Madhya Pradesh Re-Opens its Tourist Destinations. Focus on Domestic Tourism in India

Madhya Pradesh re-opens its State Tourism Development Corporation Hotels, Resorts and many private Hotels at tourist destinations for tourists and Hoteliers, Promoting Domestic Tourism allowing in tourists from within the Country. Madhya Pradesh Forest department has also issued a circular regarding re-opening of National Parks from 15th June 2020. National Park’s Buffer Zone will remain open during monsoon season.

Speaking on the same, Ms. Sonia Meena, IAS, Additional Managing Director, Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board said: “Madhya Pradesh being into Inbound Tourism promotion is very strong with its domestic tourism products, wildlife is one of them. Opening up tourist attractions would also give a sense of “returning to normalcy”. We see great potential after re-opening our destinations like wildlife, heritage, pilgrimage, leisure, and adventure tourism opportunities”.

Following the Health protection, safety and hygiene guidelines. We have sanitized and fumigated our premises. We are ensuring all hygiene and social-distancing norms and SOP issued by the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India.

The first segment of the travellers we are looking to attract, are people from within and neighbouring states coming to visit our tourist destinations. Madhya Pradesh is surrounded by 5 states and it is very easy to travel by car from neighbouring states to our State, we also have a very good road network which connects major tourist destinations in the state. To begin with, people will start taking small / weekend tours with 3 / 4 Days itinerary and for them, our state could be the choicest tourism destination having several interesting tourism attractions.

Madhya Pradesh offers an assortment of attractions to everyone who loves to travel. It is the state with the forest area cover of approx. 77,700 sq.kms (Approx ¼ of the total land area) filled with Sal Trees & Bamboos. It has numerous wildlife hotspots with 11 National parks & 24 Wildlife sanctuaries such as Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary and Chambal Ghadiyal Sanctuary. The UNESCO World Heritage sites at Khajuraho, Bhimbetka & Sanchi are the iconic sites in the state. Madhya Pradesh has re-gained the tag of being “The Tiger State of the Country” by having maximum Tiger count (526) in the state. The roar of Tigers has increased in the dense and beautiful forests of Madhya Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh is not only home to two Jyotirlingas Mahakaleshwar and Omkareshwar. Burhanpur, Bhopal, Gwalior and Mandu are some of the beautiful architectural sites, whereas lndrasagar, Gandhi sagar, Tawa and Bargi are the spellbinding water bodies. Cultural events like Khajuraho Dance Festival, Mandu Festival, Orchha Cultural Festival, Tansen Festival are some of the annual tourism promotional festivals to attract tourists from all walks of life.

Next Education Witnessed Increase in Demand for its Next Learning Platform to continue Virtual Learning

Due to the pandemic, the times have been challenging for schools. With disruptions and indefinite lockdown, it is imperative for schools to reimage and reinvent their teaching-learning approach and pedagogy. Considering this situation Next Education India Pvt. Ltd., the pioneer in the K-12 education sector, is enabling schools to redefine their teaching-learning approach through its 'Next Learning Platform', an integrated platform to facilitate remote learning, academic and administrative operations without any hindrance. 2000+ schools across India have adopted the solution to ensure continuous academic and administrative operations. 

In the wake of recent lockdown, Next Education has also added a Live lecture feature to the Next Learning Platform, thereby making it a one-stop solution for schools to go online. Through its comprehensive offerings, schools can seamlessly transform their pedagogy from offline to the online learning system.

Not only this, but the platform also helps teachers to optimise their strategies to enhance the online learning experience of students with its award-winning digital content, online assignments, personalised assessments and immediate feedback and evaluation. A noteworthy advantage of this platform is that it creates a school-like learning environment at home and empowers teachers to control and monitor academic operations within the comfort of their home.

To enable schools to with its admin functions, the platform offers NextERP for managing school operations and communications with ease. 

Speaking on widespread adoption of Next Learning Platform by schools across the country, Mr. Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO and Co-Founder, Next Education said, “Though the crisis is devastating, it is making schools technologically advanced. No doubt, this transition from offline to the online education system is challenging for many schools, but with Next Learning Platform it can be achieved seamlessly in no time. Our integrated platform has been adopted by 2000+ schools to run their virtual school. Various tools like NextERP, NextLMS, Live Lecture, and more in the Next Learning Platform focus on expanding academic operations and learning beyond the traditional pedagogy according to the unique needs of the school. ” Mr. Ralhan further added, “The overwhelming adoption of Next Learning Platform and positive response byschools across the country is an indication that it is imperative for schools to switch to e-learning tools to make learning more productive and engaging even at home. With the ease of implementation and user-friendly interface, Next Learning Platform makes quality education accessible without any impediments.”

Ms Meghna Singh, Director of Sheoran International School, Noida says, “The Live Lecture feature of Next Learning Platform has helped us in conducting online classes seamlessly. Approximately 150 students are attending the lectures by 20+ teachers everyday. The tool is very interactive with the curriculum being inbuilt therein. The entire methodology helps teachers to make conceptual understanding faster.”

Management team Mr Nagendra Mali and Ms. Sowmya Mali of Karnataka Public School, Haveri adds, “The Live Lecture feature is very helpful during this lockdown as it connects teachers and students in real-time. It helps us in running our school virtually. Next Learning Platform is an interactive platform where parents also share their feedback with teachers.”

Dr.Yuvraj Singh from The Imperial School, Ganganagar further adds, “We feel that the Next Learning Platform is a great step towards keeping the education ongoing for students. We appreciate that with the Live Lecture feature, we could run schools virtually in this situation too. We have been using these lectures everyday to conduct classes for all grades. Live Lecture will help us in reducing the workload by 50%.” 

Therefore, Next Learning Platform ensures the safety of students as well as educators amid the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby ensuring a seamless transition from offline to online academic operations. 

About Next Education

A complete K–12 education solutions provider, Next Education is transforming education with innovative and engaging technology-based solutions trusted by 240,000+ teachers and impacting the lives of over 12,000,000 students across 12,000+ schools in India. Since 2007, Next Education’s educational solutions and services have been well received nationally and globally and cover the syllabuses of CBSE, ICSE, Army and all state boards in more than seven Indian languages.

Perpule Expands its Operations in SouthEast Asia & Launches its E Commerce Enablement Platform

Following the massive rise in demand of ecommerce enablement solutions globally, Perpule a leading retail tech startup from India expanding its footprint to the Southeast Asian market with its ecommerce enablement product Perpule E-Commerce+. Through this expansion, the company is targeting modern retailers - spanning across categories like fashion, grocery, electronics, food & others - operating in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore & Philippines.

The retail market in Southeast Asia is over $700 billion but is yet to adopt modern technologies and become heavy on ecommerce. COVID-19 has further exacerbated the situation by disrupting the businesses of several offline retailers who are now facing a slowdown in sales and operations. Perpule E-Commerce+ strives to address these challenges by driving ecommerce readiness and thereby helping the retailer community restart their operations afresh in the post-COVID world. The company aims to secure around 20% of the ecommerce market share and help offline retailers switch to an online model in minimum time.

Perpule Ecommerce+ is truly built with a next gen approach to facilitate ecommerce smoothly from offline stores and has all the necessary integration with leading payment gateways, logistics players, ERP, POS, Loyalty etc. to make ecommerce enablement much easier for retailers. Perpule’s homegrown Progressive Web Apps (PWA) technology is a game-changer in ecommerce for retailers. It offers users a superior browsing experience even on poor internet connections and works completely offline thereby improving conversion rates by over 40%.

Commenting on the expansion, Abhinav Pathak, CEO & Cofounder, Perpule said, “While the entire world stands disrupted by the unprecedented impact of COVID-19, the retailer community has been impacted the most. At Perpule, we aim to equip retailers with an advanced, new-age online platform and provide them with a major fillip to effectively and profitably run their businesses, even during a crisis like this. We are delighted to foray into the Southeast Asian market and will endeavor to serve customers in the best possible manner through our tech-driven platform.”

About Perpule:

The founders- Abhinav Pathak (CEO), Saketh BSV and Yogesh Ghaturle started Perpule with the aim of providing better customer experiences in offline retail stores. With this in mind, they built India's first self-checkout solution and then scaled that into an end to end billing platform called UltraPOS which has been implemented by popular retail brands such as Big Bazaar, Shoppers Stop, Starbucks, HyperCity, Vishal MegaMart, etc. UltraPOS, a platform-independent, form factor independent POS billing system that can enable anytime, anywhere billing. It is a cloud-based SaaS product that eliminates the need for bulky servers and computers in the store. This leads to more display space at the stores, thus increasing sales per square foot.

About Perpule E-Commerce :

Perpule E-Commerce+ is a product launched by Perpule, one of India's leading omnichannel commerce companies, to enter the South East Asia Market. Perpule E-Commerce+ is Secure, Scalable, Fully Managed and Customizable Enterprise E-Commerce Platform for retailers, online brands and anyone else who wants to set up their online stores. Perpule E-Commerce+ makes offline retailers future-ready and helps them go online and leverage the power of E-Commerce. It comes packaged with a multi-channel solution and can help manage all the complex retail workflows. Perpule Ecommerce+ makes use of PWA technology which gives a superior browsing experience even on poor internet connections and works completely offline. Perpule E-Commerce+ has 40% better conversion rates as compared to other ecommerce platforms.

COVID-19 Impact Worsens, Talent Demand Dropped in Essential Sectors in May 2020

Highlights 

* Most high volume sectors noted a dip in talent demand in April 2020 v/s May 2020 comparison 

* Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals, BPO and BFSI registered the sharpest fall in M-o-M talent demand

* Among cities, Bengaluru saw the steepest dip in talent demand

* Marketing & Advertising, Front Office/Administration, Quality/Process Control job profiles registered the biggest setback in talent demand in May 2020

 

As the COVID-19 crisis deepens, talent demand at Indian Inc. dropped even in the essential services sectors as Healthcare and BFSI. India Inc. registered 8% drop in talent demand in May 2020 M-o-M analysis, triggered predominately by the extension of the nationwide lockdown from May 17 till May 31, 2020. Most high volume sectors noted a dip with the sharpest fall in the Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals, BPO, BFSI and Automobiles sectors, stated the finding of TimesJobs RecruiteX May 2020 edition. 

TimesJobs RecruiteX is a monthly recruitment index that records the demand and supply of talent at India Inc.

Commenting on the findings of RecruiteX May 2020, Sanjay Goyal, Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig said, “The COVID-19 lockdown has caused an irreplaceable damage to the Indian economy. From March 2020 to May 2020, the talent demand has slipped continuously for three months now. However, I am hopeful that things will get better from here. Job seekers should use this time to learn new skills to be better equipped for the future. Recruiters should also use this time to evaluate their hiring strategies to attract the right candidates.”

Here are the major findings of the RecruiteX May 2020 edition:

Industry-wise: The Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals sector – which noted a marginal jump of 2% in talent demand in April 2020 – shed most talent demand in May 2020. The BPO and BFSI sectors – which together employ a big share of India’s corporate workforce – too registered a drop in talent demand despite most companies operating remotely.

Sectors with notable loss in talent demand:

Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals: (-14%)

BPO: (-13%)

BFSI: (-11%)

Functional areas: Almost all functional areas recorded no growth in talent demand. The Marketing & Advertising job profile registered the sharpest dip in M-o-M talent demand.

Functional areas with notable loss in talent demand:  

Marketing & Advertising: (-30%)

Front Office/Administration: (-20%)

Quality/Process Control: (-17%)

Location-wise: Among the metro cities, Bengaluru shed most talent demand in May 2020. Chennai - which recorded a mere 1% growth in talent demand in April 2020 – saw no growth, no loss in talent demand in May 2020. All other cities saw no improvement in talent demand.  

Cities with notable loss in talent demand:  

Bengaluru: (-14%)

Mumbai: (-9%)

Hyderabad: (-6%)

Experience-wise:  The talent demand for professionals with 10-20 years of work experience noted steepest dip of 16% in May 2020. All other experience categories also noted a dip in talent demand. 

Work experience with notable loss in talent demand:  

10-20 years: (-16%)

5-10 years: (-15%)

Over 20+ years of work experience: (-6%)

About RecruiteX:

RecruiteX is the recruitment index for India. It is an analysis identifying the hiring activity and trends in India Inc. Based on tactful extraction and examination of jobs posted and applied for in a month at TimesJobs, it details ‘recruitment’ as a process backed by hiring sentiments of a recruiter and aspirations of the job seekers alike.

Huami Launches Amazfit T-Rex on Amazon & in.amazfit.com/ at INR 9999 in India

Smartwatch

* Amazfit T-Rex, the military certified outdoor smartwatch for sports and fitness enthusiasts with 20-day battery life and 20 Hrs GPS

* Soon will be available in the offline market across India via leading stores like Croma, Reliance Digital & Poorvika Mobiles

Huami Corporation, a biometric and activity data-driven company with significant expertise in smart wearable technology and the number 1 smartwatch brand in the watch segment, has officially launched Amazfit T-Rex smartwatch in India. Starting today, customers can purchase Amazfit T-REX online on Amazon & in.amazfit.com/. Amazfit T-REX will be available offline via leading stores like Croma, Reliance Digital & Poorvika Mobiles across the country by next week. Huami has partnered with PR Innovations, a leading technology importer, to market and distribute Amazfit T-Rex in India.

Amazfit T-Rex the rugged smart wearable designed for outdoor enthusiasts. The smartwatch has passed 12 regulation of military standard (MIL-STD-810) quality test to resist the harsh environment which can operate under unpredictable weather conditions, rain, hail or shine. Another distinct feature the T-Rex is built to withstand extreme temperatures as well as damp, salt and any challenging outdoor conditions, surviving for two hours under rapid temperature change from -40 to 70℃.

The smartwatch is packed with 14 sports modes, tracking user performance in everything from indoor and outdoor running to cycling to skiing and more. The smartwatch features a 1.3-inch AMOLED screen with (360x360 pixels) capable of displaying 16.7 million colours with superb clarity. It features 20hrs GPS, GLONASS, a BioTracker™ PPG optical heart rate sensor, an advanced activity tracker and a sleep monitoring sensor, all providing detailed data to enable you to best reach your fitness goals. Amazfit T-Rex delivers an impressive 20-day battery life.

The Amazfit T-Rex features 14 sport mode has 5ATM water-resistant design also allows you to advance your activities underwater, keeping track of your performance in open water swimming or triathlons. Built-in fast 28nm Sony GPS chip, so your GPS can continuously work for 20 hours. Activity Tracking with distance, active hours, calories and steps. Sweat-absorbent and comfortable silicone strap, Outer bezel made of special ink-filling technology, inner sweat-wicking design makes it breathable and keep it dry and not sticky. Bluetooth Music Control directly from your watch while exercising. A selection of 30 watch faces full of personality to choose from.

BioTracker PPG optical sensor provides high-precision 24h heart rate with heart rate interval values + abnormal heart rate warning. Sleep monitoring to understand better your sleeping pattern. Sedentary reminders when you’ve been inactive for too long. Smart Notifications for Incoming calls, text messages, apps, calendars, custom events. Easily find your Smartphone with the Find my phone function. Weather forecast (5 to 7 Days) + temperature warnings.

*Test conditions:

20 days: Heart rate is always on, sleep monitoring on, GPS is turned on 13 minutes a day, 150 messages are pushed, the wrist is illuminated 30 times, and 5 minutes of other operations. 

66 days: Turn off the phone's Bluetooth connection, heart rate and other functions, and lift the wrist to see the screen 100 times a day. 

20hours:  Turn on GPS recording motion track, turn on heart rate monitoring 

Note: Tests conducted in-lab, results may vary according to usage, settings, and many other factors.

A Perfect Gift Guide for Tech-Savvy Indian Dads from pTron

You can always go the extra mile and make your dad’s life simpler and convenient.  Why not surprise him with something that makes his ‘in and post work from home life’ much easier? TWS earbuds make the ideal headset and a welcome shift from the traditional wired earphones to the hassle-free wireless era. Many factors come into play when shopping for the best headphones. From design and comfort to the sound quality, pTron looks to deliver the best in every aspect for every possible use of its products.

Time to transform your DAD to a Gadget man!!

pTron Bassbuds Pro- INR 1499

1. In-ear True Wireless Stereo earbuds (TWS) featuring Smart Touch Control & Bass

2. On-the earbuds multi-function buttons allow calls & music control for a hands-free experience

3. Type-C port ensures fast charging

4. Bluetooth 5.0, 10m range; 1.5 Hours Charging Time; 100 Hours Standby Time

5. Supports Voice Assistant; Universal Earbuds.

pTron Bassbuds Tango- INR 1599

1. On-the earbuds multi-function buttons allow calls & music control for a hands-free experience

2. Bluetooth 5.0; 3 Hours of Music & Talk-time; Playtime up to 30 Hours: 1.2 Hours Charging Time;

3. LCD Display Charging Case; 120 Hours of Standby-time

4. 10m Wireless range; Voice Assistant Support

 

QuEST Global Enhances its Lung Nodule Detection Solution Using Microsoft Azure Software

QuEST Global, a global product engineering and lifecycle services company, announced today that it has enhanced its Lung Nodule Detection solution using Microsoft Azure. With the help of this solution, powered by Azure IoT Central and Azure Machine Learning (ML), the company aims to help medical imaging device manufacturers improve the cancer nodule detection accuracy from CT scans, as compared to conventional image processing methods. Once deployed, this computer-aided diagnosis application can be used for screening and will help doctors analyze CT scan images more quickly and accurately.

QuEST used Azure Machine Learning to train the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and the trained model was packaged in containers and deployed on IoT Edge device using IoT Central. The solution has a detection accuracy of 93 percent and sensitivity of 89 percent, with a real-time performance of 20 images per second. With the help of Microsoft technology, the entire product development lifecycle and deployment of QuEST’s solution has been made more secure and efficient. The company has also used Azure Machine Learning to create customized models and IoT Central to deploy the solution on to Azure IoT Edge in containerized form for online and offline usage.

Commenting on the Lung Nodule Detection solution and the collaboration with Microsoft, Krish Kupathil, Head – Digital Innovation and Hi-Tech, QuEST Global said, “The healthcare industry is on the brink of a new wave of digital transformation, powered by breakthroughs in IoT, ML, AI and cloud platforms. We are delighted to work with Microsoft to develop our Lung Nodule Detection solution on Azure IoT and Machine Learning. This brings together our imaging, analytics and computation and machine learning expertise across the entire digital transformation ecosystem, besides enabling us to leverage Microsoft’s advanced technologies and expertise in spearheading large digital implementations. This collaboration will help us in defining myriad scenarios to enable IoT use cases leveraging on our multi-domain expertise.”

Bert Van Hoof, Partner Group Program Manager for Azure IoT, Microsoft Corp., said, “According to the World Health Organization, lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer related deaths in the world. QuEST used Microsoft Azure IoT Central and Azure Machine Learning to build an innovative solution to detect cancer nodules from CT scans with high performance, accuracy and sensitivity. Azure IoT Central provides the IoT application infrastructure that allowed QuEST to quickly build a globally available, secure, and scalable IoT solution that can be easily customized and updated. We value our ongoing collaboration with QuEST and its ability to blend deep cross industry domain expertise with the power of Azure IoT Central to build elegant solutions that tackle complex problems with great expediency.”

As a trusted thinking partner, QuEST has been working with the world’s most recognized companies in the healthcare industry for the last two decades. The company is committed to enable its customers to Create The Frontier by enhancing healthcare experience to improve the lives of millions of people around the world. With its expertise in new age technologies like Deep Learning, AI, IoT and ML, the company has been developing comprehensive engineering solutions by using Azure IoT, AI, and ML technologies that help OEMs and tier-one suppliers seamlessly take the next step in their digital transformation journey and make products safer and more reliable.

About QuEST Global

For more than 20 years, QuEST Global has aimed to be a trusted global product engineering and lifecycle services partner to many of the world’s most recognized companies in the Aero Engines, Hi-Tech, Aerospace & Defense, Transportation (Auto and Rail), Power and Industrial, Oil & Gas and Medical Devices industries. With a global presence in 15 countries, 68 global centers and 12,300+ personnel, QuEST Global believes that it is at the forefront of the convergence of the mechanical, electronics, software and digital engineering innovations to engineer solutions for a safer, cleaner world. QuEST Global’s deep domain knowledge and digital expertise aim to help its clients accelerate product development and innovation cycles, create alternate revenue streams, enhance consumer experience and make manufacturing processes and operations more efficient.