Paytm Revamps UI with Stay at Home Essential Payments; Launches COVID-19 Information Centre

Highlights

* Streamlines recharge, utility, credit card, insurance premium, groceries & medicines payments
* Launches Information Centre with social media feeds of the government, health authorities and various ministers providing verified information instantly
* Introduces COVID-19 self-assessment scanning in association with Apollo 24/7

In a bid to make consumers life simpler during the lockdown, Paytm, India’s largest digital payments and financial services company have revamped its app UI with a 'Stay at home Essential payments'. The platform has streamlined payments such as mobile & DTH recharge, electricity, water, gas, credit card, insurance premium among others which millions of Indians are now conveniently paying from their home.

Paytm has also introduced an 'Information and Help centre' on its app under its #IndiaFightsCorona section to offer verified information directly from the government bodies and health authorities. It features their twitter feed along with important helpline numbers. This section has a COVID-19 self-assessment scanning powered by Apollo 24/7 developed on the basis of guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. While this scan cannot be taken as expert medical advice, it helps people to understand if someone is potentially at risk of suffering from the virus. It asks a set of questions to give a user an idea of how much at risk can they be from the virus.

Amit Veer, Sr. Vice President - Paytm said, "Our team has taken work from home as an opportunity to understand how we can help our fellow countrymen. We have revamped the Paytm app so that people can easily spot the essential payments icon and do not have to step out of home & take a risk of getting infected. We have also introduced an Information & Help Centre on COVID-19 so that people do not fall prey to ‘unsubstantiated information being circulated on social media or chat groups. With the help of our self-assessment tool, users can check their risk factor towards this virus and take the necessary precautions to remain safe.”

The company is also seeking contributions for PM CARES (Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund) on the Paytm app. It is aiming to contribute Rs. 500 crore to the relief fund. For every contribution or any other payment made on Paytm using the wallet, UPI and Paytm Bank debit card, the company will contribute an extra upto Rs 10. The PM CARES Fund is exempt under the Income Tax Act, 1961 under Section 10 and 139 for return purposes. Contributions towards PM-CARES are notified for 100 percent deduction from taxable income under section 80(G) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

Airtel and Juggernaut Announce "FREE Access to Thousands of e-Books" on Juggernaut Books

Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest integrated telco enabled FREE access to thousands of titles on its e-books platform – Juggernaut Books (formerly known as Airtel Books) for all its customers.

As India stays at home to support the Government’s efforts to contain the spread of #COVID-19, readers can now access thousands of top books and novels on Juggernaut Books (formerly known as Airtel Books) for FREE by simply downloading the app (Android/iOS) on their smartphones.

Says Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel, “In these unprecedented times, Airtel and Juggernaut are trying to make sure that people have more options to stay engaged as they observe social distancing. And what’s better than getting back to reading. At Airtel, we will continue to innovate and bring exciting digital content to customers across our platforms.” 

Adds Chiki Sarkar, Co-Founder, Juggernaut Books said: “We set up juggernaut to find a new kind of reading and a new kind of reader for a changing India. That’s why we felt very strongly about doing something original and imaginative with the coronavirus and the country going in lockdown and people spending more time on their screens.”

Juggernaut Books offers e-books and novels across a wide range of genres – love and romance, business, history and politics, fitness, diet, spirituality and classics.

Top titles on Juggernaut Books include:

    •   The CEO Factory by Sudhir Sitapati
    •   Bottle of Lies by Katherine Eban
    •   Early Indians by Tony Joseph
    •   Mind Without Fear by Rajat Gupta
    •   Pyjamas are Forgiving by Twinkle Khanna
    •   12 Week Fitness Project by Rujuta Diwekar
    •   Kohinoor by William Dalrymple
    •   Century is not Enough by Sourav Ganguly
    •   Good Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Airtel acquired a strategic stake in Juggernaut in 2017 and is committed to expanding the reach of this fast growing digital publishing platform. Juggernaut has recently launched a path breaking campaign #readinstead with the aim to push people into reading. It is also organizing an innovative online literary festival as part of its efforts to promote reading. The online lit fest will see participation from Juggernaut’s top authors.

As part of its content portfolio, Airtel also offers over 10,000 movies and shows plus LIVE TV to its customers on Airtel Xstream app and over 4 million songs and curated music on Wynk Music.

Virtual School Solution Powered by Next Education’s Learning Platform is the Key to Continuous Learning Amid COVID-19

The end-to-end K-12 education solutions provider steps forward to ensure uninterrupted learning and seamless academic operations through Next Learning Platform

With the increase in COVID-19 cases throughout India, the Government has imposed a total lockdown across India. As a result, disruption to the education industry has been unprecedented with school closures, suspended academic operations and inadequacy of platform to conduct online classes. Considering this situation, Next Education India Pvt. Ltd., India’s leading education solutions provider, has stepped forward to help schools with the transition from offline to online academics operations through the 'Next Learning Platform', a school-in-a-box solution/an integrated solution to facilitate remote learning and academic operations without any hindrance.

Next Education strives to make academic operations and the K–12 learning environment more interactive, creative and engaging by offering its integrated learning platform, Next Learning Platform, comprising NextERP, NextLMS including Live Lectures, NextAssessment, content access at home and leading state boards’ content in vernacular and different languages.

In the wake of COVID-19 and to ensure that academic operations don’t get hampered, Next Education is offering a free subscription of Next Learning Platform to its partner schools till April 30, 2020.

With an emphasis on providing continuous learning and seamless academic operations, it is necessary for educational institutions in the country to adopt online learning solutions. Next Learning Platform offers NextERP for managing school operations and communications, NextLMS to empower teachers to create lesson plans, assign and track homework and conduct live lectures. Through live lectures, teachers create a virtual classroom via the internet to facilitate long-distance learning. Students can revisit the recorded sessions as many times they want and also receive real-time notifications about the sessions. Teachers can also conduct live online doubt sessions.

NextAssessment is a powerful tool that allows teachers to create assessments using the automatic assessment generator, assign adaptive tests and give personalised feedback to students. Our award-winning digital content is aligned with NextCurriculum and TeachNext content. The digital content is available across ICSE, CBSE, IGCSE and 29 state boards in 7 different languages.

Speaking on how to overcome the disruption in education, Mr. Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO and Co-Founder, Next Education said, “Through Next Learning Platform, our mission is to enable schools to take a step forward in the right direction so that their academic operations are not hampered amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Our ‘school-in-a-box’ platform allows schools to run a virtual school through various tools like NextERP, NextLMS, live lectures, online classes and more.” Mr. Ralhan further added, “With an emphasis on ensuring providing uninterrupted academic operations, it is all the more necessary for educational institutions in the country to adopt online learning platforms. Live Lecture replicates the actual classroom environment, thereby instilling enthusiasm and interest among students to learn and attend classes regularly.”

Various schools across the country are utilising different tools to ensure continuous academic operations. Dr. Roopa Marwaha Bhalla, Principal, RPS International School, Gurgaon says, “The only medium of conducting classes in this lockdown situation is the Live Lectures. We hope at least 60% of the students start taking advantage of it. If parents take it seriously, we can make it 100% successful. This transition from offline to online learning will help schools to a great extent.”

Schools across India have adopted the Next Learning Platform to ensure the safety of their students as well as educators amid the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby ensuring a seamless transition from offline to online academic operations.

Hero Group Pledges Rs 100 Crore Towards Covid-19 Relief Efforts

Highlights

* OFFERS TO DEPLOY MODIFIED MOTORCYCLES AS TWO-WHEELER AMBULANCE IN RURAL AREAS
* TO DISTRIBUTE MASKS, SANITIZERS, GLOVES, MASKS & 100 VENTILATORS
* DISTRIBUTING MORE THAN 10,000 MEALS EVERYDAY

The Hero Group has pledged Rs 100 Crore as aid for the ongoing COVID-19 relief-efforts in India. Half of this sum, Rs 50 Crore, will be contributed to the PM-Cares Fund and the remaining Rs 50 crore will be spent in other relief efforts.

The Hero Group (BML Munjal family) companies contributing to this fund include Hero MotoCorp, Hero FinCorp, Hero Future Energies, Rockman Industries and Hero Electronix.

Hero Enterprise and AG Industries have also contributed to this fund.

Dr. Pawan Munjal said, “Our country, and indeed the entire world, is currently facing an unprecedented challenge in the form of COVID-19. In such critical times, it is of utmost importance and urgency that we all come together and support the marginalized sections of the society, along with those who are in dire conditions. In the extended Hero family, we are humbled in making this contribution, partially to the PM-Cares Fund and remaining towards relief efforts through other channels. I also urge the citizens of our country to support the Prime Minister and local authorities by staying home and help in stopping the spread of the pandemic coronavirus.”

Milaap Enables Unity to Stay Safe Against Pandemic Covid-19

Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has infected more than 3.75 lakh people worldwide, killing more than 16,300. In India alone, it has so far caused 10 deaths and infected at least 500 people as of 25th March 2020. In the past week, several states across India have put safety first by closing down schools, colleges, malls, theatres, restaurants, shops and non-essential workplaces, recommending working from home where possible. The nation is now under a lockdown for 21 days.

However, there are many people in our society like doctors, nurses, delivery staff, conservancy workers (garbage/waste segregators) and field volunteers, among others, still working tirelessly to ensure our societal needs are met: often at the risk of their personal safety.  Moreover, with the increasing number of people being tested positive worldwide, it’s also important to remember that not everyone can remain in quarantine without their lives being completely upturned. The financial impact of the pandemic, especially on blue-collar workers and families that survive on a daily wage, is far reaching.

This Sunday, on March 22 2020, Milaap, South Asia’s largest crowdfunding platform, opened itself up for fundraisers around Covid-19. In an attempt to help those whose lives have been worst affected by the pandemic, a separate page, milaap.org/covid19 has been launched. The causes range from providing essentials to nearby slums in bigger cities to equipping doctors/their social initiatives with protective gear, and even ventilators for smaller hospitals without the facility. While renowned people like Luis Miranda and Venkat Iyer have set up fundraisers on one hand, there are many regular individuals who are raising funds to support particular families in distress around them. In the spirit of global solidarity, Milaap has waived off their platform fee completely for all fundraisers under this cause.

Mayukh Choudhury, CEO and co-founder of Milaap said, “This crowdfunding project is to highlight citizen initiatives across India to mitigate the economic crisis faced by vulnerable families, as well as support those who are in the frontlines, with the monetary resources they deserve. Our larger objective is to inspire each one of us to look within our circles, our neighborhoods, and support the vulnerable in this hour of need. While it might take a while to get back to normalcy, even small acts of kindness can make this easier.”

“We have always stood by communities during natural calamities and disasters. This is no different. In this digital era, generosity can flow unhinged even when physical infrastructure crumbles. Many of our donors have reached out to us for verified, credible avenues to express their support for citizen-led fundraising initiatives. Within 2 days, nearly 2000 donors have supported fundraisers under the cause and the number is rising as we speak. Since the only way to fight a crisis at this scale is to do it together, Milaap is doing it’s best so that people can help each other. On our end, we are offering the platform at a 0% fee so that people in need can get all the help coming their way.” he added.

Milaap, a crowdfunding platform primarily for personal medical causes has so far raised nearly 10 Crores from 40,000+ donors for such emergency causes and disaster relief, including the floods in Chennai, Assam and Kerala. While the platform can only extend support for causes in India, fundraisers can accept help from anywhere across the world.

There are 3 ways to participate

Make a donation to any of the campaigns listed at milaap.org/covid19
Start your own fundraiser for someone who’s been affected by the crisis. It could be an individual (eg your household help, an office colleague) or a neighborhood initiative (eg local restaurant, school meals program).  Rally your friends, neighbors and colleagues to contribute. Fundraising is free - there are NO charges on donations received.
Get inspired and do it in your circle (family/neighbors) supporting a vulnerable family directly.

TKM Extends Support to Partners, Announces Unique Sustenance Packages for its Dealer Network

In its determined endeavors to counter the repercussions brought about by COVID-19 and the nationwide lockdown that followed, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) today, announced Dealer Support Package - ‘COVID Package’ for its associates in order to support and protect their interests. This unique package will provide necessary assistance to the dealer partners to overcome the lockdown phase, ensuring their safety and wellbeing during these uncertainties.

The dealer support package called the “COVID Package” is designed after careful evaluation of individual dealerships’ customized internal processes and fixed cost thus allowing them optimum utilization of the benefits. The primary objective of the package is to ensure liquidity to well sustain the business during the lockdown thus protecting dealer partners for approximately 38 to 75 days based on individual dealer overheads by giving cash flow support that will help them sail through these perilous times.

The COVID package ranges from immediate settlement of any dealer claims to inventory interest subsidy for vehicles in dealer stock and spare parts payment deferment amongst host of other supports. Besides, TKM is working with its finance partners for a one-time reduction of inventory funding interest at this unprecedented situation.

Expressing his views on this initiative, Mr. Naveen Soni, Senior Vice President, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “At Toyota, we believe that our stakeholders, dealer partners and their employees are the most important assets and their safety and wellbeing is of utmost importance to us. This pandemic has financially impacted all our dealerships across India because cash inflow has become zero. While the Government has announcement several relief measures including moratoriums, we have also studied the fixed cost expenses of dealerships and have come up with a relief package called the COVID package to assist in maintaining liquidity to improve cash flow. We hope to emerge stronger from this crisis, together.”

TKM has been taking effective measures to battle the ramifications of the outbreak with the safety and security of its stakeholders as a cornerstone in its decision making. TKM wholeheartedly appreciates the measures taken by the Government and will continue to support them by implementing impactful initiatives to deal with this crisis.

OYO Partners with Apollo Hospitals to Offer Support for Quarantine Facilities Across India

Highlights

* Partners with Apollo Hospitals in the fight against Covid-19 to develop isolation rooms in OYO hotels, under medical supervision in 6 cities as part of Apollo’s Project Stay I (Stay Isolated)
* Owing to SBI & HUL’s CSR efforts, Apollo Hospitals will provide 50% of category 1 rooms of OYO for free of cost to those who cannot afford
* OYO also offers accommodation to frontline medical staff, aircrew, corporates, tourists, PGs etc stranded in the nationwide lockdown

OYO, one of the world’s leading hotel chains today announced that it has been working closely with Apollo Hospitals to develop and support accommodation requirements of suspected Covid19 patients requiring quarantine/self-isolation. This is part of Project Stay I (Stay isolated) where Apollo hospitals are partnering with select hotel brands to create isolation rooms in hotels with light medical supervision for quarantine and creating a barrier before people come into the hospitals. The objective is to create isolation and quarantine facilities away from the main hospitals in cities across the country and reduce the burden on hospitals providing acute care.

As part of the partnership envisaged, OYO is offering sanitised beds and facilities in certain Covid19 exclusive hotels it's identified within its network in the proximity of Apollo Hospitals in 6 cities namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata for the purposes of self-quarantine and isolation for suspected Covid19 patients that require medical observation and supervision.  Starting with hotels in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, Delhi is the next city that OYO will be assisting Apollo Hospitals in.

As more and more private hospitals and institutions join the fight against coronavirus in India, Apollo Hospitals and OYO are helping develop safe, hygienic quarantine facilities that act as necessary extensions of hospitals and support the requirements of the health ministry and medical fraternity at this time. The pricing of this has been developed in consultation with Apollo Hospitals so that the pay-per-use facilities are both affordable and accessible while assuring the requisite medical care. SBI & HUL are also directing their CSR efforts to support 50% stays in category 1 rooms i.e. OYO for those patients that cannot afford it. This includes the cost of lodging, medical care, WIFI. The rooms will be booked through Apollo Hospitals and will not be available for booking through the OYO app so as to ensure pre-booking medical consultation.

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO said, “We want to work with state governments and private institutions to problem solve and assist in the fight against COVID-19. Our partnership with Apollo Hospitals has been developed to ensure we utilise capacity where possible to create highly sanitised pay per use quarantine facilities under the guidance and supervision of medical professionals. This is an unprecedented situation which requires all of us to find new ways to work together and rise to the occasion. We are thankful for the support of SBI, HUL, our asset owners and frontline teams that are making this possible”

The company is focusing on a two-pronged strategy to minimise the possibility of infection and maximise social distancing and hygiene. Certain hotels are being identified to partner with hospitals for setting up safe, pay per use quarantine facilities. Certain others are focused on providing safe shelter to local and foreign tourists and travellers who are stranded in cities owing to the lockdown.

The government of India on March 24, released the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines for the 21 day nationwide lockdown, which recognises under point 7, that while hospitality services will be suspended, the following exceptions will be made:

* Hotels, homestays, lodges and motels which are accommodating tourists and persons stranded due to lockdown, medical and emergency staff, sea and aircrew.

* Establishments used / earmarked for quarantine facilities

Dr. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group said, “Many families in India have 4-5 members and most of them share the same facilities and toilets, this fails the purpose of self-isolation if one the family members is at high risk of COVID-19 and is advised to do so. Project Stay I will not only reduce the load on the healthcare system by creating clean, comfortable isolation and quarantine facilities for individuals who have no need for active medical intervention but also provide a solution to such families.The model is envisaged to have a combination of self-paying and CSR funded customers. The purpose of partnering with multiple facility brands is to ensure that all socio- economic segments of society have an equal opportunity to avail these services. A project of this magnitude needs several like-minded partners across the supply chain to come on board and we are thankful to our partners OYO Hotels & Homes, HUL, and SBI  and others for their support which has made this initiative possible. Owing to SBI & HUL’s generosity, 50% of category 1 rooms (OYO) would be made available for free of cost to those who cannot afford.”

OYO has sprung into action and as a company is continuing to make an outreach to relevant state governments as well as authorities to understand how some of its properties can be leveraged for pay per use quarantine facilities. The company has also reached out to corporates and is keen to support the lodging requirements of hospital staff, air and sea crew etc who are at the frontline of India’s fight against coronavirus through a combination of OYO hotels or OYO LIFE offerings. (OYO LIFE- is OYO’s managed long term rental housing product)

The company has set up a helpline to take in the requests (oyo_care@oyorooms.com) from relevant organisations and determine how best to support them.

Commenting on the development, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO said, “To continue the fight against Coronavirus, OYO stands committed to support people  stranded in other cities, foreigners stranded here, people out of their hometowns, paying guests with no accommodation, MNC employees in another city & everyone in need. A 21 Day lockdown is the right decision in the interest of greater good. OYO will do its best to keep its doors open for all those who need these during these testing times.”

Recently, in the United States, OYO offered a free stay to medical first responders who are helping Americans fight against covid19.  Ivanka Trump & the US Vice President, Mike Pence too tweeted to generate awareness. Ritesh added, “Medical first responders are working tirelessly for us. In these tough times, OYO along with our hotel partners & OYOpreneurs want to do the right thing. We stand #TogetherApart to assist our frontliners against coronavirus.”