UM Motorcycles Rides in Renegade Commando Mojave & Commando Classic in Bengaluru

UM Lohia Two Wheelers, the Indian arm of the American motorcycle maker, UM International LLC, along with Lohia Auto is all set to ignite the passion for its riders by taking their biking experience to a completely different level with the introduction of brand new Renegade Commando Classic and Renegade Commando Mojave. The new revolutionary Renegade Commando Mojave and Renegade Commando Classic are powered by the liquid cooled, Single Cylinder, 4 strokes, 4 valves and Spark Ignition making it a perfect blend of Practicality and Versatility.

Speaking at the launch, Jose Villegas, Director, UM India said, “There is a latent demand for such bikes with varied customer needs emerging in India. The customers are aware, ready to experiment and follow their gut. With the launch of Renegade Commando Classic and Mojave, we are looking forward to attract young leaders. We are committed in setting a new benchmark in providing excellence not only in our products but also in service experience. Renegade Commando Classic and Renegade Commando Mojave will surely capture up-country customers with a progressive mindset.”

The Renegade Commando Classic was much appreciated when it was showcased at the 2016 Auto Expo. It is a USA originated cruiser powered by a 279.5 cc single-cylinder Liquid-cooled EFI engine with responsive 4stroke 4 valve, spark ignition developing 25.15PS at 8500 RPM and 23 NM of torque at 7000 RPM, mated to a six-speed transmission with overdrive for vibration free rides. The motorcycle turn heads and stand out with high gloss metallic 2 tone paint job and more than 3430 square inches of sparkling chrome. It is a complete touring package which includes premium saddlebag and tank cover, polycarbonate windshield, highway engine guards and alloy back rest. The Renegade Classic will be available at Rs 193,630 (ex-showroom- Bengaluru).  The stylish cruiser will be available in the market in unique two tone metallic candy paint with shades of Copper Cream & Candy Metallic Glossy Black.

UM also introduces it’s all new Renegade Commando Mojave which is inspired from The Mojave desert, North America’s largest and driest desert. Mojave will also share the same engine as the Renegade Commando Classic but will feature new style and colour. Mojave will be introduced in the market in a unique desert coloured matte paint, Mojave Desert logos and fuel tank cell phone pad. The Renegade Commando Mojave and its sibling Renegade Classic come with an electric start and have an air filter with paper element innovation. Six-speed synchronized mesh Overdrive has been added for easy cruising. The front wheel has telescopic suspension while the rear wheel has dual shock absorbers. These motorcycles have a fuel tank of 18 liters with a kerb weight of 179kg. The Renegade Commando Mojave is available at Rs 185,171 (ex-showroom, Bengaluru).

Vaishnavi Group Adjudged One of India’s Most Promising Brands

World Consulting & Research Corporation (WCRC) Asia’s leading multi-dimensional consulting & media company has selected Vaishnavi Group as one of the top 100 India’s Most Promising Brands 2017, in recognition of its contribution to the real estate sector. The selection was based on a number of criteria, chief amongst them being quality and consistency in performance eliciting repeat customers.

Vaishnavi Group has constantly adopted a customer centric approach in its operations and this has created 40 per cent repeat sales involving either existing customers making another investment in their projects or giving referrals to their projects. The Group has consistently logged in high level of customer retention and satisfaction as borne out by multiple testimonials.

Commenting on this prestigious selection, Cyriac Joseph, Senior Vice President - Marketing, Vaishnavi Group said “We consider being featured amongst India’s Most Promising Brands 2017 as an acknowledgement and recognition of our contribution to the real estate sector. Recognition is not just a mark of great prestige, excellence and consistent customer loyalty and trust, it is also a tremendous boost to all of us at Vaishnavi to continue to excel and aim for even bigger accomplishments.”

According to Joseph, not only the customer centric application and customer retention but also the unique nature of each project prompted their selection. “Each project is a landmark, designed with a specific brief that brings in a unique value and differential approach. This makes the projects distinctive. Coupled with this are our uncompromising quality controls and customer oriented approach which have been instrumental in the Group being selected amongst the top 100 most promising brands.”

India’s Most Promising Brands showcases the journey of brands that started from scratch and climbed to the pedestal of future industry leaders. The exercise features brands across 15 industries comprising 50 sub-categories. The research process of India’s Most Promising Brands 2017 has been advised and evaluated by ibrands 360.

The jury for this year’s award includes Rajesh Sinha, Founder and CEO of Fulcrum Worldwide, Paresh Chaudhry, CEO of Madison Public Relations. Bobby Pawar, Managing Director, Chief Creative Officer Public South Asia, Ajai Jhala CEO BBDO INDIA, Suhel Seth Indian entrepreneur, Author, Columnist and Socialite.

The list of winners include GSP Crop, HPM Chemicals, Mahindra Tractors, Honda Brezza, Honda Creta, TMTL (Tafe Motors), Orient Flight Philips Airfryer, Kotak Mahindra Bank, amongst others.

India’s Most Promising Brands is the largest multi-platform brand credibility project with an intention to bring these brands to the fore and mark them for bigger accomplishments in the short to medium term.

Get My Parking Secures $3 Million in Series A Funding Round

Get My Parking, a 2-year-old smart parking IoT platform, has secured Series A funding of $3 million (Rs. 19.20 crores) to advance their product transformation and business impact. The participating investors include IAN Fund, BEENEXT, and Indian Angel Network. Previously, the startup had raised $1.1 million (Rs.7.35 crores) as pre-series A and $376k (Rs. 2.5 crores) as angel investment.

Since its inception, this ingenious startup has made an unmatchable mark in the industry and is clearly the market leader. With a team size of 60, their platform currently processes 1.7 million tickets per month.

Commenting on the development, Chirag Jain, Co-founder and CEO, Get My Parking said, “Existing parking experience tends to take a big chunk of time and fuel; this is where Get My Parking delivers a hassle-free parking experience to every automobile owner. Our dedicated team works towards digitization, integration, and automation of the parking industry while simultaneously catering to the global mobility trends.”

Get My Parking digitizes all types of unorganized parking to create an efficient parking ecosystem. They are associated with a broad spectrum of partners, varying from large scale system integrators and consultants to individual parking operators. Their platform benefits both ways by offering a piece for everyone’s requirement. Having successfully deployed their technology across 300 locations in Delhi and executed parking at mega events like Kumbh Mela and IPL, the startup is experiencing unprecedented growth. In lieu of smart urban mobility, this new fundraise would be utilized towards upgrading their IoT platform to serve a wider range of stakeholders in the parking ecosystem.

Get My Parking has been awarded the ‘Travel app of the year- Emerging’ at the reputed AWS Mobility Awards 2017, hence cementing their industry leader position. Using their pioneering innovation, GMP can connect and digitize any type of unorganized parking to make it go online and consumer facing, all within 10 minutes.

Saurabh Srivastava, Co-founder of IAN & Architect and Mentor of IAN Fund, said, “A truly ‘Made in India’ company, Get My Parking is set to revolutionize an untouched part of urban mobility - parking. With several smart city projects on board, Get My Parking is perfectly poised to leverage this huge opportunity with their sharp focus on execution.”

Get My Parking provides city dashboards and enforcement applications for government authorities, cashless parking management system with revenue analytics for contractors, APIs for mobility providers, and integrations with hardware manufacturers. They also have mobile applications for both, the consumers and suppliers of parking space. All this requires coming together of all the stakeholders. This is where Get My Parking has stepped in and built a completely integrated IOT platform that connects all these solutions and their stakeholders effortlessly.

"The GMP technology platform crossing 20 Million transactions in 20 months exhibits the biology of scale and relevance. Having established its dominant role in its home market the company is at an exciting stage of making itself relevant globally in mature developed markets and as stakeholders we are delighted”, said Sudhir Rao, an existing investor and board director of Get My Parking.

Initially, it was perceived that their products are best suited only for developing countries but surprisingly, they saw huge interest coming from the developed countries also. This is because their platform works like magic when bridging disconnected parking lots to digital mobility solutions at the fraction of other alternatives’ price and time.

“We are excited about how cities are changing in the future. Parking plays a crucial role here and we couldn't find a better team globally than the folks at GMP”, said Dirk Van Quaquebeke, Managing Partner, BEENEXT.

Get My Parking is now poised for international growth with contractual partners in 15 countries to cater to the needs of global parking solution. They recently put their foot in Taiwan where a pilot of their technology with on-street sensors is taking place.

With Get My Parking transforming into the industry’s default smart parking platform from a mere idea in just 2 years, they are well poised to make parking a subconscious experience for millions of motorists, globally.

NPCI Hosts Financial Literacy Through ‘Campus Connect’ for Students

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in the country, is conducting pan-India series of financial literacy campaigns under its ‘Campus Connect’ initiative.  

Nishith Chaturvedi, VP & Head, Human Resources, NPCI said, “The objective is to create awareness about significance of having a less-cash society to celebrate World Literacy Day. It also serves the purpose of pre-placement talk at the campuses before NPCI visits the institute for campus hiring.

The financial literacy workshops led by NPCI’s Human Resource vertical have been initiated from August to integrate digital payments in campuses across the country. Reputed management institutes of Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai will host over 3000 students from about 35 universities where they will be familiarised with financial products like Unified Payments Interface (UPI) / Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM).

Bangalore’s renowned institutes such as IIIT, MS Ramaiah Institute of Management, SIT Siddaganga, Thiagarajan College of Engineering, PES University and Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering are among the first few to participate in Campus Connect initiative.

The participants are also encouraged to participate in ‘NPCI Ideathon’ - brainstorming sessions for presenting fresh ideas to improvise on UPI / BHIM Apps.

Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) is a smart mobile phone based app based on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) that allows simple, easy and quick payment transactions using UPI. One can easily make direct bank to bank payments instantly and collect money using Mobile number or Payment address. It is a unique payment solution which empowers an individual with immediate send and collect request.  

Huawei India R&D Center Sponsors Clean Drinking Facilities in Rural Bengaluru

Huawei India R&D Center, the largest overseas R&D center of Huawei, today announced the inauguration of safe drinking water facilities in rural parts of Bengaluru, as a part of its Corporate Social Responsibility programme. Huawei India R&D Center has identified provisioning of clean drinking water in villages and rural areas as an urgent and important need for the overall development of society. Towards contributing to this basic need, Huawei is setting up clean drinking water facilities (RO Plants) in 10 villages in Bengaluru in partnership with the MLA of Mahadevapura, and Former Minister - Higher Education and Health, Government of Karnataka, Arvind Limbavali.

The RO Plants installation programme is a 50:50 partnership between Huawei and the MLA (Under the MLA Local Development Grant Scheme), to provide clean drinking water to the villages. The construction and installation of 4 such RO plants have been completed in Nallurahalli, Seetharampalya, Mullur and Panathur. Each RO Plant has a capacity to dispense 500 units of 20 litres of pure drinking water every day, which will tremendously benefit the villages.

Huawei is committed to supporting local communities in the geographies that it operates, and undertakes a range of social contribution projects and works hand-in-hand with community organizations to deliver basic services. In Bengaluru, Huawei has identified education, clean drinking water and sanitation as the areas to contribute, towards bringing about a change in the rural landscape.

India Begins Production of World's Most Expensive Civet Coffee

India, Asia's third-largest producer and exporter of coffee, has started producing the world's most expensive coffee, made from the poop of civet cat, on a small scale in Coorg district of Karnataka. The Civet coffee, also called as Luwark coffee, is expensive because of uncommon method of producing such a coffee. It is produced from the coffee beans digested by civet cat. The feces of this cat are collected, processed and sold. It is highly priced because it is claimed to be more nutritious and high cost involved in sourcing the animal dropping, wastage during processing and quality certification. Civet coffee, a drink of elite consumed widely in the Gulf nations and Europe, is sold for Rs 20,000-25,000/kg abroad. Here in the country's largest coffee-growing Karnataka state, a start-up firm, Coorg Consolidated Commodities (CCC), has made a humble beginning of making the luxury coffee on a small scale and has also decided to open a cafe to serve the brew locally.

"Initially, 20 kg of civet coffee was produced. After establishing the start-up firm, 60 kg was produced in 2015-16 and 200 kg last year. We hope half a tonne production from the new crop to be harvested from October," Narendra Hebbar, one of the founders of CCC the media. The exotic coffee is being sold locally under the brand 'Ainmane', he said that the company has only one outlet at Club Mahindra Madikeri Resort where it sells locally produced coffee, spices and other products. Hebbar also shared that the company sources the animal poop from plantations located close to forest from where civet cats come to eat the ripest coffee bean cherries. "Civet cat eats flesh of the coffee cherries and not the bean.

Natural enzymes in civet's stomach enhances the bean flavor and that's why this coffee is unique," he said. Now, farmers are understanding the importance of this coffee and "we produce it in natural form unlike other countries where civet cats are caged and forcefully fed with coffee beans," he noted. It is being sold at Rs 8,000 per kg here, while it is available at Rs 20,000-25,000 per kg overseas, he said.

Asked if the company plans to export, Hebbar said it is not viable to export in view of high certification cost given the current low production levels. "We want to promote this coffee locally. We will open a cafe soon. We will sell 'Coorg Luwark Coffee' along with other varieties like Cappuccino and Expresso," he said. A senior Coffee Board official also confirmed that civet cat coffee is being produced in small quantities in parts of Coorg and Chamarajnagar districts. "It is very small quantity, done by individuals. They produce and market as a speciality coffee, a niche product which is very expensive," he said.

Atul Auto, Greaves Cotton Sign to Develop New Generation of Last Mile Transport Solutions

Greaves Cotton, an industry leader in last mile transportation solutions, & Atul Auto, a leading 3-wheeler manufacturing company have signed an agreement to develop a new generation of fuel agnostic range of power train solutions meeting BS VI norms using Diesel, Petrol, CNG & Electric power.

Commenting on this occasion Chairman & Managing Director of Atul Auto, Jayantibhai Chandra said "Our relationship with Greaves has been spread over a decade and our joint efforts have borne successful results on the ground in transporting people and goods in the last mile transportation space. With this new agreement Atul Auto keeps its commitment to the Indian market to provide value driven solutions at the lower end of the market”

Speaking on the occasion, Nagesh Basavanhalli- MD & CEO, Greaves Cotton Limited remarked “The market needs to be ready for a technological, regulatory and business model disruption by 2020. Greaves is investing in new technologies and building capabilities to meet the demand for fuel agnostic, future ready solutions serving the last mile transportation market. These solutions will cover a range of fuels from diesel, petrol, CNG to electric. Greaves also has the advantage of a large network of 3500+ spares & service outlets which can be upgraded to serve the entire range of fuel agnostic vehicles. We are greatly encouraged by the response from our OEM customers like Atul Auto. Our solutions will continue to leverage the strength of the Greaves brand: reliable and affordable solutions backed by a nationwide service & spares network."