India Fashion Forum 2022 In Its 21st Edition Brings A Glorifying Future Of Fashion

IMAGES Group, the largest retail intelligence organisation in South Asia and Middle East, commenced its 21st edition of India Fashion Forum, India’s largest fashion retail intelligence event, on 23rd March 2022, at The Leela Ambience, Gurugram. The forum witnessed a discerning panel discussion moderated by Navin Joshua, Founder/Director, GreenHonchos, on progress and building an effective CX strategy in the fashion retail business.

The panel was followed by IMAGES Retail Technology Icons sponsored by GreenHonchos, which is the first-ever initiative from the IMAGES Group to recognise the transformational achievements of India’s most powerful Innovators, game-changers and leaders of digital.

The day went on with noteworthy and thought provoking words by Atul Shivnani, Head of Ecommerce and Digital, The Body Shop, Agnes Raja George, Founder and MD, Pipin Fashions and Retail Pvt Ltd (Demoza - Bottom Wear), Bidyut Bhanjdeo, Head - S&D, LFS and Ecommerce, Raymond, Rajnish Gupta, Vice President and Head- India and Subcontinent, Zebra, Saikat Mitra, Vice President - Creative Director, Van Heusen, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd, Shifali Singh, Head - Ecommerce, Retail Merchandise and International Expansion, BIBA India, Surbhi Shridhar, Retail Sustainability Lead, Accenture, and Navin Joshua, Founder/Director, GreenHonchos.

Making the most of India’s largest fashion retail event, Ninad Umargekar, Chief Marketing Officer, J G Hosiery, took the opportunity to unveil ‘India’s Perfect Tee’ by Sporto. With assertion of the perfect length, smart collar, unparalleled sturdiness and durability, Mr. Umargekar promised that the product lives up to all of its claims. The forum had a collection of fashion retailers with their products on display. Sporto’s Perfect Tee was also showcased in 15 different colour ways for the audiences to see for themselves.

In a town hall like never before, the India Fashion Forum brought together an incredible panel of developers and retailers in the industry for a dynamic discussion which touched on how to drive customers to the malls, enhancing their omnichannel experience, and adding to the brick and mortar experience. The town hall was beautifully conducted by Pankaj Renjhen, COO & Jt. MD, ANAROCK Retail. The panellists were Abhishek Raj, COO, Lacoste India/Sports & Leisure Apparel Ltd, Ashish Awal, National Sales Manager, Pepe Jeans, Deepak Yadav, Head – BD, Shoppers Stop Ltd, Lokesh Chopra, Head Sales & BD, Alcis Sports Pvt Ltd, Manik Dhodi, Director Real Estate, adidas Group India, Nitin Bansal, Head BD, Miniso, Preeti Chopra, National Head BD – Retail, Raymond, Ramesh Sadhu, CEO, Liberty Retail Revolutions, Sumit Ghildiyal, Head Retail Business Development & NSO (Max), Landmark Group, Sumit S Suneja, Head BD & Franchise, Bestseller India, Vivek Shrivastava, Head Of Retail Business Development, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, Aman Trehan, ED, Trehan IRIS, Arjun Gehlot, Director, Ambience Group, Harsh Bansal, Director, Vegas Mall & Unity Group, Pushpa Bector, Executive Director, DLF Shopping Malls, Shibu Philips, Business Head-Malls, Lulu International Shopping Malls, Uddav Poddar, MD & Group CEO, Bhumika Group, and Yogeshwar Sharma, CEO & ED, Select Infrastructure.

About India Fashion Forum: Launched in the year 2000, India Fashion Forum (IFF) is India’s largest fashion retail intelligence event. Every year, a powerful blend of conference sessions, workshops and master classes, zoned exhibitions and industry awards mark IFF’s confluence of the biggest consumer trends, market intelligence and retail innovation in the business of fashion in India. This edition of IFF Conference will offer unparalleled insights from international and Indian industry experts, academics, global fashion research majors and analysts through a world-class mix of keynote addresses, panel discussions, CEOs Roundtables, presentations, knowledge series sessions and workshops. Four themed exhibition platforms — Fashion Sourcing, L Cube, Asia Shop, India Brand Show — will highlight the most market-ahead fashion ingredients, design innovation, technology, retail strategies and solutions to a mega congregation of leaders from the business of fashion in India and elsewhere.

Mighty Foods Introduces Lip-Smacking Plant-Based Protein Products In Mumbai

Mighty Foods, a food-tech plant-based protein brand, has launched a range of delicious products in its first launch phase in Mumbai. Perfectly designed for Indians and their eating habits, the newly-launched plant-based protein products include a wide variety of easy-to-cook recipes such as Seekh Kebab, Galauti Kebab, Spring Roll, Grilled Plant Fish, Spinach Quesadilla, Keema Samosa, Dim Sums Keema Bao, Burger Patty, Prawn in Black Pepper Sauce, Prawn Thai Curry, Plant Keema Bao and Plant Keema.

Looking to reimagine the category, Mighty products are artisanal and handcrafted. Compared to a majority of plant-based products in the market, MIGHTY products do not see the use of any preservatives, are tasty as well as loaded with high-quality protein extracted from Green Gram, Chickpeas, Soyaand Peas. In their endeavour to make plant-based protein mainstream, each and every recipe is curated in such a way that the taste, texture and flavour resembles/replicates their non-veg counterpart.Through such product offerings, Mighty looks to not only address the severe protein deficiency existing amongst Indians, but overcome it through such tasty plant-based protein recipes. 

Sharing his thoughts about the launch, Mr. DibyenduBindal – Founder & CEO, Mighty Foods said, “We are extremely delighted to introduce our products for people who are looking for tasty, healthy protein-packed products. Over the due course of time, we look to establish and reimagine a category of fast-plant protein where people who crave fast food can consume them absolutely guilt-free. Add to that, we’ve always looked to make people eat tasty food that sees them adhere to their daily protein requirements. This I believe will help in the number of protein-deficient individuals drastically reducing. With a purpose towards providing health, happiness and taste the right way, we look forward to delighting the taste buds while nourishing the body in a convenient and a far more accessible manner.”

The products come in a smart tamper proof packaging with all requisite ingredients for a perfect meal.  Every step is mentioned in a clear cut and self-explanatory manner in the ‘How to cook’ section. All the products are currently available on Mighty website (  https://themightyfood.com/).

About Mighty Foods:

MIGHTY Foods is a ready-to-cook and eat range of plant-based protein preparations, an optimal diet for Indian palates and their health. The wide range of products are artisanal, handcrafted products which cater to the evolving Indian palate. It is a new-age packaged food business that caters to the young but engrossed individuals to help them meet their daily protein requirement.

magicpin Announces Its Remote-First Workplace Policy Across India

magicpin, operated by Samast Technology Private Limited, announced that it has adopted a Remote-First workplace policy, empowering its employees to work from wherever they are based.    

“While WFH became the norm since the pandemic began, magicpin has been operating on a distributed and flexible workplace model since our foundation. We have been sympathetic to the needs of our employees to balance work and family obligations and given them the freedom to work remotely. Today, we’ve adopted Remote-First as our official workplace policy. This is a considered decision, and also an easy one. We have complete faith in our employees to take ownership of projects, wherever they are.” said Anshoo Sharma, CEO & Co-founder, magicpin.

“Our collective experience through the pandemic has instilled a culture that goes beyond the workstation. In the course of the last two years, we’ve raised $60M in Series D funding, launched new features on the product, strengthened our teams, expanded into new categories – all while working remotely.” Anshoo added.

“The Remote-First policy has worked wonderfully for us. We’ve built new businesses through custom-built software, had in-person interactions when necessary, and even launched the home delivery service during the pandemic while working remotely.” reflected Brij Bhushan, COO & Co-founder, magicpin. “In the Remote-First model of working, we encourage those who can to come to office during the first week of every month. For those who are working from different parts of the country, our Talent team has been building touchpoints with employees - both formal and casual - to make them more comfortable and connected, wherever they are.” Brij added. 

magicpin is building India’s largest platform for discovery of local retail. It is India’s only cross-category product and brings the best of fashion, food, pharma, grocery, electronics from local stores to a large set of users, when shopping physically at these stores or home delivery. magicpin is backed by marquee investors such as Lightspeed, Zomato and Waterbridge. In November 2021, magicpin raised $60 million in Series D funding round to bolster its hyperlocal retail market expansion. At present, the magicpin network includes 6 million active users and 200,000+ merchant partners across 50+ cities in India.  

A23 Aims At Reinforcing Its ‘Responsible Gaming’ Message During Indian Premier League 2022

* The two-part TVC campaign starring brand ambassador, Shah Rukh Khan, will air starting March 26 

A23, India’s premier online multi-gaming platform, today announced the promotion of its Responsible Gaming Campaign during the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League 2022 which begins on March 26, 2022. In a series of TVCs, A23’s brand ambassador, Shah Rukh Khan, will be seen encouraging them to play responsibly while respecting their immediate surroundings. The campaign would run across the official broadcast channel Star Sports and online streaming platform Disney Hotstar during cricket’s biggest carnival this season. 

A23’s Responsible Gaming campaign is a two-part TVC driving the company’s key message for gamers to respect their immediate surroundings, i.e. - spending time with their families instead of being on their phones and focusing on dinner while at the dinner table. 

The third advertisement in the series highlights the importance of selecting the right playing XI for fantasy cricket on A23. Every player is unique, and that’s what the ad celebrates. You can choose a team full of all-rounders, or a team with death-over specialists. And for both cases, you can find yourself in a winning position.

The A23 gaming platform that has a wide reach across India perfectly complements the Indian Premier League which is a household name in India, across audiences in different languages. Keeping this in mind, the advertisements have been curated to reach every household and will run in seven languages - Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, and Kannada across Star Sports and Disney Hotstar beginning from the 26th of March.

Deepak Gullapalli, Founder & CEO, Head Digital Works, said, “It has always been our endeavour to provide a premium, yet inclusive platform, for gaming enthusiasts. As one of India’s leading multi-gaming platforms, it is imperative for us to spread the importance of responsible gaming. Self-exclusion from time to time is instrumental when it comes to striking the right balance. We are confident that our brand ambassador driving this message for us will help us maximise the idea of responsible gaming even further, thus encouraging a healthy environment for all”

As the pioneers in skill-based gaming in India, A23 has recently built a multi-gaming platform and combined its existing online rummy platform of over 30 million users using state-of-the-art software created on a custom-built architecture. As an industry leader, A23 endeavours to provide its users with a skill-based gaming platform that can be enjoyed purely as a means for entertainment. A23 provides access to a wide range of games including rummy, fantasy sports and others along with an opportunity to invite friends to play on private tables and contests. 

About Head Digital Works:

Head Digital Works is India's oldest online skill-gaming company that develops and operates skill-based gaming applications for the online gaming industry. HDW operates A23 (www.a23.com) which has been operating since 2006, has over a 30 million+ strong registered user base.  HDW is one of the most profitable start-ups in India. HDW also operates Cricket.com, a cricket content platform that has over 10 million+ downloads, which offers a new experience to cricket fans with a greater focus on the use of data in live match scenarios to deliver an exciting second-screen experience.

India Health Fund Supports HealSeq: A Biomarker-Based Test That Reduces Time For Diagnosis,Ttreatment Of DR - TB To 2 Weeks

•   The Innovation is an affordable & easy to use biomarker-based blood test that can guide in early diagnosis and treatment of Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (DR TB)

•   This test is aimed at significantly speeding the treatment and diagnosis of DR TB by reducing the time to diagnose drug resistance from 4 months to 2 weeks.

Health Fund (IHF), a collaborative initiative of Tata Trusts and The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today announced its support for HealSeq’s innovation – a biomarker-based blood test that is expected to accurately determine a patient’s response to TB treatment in 2 weeks of its initiation. This innovation has the potential to guide clinical decision of shifting to second line therapies, by enabling early diagnosis and treatment of Drug Resistant TB (DR TB). Standard TB treatment (first line treatment) is initially given to all TB patients. However, when the TB bacteria becomes resistant to the standard treatment, second line therapies are administered which include drugs used for treating DR-TB

Current molecular methods detect DR TB before treatment initiation by identifying known drug resistant mutations in the pathogen. There are however many other causes for DR TB, which can be missed. The efficacy of the treatment in all TB cases is realised about 4 months post treatment initiation, which results in late diagnoses of DR TB. Late diagnosis is one of the key reasons for the increase in incidence of DR TB disease. IHF’s support to HealSeq’s innovation is aimed at developing and validating an accurate, low cost, easy to administer test that can identify Drug Resistant TB early and, guide fast clinical decision to shift to second line therapies.

HealSeq’s innovation is a host bio-marker-based blood test, which can detect RNA signatures from TB patients as early as 2 weeks after treatment initiation. The abundance of these RNA signature genes can help physicians to classify patients as good-responders, intermediate or poor-responders to the treatment. Intermediate or poor responders, diagnosed as DR TB patients, can be immediately shifted to second line therapies. The test is at 1/6th the cumulative cost of the multiple tests that need to be taken during the TB treatment course and can be administered using a simple RT PCR kit. This is a breakthrough in the diagnosis and treatment of DR TB as it has the potential to significantly speed up diagnosis and treatment and, curtail the spread of the disease.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a communicable disease and one of the leading causes of death, worldwide. As per India TB Report 2021, Central TB Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the disease kills more than 0.4 million people every year in India alone and we carry the burden of a quarter of the world's cases. In the last two years, about 1.15 lakh people were detected with Drug Resistant TB (DR TB) with fatalities accounting for about 20% of the detected patients. Drug-resistant TB occurs when the bacteria become resistant to the first line standard treatment given to all TB patients. These ‘low responders’ to standard first line TB treatment have a high chance of severe consequences, like organ failure, high probability of catching multiple drug resistance and, even, death. It also leads to increased risk of community transmission of DR TB.

Dr. Nagasuma Chandra, Co-founder HealSeq Precision Medicine Pvt. Ltd., says, “TB treatment is given for a long duration, typically lasting 6-9 months.  However, not all TB patients respond to the first line of treatment. It is therefore important to recognise the efficacy of the treatment as early as possible, so that the patient can be switched to second-line therapies. HealSeq's innovation is aimed at designing an accurate molecular test that will track the patient's response to the disease before and after the treatment and improve prognosis. India Health Fund’s support to HealSeq occurs at a very crucial time as we validate blood-based host biomarkers for TB. Since the India Health Fund support includes not just funding, but also efforts in hand holding, monitoring, mentoring, and integrating the company into the healthcare ecosystem, it will make a major difference to HealSeq's work in TB.

Mr. Madhav Joshi, Chief Executive Officer, India Health Fund, says, “With the large TB burden and challenge that India faces, the current medicines, tests, vaccines need to be updated with truly modern tools. TB patients need a short, simple, well-tolerated and affordable treatment that will help improve health outcomes. India Health Fund is pleased to support HealSeq which is expected to be a big step forward in the early diagnosis and treatment of DR-TB. We as a country can end the TB emergency, but with a durable commitment to higher investments in scientific research and development. Increased focus and investment in the development of new tools will help patients, save lives and curb community spread of the disease. IHF remains invested in its mission of helping reduce preventable deaths from communicable diseases and other public health risks. We do this by de-risking the development of promising technology and science-led solutions that have the potential to make a significant difference in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of communicable disease”

UiPath Named A Leader In IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Testing 2022 Vendor Assessment

* By enabling customers to build automations faster, test a range of technologies, and proactively resolve issues, UiPath Test Suite helps ensure that applications and automated processes are robust and resilient

UiPath (NYSE: PATH), a leading enterprise automation software company, today announced that it has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Testing 2022 Vendor Assessment – Empowering Business Velocity.* The report, which includes UiPath for the first time among traditional software quality tools, examines cloud testing adoption trends and their influence on organizational success through the development of secure, high-quality software.

Within the report, the IDC MarketScape recognizes UiPath for capitalizing on its Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology and dominant position in the enterprise automation market to help enable timely, needed coordination and synergy for the testing of automations.

In the report, Melinda-Carol Ballou, Research Director for IDC's Application Life-Cycle Management (ALM) program, writes: “The breadth, depth, and preeminence of UiPath’s RPA portfolio provide a solid foundation for the company’s testing portfolio. The open architecture and API integration strategies position UiPath to expand and augment its testing portfolio functionality and offer the benefits of broad, supported products that are popularly adopted and dominant in the market. At the same time, businesses are increasingly dependent on RPA.”

Ballou continues, “The demand is growing for testing business-critical RPA components and capabilities that have become increasingly vital with the rise of no-code development, which UiPath is singularly well positioned to address. UiPath has a differentiated opportunity to leverage its portfolio synergistically both for software testing efficiency and to address demand for RPA testing.”

“We want our platform to enable every company to be a fully automated enterprise. That means providing capabilities that allow companies to scale automation and take full advantage of it throughout their operations through the strength of our cloud offering,” said UiPath Senior Vice President of Product Management, Testing Products, Dr. Gerd Weishaar. “We’re the first RPA platform to offer automated RPA testing, and we continue to be innovation leaders in providing an easy-to-use, scalable, flexible automated testing tool that provides superior testing capability to RPA teams as well as application testing teams. We’re incredibly proud of our recognition from the IDC MarketScape, and we believe it validates automation’s role in software testing market.”

UiPath Test Suite accelerates digital transformation through enterprise automation. It combines the world’s leading RPA technology with best-of-breed testing capabilities to sustainably accelerate scaling through proactive testing, cross-enterprise collaboration, and a consistent approach to create and deploy automations. Test Suite benefits practitioners who create automations and stakeholders who depend on automations, including transformation leaders, business users, customers, and partners. Organizations that adopt UiPath for their application testing and RPA needs are taking the first step in creating a world-class automation practice that will accelerate scaling by:

Centralizing governance by using a common automation platform and approach.

Building automation momentum by sharing automations between test and RPA teams.

Ensuring every automation deployed is resilient, compliant, and high performing.

Sharing skills, experience, and automation resources across the organization.

A complimentary excerpt of the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Testing 2022 Vendor Assessment is available here.

*IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Testing 2022 Vendor Assessment – Empowering Business Velocity (IDC # US47097221, March 2022)

About UiPath

UiPath has a vision to deliver the Fully Automated Enterprise™, one where companies use automation to unlock their greatest potential. UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for automation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to rapidly scale digital business operations.

About IDC MarketScape

IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

IMDb Announces The Fame Game As The Most Popular India Web Series Of The Year

IMDb (www.imdb.com), the world’s most popular and authoritative source for information on movies, TV shows, and celebrities, today shares that The Fame Game, staring Madhuri Dixit, ranks #62 globally as of week ending March 6, 2022 making it the most popular India  web series of the year, so far based on data from January 3 to March 14, 2022. During this time period, the show also ranked #34 globally on IMDb’s Most Popular TV shows chart. The series beautifully captures how the facade of stardom crumbles, and family secrets and wounds from the past come tumbling out when an actress goes missing

The Fame Game is the most popular series in India, United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Canada, Australia, United States, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates (in no particular order), based on IMDb audience page views. Madhuri Dixit, who portrays superstar “Anamika Khanna” in the Netflix series, consistently trends on the IMDbPro STARmeter and has 81 acting credits on IMDb.com. Apart from this, the star’s highest rated movies on IMDb.com are Prahaar, Parinda and Devdas.

Additionally, entertainment fans were eager to learn more about Rajshri Deshpande‘s breakout performance as officer “Shobha Trivedi” in the series, as indicated by her recent popularity on the IMDbPro STARmeter chart. The week following The Fame Game’s release, Deshpande trended as the top ranked star of the series. IMDb determines STARmeter rankings based on the actual page views of the more than 200 million monthly visitors to IMDb. Deshpande has starred in major projects like Sacred Games, Angry Indian Goddesses, Manto and The Sky is Pink. Her career STARmeter peak of #282 came from her performance in Netflix’s The Sacred Games.