Odisha, Gujarat Win Best State & Civic Agency Awards in Janaagraha City Governance Awards

 

* Honourable Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Mr Hardeep Singh Puri conferred the awards in an online award ceremony on January 12, 2021 

Odisha took home the Best State and the Best Civic Agency award, while Gujarat took home the Best State Election Commission and Kerala the Best State Finance Commission. Indore for its PPP Based Integrated Solid Waste Management took home the Best Municipality at Janaagraha City Governance Awards. Meanwhile, Maharashtra won runners-up in four of the five award categories. 

Held in memory of Mr V Ramachandran, a doyen of decentralisation, the awards recognize ground-breaking work in decentralisation in urban context by institutions across government. The awards were conferred in a virtual ceremony by Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Mr Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday, January 12, 2021. 

Delivering the keynote address, Mr Hardeep Singh Puri said that cooperative and competitive federalism are in-built into the design and execution of various schemes and missions. “My Ministry is clear that only a partnership between citizens, municipalities, states and MoHUA can deliver transformative urban change in this country. We have seen such a partnership in action, at scale, across hundreds of cities, in schemes like the Swachh Bharat Mission. In the next phase of urban development, we need to invest in building the capacities of municipalities as institutions of local self-government.  As part of Atmanirbhar Bharat, there is sharp focus on shoring up own revenues of municipalities through property tax and user charge reforms,” he said. 

“An innovative, effective and elegant way to catalyse the change at scale throughout the country is by showcasing best practices, celebrating them and facilitating healthy competition and peer learning,” Mr Puri added. 

Odisha won the Best State for its JAGA Mission under the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meanwhile, the Best Civic Agency was awarded to Piped Water Supply Scheme for all Urban Households, Public Health Engineering Organisation, Odisha. G Mathivathanan, Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban Development, Odisha, received the awards for both the categories. 

“Government of Odisha launched the JAGA Mission with a noble and ambitious objective of transforming slums into livable habitats through a combination of land rights and a comprehensive slum improvement programme. Meanwhile, under the Piped Water Supply Scheme, 900 projects across the state with an investment of Rs 4000 crores were rolled out. As a result, nearly 100 per cent pipe water supply in 114 ULBS was possible in 3 years’ time,” G Mathivathanan said. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has made decentralization no more an option but urgent compulsion and we are happy the Slum Dwellers Associations are emerging as fourth tier of governance structures with urban poor communities actively participating in development and governance process,” G Mathivathanan added. 

Gujarat emerged winners in the Best State Election Commission category for E-Voting. “Gujarat has a strong tradition of strong self-government institutions. Sardar Patel was the President of the Ahmedabad Municipality from 1924 to 1928. Gujarat Panchayat Act was enacted in 1960 and the state has a strong three tier panchayat system. The State Election Commission has adopted technology in a big way. Gujarat was the pioneer in the adoption of the online voting system. The Commission has mobile compatible website with two way interface upto the voter level. There are more than 1.5 lakh elected representatives in the self-government institutions of Gujarat. The State Election Commission is proud to receive the Janaagraha Award from the institution that is totally committed to empowering the citizens of the country,” said Sanjay Prasad, Honourable State Election Commissioner, Gujarat. 

Kerala’s Fourth State Finance Commission was feted for its recommendations on participatory governance and robust data ecosystem Decentralisation. 

“The Government of Kerala is delighted that the Janaagraha City Governance Award has been given to Kerala's Fourth State Finance Commission for its work on the devolution of funds to the local governments of Kerala. As you know, Kerala has a very strong democratic devolution structure. The Fourth State Finance Commission actually ensured that 25% of the state’s plan outlay would be given to the local bodies, panchayats, municipalities, block and jala panchayats. It also gave several far reaching recommendations in terms of the horizontal devolution of the funds, use of the deprivation index and also suggested various measures to augment revenues of the local bodies. It also made far reaching recommendations regarding maintenance of assets, the cost to borrowings including municipal bonds and setting up of a web based software for financial transaction for the local bodies of the state,” said Rajesh Kumar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, Kerala Fourth State Finance Commission. 

“We are particularly delighted to receive this award which is in honour and memory of Mr. V.Ramachandran, who is also former Chief Secretary of Kerala and inspiration to all of us and who worked in the field of democratic decentralisation,” he added. 

Indore Municipal Corporation was feted with the Best Municipality award for its PPP Based Integrated Solid Waste Management. 

“The residents of Indore have taken upon themselves to make Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi' s Swachh Bharat Mission successful. Indore has been awarded the cleanest city for 4 consecutive years, for which I would like thank the residents of Indore, the garbage tippers and the various municipal body officials.  I would like to express my gratitude for the award that has been presented by Honourable Minister Shri Hardeep Singh Puri to the city of Indore. I would also like to acknowledge the unwavering commitment of our Chief Minister Shri Shivraj Singh, for making the Swachh Bharat Mission successful,” said Ms Malini Laxmansingh Gaur, Mayor, Indore. 

The winners were chosen by an eminent jury comprising Priyank Kharge and Arvind Bellad (Members of Legislative Assembly, Karnataka), Amitabh Kant (NITI Aayog), Ashutosh Varshney (Brown University), Niranjan Rajadhyaksha (columnist and economist, IDFC Institute),Sanjeev Chopra IAS (Director, LBSNAA), Yamini Aiyar (Centre for Policy Research) and SK Das IAS (Retd.) (Chair of Jury, Member of Janaagraha’s Governing Board). 

“Covid 19 has starkly reminded us of the need for government to be close to citizens, at the ward and even polling booth level.  Decentralised governance with citizen participation inherently built into its design is inevitable for surmounting the challenges of our cities and neighbourhoods.  We need more and more governments, and more and more political and administrative leaders, to put their might behind empowering our municipalities and neighbourhood communities.  Through the Janaagraha City Governance Awards we are committed to amplifying such efforts,” said Srikanth Viswanathan, CEO, Janaagraha. 

Online Event Link can be accessed here –      

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/janaagraha/posts/4022398434439845 

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/janaagraha 

Winners of 2nd Edition of Janaagraha City Governance Awards              

Best State 

Winner - JAGA Mission, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Government of Odisha 

Ist Runner-Up – Decentralisation of Plan Approvals, Urban Development Department, Government of Maharashtra 

IInd Runner-Up – Geo-spatial Mapping of Urban Properties, Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration Department, Government of Telangana            

Best Municipality 

Winner – PPP Based Integrated Solid Waste Management, Indore Municipal Corporation 

Ist Runner Up - My City Beautiful City, Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation         

IInd Runner Up - GIS Based Property Tax Administration System, Raipur Municipal Corporation              

Honourable Mention - Zero Waste Initiative, Kollam Municipal Corporation  

Honourable Mention - Decentralised Solid Waste Management, Vellore Municipal Corporation 

Honourable Mention - Decentralised Solid Waste Management, Petlad Municipality 

Best Civic Agency 

Winner – Piped Water Supply Scheme for all Urban Households, Public Health Engineering Organisation, Odisha 

Ist Runner-Up – Municipal E-Governance Project, Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Company 

IInd Runner-Up – Integrated Transport Management System, Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport 

Honourable Mention – E-Platform and ERP System, Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority 

Best State Election Commission 

Winner - E-Voting, Gujarat State Election Commission 

Ist Runner-Up – Bifurcation of Assembly Rolls and Digitisation of Local Body Voter List, Maharashtra State Election Commission  

2nd Runner-Up- E-Election Software, Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission    

Best State Finance Commission 

Winner - Kerala 4th State Finance Commission            

Ist Runner-Up - Bihar 5th State Finance Commission  

IInd Runner-Up - Maharashtra 4th State Finance Commission          

Panel Discussions 

The award ceremony was followed by 3 panel discussions on topics: 

Power to the People: Is a truly empowered City Government possible in India? 

Making Decentralisation work in India: Learning from Successes 

Women Leader’s as Change Agents in India’s Cities 

The panelists consisted of senior Indian and foreign politicians at the center, state and city levels, senior bureaucrats, and inspirational women leaders. 

Janaagraha City Governance Awards  

Janaagraha City Governance Awards are instituted in the memory of Mr V Ramachandran, a doyen of decentralisation, to recognize ground-breaking work in decentralisation in urban context by institutions across government. 

V Ramachandran, a former civil servant, known as the father of democratic decentralisation, set many a precedent with his visionary efforts and contributions in formulating participatory planning practice and Panchayati Raj. He also played a seminal role as a Member of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission in pushing the envelope on administrative reforms in India, and especially on decentralisation to local bodies. He was also a Member of the Governing Board of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. 

About Janaagraha 

Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy is a non-profit trust in the Jana group co-founded by Swati Ramanathan and Ramesh Ramanathan in 2001. Janaagraha's mission is to transform the quality of life in India's cities and towns. It works with citizens to catalyse active citizenship in city neighbourhoods and with governments to institute reforms to city governance (what we call "City-Systems"). 

The "City-Systems" framework is a whole-of-systems approach to solving for India's cities. It comprises four distinct yet interdependent components: Urban Planning and Design (master plans, design standards for public utilities), Urban Capacities and Resources (municipal finance, municipal staffing and technology), Political Leadership (empowerment, legitimacy) and Transparency and Citizen Participation (public disclosures, citizen participation, service level guarantees and grievance redressal). 

Sweet And Sinister – Voot Select Announces New Original, Candy

This year has been extraordinary in terms of content that has been dished out from the web world and some of the biggest shows of 2020 were from Voot Select’s stable. Staying true to its proposition of – Made for stories, the platform showcased content across genres and rolled out exceptional originals that received much appreciation from the audience. Whether it was the never-before confluence of mythology and science in the highly acclaimed Asur, or the entirely remotely & digitally shot The Gone Game or the suave and sleek Crackdown that brought alive the magic of the big screen, Voot Select has just kept raising the bar in terms of delivering top class content. While the excitement and anticipation is already building around the Voot Select’s 2021 line up, it is set to take its content proposition up a notch with its new original Candy.

The newest addition to their list of engrossing thrillers, Candy, a plot thickened with stories of drugs, politics, ambition and murder, is sweet as sin. But is behind these sinister doings-  a man or a beast, no one can tell. Set in a boarding school, in a misty hill town, this Candy is going to be full of action, thrill and a complete jaw breaker. Featuring Richa Chadda and Ronit Roy in the lead roles,  Candy will definitely take the audiences on an adrenaline-charged quest to unwrap the secrets.

Speaking about it, Ronit Roy says, “I’ve been lucky to have had the chance to work with so many talented directors which has helped my learning curve tremendously. With the advent of the digital entertainment era there is so much good work for everyone and so many people are doing such good work it’s heartening and inspiring. I feel immense opportunities exist and will grow further. Im proud have been a part of some fantastic OTT shows and now I am extremely excited and waiting to start work on Candy. Kudos to the entire team of Voot Select for coming up with such a strong concept. My role is complex and challenging, which just makes it all the more interesting. I have a feeling this is going to be a very exciting ride and can’t wait to share this piece with you”

Richa Chadda stated,  “What drew me towards the script was the various dimensions to my role in the show. This thriller/psychological horror space is new for me. Playing characters with depth is something that has always interested me and this was the perfect opportunity. Of course, working with someone like Ronit is very exciting, as this will be the first time that I will be sharing screen space with him as well as other brilliant actors like Nakul Sahdev, Manurishi Chadha. I am also excited to collaborate with director Ashish Shukla, as he was one of the first people I met from the industry, from the beginning of my career”

Along with Ronit Roy and Richa Chadda, the show will also feature Manu Rishi Chadha and Nakul Sehdev in pivotal roles. The series is directed by Ashish R. Shukla and produced by Optimystix Entertainment. 

Candy is slated to release in 2021 on Voot Select.

Paytm Money Disrupts Futures & Options Trading, With Brokerage At Rs. 10 Per Order

 

- Launches F&O trading platform on the App with its Early Access Program

- Product power-packed with best in class features and made simple for new to market investors

- Offers all FNO trades at a competitive pricing of as low as Rs.10

- Aiming at a daily turnover of Rs 1.5 lakh crore & 1 million trades in the next 18-24 months

India's homegrown digital financial services platform Paytm today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Paytm Money now provides Futures & Options trading (F&O) on its platform, along with its other offerings - Stocks, Direct Mutual Funds, ETF, IPO, NPS, and Digital Gold. The platform has launched this service with the most competitive brokerage at Rs. 10 for all F&O trades and the low pricing is without any commitments or packages or contracts. This is in line with its intraday charges of Rs.10, and free for delivery. The pricing disruption will benefit experienced as well as first-time traders to seamlessly trade in futures & options with a best in class product, on their mobile and in a secure environment.

Initially, the company is giving early access to a select user base on Android and Web to receive their feedback. Commercial roll out to all traders & iOS launch will be over the next few weeks. With the launch of F&O on its platform, Paytm Money is aiming at an overall daily turnover of Rs 1.5 lakh crore and 1 million trades a day in the next 18 to 24 months.

Paytm Money has ensured that while it provides for all the features required for a derivative trader, it does not complicate the user interface for a simple investor or a newbie trader which is unique in the industry. The charting provides over 180 studies & patterns usually tracked by the pro traders all in an easy to use interface on one's mobile. The price alert feature allows traders to get real-time alerts on any FNO contracts. While Paytm Money provides for various calculators, traders can seamlessly check the required margin while placing an order for any contract. Searching for a contract or option on the platform is a breeze & no specific templates are required for the search or addition to watchlists. The dark & light modes across mobile & web platforms provide convenience to traders who are particular about the background colours & fonts. Tracking orders & execution from the Position page has been made very simplistic & engaging. The product hosted entirely on cloud and developed with Paytm's well-known technology principles will ensure the platform is smooth, fast and can manage very large volumes - an important technology disruption in the wealth management space.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO said, "On the mission to bring wealth services to 100 million Indians, the launch of F&O will accelerate our path. This has been made keeping the mobile-first platform in mind. The simple to use low price product is meant to make deep inroads into smaller towns and cities."

Varun Sridhar, CEO - Paytm Money said, "We are very happy to launch a best in class FNO platform with a super-fast experience, simple interface, built on the cloud to ensure stability, advanced charting & features to support high-frequency traders and most importantly making it simple for new traders to buy their first FNO contract. Our pricing of 10 INR flat per order without any contracts/commitments/conditions brings the overall cost of trading significantly lower and makes it super transparent. We are eagerly looking forward to bring thousands of new traders to the markets. With this, Paytm Money is taking one step further to become India’s most comprehensive & #1 digital wealth management platform."

With more than 7 million users, Paytm Money has reached 98% of pin codes in India which truly defines that the app is made for Bharat. Almost 50% of Mutual Funds and Stocks investors on the platform are new to the market and more than 60% hail from tier II, tier III cities. More than 60 million people invest in Digital Gold on Paytm & Paytm Money. Given the limited penetration of stock investments in the country, the company sees a high growth trajectory for its stocks broking offering, similar to its Mutual Fund offerings.

About Paytm Money:

Paytm Money is a wholly-owned subsidiary of One97 Communications that owns and operates Paytm. It is the largest online investment platform in the country, & has now added F&O to its current offerings of Stocks, ETF, IPO, Digital Gold, Direct Mutual Funds & NPS for its users. Paytm Money aims to become a full-stack investment and wealth management platform and bring wealth creation opportunities to millions of Indians. Headquartered and operating from Bengaluru, the team is 300+ member strong.

Sterlite Power Completes Merger Of Subsidiary And Announces Consolidated PAT Of INR 942 Cr For FY 2020

 

Sterlite Power, a leading global power transmission player, has announced the completion of merger of its wholly owned subsidiary Sterlite Power Grid Ventures Ltd. with the parent entity. With this merger, the company further strengthens its position in the marketplace by integrating operations and streamlining the corporate structure. Post the merger, Sterlite Power has announced the audited annual results for Financial Year 2020 recording outstanding growth in revenue and profit. 

Key Financial Highlights 

Consolidated Revenue up by 44% y-o-y at INR 5,158 Cr 

Consolidated EBITDA up by 434% y-o-y at INR 2,406 Cr  

Consolidated Profit After Tax up by 280% y-o-y at INR 942 Cr  

ROCE of 28% 

Sterlite Power is increasingly focused on integrating renewable energy (RE) to the grid and has been awarded vital projects connecting the national grid to clean and green energy. The company has added several Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) projects to its portfolio in FY20 including the Lakadia-Vadodara Transmission Project Ltd. (LVTPL) which is part of India’s Green Energy Corridor (GEC). The company also commissioned its first project in Brazil (Arcoverde) 28 months ahead of schedule, which was designed to evacuate renewable wind energy. Through its unique asset monetization strategy, the company has realized additional liquidity of INR Rs 2450 Cr from the monetization of three projects in India (NRSS 29, OGPTL and ENICL) and three projects in Brazil (Pampa, Arcoverde and Nova Estado). 

Apart from achieving significant milestones in terms of project wins, execution, and asset monetisation, it has been an exceptional year for the company in terms of prestigious global and national recognitions: 

Winner of ‘Construction Project of the Year’ at the S&P Global Platts Energy Awards 2019 for NRSS-29 project in Kashmir. 

Gold Winner in the mega-sized project category at the IPMA Global Project Excellence Awards 2019 for NRSS-29 project. 

Economic Times (ET) Innovation Awards for Skyrob™ – a semi-autonomous robot developed in-house to ensure safe OPGW stringing under live-line conditions. 

Featured as case studies by India’s premier management institutes: IIM Ahmedabad and ISB Hyderabad. 

Commenting on company’s performance, Mr. Pratik Agarwal, Managing Director, Sterlite Power, said, “We are driven by our core purpose to enable access to reliable power while minimizing the impact on climate change. As the world makes rapid transition towards clean energy, and India targets 450GW of renewable energy by 2030, we will contribute towards this noble cause by creating the required transmission infrastructure so that green energy can reach the most underserved households.” 

As humanity adapts to the new normal defined by the pandemic, access to uninterrupted power has become the lifeline for society and economy.  With the added urgency to avert the bigger crisis of climate change, Governments across the globe have accelerated the transition from fossil fuel to clean energy. In this new era, Sterlite Power is playing a critical role by enabling access to reliable power with an increasing focus on integrating renewables to the grid. 

With its unique asset monetization strategy and strong project execution capabilities, the company has delivered strong financial results. Sterlite Power’s Annual Report 2019-20 can be accessed here. 

About Sterlite Power 

Sterlite Power is a leading global developer of power transmission infrastructure with projects of over 13,700 circuit kms and 26,100 MVA in India and Brazil. With an industry-leading portfolio of power conductors, EHV cables and OPGW, Sterlite Power also offers solutions for upgrading, uprating and strengthening existing networks. The Company has set new benchmarks in the industry by use of cutting-edge technologies and innovative financing. Sterlite Power is the sponsor of IndiGrid, India’s first power sector Infrastructure Investment Trust (“InvIT”), listed on the BSE and NSE. Sterlite Power has been recognised with The Economic Times Innovation Awards 2020 and is a recipient of prestigious global awards from S&P Global Platts and International Project Management Association (IPMA).  

Tata Motors Unveils The TATA ALTROZ iTURBO As It Celebrates The Brand’s 1st Anniversary

Celebrating first anniversary of its premium hatchback, the Altroz, Tata Motors today unveiled the new Altroz iTurbo.  Ready to create another benchmark with new gizmos and the new engine addition, the new Altroz iTurbo will be powered by new 1.2L Petrol iTurbo engine and a new top of the line XZ+ trim which will flaunt all the new and exceptional features. To further enhance the design elements, the Altroz in its 2021 avatar will also sport the new Black and light Grey interiors accentuated with perforated leatherette seats to elaborate on the premium feeling of the cabin. The Altroz will also be equipped with the iRA tech – a connected car technology by Tata Motors. Apart from 27 new and additional features, it also comes with a natural voice tech, through which the car understands and processes voice commands not only in English or Hindi, but also in Hinglish.

Gold Standard of Driving Pleasure: Experience an exhilarating performance of ALTROZ with the powerful engine of iTurbo.

·         1.2 L Turbocharged petrol BS6 engine.

·         Power – 110 PS @ 5500 rpm – A large powerful engine to ensure you never run out of power.

·         Torque - 140 Nm @1500- 5500 rpm - High torque at low rpms to give an enjoyable drive experience.

·         Multi Drive Modes: Sport/ City - New Sport mode in Altroz iTurbo for those who want to experience the thrill of driving.

Altroz iTurbo will be available in XT, XZ and the new top of the line XZ+ variant. The New XZ+ variant will come loaded with features such as:

1.       iRA (Intelligent Real time Assist) - iRA is a smart new connected technology designed to cater to the needs of the Indian customer. iRA has been developed in India for India. The iRA App offers 27 features with 5 layers of connectivity:

·         Natural Voice Tech –

The Altroz is in sync with India and the Indian customer.  Give commands as per your convenience as the system understands – Hindi, English & Hinglish. With more than 70 commands, the Natural Voice tech in ALTROZ ensures an enjoyable drive.

·         What 3 Words-

ALTROZ is India’s first hatchback to introduce this precise & simple way to reach your locations. What 3 Words is a technology that has assigned each 3m square in the world a unique 3 word address. They are easy to say, share and are accurate too. 

2.       Xpress Cool - Helps cabin to reach comfort temperatures quickly by optimally setting the air conditioning to maximum cooling.

3.       Leatherette Seats - High end perforated leather seats that ensures a luxurious drive.

4.       Personalized Wallpaper on your infotainment screen – More personalized driving experience.

5.       One shot up power windows - More convenience during drives.

6.       2 additional tweeters by Harman (Only in iTurbo) – For an enjoyable surround sound experience.

7.       Sport mode (only in iTurbo) – For those who want a thrilling drive experience.

New Color theme

A new Harbour Blue color is available in all variants from Altroz XM+ upwards. Contrast Black roof option is available in XZ and XZ+ variants of Altroz iTurbo. This is accompanied with the New Sporty Black and light Grey interiors to set the right mood during those drives. The new interior color theme will be available in all variants and powertrains of Altroz

Tata Altroz is the first product on the ALFA architecture and has received tremendous response from customers and the industry alike since its launch in January 2020. Month-on-month sales have witnessed an increase and are maintaining a consistent growth trajectory. India’s safest hatchback with a 5 star rating from Global NCAP, has indeed raised the bar and set #TheGoldStandard in safety, design and driving dynamics.

Amazon Launches Its Worldwide New Video Plan - Prime Video Mobile Edition In India

 

Joins hands with Airtel for the first roll-out of Prime Video Mobile Edition, making high quality entertainment accessible to hundreds of millions of Airtel customers

Prime Video Mobile Edition is a single-user mobile-only plan created especially for a mobile-first country like India.

All Airtel customers on pre-paid bundled packs get 30-day free trial of Prime Video Mobile Edition. Subsequently, customers can activate Mobile Edition through recharge bundles starting at an introductory offer of ₹ 89

Accelerating its efforts to increase access to high-quality entertainment for every Indian, Amazon today introduced Prime Video Mobile Edition – a mobile-only plan at an amazing introductory price of ₹89. India becomes the first Amazon Prime country in the world to offer customers a mobile-only Prime Video plan. Powered by affordable data, the ubiquitous smartphone has become the country’s preferred screen for entertainment. Prime Video Mobile Edition is a single-user mobile-only plan, providing SD quality streaming to customers which is created especially for a mobile-first country like India.  Prime Video is collaborating with Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s premier communications solutions provider, for the first roll-out of Prime Video Mobile Edition.

As part of the Prime Video Mobile Edition launch in India, all Airtel customers on bundled pre-paid packs can avail a 30-day free trial by simply signing up to Amazon from the Airtel Thanks app using their mobile number. After the 30 day-free trial, Airtel customers can continue to enjoy Prime Video Mobile Edition through pre-paid recharges starting at an introductory offer of ₹89, to get 28-days of Prime Video Mobile Edition along with 6GB data or choose a ₹299 pack of 28-day validity that includes Prime Video Mobile Edition along with unlimited calls, data access of 1.5 GB per day.

Customers who want to get the complete Prime Video experience including multi-user access, streaming across devices including Smart TV and the ability to enjoy content in HD/UHD in addition to having access to other Prime benefits including ad-free music with Prime Music and free fast shipping on Amazon.in, will have the option of recharging with a 30-day Amazon Prime membership at ₹131 or recharge with  a ₹349 pack of 28-day validity that includes  Amazon Prime membership along unlimited calling, data access of 2 GB per day.

The recharges will be available on the Airtel Thanks app or at over a million recharge points across the country. These offerings provide unlimited access to Prime Video’s entire entertainment content library and empowers the customer with even more choices and options to access Prime Video.

Talking about the launch, Jay Marine, Vice President, Amazon Prime Video Worldwide, said: "India is one of our fastest growing territories in the world with very high engagement rates. Buoyed by this response, we want to double-down by offering our much-loved entertainment content to an even larger base of Indian customers. Given high mobile broadband penetration in the country, the mobile phone has become one of the most widely used streaming devices. With the launch of Prime Video Mobile Edition we look forward to entertaining every Indian with our Exclusive and Original content.”

Gaurav Gandhi, Director and Country General Manager, Amazon Prime Video India said: “Over the last 4 years, Prime Video has become the country’s most loved premium streaming service with viewership coming from over 4,300 towns and cities. We believe that the Mobile Edition plan will further accelerate Prime Video’s adoption in India and allow an even larger number of customers to access our popular entertainment content. This initiative for Amazon, is designed not just to give customers more choice (of plans) but also easy access to subscribe to Prime Video along with mobile data plans. We are happy to collaborate with Airtel as our first partner in India for Prime Video Mobile Edition."

Shashwat Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel said, “At Airtel, we are deeply passionate about delivering a differentiated experience to our customers through our Airtel Thanks program. We are happy to partner with Amazon to democratize quality digital entertainment in India by leveraging Airtel’s core strengths of quality customers, deep distribution and best-in-class network for video.”

Speaking on the collaboration with Airtel, Sameer Batra, Director, Mobile Business Development, Amazon “We are delighted to have Airtel as our first roll-out partner for Prime Video Mobile Edition. This collaboration marks the deepening of the strategic association between Amazon and Airtel.  Smartphones powered by pre-paid connections and affordable data are ubiquitous to a large base of Indian customers – Mobile Edition will make Prime Video synonymous to quality entertainment for this large customer group. We look forward to expanding the reach of our service to the entire pre-paid customer base in India.”

ABOUT AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

Prime Video is a premium streaming service that offers Prime members a collection of award-winning Amazon Original series, thousands of movies, and TV shows—all with the ease of finding what they love to watch in one place. 

Available On Prime Video: Thousands of TV shows and movies from Hollywood and Bollywood, including Indian produced Amazon Original series such as The Family Man, Mirzapur, Inside Edge and Made In Heaven, and award-winning and critically acclaimed global Amazon Original series including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, The Boys,  and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and movies such as Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and My Spy are available for unlimited streaming as part of a Prime membership. Prime Video includes titles available in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi and Bengali. Find out more at PrimeVideo.com. 

About Bharti Airtel

Headquartered in India, Airtel is a global telecommunications company with operations in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally and its mobile network covers a population of over two billion people. Airtel is India’s largest integrated telecom provider and the second largest mobile operator in Africa. At the end of September 2020, Airtel had approx. 440 mn customers across its operations. Airtel’s portfolio includes high speed 4G/4.5G mobile broadband, Airtel Xstream Fiber that promises speeds upto 1Gbps, converged digital TV solutions through the Airtel Xstream 4K Hybrid Box, digital payments through Airtel Payments Bank as well as an integrated suite of services across connectivity, collaboration, cloud and security that serves over one million businesses. Airtel’s OTT services include Airtel Thanks app for self-care, Airtel Xstream app for video, Wynk Music for entertainment and Airtel BlueJeans for video conferencing. In addition, Airtel has forged strategic partnerships with hundreds of companies across the world to enable the Airtel platform to deliver an array of consumer and enterprise services.

Clumio Achieves ISO 27701 Certification, First Internationally Recognized Privacy Standard Aligned With GDPR

* Authentic SaaS innovator’s “born in the cloud” design gives company market-leading, proactive compliance advantage

* ISO 27701 regarded as first internationally recognized privacy certification standard

that parallels General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements

* Clumio has completed five major privacy/security compliance programs in its first

18 months

Clumio™ Inc., innovators of authentic SaaS for enterprise backup, today announced that the company’s secure backup as a service for the enterprise has achieved the ISO 27701:2019 Privacy Information Management System (PIMS) certification. 

ISO 27701 is widely considered to be the first internationally recognized privacy certification standard that parallels the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) personal data collection, processing, and protection requirements. This latest privacy certification underscores the company’s commitment to proactive compliance, with Clumio completing five major privacy/security compliance programs in its first 18 months. One of the company’s prime competitive differentiators: Clumio’s cloud-native architecture has allowed the company to “bake” security capabilities into its Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.

“While some companies are cobbling together compliance solutions, Clumio has made it a mission from day one to take a holistic and proactive approach to compliance,” said Glenn Mulvaney, vice president of cloud operations and security, Clumio. “We began our ISO compliance work before we even had a public product, and have worked to stay one step ahead of our audit requirements, compliance reports, and certifications. We started with the correct compliance controls long before we entered the public market, meaning we didn’t have to ‘undo’ poor practices when it came to our product, our employees, and our processes. We built our platform and our organization to conform to key industry privacy and security standards from the start.”

Clumio was born in the public cloud, leveraging the most modern cloud capabilities - including more than 10 major AWS services - to ensure it meets and exceeds the backup, privacy, and security requirements of today’s most demanding enterprises. Clumio recognizes that compliance and security are not interchangeable. As a result, information security best practices are built into the product architecture. Clumio’s authentic SaaS backup protects workloads such as  VMware / VMware Cloud on AWS, Amazon Web Services (EC2/RDS/EBS), and Microsoft M365. As a SaaS platform, Clumio has built upon AWS physical and environmental compliance controls. Companies that use Clumio can be assured that their compliance requirements for data protection are satisfied. 

Although there is no official GDPR checklist or certification, Clumio’s platform is built on ISO information security and privacy management system standards that also align with GDPR. This privacy-related certification confirms that Clumio’s product offerings contain processes and operations that have been validated through independent testing and support compliance with privacy laws and legislation, including GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). 

Clumio Access Management

In addition to achieving the ISO 27701 certification, Clumio recently announced Clumio Access Management, a new set of secure access management capabilities designed to provide corporate IT with more granular department and role-based access controls. Clumio Access Management encompasses authorization and authentication best practices that allow enterprise IT teams to provision by organizational unit, ensuring the right people have the right access to do their jobs. 

Clumio Access Management delivers:

A simplified experience: Easily configure asset/inventory grouping criteria for department administrators in organizational units. Any future assets that get added to the grouping criteria (such as Accounts for AWS or VMFolder for VMware) get assigned to the department administrator in that organizational unit automatically.

Zero trust security: Corporate IT teams in large enterprises or Managed Service Providers no longer need to have credentials of all data sources. They can add their department administrators or tenants respectively and then these administrators can add their respective data sources and ensure that visibility is restricted to their own department.

Contextual navigation: Corporate IT teams can easily change the context and “view” everything as the department administrator. This helps both teams resolve issues very quickly.

Consistent data protection: Corporate IT teams can create reference policies that department administrators can use to protect their assets. They cannot modify such policies, but they can use this policy to provide consistent data protection across different data sources.

This first phase of Clumio Access Management is available now. Future updates to Clumio Access Management will include the ability to create custom and/or pre-defined roles to allow select administrators to manage the actions that organizational unit administrators can perform in the Clumio portal.

Learn More About Protecting Enterprise Workloads in an Era of Growing Cyber Attacks

Join Clumio, along with a panel of security and data protection experts, to discuss the risk of cyber-attacks, ransomware, and data loss during its upcoming Clumio Cloud Data Protection Summit on Jan. 13, 2021. Attendees will learn how and why having a multi-layered data protection approach is critical to an enterprise’s overall information security strategy. The summit will cover IT challenges facing today’s modern cloud era as well as best practices for protecting your organization’s data.