Tata Harrier Drives The Historic Sudarshan Bharat Parikrama Rally To Varanasi Today

* 47 NSG commandos to travel 7500km across 18 cities in 15 Tata #Dark Harriers

Celebrating ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, that commemorates the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, an elite group of 47 National Security Guard (NSG) commandos started the ‘Sudarshan Bharat Parikrama’ to cover the length and breadth of India. Tata #Dark Harrier, the tough and rugged SUV from Tata Motors, India's largest homegrown automaker, resonates with the edgy personas of the black cat commandos and is proud to be the NSG’s vehicle of choice in this expedition. 

Driven in 15 Tata #Dark Harriers, this landmark rally will traverse through 18 prominent cities to cover a distance of 7500 km in less than a month. Currently, the rally has travelled through Agra and Lucknow, before arriving in Varanasi today. The rally will go to Bodh Gaya on the same day, and will continue to make pitstops at TML dealerships on the way.

NSG is an elite counter-terror force and the commandos are brave, highly motivated and specially trained to win in the most difficult of situations. Starting from the historic Red Fort in New Delhi, the ‘Sudarshan Bharat Parikrama’ will tour India’s major war memorials and monuments through Agra, Lucknow, Varanasi, Bodh Gaya, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Berhampur, Vizag, Vijaywada, Hyderabad, Ongole, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hublii, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur, celebrating the dedication and perseverance of the nation’s protectors.

Saluting and roaring for the NSG, Tata Motors #Dark Harrier customers will also join the rally.

Jai Hind!

About Tata Motors

Part of the USD 109 billion Tata group, Tata Motors Limited (NYSE: TTM; BSE: 500570 and 570001; NSE: TATAMOTORS and TATAMTRDVR), a USD 34 billion organization, is a leading global automobile manufacturer of cars, utility vehicles, pick-ups, trucks and buses, offering extensive range of integrated, smart and e-mobility solutions. With ‘Connecting Aspirations’ at the core of its brand promise, Tata Motors is India’s market leader in commercial vehicles and amongst the top three in the passenger vehicles market.

Tata Motors strives to bring new products that fire the imagination of GenNext customers, fueled by state of the art design and R&D centers located in India, UK, US, Italy and South Korea. With a focus on engineering and tech enabled automotive solutions catering to the future of mobility, the company’s innovation efforts are focused to develop pioneering technologies that are sustainable as well as suited to evolving aspirations of the market and the customers. The company is pioneering India's Electric Vehicle (EV) transition and driving the shift towards sustainable mobility solutions by preparing a tailor-made product strategy, leveraging the synergy between the Group companies and playing an active role liasoning with the Government in developing the policy framework

With operations in India, the UK, South Korea, Thailand, South Africa, and Indonesia, supported by a strong global network of 103 subsidiaries, 9 associate companies, 4 joint ventures and 2 joint operations as on March 31, 2021, Tata Motors’ commercial and passenger vehicles are marketed in countries, spread across Africa, Middle East, South & South East Asia, Australia, South America, Russia and other CIS countries.

Paytm Launches “Navratri Gold Offer”: Book LPG Cylinders Of Indane, HP Gas Or Bharatgas And Win Gold Worth Rs. 10,001

* Navratri Gold Offer starts from October 7th and will last until October 16th 

* Along with Paytm Digital Gold, users can win cashback points on every booking 

* Offers flexibility for choosing payment modes from Paytm Wallet, Paytm UPI, cards, netbanking or Paytm Postpaid. 

India's leading digital ecosystem for consumers and merchants (1) Paytm announced the launch of its ‘Navratri Gold’ offer for LPG cylinder bookings. Between 7th and 16th October, 5 lucky users every day will win Paytm Digital Gold worth Rs. 10,001/- on booking their LPG cylinders through the Paytm app.  

This offer would also be applicable on payments of existing unpaid cylinder bookings done using the "Book Gas Cylinder" feature on the Paytm App. Besides this, all users will get assured rewards of up to 1000 cashback points on every booking, which can be redeemed for amazing deals and gift vouchers from top brands. This ‘Navratri Gold’ offer is applicable on cylinder booking of all 3 major LPG companies – Indane, HP Gas, and Bharatgas.  

Recently, the company enhanced the cylinder booking experience by adding innovative features that enable users to track the delivery of their gas cylinders, and also receive automated intelligent reminders for refills.  

All that a user needs to do is go to the ‘Book Gas Cylinder’ tab, select the gas provider, enter Mobile No./LPG ID/consumer no., and then make the payment using their preferred mode of payment such as Paytm Wallet, Paytm UPI, cards, netbanking or Paytm Postpaid, through which customers will also have an option to book now and pay next month. The cylinder is delivered to the registered address by the nearest gas agency. 

Paytm Spokesperson said, “We want to celebrate the festive season with our users by offering cashbacks and rewards on LPG Cylinder booking, which is one of the most popular spends on our platform. Every day 5 lucky users will win Rs 10,001/- worth of gold on Paytm.” 

About Paytm :    Paytm is India’s leading digital ecosystem for consumers and merchants (1), and offers payment services, commerce and cloud services, and financial services to 333 million consumers and over 21 million merchants, as on March 31, 2021. Paytm is India’s largest payments platform (1) based on the number of consumers, number of merchants, number of consumer to merchant transactions and revenue, as on March 31, 2021, and with a GMV of ₹4,033 billion of FY2021. One 97 Communications Limited (“Company”) is the largest payment gateway aggregator in India for FY2021 based on total transactions, with the widest ecosystem of payment instruments (1). The Company’s lending business (offered in collaboration with financial institution partners), includes personal loans, merchant loans, as well as its Buy Now, Pay Later product i.e. Paytm Postpaid. The Company’s financial institution partners disbursed 1.4 million loans in Q4FY21. 

Bank Of Baroda Reduces Home Loans Rates To 6.5 Percent*

Bank of Baroda, India’s premium public sector bank, announced reduction of 25 bps in its home loan rates from 6.75% to 6.50%* w.e.f from October 7, 2021.  With the onset of festive season and to make home buying more affordable for customers, the Bank has extended this offer and the special rate will be available till December 31, 2021. The new rates will be available for customers applying for fresh loans, loan transfer or looking to refinance their existing loans making the offer more inclusive. Nil processing fee on home loan was already on offer and has been extended till 31/12/21. 

On the announcement of reduction in home loans, Mr H T Solanki, GM- Mortgages & Other Retail Assets, Bank of Baroda said , “Bank always tries to offer  the most competitive rates of interest on home loan and other retail loan products while making the process seamless and hasselfree through our digital platforms and our dedicated teams. Our customers will get benefited from this offering in this festive season. With this reduced rate of interest, Bank of Baroda home loans are now offering the most competitive rates across categories for a limited period till 31/12/2021 .” 

FADA Releases September 2021 Vehicle Retail Data

The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) today released Vehicle Retail Data for September’21. 

September’21 Retails 

Commenting on how September’21 performed, FADA President, Mr. Vinkesh Gulati said, “Auto retail in the month of September has taken a pause as overall sales were down by -5%. During the 1st half of this FY, while the overall retails were up by 35%, the same was down by -29% when compared to 2019, a pre-covid year. On a long term basis, except tractors which grew by 19% and PV which has almost reached pre-covid levels, all the other segments were in red. 

The 2W category continues to play spoilsport as entry level segment is yet to witness healthy growth. This segment’s performance is now becoming critical for the overall 2W to come back on the path of recovery as dealer inventory rises to 30-35 days in anticipation of a good festive. Semiconductor shortage has also started impacting the 150+ cc segment. 

The 3W segment is now showing clear signs of tactical shift from ICE to EVs as the ratio has hit a 60:40 split. With offices and educational institutions slowly opening up, electrification of 3W’s will gather a greater momentum in months to come. 

As we enter the core of this year’s festive season, the full blown semiconductor crises continues to create hindrance in PV sales as vehicle inventory at dealers end dip to record lows of 15-20 days during the current fiscal. With high demand in this segment, long waiting period continues to frustrate and keep enthusiast buyers in a fix.  

The CV segment is finally showing greater strength as all sub-categories continue to grow YoY. MCV for the first time also grows above pre-covid month of Sept’19. 

Near Term Outlook 

With India entering the 42 days festive period beginning today, the near term outlook for this year’s festive season will be a mixed bag. While Dealers have increased their inventory in 2W category, PV inventory is at the lowest during this FY due to the ongoing semi-conductor crises.  

The chip shortage looks less likely to ease within next two quarters. As a result, PV sales is likely to stagnate going ahead even though OEMs are coming ahead with new launches to keep the customer excited. With skyrocketing fuel prices and a drop in purchasing power, entry level customers in rural India are keeping themselves away from fulfilling their mobility needs.  

India’s vaccination drive has reached a remarkable momentum. This coupled with a less likelihood of 3rd wave in near future and offices and educational institutions opening up in a phased manner, we anticipate a marginal recovery process to begin in the 2W space. FADA hence requests all 2W OEMs to roll out special promotions schemes so that it can springboard 2W retails for a faster recovery.  

Inventory at the end of September’21 

Average inventory for Passenger Vehicles ranges from 15-20 days 

Average inventory for Two – Wheelers ranges from 30-35 days 

Liquidity 

Neutral = 40.7% 

Good = 31.9% 

Bad = 27.5% 

Sentiment 

Neutral = 45.1% 

Good = 27.5% 

Bad = 27.5% 

Alia Bhatt Invests In Social Alpha Backed D2C Start-Up Phool.co That Makes Natural Incense And Bio-Leather From Floral Waste

*Alia Bhatt has invested in D2C start-up Phool.co, backed by Social-Alpha- an initiative supported by Tata Trusts.

* Phool.co is India’s first wellness brand to have both Fair for Life- Fairtrade and Ecocert Organic & Natural certifications. Phool has pioneered the flowercycling technologies to upcycle cellulose waste and specializes in manufacturing charcoal-free incense and other wellness products.

* Earlier, Phool.co had raised US $ 2 Million in a seed round from IAN Fund, Social Alpha, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (San Francisco), and IIT Kanpur.  

* With Deep-tech research, the startup has successfully developed a commercially viable alternative to Animal leather called “Fleather”  

Phool.co, a Social Alpha-backed D2C wellness startup, today announced that Alia Bhatt is now an investor in the company.

Founded by UN Young Leader Awardee for Sustainable Development Goals, Ankit Agarwal in July 2017, Phool.co is an innovative startup focused on the circular economy which converts floral waste into Charcoal-free Luxury incense products and other wellness products. The startup is also India’s first wellness brand to have Fair for Life- Fairtrade and Ecocert Organic & Natural certifications. With deep-tech research, the startup has also developed “Fleather'' leveraging their flowercycling technology. Fleather is a viable alternative to Animal leather which was recently awarded PETA’s best innovation in the Vegan World.

Phool.co has rapidly expanded its operations and has consistently achieved 130% YoY growth for the past two years. Phool.co vision is backed by strong RnD efforts and is based on sustainable development goals focused on creating a circular economy, promoting sustainable consumption, and bringing dignified livelihoods.

Speaking on the latest investment, Alia Bhatt, who is known for her environmental initiatives, said, “Phool incense really stands out for its fine natural fragrances and amazing packaging. I admire the founder’s vision of making incense and bio-leather from recycled flowers that contribute to keeping our rivers clean, creating a humane alternative to leather and providing employment to women in India’s heartland. I’m proud that these products are created in India and wowing the world and I’m thrilled to join the investors who are backing the company.”

Earlier this year, Alia Bhatt had also invested in Nykaa, the omni-channel lifestyle retailer stating the three reasons she chose the company were its Indian roots, its global scale and that it was founded by a woman.      

Social Alpha had written the first Equity cheque & had invested in and nurtured the company, while it was at the idea stage. Speaking on the latest development, Manoj Kumar, Founder & CEO, Social Alpha said, “Ankit has truly demonstrated how passionate entrepreneurs can solve some of our most complex problems with their disruptive innovations. The team has the rare combination of empathy, audacious goals, extraordinary resilience and flawless execution to build and scale a sustainable business model. Phool.co will only grow bigger with time”

Ankit Agarwal, Founder Phool.co said,“At Phool.co we aim to drive systemic change through innovation. Alia's investment is a validation of our efforts and firmly sets us on a path to build a global success story from a tier 3 city. The investment and support will help us expand our footprint globally and also step up the pace of RnD. I can proudly say, Phool.co is a business built, led and now even invested in by women.”

IIT Kanpur has been the backbone for the company’s technical research Speaking on the latest development, Dr. Abhay Karandikar, Director IIT Kanpur said “IIT Kanpur is proud to be a partner of PHOOL. I am glad that we could help the company technologically but at the same time, I must acknowledge that PHOOL.co brought a lot of visibility to our incubator and the subsequent stupendous success of SIIC is at least in part due to the success of PHOOL”

Speaking on the latest development, Padmaja Ruparel, Founding Partner, IAN Fund said, “Innovative solutions for the sustainable development of the community is the need of the hour. Phool.co‘s circular economy model brings triple bottom benefits of environmental, social, and financial sustainability. Ankit is a passionate entrepreneur focused on a large market and value creation for both customers and his team.”

For its endeavors to make innovative and sustainable products, Phool.co has received several international recognitions including the prestigious United Nations Young Leaders Award for Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations Momentum of Change Award at COP, Asia Sustainability Award Hong Kong, Alquity Transforming Lives Awards, London and Breaking the Wall of Science, Berlin

Earlier, Phool.co had raised US $ 2 Million in a seed round from IAN Fund, Social Alpha (FISE) and Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (San Francisco), and IIT Kanpur.

About IAN Fund: The IAN Fund, an INR 375 crore fund, is a uniquely differentiated seed/early stage Fund which aims to transform India’s entrepreneurial landscape. The fund invests in innovative companies in sectors including healthcare and medical devices, VR, AI, software as a service, marketplaces, fin-tech, big data, artificial intelligence, agritech and hardware. The Fund leverages and builds upon the strengths and success of IAN, the world’s largest angel investor group, to breed and grow innovative companies.

The fund has Institutional investors like SIDBI’s Fund of Funds for Startups, BIRAC’s ACE Fund, Kerala Startup Mission, IIFL, Wadhwani Foundation, Max Group, Hyundai along with marquee individuals like Kris Gopalakrishnan, Sunil Munjal, Rajan Anandan, Kanwal Rekhi, Vikram Gandhi, Jerry Rao amongst many others. This is the first in a series of Funds so that over the next 10 years, the IAN Platform would invest Rs 5000 Cr in ~500 companies, making it the single largest platform for early stage investing.

About Social Alpha : Social Alpha is a multistage innovation curation and venture development platform for science and technology start-ups that address the most critical social, economic and environmental challenges through the power of entrepreneurship and market-creating innovations. Since its inception in 2016, Social Alpha has supported more 150 start-ups including 60+ seed investments. For more information, please visit www.socialalpha.org

LinkedIn: SocialAlpha Twitter: @SocialAlphaIN Facebook: SocialAlpha Instagram: social_alpha_in

About IIT Kanpur & its ecosystem for Startups: IIT Kanpur’s TBI, Foundation for Innovation in Research, Science and Technology (FIRST), is one of the best academic TBIs in the country. It is primarily engaged in hardware-based product development, a rare trait amongst the incubators of India.

Child Blindness Poses Significant Public Health Challenge Across India

* Over the years, India has seen a shift in the reasons of child blindness from cornea-related causes to whole-globe problems 

* In urban India, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) has emerged as an important cause of child blindness 

Childhood blindness is a significant public health concern in India, with one out of every 1,000 children in the country suffering from blindness, and a child becoming bilaterally blind every minute. Unlike adults among whom 80% of causes of blindness are avoidable, in children this figure is only 50%, according to Dr. Bindiya Hapani, Consultant Ophthalmologist, Dr. Agarwals Eye Hospital, Bengaluru.  

There are around 1.5 million blind children around the world and an additional 18 million children suffer from moderate to severe visual impairment. Almost three-quarters of these live in low to middle income countries where the prevalence is as high as 1.5 per 1,000 children, in contrast to high-income countries where the prevalence is just 0.3 per 1,000 children. 

Said Dr. Bindiya Hapani: “Common causes of childhood blindness in India include untreated refractive errors, corneal opacities due to measles, Vitamin A deficiency, eye infections like Ophthalmia neonatorum or toxicity of traditional eye remedies, congenital cataracts, congenital Glaucoma and ROP. There has been a shift in the causes of child blindness over the years. In studies conducted between 1999 to 2007, cornea-related causes were among the major factors for childhood blindness in India. However, studies between 2007 to 2018 have shown a shifting trend towards whole-globe problems like Microphthalmos (small eye), anophthalmos (absence of eye) and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).”  

She added: “Whole-globe problems as a cause of child blindness are due to  genetic abnormalities caused by consanguineous marriages, use of alcohol by mother and her exposure to fertilizers and pesticides during pregnancy. In urban India, retinopathy of prematurity has emerged as an important cause of child blindness due to better availability of neonatal care services, due to which more babies of low birth weight survive. In rural India, in contrast, low birth-weight neonate mortality rate is much higher than in cities.” 

Said Dr. Bindiya Hapani: “A shift in the causes of childhood blindness over the years shows the success of healthcare and immunization programmes by the Government and increasing socio-economic development in the country. Yet, challenges in preventing child blindness remain. Availability of good primary healthcare is essential for control of child blindness. Also important are good nutrition, maternal and child care facilities, immunization and proper diagnosis and treatment of common conditions of the eye. In rural areas, availability of tertiary care facilities with well-trained eye specialists remains a big challenge.” 

She added: “Paediatric eye care facilities are inadequate and not uniformly distributed across the country. Better ratios are observed in Southern and Western India, compared to Northern and Eastern India. Though paediatric ophthalmology is now developing as a distinct sub-speciality in the country, the number of paediatric ophthalmologists is quite less compared to the child population. However, most paediatric eye conditions can be diagnosed and treated by general ophthalmologists. Paediatric ophthalmologists are needed for complex conditions like congenital cataracts,  squint and retinopathy of prematurity.” 

Talking about how parents can know if their child may be headed towards blindness, Dr. Bindiya Hapani said that children are born with an immature visual system. If timely treatment is not provided for ocular conditions in a child, it can lead to failure of normal visual maturation (Amblyopia), which cannot be treated in adult life.  

She added: “If a child is developing squinting in either the eye or  white reflex  is  seen from the pupil ( Leukocoria), one should consult an ophthalmologist immediately. A major cause of visual impairment in  children is refractive error. Therefore, it is important to have a pre-school eye examination of the child. Blindness can severely restrict the academic, emotional, psychological and social development of kids. Severe visual impairment can also delay their developmental milestones and increase the risk of hospitalisation.” 

80% Tech Recruiters Use Talent Assessment Tools, Hiring Sentiment At Par With Pre COVID-19 Level

* 51% India Inc. tech firms actively hiring for tech roles

* Most (38%) tech recruiters hiring for work from home roles

* Most hiring for: Data Science technology (23% votes),  Software Engineering profile (24% votes) and Java language (35%)

* Most (33%) recruiters hiring freshers, followed by recruitment for mid-level positions (27%)

* Most (29%) tech recruiters assess IT professional basis candidates’ performance in coding tests

* For soft skills, most recruiters (45%) depend on candidates’ performance in job interview

With tech hiring on an upward swing, most tech recruiters trust performance in coding tests as the ultimate litmus test to gauge candidates' tech skills. For the soft skills, it’s the performance at job interviews that matters, revealed a new survey of 931 tech recruiters conducted by e-recruitment portal TimesJobs. This survey was conducted to understand the latest trends in tech hiring.

Top findings from this survey are: 

Explaining the survey findings, Sanjay Goyal, Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig said, “Tech hiring at India Inc. is at par with the pre-COVID-19 levels, as said by most (58%) respondents in the survey. Most (29%) tech recruiters shortlist technologists based on their performance at coding tests, and 80% recruiters actively use talent assessment tools. Both these findings indicate that recruiters now trust more empirical and data-based approaches to find the top tech talent for their firms.”

Other key findings from the TimesJobs survey are: 

Data Science most sought after technology

‘Data is the new oil’, is an old adage now. Leave alone tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft or others, even smaller home-grown companies and startups are using data intelligence to build their business. Hence when the survey asked the tech recruiters about top technologies for which most hiring was happening, Data Science emerged as the top choice with 23% votes. Here are the other responses:

Java preferred for developer roles

Java is one of the most popular object-oriented programming languages in the Information Technology (IT) industry. TimesJobs asked tech recruiters to name the most preferred programming language for tech oriented job profiles. Most respondents (35%) voted for Java.

Campus hiring back on the track 

In another question, most tech recruiters admitted that the campus hiring is at an all time high as well. The survey asked recruiters if they were hiring candidates through campus now, given the COVID-19 exigency since last two years and most (61%) said ‘yes’, whereas 39% disagreed with the same.

Soft skills as important as tech skills 

Tech skills are the core skills for any technologist, but given the present scenario where inter-team and intra-team coordination and work is required, soft skills play a critical role for a project’s success. TimesJobs asked tech recruiters if they valued non-tech skills at par with the tech skills, and most (81%) hiring managers said ‘yes’ unanimously. Only 19% disagreed in response to this question.