UTI Mutual Fund Launches ‘UTI Small Cap Fund’ in Indian Market

UTI Mutual Fund launches an open-ended equity scheme which will predominantly invest in small cap stocks – ‘UTI Small Cap Fund’. The New Fund Offer opens on December 02, 2020 and closes on December 16, 2020.  The scheme will re-open for subscription and redemption for an ongoing basis from December 23,2020.

The investment objective of the scheme is to generate long term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in equity and equity related securities of small cap companies. However, there can be no assurance or guarantee that the investment objective of the scheme would be achieved.

Mr. Ankit Agarwal is the Fund Manager of the scheme.

Mr Ankit said, ”Small businesses are often referred as backbone of Indian economy, their presence is across the sectors engaged primarily in manufacturing, retailing, services, construction etc. In the recent years, a wide spectrum of initiatives and opportunities have been set forth by the government to nurture the small businesses. Therefore, in the long run the share of small companies to economic growth is likely to expand.”

“UTI Small Cap Fund will endeavour to invest in companies that have scalable business models, are run by seasoned management and aims to generate high return on invested capital. We have a 360 degree risk assessment framework to mitigate the underlying risks and is aligned to gain from small cap and select midcap companies having growth opportunities.” he added.

Discovery+ Launches a Riveting New Indian Original, Ladakh Warriors: The Sons of the Soil

 

Ladakh, known for its beautiful snowy mountains and stunning blue waters, is also home to Indian Army’s Ladakh Scouts, fondly known as the ‘Snow Warriors’. This picturesque land is alive with stories of their bravery and sacrifice. To introduce these courageous sons of the soil to the world, discovery+, India’s first and leading aggregated real-life entertainment streaming app, is all set to launch one of the most visually spectacular shows this year, Ladakh Warriors: The Sons of the Soil, as it forays into original content made especially for the Indian audiences.

Shot in the stunning backdrop of rugged desert mountains, Ladakh Warriors: The Sons of the Soil is an exciting and immersive film that will give the heroes of mountain warfare the attention they deserve. Born with larger lungs and genetically conditioned to fight at heights of over 15,000ft, the young Ladakhi boys only dream of being the human shield to protect their country. It is a story of determination and love for the motherland. Narrated in Hindi by the Indian equestrian, actor and nature & wildlife enthusiast, Randeep Hooda, the show depicts the grueling training that the Snow Warriors go through, at one of the highest regimental centers in the world. Ladakh Warriors: The Sons of the Soil is streaming now on discovery+.

On lending his voice for the show in Hindi, Randeep Hooda said, “I have always been in awe of Ladakh’s beauty. However, associating with this show, I am now equally mesmerized by the stories of these warriors, who come with a determination towards their country and train in such extreme conditions only to be able to protect their land. It's a great initiative by Discovery and I am glad to lend my voice and take this story to every corner of this country.”

Col. Sonam Wangchuk (Retd), Maha Vir Chakra awardee said, “Young Ladakhi boys come to join the Ladakh Scouts regiment with a desire to do something for their country. Physiologically, they are customized for the existing terrain and climatic conditions of this place and are irreplaceable as soldiers to deliver in extreme conditions of Ladakh. I am thankful to discovery+ for telling this story to the people of India, encouraging many young boys and girls to do something for their motherland.”

Issac John, Direct-to-Consumer Head, APAC - Discovery, said, “There was no other show better than Ladakh Warriors: The Sons of the Soil to launch discovery+ Originals. The show is a beautiful depiction of the spirit of Ladakh, its people and their loyalty towards their country. The show will provide the viewers unprecedented access to one of the world’s highest regimental centers and we’re delighted, that we are kicking discovery+ Originals with a show that will resonate with every Indian family.”

Watch Ladakh Warriors: The Sons of the Soil streaming now on discovery+

IDC MarketScape Names Zebra Technologies a Leader in Rugged Mobile Devices

Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA), an innovator at the front line of business with solutions and partners that deliver a performance edge, today announced that it has been recognized as a Leader in the 2020 IDC MarketScape report for Rugged Mobile Devices*. The company was recognized for various strengths, including its wide range of rugged mobile devices, numerous support features and services, in-house developed enterprise software suite and solution ecosystem, and LifeGuard for Android extended security solution that delivers security and patch updates for up to 10 years.

“Zebra Technologies is thrilled to be positioned as a leader in the 2020 IDC MarketScape for Rugged Mobile Devices,” said Deep Agarwal, Regional Sales Director - Indian Sub-continent at Zebra Technologies. “We have customers from a broad list of industries leveraging our tablets and mobile computers to deliver a performance edge to the front line of business. Being positioned as a leader in the IDC MarketScape shines a light on our ongoing commitment to deliver innovative hardware and software solutions that help our customers make every worker and asset visible, connected and optimized.”

Zebra Technologies’ purpose-built rugged device portfolio features both Android and Windows mobile computers – including handheld computers, wearables, dedicated scanners, tablets and detachables – that offer enterprise-grade connectivity, scanning and voice capabilities. The devices are designed for customers of all sizes in warehousing, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, retail, utilities, healthcare, and public safety, with a portfolio tiered by capability and features – giving customers the opportunity to select the solution that best suits their needs.

All of Zebra Technologies’ Android-based mobile devices are supported by its Mobility DNA software suite of end-user applications, application development tools and utilities. These tools allow businesses to maximize the return on investment by increasing worker productivity, simplifying management, strengthening security and reducing training and adoption time. The company is also a participant in the Android Enterprise Recommended program, ensuring its Android devices will receive timely security updates and operating system support.

The IDC MarketScape report recommends that enterprise organizations consider Zebra Technologies high on their list of potential providers if they are looking to deploy a variety of rugged mobile devices that address multiple dedicated use cases. Most of Zebra Technologies’ device offerings cater to high-volume scanning and asset management mobile use cases, although device offerings are sufficiently varied and tiered to provide customers with a broad range of options to meet their specific needs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

* Zebra Technologies has been named a Leader in the 2020 IDC MarketScape vendor assessment report for Rugged Mobile Devices for its portfolio of Android and Windows mobile computers.

* Zebra Technologies was recognized for strengths including breadth of device offerings and strong in-house developed software and security solutions.

* Customers can select the devices that best fit their needs, as Zebra Technologies’ rugged mobile devices are tiered by capability and features.

* Please click here to download an excerpt of the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Rugged Mobile Devices 2020 Vendor Assessment (September 2020) report.

1000 Indian Towns and Cities Join the Digitization Drive Among Tutors & Teachers: Teachmint Data

● Data compiled by EdTech start-up Teachmint, which is helping educators launch their digital teaching practice, shows pan India traction from teachers ranging from Srinagar to Port Blair

● Online classes are no longer a COVID 19 pandemic triggered compulsion, but are fast getting mainstream led by the Indian teaching community thereby establishing that personalized instructor lead EdTech is a far bigger opportunity in India

● 25% new enrollments are from metro towns while 75% from tier 2 and tier 3 towns in multiple Indian languages

Buoyed by the multiple benefits of teaching online, the vast informal Indian teaching and tutoring community is rapidly moving beyond vanilla video solutions to adopt full-service digital teaching solutions, to enhance their teaching experience and manage their teaching business more efficiently and effectively. According to data collated by Teachmint, a Bengaluru based EdTech start-up providing digital tutoring solution, the shift today is being led by 1000 Indian towns ranging from Srinagar to Port Blair and Jaisalmer to Dibrugarh with 75% of all enrolments emanating from Tier 2 and below towns and villages.

Early trends today indicate that digital transformation of the informal tutoring sector, whose stickiness is based on a highly personalized teaching experience, is a far bigger opportunity in India as compared to the content centric impersonal EdTech models, or even the organized sector competitive exam preparation models. Since its launch in May 2020, Teachmint has enrolled 2.4 lakh teachers on its platform and is witnessing an inflow of 50,000 teacher enrollments every month.

Explaining the phenomenon, Mihir Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO, Teachmint said, “At Teachmint, we are on a mission to democratize distribution and access to online education. We are working tirelessly to deliver   two-way   video communication and operating a full suite of teacher-student learning workflow including value added services like managing assessments, notes sharing, tuition fee management and many other features which are unique to the Indian environment. These exciting new features will remain relevant even when face to face teaching is fully restored fully, providing teachers with an option to operate a hybrid practice offering all the value-added features to offer a superior learning experience for their students more efficiently. With a focus on ‘Build for India’, Teachmint is available in 11 languages pan-India and supports low bandwidth connections through our custom video technology. Teachmint through its offering is becoming the technology and infrastructure backbone for teachers across the country from Srinagar to Port Blair.”

Exemplifying the benefit of scale that can be achieved through digital teaching is Dr. Vivek Singh, a tutor of Political Science and Assistant Professor at the University of Allahabad, who after signing up on Teachmint has been able to expand his student base and is today serving 1000 students across UP, Rajasthan, Haryana, MP, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh.

Sharing his experience Dr. Singh said, “At first, I was not sure about how to go digital with my classes. I did a few test runs and was pleasantly surprised with how simple and effective it was. Teachmint has helped me scale up my initiative called Nayi Pahal under which I give back to the community by tutoring and providing guidance to youngsters without charging them. These interactions were extremely satisfying for both the students and me. Inter-city teaching is fast becoming a trend thanks to Teachmint with students being able to access tutors without any geographical barriers. Teachmint has helped me connect with over 1000 students from various states which is remarkable”

As India moves towards the future of education, it is looking more and more likely that online learning is the way forward. Teachmint has been able to strike the right balance for tutors by enabling teachers with the right digital tools for each tutor to run their classes in a manner that is best suited to them and highlights their unique method of imparting education to their students. The platform has seen wide acceptance and rapid adoption by tutors across the country and helps them manage their tutoring sessions with a combination of online as well as recorded videos. With online classes cutting down on infrastructure costs like rent and electricity, private tutors believe digital classes are the future and are of the firm opinion that this will be instrumental in spreading quality education to students located in the farthest corners of the country.

How To Avoid Getting Sick This Winter Amid Covid-19 Across India

Now that winter is coming, the chances of getting a cold or flu will rise dramatically. Although most of the cold related illness and flu infections occur during the fall and winter seasons, this year amid Covid-19, the situation is different and more dangerous. As the pandemic continues, it has been predicted by experts that the situation could get worse in the upcoming winter this year.

Some recent studies conducted in different countries, including India, the UK and Australia, also claimed that Covid-19 cases may rise in winter dampening the outlook for a return to a normal life. Most doctors stress that healthy lifestyle practices like eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and frequent hand washing will make life less vulnerable in the winter amid Covid-19 outbreak.

Here are the tips that can help boosting health this winter:

Eat healthy, nutritious foods

Immune system is the defense against any infection in the body. Studies have shown that the general immune response to one episode of infection prevents the next one and hence helps to safeguard against that condition. Fresh fruits and green vegetables can help support the immune system.

Eating more Protein

Protein can also help to improve the immune system. Meat, fish, poultry, grains, beans and dairy products are good sources of protein.

Exercise regularly

Walking and working out regularly will enhance immune function during winter amid Covid-19. Walking, running, and working out regularly will enhance immune function. Exercise can help the body to fight against any cold or flu germs.

Practicing good hygiene

As winter sets in, the pollution in some parts of north India reaches its extreme level due to uncontrolled discharge of dust. Hand sanitization, use of face masks and regular house cleaning are all part of good hygiene and safety measures. These are some prime hygiene practices that everyone should follow to lead a healthy life.

Keeping the air clean

People tend to stay inside the house, locking all the doors and windows in winter when it is cold. Data and research indicate that the novel coronavirus favors cold, weather, and locked indoor conditions in winter are favorable to viral stability. Hence adequate sunlight exposure and good ventilation along with humidification of air can really help prevent diseases in winter.

The article has been contributed by Ms Kanchan Naikawadi, Preventive Healthcare Specialist, Indus Health Plus.

User Education, Cloud Security and XDR Are Critical for Cybersecurity in 2021: Predicts Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), the leader in cloud security, predicts that home networks, remote working software and cloud systems will be at the center of a new wave of attacks in 2021. 

Trend Micro’s predictions report, Turning the Tide, forecasts that cybercriminals in 2021 will particularly look to home networks as a critical launch pad to compromising corporate IT and IoT networks. 

“As we begin to enter a post-pandemic world, the trend for remote working is likely going to stick for many organizations. We predict more aggressive attacks to target corporate data and networks,” said Jon Clay, director of global threat communications for Trend Micro. “Security teams will need to double down on user training, extended detection and response and adaptive access controls. This past year was all about surviving: now it’s time for businesses to thrive, with comprehensive cloud security as their foundation.” 

The report warns that end users who regularly access sensitive data (e.g. HR professionals accessing employee data, sales managers working with sensitive customer information, or senior executives managing confidential company numbers) will be at greatest risk. Attacks will likely exploit known vulnerabilities in online collaboration and productivity software soon after they are disclosed, rather than zero-days. 

Access-as-a-service business models of cybercrime will grow, targeting the home networks of high-value employees, corporate IT and IoT networks. IT security teams will need to overhaul work from home policies and protections to tackle the complexity of hybrid environments — where work and personal data comingle in a single machine. Zero-trust approaches will increasingly be favored to empower and secure distributed workforces. 

As third-party integrations reign, Trend Micro also warned that exposed APIs will become a new preferred attack vector for cybercriminals, providing access to sensitive customer data, source code and back-end services. 

Cloud systems are another area in which threats will continue to persist in 2021, from unwitting users, misconfigurations, and attackers attempting to take over cloud servers to deploy malicious container images.  

Trend Micro recommends the following steps to mitigate threats in 2021: 

Foster user education and training to extend corporate security best practices to the home, including advice against the use of personal devices 

Maintain strict access controls for both corporate networks and the home office, including zero trust 

Double down on best practice security and patch management programs 

Augment threat detection with security expertise to protect cloud workloads, emails, endpoints, networks, and servers round-the-clock 

Cybercriminals will continue to go where the money is – seeking the greatest financial returns on their attacks. Organizations and security teams must remain nimble and vigilant to stay ahead of criminals.  

About Trend Micro 

Trend Micro, a global leader in cybersecurity, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Leveraging over 30 years of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro enables resilience for businesses, governments, and consumers with connected solutions across cloud workloads, endpoints, email, IIoT, and networks. Our XGen™ security strategy powers our solutions with a cross-generational blend of threat-defense techniques that are optimized for key environments and leverage shared threat intelligence for better, faster protection. With over 6,700 employees in 65 countries, and the world’s most advanced global threat research and intelligence.

IBM Launches Watson Discovery – AI-Powered Search Tool, Now Supports Hindi Language

* Leading Global Brands including EY use Watson to Infuse Intelligence into Workflows.

* IBM Research innovations in natural language processing, automation and building trust to be commercialized in Watson products

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced innovative new capabilities planned for IBM Watson designed to help scale the use of AI by businesses.

Developed by IBM Research, the new capabilities are designed to improve the automation of AI, provide a higher degree of precision in natural language processing, and foster greater trust in outcomes derived from AI predictions. They include:

* Reading Comprehension is based on an innovative question-answering (QA) system from IBM Research. Currently in beta in IBM Watson Discovery, it is planned as a new feature that can help identify more precise answers in response to natural language queries from vast troves of complex enterprise documents. It also provides scores that indicate how confident the system is in each answer.

* FAQ Extraction uses a novel NLP technique from IBM Research to automate the extraction of Q&A pairs from FAQ documents. Currently in beta in IBM Watson Assistant’s search skill, it is planned as a new feature to help businesses keep virtual assistants up-to date with the latest answers and reduce the time-consuming process of manual updates.

* A new intent classification model is now available in IBM Watson Assistant. It is designed to more accurately understand an end-user’s goal or intent when engaging with a virtual assistant and to enable administrators to train the system faster. The model provides more accurate results from less data versus compared commercial systems1. This can help businesses go live with virtual assistants in a few days while achieving high accuracy.

* Watson Discovery now includes support for 10 new languages including Hindi. With this capability, it can now natively understand the meaning of Hindi text written in Devanagari script and extract useful information from it such as business keywords, named entities, relationships, perform sentiment analysis, and other such NLP features. IBM Research - India collaborated with its AI Horizon Network partner – IIT Bombay to lead this effort.

Advancing AI Governance Capabilities to Help Build Trust and Transparency in Business Outcomes

IBM also announced plans to commercialize IBM Research-developed ‘AI Factsheets’ in Watson Studio in Cloud Pak for Data throughout the next year. Like nutrition labels for foods or information sheets for appliances, AI Factsheets are designed to provide information about a product’s important characteristics. Standardizing and publicizing this information will help build trust in AI services across the industry.

To complement this, IBM Services for AI at Scale, a new consulting offering, provides businesses with a framework, methodology, and underlying technology to guide organizations on their journey to  trustworthy and ethical AI. IBM Cloud Pak for Data also has new capabilities to provide a complete foundation for AI that can run on any cloud. Read more about the AI Governance updates here.

'Today's announcement reiterates IBM's focus on helping clients innovate across all three foundations of AI – natural language processing, building trust, and automation. IBM Research India has been key partner and leader in IBM’s AI advancements with a focus on Trustworthy AI initiatives and along with US team (IBM Research Yorktown) conceptualized the core idea of AI FactSheets. In the area of natural language processing - by using a combination of AI-deep learning, shallow semantic understanding models we have enabled Watson to understand Hindi language natively. For instance, Watson Discovery can natively understand documents in Hindi and extract meaning, without having to resort to any translation to English -- an outcome of our collaboration with IIT Bombay’s Center for Indian Language Technology as a part of  IBM’s AI Horizon Network. - said Gargi Dasgupta –Director, IBM Research India.

"India has taken positive steps to establish a leadership role in AI and IBM-IITB AIHN (AI Horizon Network) project is an important step - both for science and technology and for India's progress. The collaboration is focused on automation of cognition and perception, with emphasis on cutting edge research, high quality publications and open and widely usable AI resources. There are social and commercial needs, whose servicing requires user interaction and information dissemination in Indian languages (IL), however the complexity of Indian languages, low Indian language corpora and other constraints makes adoption and adaptation of English centric NLP very difficult for IL-NLP. Through our partnership with IBM, we have been able to use machine learning for IL-NLP and address challenges related to low resource, understanding of Hindi language sense, intent, sentiment and more. In two years, the endeavour has seen stellar publications coming out of the collaboration and creation of quality software (in NLP, Speech and Multimodal AI). " – said Prof Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Professor - Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT- Bombay.

Leading global brands are using IBM Watson to infuse intelligence into their workflows.  For instance, a global leader in assurance, tax, strategy and transactions and consulting services, EY is transforming the M&A due diligence process using IBM Watson Discovery. Following the global expansion of its alliance with IBM earlier this summer, EY launched Diligence Edge, which includes a custom NLP model trained on EY proprietary M&A language, to help deal makers identify and leverage valuable insights throughout the transaction’s lifecycle, as well as make informed decisions on deal value opportunities to gain an advantage in competitive deal processes.

Today’s news is another step from IBM to advance its AI for business strategy: from commercializing advanced NLP capabilities from Project Debater; expanding its AI-powered automation capabilities with the launch of IBM Watson AIOps, acquisitions of WDG Automation and Instana2 and expanded ecosystem partnerships including ServiceNow; and helping businesses, healthcare organizations, governments and academic institutions use IBM Watson Assistant to get information they deem trustworthy on the pandemic to stakeholders.

For more information on today's announcement, please visit: https://newsroom.ibm.com/new-innovative-capabilities-for-watson

[1] Qi et. al, 2020: Benchmarking Intent Detection for Task-Oriented Dialog Systems https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.03929.pdf

[2] Expected to close within several weeks.

About IBM Watson

Watson is IBM’s AI technology for business, helping organizations to better predict and shape future outcomes, automate complex processes, and optimize employees’ time. Watson has evolved from an IBM Research project, to experimentation, to a scaled, open set of products that run anywhere. With more than 30,000 client engagements, Watson is being applied by leading global brands across a variety of industries to transform how people work.