TULIPS Will Increase Production to 5 Million Swabs a Week to Boost Covid 19 Diagnosis in India

Amid calls for increased coronavirus testing nationwide, Suparshva Swabs (TULIPS), India’s leading personal hygiene consumer product innovator and owner of the fast-growing popular brand TULIPS, today, announced that it is currently producing over 2 million COVID-19 SWABS per week, which would increase to over 5 million per week by the end of May 2020, to accelerate COVID-19 testing.

To meet the national need for COVID-19 tests, the company is ramping up production, by converting its production lines and reconfiguring equipment, of some of its manufacturing capabilities. The company has the largest installed capacity of Cotton buds in Asia & possesses capability of taking the COVID-19 swab production to over 30 million swabs per week, if required in due course.

The intent is to make the country self-reliant in nasal and throat swabs, a critical component in fighting COVID-19 war and rely less on supplies from other countries, in these testing times. With rising number of COVID-19 cases, the company shifted focus to affordable swabs, as domestically produced swabs would cost one-tenth the imported throat swabs.

Key features of the highly specialized TULIPS swabs are:
• 100% polyester based swab on a thinner Polypropylene Shaft
• ICMR approved polyester swab with very flexible stem
• In-built break point at 64 mm and a red indicator line just above it thereby posing no risk for the test medics
• Special thin size swab size – perfectly comfortable for both nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal
• Swab compatible even for vacutainer tubes with a bung cap
• 4 tier quality check system – guaranteed product as per COA

TULIPS novel polyester spun swabs innovation has excellent collection and release properties. Polyester fiber has been tested and validated for use in specimen collection in microbiology, RT-PCR analysis.

TULIPS is the first to develop & receive the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) and NIV (National Institute of Virology) validation for domestically produced ‘polyester’ swabs. This is significant as COVID Test swabs were not manufactured in India, and were imported from the US or China. With global demand increasing, it became difficult and expensive to get swabs from other nations.

Today the country needs the swabs in large numbers to fight the COVID-19 war. As per WHO, reconfiguring health systems is vital to tackling COVID-19. This is significant amid calls for more testing for coronavirus and warnings from the medical experts that reopening the nation’s economy without increasing the capacity to test for the virus poses serious risks.

"Today's health crisis is unprecedented, so we all have to help wherever we can. While we are firm on meeting the national needs, we will also scale up and help others across the world.

We are convinced that widespread testing of those currently infected with COVID-19 will bring us out of the current lockdown as we do our bit to help the country return to normalcy. We are working at full speed as time is of the essence, and a lot is at stake. Our dedicated employees are working 24 x 7, to ensure free availability.  We developed Polyester swabs for COVID testing by converting the 100% Cotton processing lines, to produce Polyester swabs, within 10 days flat. What is unique here, is that the entire development was done in-house by our amazing team and the trials were done on main production lines, which enabled us to start producing the same day we received the ICMR approval,” said Rahul Jain, Partner, Suparshava Swabs.

“To fight COVID-19, India will have to increase testing and may need over 7 – 10 million swabs every week, to enable the nation to safely begin easing lockdown restrictions and open the economy. This is significant as India plans aggressively to test its billion plus population for COVID-19 to ensure the virus doesn't spread faster when some of the regulations are relaxed.”, said Mr Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator, Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD), New Delhi ”

With COVID-19 positive cases in India crossing 100000 and deaths surpassing 3000, experts believe, we must act decisively to outsmart the virus and contain the outbreak. Affordable swabs enable mitigating this human crisis by accelerating preventive testing, and quickly meeting the massive demand to a decrease in outbreak as well as a return to normalcy.

One of the largest producers of swabs – TULIPS’ product line, currently one of the best worldwide in innovative hygiene cotton products and wipes, employs more than 400 workers.

About Suparshva Swabs (I)

Incorporated in 1998, Suparshva Swabs (I) is the one of the largest & the most qualitative manufacturer/ exporter of Personal Hygiene products, like Cotton buds, Special Swabs, Cotton balls etc., in entire South Asia.

Strongest Indian company selling various cotton & wood based personal hygiene products under their flagship brand TULIPS, their product range includes almost all Cotton hygiene products including Cotton Buds, Cotton Pads, Cotton Balls,  range of refreshing wipes and baby wipes, Absorbent Cotton Rolls & Cotton Pleats, high quality White Birch Toothpicks, Skewers / Bar-be-que sticks of different sizes.

Suparshva Swabs (I) is a company with international reputation and footprint and the products are produced at state of the art manufacturing facilities, ensuring high level of quality standards & product consistency.

Their product quality has earned international prestige for the country, as the products are being exported to top brands in more than 15, quality-discerning, countries. With complete backward integration, almost all the intermediate raw materials used are being processed on totally automated production lines, making the company one of the lowest cost manufacturers in the world.

Kitaab Brings in Frontline Corona Warriors for a Unique Virtual Launch of e-Book “The Coronavirus”

Prabha Khaitan Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to the socio-cultural welfare and humanitarian cause had through its platform Kitaab, organized a virtual book launch of the e-book ‘The Coronavirus: What you Need to Know about the Global Pandemic’. The book is written by Dr Swapneil Parikh, co-founder DIY Health, Maherra Desai, clinical psychologist and medical researcher and Dr Rajesh Parikh, Director of Medical Research and Neuropsychiatry, Jaslok Hospital. Published by Penguin, the book takes the reader through the history of pandemics while giving some serious advice on how to keep oneself safe from the deadly virus. Kitaab, connects Asian writers with readers globally and provides a writing and publishing platform to emerging and seasoned writers from the region to express themselves creatively. Ms. Shama Deo, President of Spectrum - a Study group from Pune committed to learning gave the welcome note and moderated the session.

Written by frontline COVID-19 warriors, the book gives us an illustrated account of world’s tryst with pandemics and epidemics at various points in history and the challenges that are ahead of us now. With regard to this virtual session, Ms. Manisha Jain, Communications & Branding Chief, Prabha Khaitan Foundation stated, “Through this initiative, Prabha Foundation and Penguin endeavours to spread awareness on what needs to be known about the current global pandemic. Through this interactive session our discerning viewers and listeners were able to know credible and comprehensive information from professionals that helped us understand what this deadly virus is, and how we can prepare and protect ourselves against it, for the future of humankind.”

Dr Swapneil Parikh, who co-authored the book added, “This is the first book that addresses the history, evolution, facts and myths around the pandemic. Though the world now has enough technology and experience of pandemics and epidemics like SARS, E-bola, Swine flu, Zika, etc. still our inability or unwillingness to learn from past experience caused the delay to handle the situation.”

He further stated that, “We started writing the book in early February when the problem was perceived as Chinese and largely confined to Wuhan and Hubei province. WHO called it infodemic before calling it pandemic. By the end of February, the virus has spread globally, and the effect was enormous. Nothing on this scale has been experienced in living memory. One of the key learnings is that with any new pandemic we should assume that we have to deal with worst case scenario then only we can prepare ourselves ”

Throughout the hour-long engaging session, the doctors discussed about how we should prepare ourselves to deal with this global pandemic. They explained in detail the virus’s mechanism of action, and how it manages to dive deep into the lower respiratory tract, multiplies silently until its ‘discovery’ by the immune system. It is in the degree of the response, when the immune system itself hits panic mode that it launches a frenzied attack which, in more ways than one, can result in overkill. This severe respiratory disease can end up being detrimental to the aged, those with diabetes or cardiovascular disease, or have a history of smoking. They also discussed the modern history of viral contagions which shows that pandemics are those catastrophes when health care professionals are overwhelmed while doing their job. As they also try to save themselves, they become unwitting amplifiers of disease and turn into objects of fear — as numerous videos of doctors and healthcare workers being harassed attest to.Experts have predicted there will be a mental health crisis of epic proportions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ms. Maherra Desai, clinical psychologist and medical researcher stated in the virtual session, “A vast majority of Indians can’t access quality healthcare, and I hope when we come out of this danger, people start caring for those who have constantly suffered due to lack of basic medical facilities.” She has researched the effects of social media as the medium which is both a strength and weakness for public-at-large. Ms Desai added, “While the Chinese whistle blowed about the disease on the medium, social media also propagated misinformation, xenophobia, racism among other social evils which played onto people’s minds. Due to this pandemic, there will be long term psychological effect, half of the population is sequestered, over 1.2 billion children are not going to school. There will be a global food crisis at the end of this pandemic.”

Prabha Khaitan Foundation is devoted towards the promotion of literature culture and performing arts and collaborates with caregivers, committed individuals and like-minded institutions to implement cultural, educational, literary and social welfare projects in India. Kitaab is an initiative of Prabha Khaitan Foundation. Through this initiative PKF has launched books of Dr Shashi Tharoor, Vir Sanghvi, Pavan Verma, Salman Khurshid, Sunita Kohli to name a few.  

IPRS Releases Additional Tranche of Relief Fund for its Members

With the world under lockdown battling the COVID pandemic, music as an art form has brought solace to millions of people across the globe. Be it any genre - jazz, rock, pop, classical, folk or country, music has helped people and communities come together and worked as a soothing balm on the weariness resulting from a prolonged lockdown and helped people deal with these difficult times in a positive way. Unfortunately, the music community while trying to spread cheer everywhere has also not been left unimpacted.

The Indian Performing Right Society Ltd (“IPRS”) had in April announced a significant financial package to help thousands of authors and composers address their essential needs during the initial stages of the lockdown. IPRS has now announced the release of an additional tranche of emergency relief fund for its members. The fund will support around 3500 authors and composers in the music fraternity, across the country, whose livelihoods have been deeply impacted by COVID19. IPRS is taking all required measures to facilitate distribution of the relief fund on an urgent basis.

Mr. Javed Akhtar, Chairman of the IPRS said, “IPRS was established with the objective of helping the creative music fraternity grow and flourish and this holds true now more than ever when our community is in dire need because of these unprecedented times. Our initial financial assistance package in April 2020 brought much needed relief to the community and we hope the additional money that is being released now will help again to provide necessary respite at this moment. I would humbly urge everyone to come forward and help others in this time of distress in whatever capacity they can. It is only if we come together and stand united against this crisis that humanity will be able to overcome this situation.”

On the occasion, Mr. Aditya Gupta, Director of Aditya Music and Board member of IPRS, said, “We are the first and the only label from south on IPRS board. And we are working very hard to get the rightful royalties for all our author and composer members from south."

On the occasion Mr. U. Vidyasagar, composer & musician and Board member of IPRS said, “This crisis has been the most severe times for all of us. The South Indian Music fraternity is proud of IPRS for coming out to support musicians and composers in such difficult times. These are difficult times and we have to stand by each other and look after our community. I’m glad to be a part of such noble initiative. “

On the occasion Mr. Mr. Sahithi Cherukupalli, lyricist and Board member of IPRS said, “ These are testing times for all of us. This pandemic has created financial uncertainties across sectors. I am very heartened that IPRS has stepped forward in time to help those in need. This small act of humanity will be remembered by all for many more years to come.”

Mr. Rakesh Nigam, CEO of the IPRS said, “As a responsible copyright society, it’s our duty to extend our support to the music industry in whatever way possible. We are trying our best to amplify our efforts in providing financial assistance to our members and ensure they have some income available to them while all other streams of earning a livelihood have temporarily dried up.”

Lightwing Helps Businesses Save 90% of Cloud Compute Costs Through Intelligent Automation

Cutting down the waste in spending has never been more critical than in the new normal. When digitalization is the natural path, a big chunk of spending of all businesses is inevitably going into cloud computing. One company’s solution may alter this drastically by optimizing the use of public clouds such as AWS, Azure and DigitalOcean.

Lightwing’s solution provides companies with intelligent CloudOps automation – slashing monthly cloud computing bills by as much as 90%, and significantly improving the efficiency of the team and the infrastructure. They have enabled this with a simple one-time setup and have eliminated any manual intervention. Businesses require no change in the way their developers work.

While Microsoft Azure has reported a staggering rise of 775% in the demand for cloud services during the COVID-19 phenomena itself, with companies already having spent over $43 bn on cloud computing in 2019.

Lightwing aims to tap this opportunity and to make the process seamless. It provides businesses with three cost optimization pillars as they call it - each designed for a different aspect of cloud usage.

One of the products, Lightwing ComputeGroups helps companies utilize the cloud’s excess capacity and significantly cut compute costs. While Lightwing Policies provides automated cloud usage governance across the business’ cloud accounts. Combining these capabilities provides savings of up to 90% on monthly cloud computing costs.

The Lightwing Smart Adviser (available on its website www.lightwing.io) helps a business sign up for and automatically choose the best-suited optimization option for each of their cloud resources, and provides real-time savings estimate that they can expect once the automation is implemented.

“With Lightwing Smart Advisor, the process of getting ready for optimization takes a mere 15 minutes as compared to the usual weeks of manual discovery and assessment that precedes a cloud optimization effort,” explains Ravitej Yadalam, Co-founder & CEO of Lightwing.

Navaneeth KN, Co-founder & CTO, has a rich cloud and AI experience of over 12 years from his time at Thoughtworks and Alation. While Navaneeth has successfully built an automation testing tool in the past, Ravitej has a successful ecommerce product under his belt that provided a unified shopping experience for over 350,000 global users.

Ravitej explains the working of the product by giving an example of the optimization of lights around your room. “For non-production resources, imagine that the room you’re sitting in and all the lights in it is a company’s cloud usage every month. Some cloud optimization products dim all the lights in the room to an acceptable dullness, while others manually shut down all the lights in the room periodically, whether or not I’m in it. But Lightwing automatically detects when I’m in the room and where I’m standing. Then, switches off all the other lights except the one right above me and every time I take a step, the light follows me around. Sometimes, before I even move.

This is what then duo calls AI-powered, policy-driven optimization on steroids. “This is Lightwing AutoStopping, just one of three cost optimization pillars we provide,” adds Ravitej.

The product today works on any cloud computing resource on AWS, Azure and Digital Ocean with more clouds to follow.

Lightwing aims to tap the market that has millions of businesses hosted on public clouds. The company currently has commercial POCs with NetApp, Vedantu, EOX Vantage, among others.

Lightwing is currently providing an extended 30-day free trial with full enterprise support to let companies see the cost savings that the product can bring for them, available at https://www.lightwing.io/tsdemoday/.

Lightwing is one of the ten startups that successfully completed the mentorship-driven Techstars Bangalore Accelerator's 2020 programme recently. The intensive programme provides support to the startups through an investment of $120,000 in each company, mentorship and support resources as they develop and refine aspects of their businesses to enhance product-market fit and position themselves to scale.

“The Techstars program helped us immensely with mentorship, brand visibility, and customer and investor access. We have accomplished in these three months what may otherwise have taken us two or three times that duration, which is invaluable progress for any company,” says Ravitej.

About Techstars

Techstars is the global platform for investment and innovation. Techstars founders connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporations to grow their companies. Techstars operates three divisions: Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelerator Programs, Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships and Techstars Communities. Techstars accelerator portfolio includes more than 2,100 companies with a market cap of more than $26 Billion. 

LTI FY20 Constant Currency Revenues Grow 14.2%; Q4 FY20 Revenues Up 4.7% QoQ, 17.4% YoY

Larsen & Toubro Infotech (BSE code: 540005, NSE: LTI), a global technology consulting and digital solutions company, announced its Q4 FY20 and full year FY20 results today.

Q4 FY20, In US Dollars:

Revenue at USD 409.9 million; growth of 3.9% QoQ and 15.9% YoY
Constant Currency Revenue growth of 4.7% QoQ and 17.4% YoY

In Indian Rupees:

Revenue at Rs 30,119 million; growth at 7.1% QoQ and 21.2% YoY
Net Income at Rs 4,275 million; Net Income growth at 13.5% QoQ and 12.9% YoY

Full year FY20

In US Dollars:

Revenue at USD 1,524.7 million; growth of 13.0% YoY
Constant Currency Revenue growth of 14.2% YoY

In Indian Rupees:

Revenue at Rs 108,786 million; growth at 15.2% YoY
Net Income at Rs 15,205 million; Net Income growth at 0.3% YoY

Capital Return

Final Dividend of Rs 15.5 per share; Dividend pay-out ratio of 35.0% for the year
ROE of 29.5% for the year

“We are extremely proud of the strong work ethic of LTItes who rose to the challenge of an unparalleled global pandemic, exceeding client expectations and earning their trust.
Our resilient business model, comprehensive digital transformation capabilities and flawless execution helped us to deliver fourth consecutive year of industry leading double-digit revenue growth in FY20. We are also pleased to announce two large deals in Q4 with net-new TCV in excess of US$100 million, culminating in a record 8 large deal wins for us in FY20. 
With strong order wins, healthy revenue momentum and client centric growth strategy, we shall confront near term demand challenges and emerge stronger,” says Sanjay Jalona, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro Infotech.

Recent Deal Wins

-          Multi-year multi-million large deal for complete digital transformation, enhancing productivity and quality of service of a key government ministry by implementing new microservices based applications and building a data and analytics platform     

-          A large energy retail company selected LTI for an end to end managed services deal for its IT applications and infrastructure operations

-          Standard Chartered Bank chose LTI as its partner for a strategic Temenos T24 Transact engagement

-          Leading North American bank selected LTI to transition its applications to cloud

-          Global semiconductor major partnered with LTI to digitize its core by re-designing and implementing its critical processes on SAP S/4 HANA

-          A leading property and casualty insurance company chose LTI as its business transformation partner to implement Duck Creek OnDemand Cloud Platform

-          Global media broadcasting giant selected LTI to redesign and modernize its programming and scheduling applications to meet evolving business requirements

-          A leading financial services group chose LTI for AMS engagement

Awards and Recognitions

-          Recognized by the 1Q20 Global ISG Index™ as one of The Breakthrough 15 in Global, Americas, EMEA Sourcing Standouts

-          LTI recognized as a Leader in ISG Provider Lens™: SIAM/ITSM 2020 Study for US Market

-          LTI featured in Constellation ShortList: Innovation Services and Engineering for Q1 2020

-          LTI recognized in Forrester's Now Tech: IoT Consultancies In Asia Pacific, Q1 2020

-          LTI named in Honorable Mentions in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data and Analytics Service Providers

* Magic Quadrant for Data and Analytics Service, Worldwide, Jorgen Heizenberg et al., 10 February 2020. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose

Other Business Highlights

-          The Board of Directors at its meeting held on May 19th, 2020 have declared a final dividend of Rs. 15.5 per equity share (Face value of Re. 1) for the financial year 2019-20. Total dividend for FY20 is Rs. 28 per equity share, including the interim dividend of Rs. 12.5 per equity share declared in October 2019.

-          Won the SAP Pinnacle Award for Industry Innovation Partner of the Year 2020

-          LTI has been elevated to a ‘GOLD’ partner status with Pega

-          LTI is now a 'Premier' System Integration Partner with MuleSoft

-          LTI has been featured among top 10 companies investing in EdTech CSR projects by CSRBOX

-          The company’s long-term rating has been upgraded by CRISIL to AAA/Stable from AA+/Positive during the year

-          National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. (NSE) has included LTI in its Nifty Next 50 Index

About LTI

LTI (NSE: LTI) is a global technology consulting and digital solutions Company helping more than 420 clients succeed in a converging world. With operations in 32 countries, we go the extra mile for our clients and accelerate their digital transformation with LTI’s Mosaic platform enabling their mobile, social, analytics, IoT and cloud journeys. Founded in 1997 as a subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Limited, our unique heritage gives us unrivaled real-world expertise to solve the most complex challenges of enterprises across all industries. Each day, our team of more than 30,000 LTItes enable our clients to improve the effectiveness of their business and technology operations and deliver value to their customers, employees and shareholders. Find more at http://www.Lntinfotech.com or follow us at @LTI_Global.

Cure.fit to Launch Paid Subscription Packs for cure.fit Live in India

Cure.fit, India’s leading integrated holistic healthcare platform, announced that it will start monetizing its digital offerings.

Customers will soon be able to choose between 3-month, 6-month and 12-month packages after an initial 14-day free trial. Cult.fit members, however, will continue to get free access to all online sessions, including Cult Live Classes and Eat Live Recipes across its various verticals on the cure.fit app.

Following the government issued directives on social distancing and subsequent lockdown norms released to curb the spread of COVID-19, cure.fit launched its live classes across different workout formats in March to facilitate home-based workouts not just for its members but for the general public at large. It added “Cult Live Masterclasses” to the mix in early April featuring an impressive line-up of celebrity trainers, actors, sportspersons and fitness influencers such as Yasmin Karachiwala, Mandira Bedi, Mary Kom, Brett Lee, Vijender Singh and PV Sindhu.

Commenting on the move to monetize the digital offerings by cure.fit, Ankit Nagori said, “With physical gym operations being suspended at the moment, cure.fit has adapted itself in the last few months and transferred most of its services to the digital space. We have been generating top-quality content to make working out at home easy and fun. So far, our digital verticals have been popularly received and we want to continue to build on that momentum. Through monetization, we hope that our popular live sessions can enable us to amplify the cure.fit experience for our users.”

Currently, cure.fit live offers live fitness classes across formats such as strength, dance, boxing, HIIT, HRX, S&C, and yoga on all days of the week. These live classes are also amenable to users across different fitness levels and do not require any equipment.  Cure.fit also offers live guided meditation, sessions, cooking sessions, podcasts as well as talks with experts on various topics related to health and fitness.

About Cure.fit

cure.Fit Healthcare Pvt Ltd is a holistic integrated healthcare platform headquartered in Bangalore. Founded in 2016 by Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, cure.fit aims to address preventive healthcare through a combination of engagement, coaching and delivery using a mix of online and offline channels. cure.fit caters to living a healthy life - eat.fit, mind.fi,t cult.fit and care.fit While cult.fit focuses on physical strength and fitness; eat.fit for healthy and nutritive food ,mind.fit for mental wellbeing and care.fit for integrated medical and lifestyle care. cure.fit is an app based service provider and is available on Android and ios. For more information on cure.fit: https://www.Cure.fit/

Milagrow Ventures into Crowdfunding with the Launch of a Back Massaging Robot Wheeme 2020

With businesses and people adapting to the new normal way of life amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s No.1 consumer robotics brand Milagrow has ventured into crowdfunding with the launch of its robotic back massager Wheeme 2020. The product has been available in the market from 14th May 2020 on its website www.milagrowhumantech.com

Equipped with Tilt Sensor technology to avoid loss of grip and falling when held at an angle lesser than 45 degrees, the Milagrow Wheeme 2020 gently massages and is highly effective for people who experience backaches. The massager wasi originally priced at INR 11,990. Milagrow is now leveraging crowdfunding to achieve a price breakthrough and will sell the product at INR 2,990. The crowdfunding will be open to the public for a week starting from 19th May and will be closed for online order on 25th May. Milagrow aims to deliver the product in 15 days.

Operating with a rolling motion, Wheeme, the world’s first robotic massager contains three different settings users can choose from.

Commenting on the launch, Rajeev Karwal, Founder, Chairman, Milagrow Robots said, “At a time when we need to remain indoors to safeguard ourselves and our loved ones, the Wheeme 2020 will act as a personal physiotherapist of sorts for those experiencing backaches and other muscle pain. The pandemic has wreaked havoc on businesses across verticals and has affected life in more ways than one. Through the crowdfunding model, we aim to ensure that the disrupted supply chain is restored quickly and the price thresholds are brought down.”

He added that “Robots will become an essential part of our everyday life in a post pandemic world, be it for household chores or for repetitive jobs in professional environments. Price points can be hindrance in more people buying robots. Our crowdfunding will help the industry evolve and create relevant products with the help of advanced technology. We will announce more launches on this platform soon.

Operational since 2007, Milagrow has been a frontrunner in the consumer robotics industry in India. Its “Human Tech” division, has launched India specific robots and has numerous firsts to include the recently launched AI powered floor cleaning robot which is fully independent in terms of navigation and can kill covid virus and also a humanoid which can help doctors interact with patients through their virtual presence.