically to almost 80 billion USD this year. This is a huge opportunity for us given Falabella’s diverse portfolio, which includes departmental stores, commercial financing, banking services, home construction & improvement, real estate, travel and insurance. We are looking at an integrated digital retail approach and leveraging our omni-channel strategy that expands to financial products and payments. Our partnership with ThoughtWorks will give us the added impetus to accelerate our digital commerce journey to provide our end customers with a seamless shopping experience.”

Daniel Arancibia, Managing Director for Falabella Corporate Services India commented, “As a 130-year-old organization in retail, being customer-centric is deeply ingrained in our DNA. This collaboration with ThoughtWorks is yet another step forward to deliver better customer experiences and aligns with our overall digital strategy.

Sudhir Tiwari, Managing Director for ThoughtWorks India had this to say on the alliance with Latin America’s biggest retail player, “We are living in exciting times where India is spearheading global product thinking and engineering. And, now with Latin America opening up to technological investments in the subcontinent, we have the opportunity to partner with Falabella to deliver innovation and strategic competitive advantage. This partnership is a big win for Global inhouse centers (GICs), who are continuously evolving their structures and operating models to keep moving up the value chain in their global partnerships.”

Jayesh Ghatge, Market Partner for ThoughtWorks India added by saying, “Falabella is one of the market leaders in the retail space in Latin America and are on the cusp of an ambitious digital transformation journey that will deliver unique customer experiences across their entire portfolio of companies. Couple that with ThoughtWorks’ global expertise in retail and digital platform strategy and product innovation, and we have a winning combination. The Latin American giant’s partnership with ThoughtWorks will usher Falabella into a data-led Intelligent Enterprise of the future.”

IAF Given Full Charge Of Selection And Training Of 10 "Vyomnauts" For Gaganyaan Mission

As India treads a step closer to unfurling the country’s flag in a manned mission to space ‘Gaganyaan’, the Indian Space Research Organization has tasked the Indian Air Force with the selection and training of the Gagannauts.

The Gaganyaan mission, as it's called, will launch from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh sometime in 2022.

It will carry a three-man team of "Vyomnauts" into low-earth orbit, where they will stay for at least a week, and then return them to Earth for debriefing. The mission will use India's GSLV Mk III three-stage rocket and will be a collaborative effort between ISRO and other national agencies.

ISRO is taking help of the IAF to train 10 crew members of the country’s first human space flight programme.

ISRO Chairman, K Sivan informed media that they have finalized all the criteria and requirements for crew selection and training. The same has been submitted to the IAF.  The air force has now been given the full task of selection and training of the crew. The first two levels of training of the crew will happen at the IAF’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine (Bengaluru) and the final phase of training will be abroad.” he was quoted as saying.

He said that ISRO wants IAF to train at least 10 candidates out of which three will be selected for the maiden space journey. While there were reports last year that countries like France and Russia were extending their support to the mission.

It was reported that the French space agency, CNES will be combining their expertise in fields of space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems to train future astronauts.

However, Sivan has said that no final call regarding crew training abroad has been taken so far. Meanwhile, on February 08, Hindustan Times had reported the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) was planning to collaborate with ISRO to develop an aerospace medicine soon.

Lieutenant General Bipin Puri, the Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services told HT, “It (Gaganyaan) is an important event for all of us and hence steps towards developing the aviation medicines will be undertaken soon at the Bangalore-based laboratory.”

Reportedly, IAM (Institute of Aerospace Medicine) is affiliated to the Armed Forces Medical Services. The Institute provided medical support to the Indo-Soviet Manned Space Flight programme from 1982. Today, the Institute is the nodal agency in India for providing the best solutions in the fields of Aerospace Medicine. Recognized by the US and Russian Space Agencies, IAM has become the premier aeromedical centre in this part of the world.

To avoid endangering human lives in the first space manned mission, ISRO will conduct two unmanned missions before the final mission and will carry humanoids, a robot that resembles a human being.

While the first unmanned test flight will be carried out in December 2020, the second unmanned test will take place six months later in July 2021. Finally, the human space flight will be launched in December 2021.

If this mission succeeds, India will join an exclusive group of countries that have put humans into space. We'll be just the fourth behind Russia, the US, and China.

“meformycity”: An Initiative by Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance

Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance launched its “meformycity” initiative in Bengaluru. The initiative which promises to make our cities cleaner and beautiful through graffiti art held at 135/3, Vijaya Arcade, Lalbagh Road, Bengaluru.

One of its kind, the initiative reached its mid-leg in Bengaluru this year, after illustrating graffiti's at some of the busiest walls of Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai and Mohali (Punjab).

Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance has taken this step to sensitize civilians about how a simple depiction & expression of the great Indian spirit on the walls of our cities can induce us in making our environment a better & cleaner place. The Company also revealed graffiti’s across two other locations – Kochi and Chennai.

Mr. Anuj Mathur, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance said, “We take pride in doing our bit for the society and are also humbled by the phenomenal response by our audience. This has allowed us to be responsible and simultaneously connect with our audience in a better way.   We as a company encourage everyone in the organization to participate and do their bit to implement sustainable practices and make a positive impact for the environment. We also recognize the importance of educating people and keep doing awareness campaigns and employee volunteering activities to support the environment around the year.”

Ms. Tarannum Hasib, Chief Distribution Officer, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance said, “Our promise has been to leave a legacy behind, where the society at large can come together and contribute towards making our cities cleaner & beautiful. We are extremely proud of hosting this initiative in Chennai and celebrating the great Indian sprit on the walls of Chennai, Bangalore & Kochi”.

Till date Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance has covered more than 10,000 square feet in creating graffiti across 7 Indian cities which have left an immense impact in creating awareness on cleanliness and making our environment a better place to live.

The company has partnered with Radio Mirchi to create outreach campaigns on Radio and reach the audience digitally.

Smartrac and Sasken Announce IoT Solutions Alliance to Brands, Retail, Industrial and Logistics Sectors

Smartrac Technology Group, a global market leader in RFID products and IoT solutions, and Sasken Technologies Ltd. (formerly Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd.), a leading product engineering and digital transformation services provider, today announced a strategic technology partnership for IoT solutions. Both companies will bring in their respective capabilities to deliver market-ready IoT solutions to drive value in operations, supply chain and customer engagement focusing on brand owners, retailers, and the industrial and logistics sectors.

Following the announcement, Dinesh Dhamija, Chief Technology Officer and Member of the Management Board, Smartrac, said, “The combination of Smartrac’s industry-leading RFID transponder technology, our innovative Smart Cosmos® solutions platform and Sasken’s strong services delivery expertise brings unequaled new capabilities to the global market for companies looking to optimize supply chains, enhance customer engagement, and drive efficiencies across their value ecosystem. We look forward to rapidly delivering innovation in the IoT sector with this new level of performance and operational excellence.”

“Through our collaboration we will make our customers’ products and assets smarter, enabling enhanced and improved performance across all aspects of our customers’ businesses, leveraging the latest innovations in IoT technology,” said Raman Sapra, Executive VP and General Manager-Digital, Sasken. “We will use Smartrac’s solutions platform Smart Cosmos and IoT capabilities along with our Digital services capabilities in Cloud, IoT, Mobile Apps and Analytics to deliver innovative industry-specific applications that enable our customers to realize the value of digital,” he added.

Smartrac and Sasken will jointly leverage their strengths in IoT innovation to continue to provide innovative, breakthrough solutions for consumer brands and retailers as well as industrial and logistic segments.

TKM’s Road Safety Education Program Instills ‘Safe Road Behavior’, Develops Young ‘Road Safety Ambassadors’ across India

Reiterating its strong commitment towards Road Safety, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, has organized a national platform on road safety for the state level winners with an aim to evaluate the real-time learnings and applications by the students. ‘Toyota Safety Education Program’ (TSEP) is an interactive learning program targeted at school children between the age group of 10-14 years educating them on the importance of road safety through a phase-wise approach. 

This unique program is aimed at enhancing the level of awareness and instill responsible behavior amongst school children on road safety. Toyota aims at inculcating the road safety culture in school children from class 5th to 9th through various methodologies like classroom sessions and practical demonstrations. The awareness and behavioral change are evaluated through various competitions namely quiz, project work and skit performances.

The event was graced by Mr. Eish Singhal, Deputy Commissioner of Police - Delhi Traffic Police; Mr. Ramdeep Choudhary, Deputy Secretary (MoRTH), Mr. Kamal Singh, Executive Director - UNGCNI [UN Global Compact Network India] in the presence of the senior representative from Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Mr. Naveen Soni, Vice President.

The Toyota Safety Education Programme – TSEP was initiated in 2007 followed by the new module roll-out in 2008 through a national launch across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore. The new TSEP module is focused on bringing in attitudinal change amongst school children. It is a step wise approach, a slow introduction of the concept to school children aiming for better retention of the awareness on important aspects of road safety. The program is an age group wise distribution of the know - how on road safety to children [Grade 5th – 8th].

Specific to Grade 9, the students are encouraged to take up project-based activities [on voluntarily basis] well-guided by teachers with an aim to educate the general public on road safety. As a part of the learning program, children are engaged in mimes, slogan writing, drawing competition, class room sessions, quiz competitions, manning traffic junctions, teaching the learnings of TSEP to the junior class children and nearby schools. The emphasis is to demonstrate the projects on road safety in various platforms like parents – teacher meet, school assembly, public areas. All these activities are undertaken under the active leadership of the respective teachers from the school under the guidance of Toyota and implementing partner. Through these various measures, Toyota aims to influence the general public and the families of the children, setting an example through the actions of younger safety ambassadors. 

Key Highlights of TSEP Module:
• A comprehensive program covering wide array of topics pertaining to road safety
• Causes of road accidents
• First & How to respond during emergencies
• Road Etiquettes
• Civic Sense
• Maintenance of the vehicle
• Safety rules to be followed while using public transport or school bus.
• Safety rules for cyclists, pedestrians and two-wheeler drivers
• Importance of traffic rules to be followed
• Consequences of traffic rule violation
• Minimum age of driving/riding, documents to be kept while driving & other aspects

*According to a recent study conducted by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, road accidents claimed 1,50,000 lives during 2018 in India and 400 deaths every day on Indian roads, which further translates into 57 accidents and loss of 17 lives every hour [on an average] in our country. [*Source: MoRTH].

Expressing his views on this occasion, Naveen Soni, Vice President of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, said, “We are happy to see such enthusiasm and participation among school children. Through these fun and innovative sessions, our endeavor is to inculcate the safety concept in the young minds. We, at Toyota, believe that Education is the most effective way to bring in a constructive change in the society. Being safety leader, we strive to ensure safety of every road user be it driver or pedestrian.  As we believe, children are the future of our country, our aim is to develop them to be the ‘Road Safety Ambassadors’ & advocate the safety cause to tackle one of the grave national issues.

Our key objective is to bring a self-transformation amongst the school children by raising safety awareness through this TSEP program and at the same time bring in a large societal change through their safe actions at road.

Being a responsible auto manufacturer, our focus is not only on manufacturing safe cars, but also to bring positive behavioural change in the society towards safe road practices. Our safety approach being 3-dimensional, focuses towards Safer Cars-Safe Driving-Safe Environment. We acknowledge the support from the Traffic Police and Schools for their dedicated support towards this road safety campaign”. He added.

Safety has been the DNA of Toyota and of prime importance. TKM adopts a holistic safety approach - Manufacturing Safe Cars, Developing Safe Drivers & Building Safer Environment.

Safe Drive: TKM started the awareness program on road safety to school children from 2007 onwards towards creating responsible road users [be it a driver or pedestrian] and develop them as change agents to influence the society’s road behavior in a broader sense. Other than TSEP, many other road safety interventions are being implemented in a phased manner, namely:

- Team Toyota Activity (TTA) - Educates and sensitizes school children, teachers, parents and school bus drivers on responsible safety habits and ensure a safer traffic environment for the next generation. Aims at creating Safety Ambassadors in schools by creating Safety zone & Safety Park within school, implementing an interactive learning program [TSEP], training of school vehicle drivers and creation of safety group in the school, launched six safety model schools until now, enabling children to gain the practical experience to follow road rules

- Toyota’s Road Safety Hackathon - a piolet project where more than 90 schools from the Delhi-NCR took part with over 300 registered teams covering 600 students’ participation. Under its Hackathon initiative, Toyota invites & incubates soft ideas of young minds to drive the road safety mission with an ultimate goal of achieving “Zero Fatality”, covering Grades 9th - 12th in association with Indian Road Safety Campaign [IRSC – an NGO formed by IIT students]. Key focus to motivate & unleash the hidden talents, provides a platform for young minds towards “India Road Safety Mission”. The focus was on 3 dimensional themes – Educate on Driver Behavior, Enforcement on Fraud Detection & Infrastructure to build bad roads

- TKM conducted Driver Training Programs & Health Check-Up Camps for Airport taxi drivers in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi International Airport since 2014, on road safety awareness with over 5,000 drivers participating in the campaign till date. Through this initiative Toyota aims at creating a strong road safety sense amongst the drivers and encourage them to adopt safer driving practices.


Safest Cars: The recently launched Toyota Yaris is the first car in its segment to offer 7 SRS airbags – (D+P airbags, Side airbags, Curtain Shield Airbags (CSA) and knee airbag) across all its variants. Combined with other best- in-class safety features such as Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS) with Electronic Brake Distribution (EBD), Vehicle Stability Control, Hill Start Assist control & ISOFIX Child Seats, we yet again set new safety benchmark in the Indian car industry. Testament to its unbeaten safety features, Toyota Yaris recently received 5-star safety ratings from the New Car Assessment Program for Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN NCAP).

Safer Environment: Some of the company’s CSR interventions, engages its employees - voluntarily contributing to the cause of Road Safety [under one of its key CSR pillars]. Under its recent road safety initiative, the employees built basic road safety requirements in prime road junctions of Bangalore city with a view to avoid road related risks as a preventive measure by enabling good road infrastructure through installation of road safety - Sign Boards, Solar Blinkers, Cat Eyes Reflectors, Convex Mirrors at turns, etc. Also, clean-up of flyover cross junctions also contributed to enhanced safety for the road users under ICARE program.

Toyota remains committed as Safety Leader and will continues its safety journey to become the most admired company by offerings best-in-class safety technology through its products and further promote safety culture in the society via varied road safety campaigns in the nation.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor, through its varied CSR projects, has touched more than 11,00,000 lives until now. Toyota further aims to continue its CSR journey through sustainable and scalable measures for the development of socio-economic stature of the society & make a difference in each one’s well-being.

Acer Unveils Sleek Chromebases for Remote Video Conferencing in Indian Market

Acer has launched two sleek Chromebases — the Acer Chromebase for Meetings 24V2 for video conferencing with Google Hangouts Meet, and the Acer Chromebase 24I2, a Chrome device, either as an individual desktop working device or as an in-store kiosk.

The Acer Chromebase for Meetings 24V2 helps businesses to remotely collaborate and engage with colleagues and customers as though they were in the same room. Users can make conference calls arranged and scheduled using Gmail and Google Calendar, or simply by clicking a shareable link.

It supports up to 25 callers out of the box through Google Hangouts Meet, up to 50 callers with Google’s G Suite Business, and up to 100 callers with G Suite Enterprise.

The Acer Chromebase for Meetings 24V2 features a large 24-inch Full HD adjustable touch display, providing 250 nits of brightness for a clear video.

The integrated 5MP wide-angle webcam accommodates groups in large or small rooms. They have dual microphones and two stereo speakers for sharper audio. It boots up in seconds and provides video conferences that runs smooth thanks to an 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8550U processor, 4GB DDR4 RAM, and a 32GB SSD.

The Acer Chromebase 24I2 can be deployed as a customer self-service tool placed in storefronts, in-store kiosks, hotel lobbies, supermarkets, and other businesses with customer-facing scenarios. Businesses will appreciate the faster boot times, increased security, easier network and cloud management and applications that can be accessed and opened faster, the company said in a release.

The new Acer Chromebase 24I2 is also ideal for today’s higher education classrooms, computer labs or school libraries as public sharing desktop PCs.

It will support Google Play at launch, apps load faster, graphics run faster and tasks can be run simultaneously without lag with an 8th Gen Intel Core processor, up to 8GB DDR4 RAM, and up to 128GB SSDs.

The Full HD 1920x1080 IPS narrow bezel touch display for both models is anti-glare and capable of tilting between -5 and 25 degrees. They each include a USB 3.1 Type-C connector, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, HDMI, SD card reader, and RJ45 ports for lag-free video conferencing.

Vodafone Idea Plans Rs 20k Crore Investment for Network Expansion Across India

The country’s largest telecom firm Vodafone Idea is planning to invest around Rs 20,000 crore in networks over the next 15 months, according to company officials.

“We have given capex of Rs 27,000 crore for financial year 2019 and financial year 2020, combined together. Out of that, roughly Rs 7,000 crore has been spent in first nine months. In next 15 months we are looking at capex deployment of Rs 20,000,” Vodafone CFO Akshaya Moondra told analysts in a tele-conference.

The company is also planning to raise Rs 25,000 crore through rights issue, in which the promoter shareholders -- Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group -- have reiterated to the board that they intend to contribute up to Rs 11,000 crore and Rs 7,250 crore, respectively as part of such rights issue. The promoter shareholders have also said that in case the rights issue is under-subscribed, each of the promoter shareholders reserves the right to subscribe to part or whole of the unsubscribed portion.

Moondra told analysts that the capex guidance of Rs 27,000 crore does not include capacity that will be created by reusing equipment from the synergy of operations between Vodafone and Idea, which is estimated to be valued at around Rs 6,200 crore.

When contacted, Vodafone Idea confirmed investment details and said “capacity creation on account of consolidation of spectrum is over and above capacity creation with the above two categories of fresh capex and redeployed equipment”.