How COVID 19 Impacted Breast Cancer Patients Across Indian Market?

* Women must not delay consultations or screenings due to the pandemic, caution experts

* Governments and healthcare providers must ensure serious diseases are not de-prioritized due to COVID 19

* Out of 13-15 lakh, total new cancers diagnosed in India every year, around 1 lakh are diagnosed in Karnataka alone

* Early diagnosis allows the use of prognostic tests such as CanAssist Breast and avoids over-treatment and chemotherapy in many cases

The COVID 19 pandemic and the subsequent de-prioritizing of other diseases have negatively impacted breast cancer care with new diagnoses being delayed and existing treatments interrupted. Oncologists are urging women not to delay reporting their symptoms or seeking breast cancer screening due to the fear of coronavirus infection.

As we observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Dr. Shekhar Patil, Medical Oncologist at HCG Bangalore, and Sri Shankara Hospital say that efforts are needed to educate patients, assure them of the safety of healthcare settings and ensure that serious diseases are not de-prioritized due to the ongoing pandemic.

“The Coronavirus outbreak particularly the lockdown and the subsequent months significantly impacted the detection of new breast cancer cases and also led to interruptions for people who were going under the treatment. New disease diagnoses have been evidently low in the six months since the lockdown. Many patients have delayed reporting their symptoms while many high-risk women have avoided crucial breast cancer screenings. It has been particularly tough for patients living in rural areas for whom traveling to nearby metros for consultation and treatment became extremely difficult. While we have managed to ensure that existing patients continue to get requisite care through virtual consultations, it is important that women do not delay visiting doctors out of the fear of a pandemic,” said Dr. Shekhar Patil.

Karnataka has a high burden of disease with breast cancer emerging as the most commonly found cancer in women in the state. The disease incidence has also markedly increased over the past two decades. Out of the 13-15 lakh total cases of cancers diagnosed in the country every year, around 1 lakh are from Karnataka alone. Out of this, 30% of patients are of breast cancer.

“Unfortunately, lack of awareness and regular screenings imply that most cancers are already diagnosed in later stages in India, resulting in low survival rates. Only 30% of breast cancer patients are currently diagnosed in stage 1 of the disease when treatment prognosis is good and chances of long-term survival are high. Since early diagnosis is the only way to save lives, it is important that people do not delay reporting their symptoms or seeking medical consultations for fear of catching the infection in healthcare settings. We urge women not to delay reporting of any abnormality or suspicious symptom,” added Dr. Patil. 

Interestingly, 80% of breast cancer cases can be cured, if detected in the earliest stage of the disease.

“Early detection can also allow us to use prognostic tests and personalize treatments for patients based on their risk profile. Prognostic tests such as CanAssist Breast help physicians to analyze cancer relapse risk in patients which serves to reduce over-treatment. Patients with very low relapse risk can avoid invasive treatments as well as chemotherapy, resulting in better health outcomes. Personalizing treatment based on the disease progression and risk

also significantly reduces the cost of treatment,” said Dr. Patil

Urban lifestyles, unhealthy diets, an increase in obesity, lack of physical activity, high incidence of smoking, and drinking are factors responsible for the surge in breast cancer incidence in India. Women over 40 years of age are advised regular clinical screening for breast cancer.

Over 60% of Breast Cancer Patients Still Diagnosed in Late Stages

* Breast cancer is today the most prevalent cancer in women in Karnataka surpassing cervical cancer

* Prognostic tests such as CanAssist Breast have helped reduce aggressive treatment and overtreatment in patients

* Smoking, obesity, unhealthy diet, hormone replacement therapy increase breast cancer risk

* Annual clinical screenings can increase early detection by 30%

Advanced treatment protocols and new age prognostic tests are helping breast cancer patients live longer with a better quality of life. However, over 60% of breast cancer cases in India are still diagnosed in late stages resulting in a large burden of preventable deaths.

As we observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Oncologists are underlining the need to increase early-stage diagnosis and make prognostic tests such as CanAssist Breast available to a larger number of patients. Doctors are also concerned by an alarming increase in disease incidence among women under 50 years of age.

“Diagnostic and treatment tools are highly advanced today and have given us the ability to save the lives of a majority of breast cancer patients. For example, prognostic tests such as CanAssist Breast can help early-stage patients identify their risk of disease relapse and avoid chemotherapy and over-treatment. Unfortunately, delayed diagnosis prevents a majority of patients from being able to access the benefits of such advanced prognostic tools. Over 60-70% of patients in India are still diagnosed in stages 3 and 4 when the disease has reached an advanced stage,” said Dr. Ashwin Rajagopal, Consultant, Surgical Oncology, Manipal Hospitals, Bengaluru.

While stage 3 is the stage of locally advanced cancer, by stage 4 the disease spread to other parts of the body and is impossible to cure.

Dr. Ashwin points to an alarming trend of an increasing surge of diseases among women under 50 years of age due to lifestyle changes including unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, increasing incidence of smoking and drinking as well as delayed childbirths.

“Traditionally, breast cancer largely affected women above 55 years of age. However, this pattern has changed alarmingly over the past two decades. With lifestyle changes and urbanization, breast cancer is now afflicting an increasing number of women in their 40s. We see around 20 new patients of breast cancer every month in our hospital alone. The disease surge is particularly worrying in urban areas where unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyles, smoking, and drinking are common. Higher age of childbirth and reduced breastfeeding are also contributory factors,” added Dr. Ashwin.

Early detection of breast cancer has many benefits. Patients diagnosed with stage 1 or 2 breast cancer can undergo breast-conserving surgery (BCS) rather than mastectomy, enabling them to save their breast. Another major benefit is the possibility of avoiding aggressive treatment and chemotherapy.

“Early stage breast cancer patients are recommended the use of prognostic tests to direct the use of chemotherapy. A recurrence prediction or prognostic test may help some women diagnose early-stage disease and enable their doctors to decide whether the cancer is likely to return and whether chemotherapy will benefit the patient. Based on these test results, low-risk patients have the opportunity to avoid chemotherapy, based on very small chances of the cancer returning. Indigenously developed CanAssist Breast is one such prognostic test that gives low or high-risk stratification with a high degree of accuracy. Avoiding chemotherapy and aggressive treatment not only improves the quality of life but also saves the cost of treatment,” pointed Dr. Ashwin.

Lack of awareness means that many women fail to report suspicious lymph because it is not painful. Similarly, the practice of annual disease screening is very low in India. Educating women about early detection and establishing the practice of annual screenings is the need of the hour. Regular annual screenings can help us detect at least 30% of the breast cancer cases in the early stages.

“We also urge women not to delay reporting their symptoms or avoid their screenings for fear of the coronavirus pandemic. After hitting their 40s, women should go for annual disease screening. Obesity, smoking, hormone replacement therapy after menopause also increase breast cancer risk,” added Dr. Ashwin.

Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Business Joins Hands with HDFC Bank to Provide Exclusive Festive financing Offers

 

Key Highlights:

* EMI per lakh per month starting as low as Rs. 799/- at attractive rate of interest

* Flexible EMI options available

* Enjoy up to 100% ex-showroom funding on the entire PV range

* Loan tenure of up to 5-years

* Schemes available on all passenger vehicles

Tata Motors, India’s leading automotive brand, in collaboration with HDFC Bank has rolled out exciting finance offers for its passenger vehicle customers. In a bid to make their products more accessible while contributing to the enthusiasm of this year’s festive season, the Company has introduced 2 new schemes in association with the Bank - the ‘Gradual Step Up Scheme’ and the ‘TML Flexi Drive’ scheme. Available till the end of November 2020, these offers can be redeemed on the entire New Forever BS VI range of cars and SUVs along with the company’s EV range.

Details of the schemes:

Scheme 1 - Gradual Step Up Scheme

Under this scheme, customers can now avail EMI options as low as INR 799/- per lakh per month, depending on the product and variant at an attractive interest rate. As per the scheme, the EMI payments gradually increase over a period of 2 years depending on the payment convenience of the buyer. This scheme will help customers fast track their buying process, in turn making personal mobility available to all at pocket friendly rates.

Scheme 2 – TML Flexi Drive

According to the Flexi Drive scheme, the option to the consumer is to choose any 3 months every year, where he/she can pay minimum EMI (INR 789/- per lakh per month, depending on the product and variant) as per his/her convenience. The above scheme will help the customer map their EMI payment properly so that they can tide over the high outflow months easily, giving the customer the flexibility and power to choose.

Commenting on the roll out of these finance scheme offers, Mr. Vivek Srivatsa, Head - Marketing, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors said, “We are humbled to be partnering with HDFC Bank to roll out exciting offers for our customers. This is in alignment with our constant endeavour to make safe personal mobility solutions more affordable and accessible to individuals and families, while contributing to the joy of this year’s festive season. We hope, that these offers will boost customer morale and make the process of purchasing a car more convenient, thereby allowing them to truly celebrate the festivities with their friends and families.”

Commenting on the joint offers campaign, Mr. Arvind Kapil – Country Head, Retail Lending, HDFC Bank said, "At HDFC Bank, the objective is to offer the very best in class products and services to our customers. We are extremely excited to be partnering with Tata Motors, this festive season, which is just around the corner and stay committed to bringing in attractive and never before finance offers via our Festive treats platform. We believe this partnership offers affordable and viable financing solutions, in that, creating a valuable proposition for our customers, thereby facilitating the ownership of their dream car”

Adding to the above, the Company is also providing up to 100% ex-showroom financing on the entire PV product range under both schemes. Furthermore, to avail these offers, customers can reach out to their nearest Tata Motors dealer or through an HDFC Bank branch and register their interest in buying a Tata car.

To know more about offers and car buying options, call your nearest dealership or visit https://cars.tatamotors.com/.  Customers can also enquire, request a test drive, make bookings and select their preferred financing option via the recently launched ‘Click to Drive’, an end-to-end online platform from the comfort and safety of their homes.

*T&C apply

upGrad and BookMyShow Partner to Build a Cohesive LifeLong Learning Ecosystem for India’s Workforce

After catering to the educational and entertainment needs of millions of Indians over the years, upGrad, India's largest online higher education company and BookMyShow, the leading entertainment platform in the country today announced a strategic partnership, enabling users to opt for their preferred upskilling, career advancement courses and choice of entertainment - all at a single destination.

Bringing two of fastest-growing sectors of entertainment and education together, this unique collaboration aims to build and offer quality education, career-oriented and upskilling formats to millennials and young working professionals across metros along with tier 2 cities and beyond, where BookMyShow has a strong consumer connect across its plethora of entertainment offerings. Online programs offered by the edtech major will now be available on the BookMyShow platform.

Talking about the partnership, Arjun Mohan, CEO – India, upGrad said, “With this one-of-a-kind arrangement with BookMyShow, we will now be enabling millions of interested individuals with quality higher education options at the ease of their fingertips. We operate in times when optimism for online education is growing at a rapid speed, and such an alliance will only accelerate it further.”

Highlighting the importance of the category and its uptake, Albert Almeida, COO – Live Entertainment, BookMyShow said, “With millions locked indoors through this pandemic, adoption of virtual upskilling workshops and masterclasses have seen a huge surge on BookMyShow. This specific category that enables individuals hone their professional skills and helps them with career advancement has risen to become one of the top 3 paid categories on the platform. With geographical constraints and physical learning making way for virtual education, our partnership with upGrad will enable millions of BookMyShow users get access to quality learning and skilling.”

upGrad is the higher edtech leader with a plethora of online programs in partnership with top-notch national and international universities across Management, Data, Tech, and Law. The programs are well structured suiting the industry requirements and demands and is available for professional with a brief to extensive work experience and to the first-time job seekers. With a world-class learning platform available at their disposal, learners can easily shortlist programs based on their competencies and career prospects that shall help them achieve meaningful career outcomes.

Over the last 5 months, virtual workshops and masterclasses on educative, upskilling content have been hugely successful on BookMyShow with the formats gaining ground to become among the top 3 paid categories on the platform. This has enabled a large adoption of upskilling and educative workshops across a wide audience demographic of millions of users on BookMyShow.

Atlassian Launches $50M Venture Fund to Propel the Cloud-Based Startup Ecosystem

Atlassian Corporation Plc (NASDAQ:TEAM), a leading provider of team collaboration and productivity software and the maker of Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket and Trello products, has announced the launch of Atlassian Ventures, a new US$50 million fund that will invest into the up-and-coming startups, including established companies that are building products in the overall Atlassian ecosystem. The company which set up its world-class R&D centre in Bangalore last year and with plans to expand it further, is keen to interest India’s vibrant startup ecosystem and rich technical talent pool.        

Atlassian Ventures, with the objective of supporting cloud-based products and services will invest in three types of companies. Firstly, the early-stage startups, who are building apps for any of Atlassian’s cloud products, whether it be - Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket or Trello.  Secondly, the larger, more established ecosystem product partners scaling their businesses. These investments will be made in partnership with institutional investors and will generally target series A onwards. And finally, the existing sales channel partners looking to step up their cloud services and create new products that support the future of teamwork. 

On the company being extremely bullish about the India market, Dinesh Ajmera, Site Lead and Head of Engineering, Bengaluru, Atlassian said, “Atlassian Ventures is a global program with the objective of supporting cloud-based products and services and unleashing the potential of teams all over the world. With India’s cloud market among the largest in the Asia Pacific region, we believe this fund will be an ideal opportunity for up-and-coming startups in India to access funding when building apps for our cloud products. India is a significant market for Atlassian, one that’s teeming with an extraordinary developer community and a vibrant startup ecosystem that we plan to tap into.” 

“We have kept the applications open to our existing Marketplace Partners and developers, as well as new-to-Atlassian app developers who are looking for the first funding for their start-ups. As part of this program, companies that receive funding are also eligible for mentorship as well as global exposure at Atlassian events,” he further added. 

As more and more customers transition to Atlassian’s cloud products, the company is committed to supporting their journey by fostering a robust ecosystem of cloud-based apps that enhance their experience and satisfy all use cases. Atlassian has 4,200+ apps already available in its Marketplace and offers integrations with popular tools like Slack, Zendesk, and GitHub.  

To further consolidate its offerings and capabilities, the company has recently acquired a slew of companies in the ecosystem, which include Code Barrel (the company behind Automation for Jira), Mindville and Halp – the creator of Slack. 

Atlassian serves more than 174,000 customers worldwide and has been named a “Best Place to Work” by Great Place to Work Institute in every market where they have a staff presence.

About Atlassian 

Atlassian unleashes the potential of every team. Our team collaboration and productivity software helps teams organize, discuss, and complete shared work. Teams at more than 174,000 customers, across large and small organizations - including General Motors, Walmart Labs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Lyft, Verizon, Spotify and NASA - use Atlassian’s project tracking, content creation and sharing, and service management products to work better together and deliver quality results on time. Learn more about our products, including Jira Software, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Opsgenie, Jira Service Desk, and Jira Align at https://atlassian.com/. 

Kuchipudi Parampara Foundation - Presents its Seventh Edition Natya Parampara Utsav 2020

Kuchipudi Parampara Foundation,Bengaluru Presents its Seventh edition Natya Parampara Utsav 2020 on Saturday Oct 31, 2020,  6.30PM live streamed online on Kuchipudi Parampara Foundation Youtube channel, Facebook page and Instagram.

Programmes will include Recognition & Honouring of the works of senior Kuchipudi Guru of Kuchipudi village Pasumarthi Keshavprasad, Bharatanatyam danseuse Mamatha Karanth Bangalore, Kuchipudi Solos presentation by Raktim chanda disciple of Guru Deepa Narayanan Sashindran, Padmaragini Puttu from Moscow Russia, Geetha Padmakumar from Kerala, Anna Mashak from St Petersburg Russia, Mohiniattam by Gopika Nath from Kerala and concludes with an talk by Guest Guru Sailaja, Kuchipudi Exponent from Chennai.

The event is curated by Deepa Narayanan Sashindran, Kuchipudi Exponent and Life Trustee Kuchipudi Parampara Foundation, Bangalore.

Kuchipudi Parampara Foundation, Bengaluru a Non Profit Trust founded by Kuchipudi Exponent and Managing Trustee Deepa Narayanan is presently offering systematic Kuchipudi dance training and choreography in Bengaluru to bring forth artists of high calibre.

For more information’s contact kpf.bangalore@gmail.com/ 9845315272.

www.kuchipudiparamparafoundation.com

Shell Deepwater Selects Bentley’s iTwin Platform for Project Delivery

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software and digital twin cloud services for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure today announced that Shell’s Deepwater business has selected Bentley’s digital twin approach to streamline its capital projects process and accelerate time to first oil.   

With a plan to deliver several subsea tie-back projects over the next 10 years, Shell Deepwater Projects has recognized a significant opportunity to accelerate capital project delivery and cut project delivery time by implementing an integrated digital project & engineering environment.  The solution spans project conception in the early phase design through to handover.   

“Shell Deepwater Projects is developing an integrated Workflow and Data Platform from system selection to asset handover to streamline our capital projects processes and accelerate time to first oil,” said GT Ju, General Manager Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Projects. “The platform is being developed in partnership with Bentley leveraging Bentley’s iTwin open, scalable Azure cloud-based platform which provides interoperability across owner and supply chain systems. We believe that an end-to-end platform that gives us visibility and transparency to Project and Engineering data across our portfolio will be a key driver to delivering competitive projects.” 

Commenting on the project, Nicholas Cumins, Chief Product Officer – Bentley Systems, said “Think Big – Prove Small – Scale Fast – sums up the overall approach Shell and Bentley share in this initiative.  Bentley’s iTwin platform is ideally suited to providing aligned, secure and visual access to project data across the supply chain and capital projects ecosystem.  Shell’s selection of Bentley’s iTwin platform validates our open approach to digital twins and underscores the ability of the platform to scale to the largest, most complex capital projects and dynamic engineering use cases.” 

Bentley Acceleration Fund Investment 

In addition, Bentley announced that it is providing investment funds to FutureOn, a Norwegian software company supporting deepwater subsea projects, to accelerate going digital within the oil and gas industry. The investment sets the stage for FutureOn and Bentley to deliver the next-generation digital twin technology required for oil and gas ecosystems to manage and analyze data, integrate with existing systems, provide analytics visibility, and rapidly explore ideas collaboratively.   

FutureOn builds on more than 20 years of visual engineering experience specifically in the oil and gas subsea domain. The company will combine its award-winning field design application (FieldAP) and its API-centric collaboration platform (FieldTwin) with Bentley’s digital twin platform (iTwin) to advance user organizations like Shell Deepwater.  Both FutureOn and Bentley platforms use open web standards to facilitate complex integration and customization, and the combined offerings are already being implemented in exploration and production workflows for the creation and curation of subsea digital twins.  

“The Bentley Acceleration Fund investment is a significant milestone for FutureOn and will help drive the growth of our business by advancing the FutureOn technology as well as extending our reach,” said FutureOn CEO Paal Roppen. “Today, digitalization is more important than ever for the oil and gas industry as challenging market conditions persist. Innovative and disruptive digital twin technologies such as those we develop alongside Bentley will help farsighted organizations like Shell Deepwater to improve project and asset performance.”