Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from January, 2022

Fund Raise: Helping startups start up smart

YNOS Venture Engine, an IIT Madras Incubation Cell incubated startup, is a business intelligence and analytics platform provider targeting systemic challenges at the bottom of the startup pyramid. As a smart platform, powered by powerful data science techniques, it is positioned as a solution provider in terms of not only addressing the pain points faced by early-stage entrepreneurs but also investors, institutions and all stakeholders who want to get engaged with the startup community in the country. YNOS’s vision to ensure startups “start up smart”, has attracted investors to invest in a seed funding of about Rs 2.5 crore. YNOS received seed funding from seasoned business leaders including, Arun Jain, Lakshmi Narayanan, Sarath Naru, Prashanth Prakash, Madan Padaki, M Srinivasa Rao, Shalini Chhabra, Rishikesha T Krishnan, Samit Jain, Praveen Joseph, ZAR Business Partners, Rickson Rodricks, Ajit Thyagarajan, Siddharth Ram Athreya, and Naresh Ranwah. Funding received will be used to fu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Healing touch: Creating new value streams in life sciences

By Subhro Mallik Despite being involved in cutting-edge research, life sciences and medical device companies have been slow to embrace digital transformation. Although the caution is understandable given the risks involved in their business, becoming digital-first is now critical due to several factors, despite the heavily regulated nature of these sectors. Top challenges in pharma: The traditional business model of manufacturing drugs and medical devices and then selling these to healthcare providers via distributors is no longer feasible. Rising healthcare costs: Governments around the world are grappling with growing healthcare costs and desperately seeking to slash expenditure. Such trends are driving down the prices of medical devices as governments demand to see the value of these products reflected in improved patient outcomes. However, direct correlation of outcomes to devices is sometimes difficult to establish. Burden of chronic diseases: A large part of chronic disease m...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sonos Arc: Great sound meets elegant design

If you talk to seasoned audiophiles on the qualities of a good sound system, their common refrain is that bigger always does not mean better. Many consumers assume the larger a stereo is, the more impressive it will sound. That’s not true. Size rarely co-relates with the quality. Also, the source of the audio plays a part in how it will sound over your new music system. For the past fortnight, this reviewer has been diligently checking out the Sonos Arc, a brilliant-sounding and easy-to-use soundbar that comes with a hefty price tag of Rs 99,999 and is intended for TV shows, movies, music, gaming, and more. A great piece of technology where extraordinary sound meets elegant design—that’s Arc for you, made available by Luxury Personified that is the official distributor for Sonos in India. Arc features 11 high-performance drivers for crisp highs, dynamic mid-ranges, and surprising bass. Its slim profile can be discreetly mounted or placed on furniture. Its audio sounds great at a mediu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nokia Lite Earbuds: Small size with big sound

Working from home due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic presents us with some new challenges. With noisy neighbours and chaotic domestic fronts to endless online video meetings, wireless earbuds make it easy to zip between tasks while enjoying your freedom to work around your house. Sensing a market opportunity, HMD Global has strengthened its audio accessories range with the new Nokia Lite Earbuds, available in the classic Charcoal colour at a recommended best buy price of Rs 2,799. Sanmeet Singh Kochhar, vice-president, HMD Global says, “We have received tremendous response to the audio accessories that we had launched in India last year and we are starting the New Year with two new products (Nokia Wired Buds is the other new product) to further bolster our offerings in this segment. The key trends of remote working, e-learning and OTT content consumption will increase demand and adoption of personal audio devices and we aim to cater to this demand with our broad range of audio acces...
Post a Comment
Read more

Movies on climate change

By Reya Mehrotra Don’t Look Up The recent Netflix film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep and Ariana Grande is a commentary on the climate change that is happening at a rapid speed. It revolves around a giant comet approaching earth. The scientists take note and warn the government to take measures to divert the direction of the approaching comet. However, the government chooses to ignore and plans to capitalise on the development. This eventually leads to mass destruction on the planet. The Day After Tomorrow The 2004 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the most successful and popular films on climate change. In the film, climatologist Jack Hall played by Dennis Quaid is not taken seriously by UN officials when he puts forward his concerns for the environment. However, his studies prove to be true when a huge tornado develops, setting off a series of natural disasters around the world. The film is based on the 1999 book The Coming Global ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Half-truths of a make-believe world | Book Review | The Beauty Paradigm: Gender Discourse in Indian Advertising by Jaishri Jethwaney

By Shivaji Dasgupta The learned and articulate discourse by Jaishri Jethwaney truthfully depicts a fundamental clash of civilisations— where the transactional world of marketing communications breaks bread with the evolutionary civility of contemporary society. It is a rather uneasy equilibrium at best, and involves actors from diverse platforms with contrasting, if not conflicting, agendas. When HG Wells rather curtly suggests that “advertising is legalised lying”, he is actually pinpointing the root of the gender inequality that still prevails in the advertising industry, from content creation to organisational cultures. A set of business people with a focused agenda to grow business commissions another set of business people with an equally diligent business agenda, a relationship fraught with a high risk of failure. As an unavoidable outcome, the sensible and sensitive norms of societal cohabitation assume a diminished priority, unless enforced by meaningful regulation, whether s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cooking with a conscience: Time to reduce food waste

At the world’s biggest climate conference COP26 in November last year, one dish turned out to be an inscrutable menu failure for many environmental delegates. It was the national dish of Scotland—Haggis, lamb offal—that was questioned for its heaviest carbon footprint generating 3.4kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), worse even than the Scottish beef burger (at 3.3kg CO2e). While the serving of animal products at a climate conference was widely criticised, the dish was actually a spinoff to the nose-to-tail approach to eating and not wasting any animal part practised for centuries in Scotland. Zero-waste cooking is one way to approach and reduce food waste. Reprocessing meals into innovative and appetising options can put a stop to the monumental problem of food waste. It can also be a solution to climate crisis. The crisis of carbon footprint left by food production is relevant mostly in the context of affluent Western countries, particularly the US, the UK, and countries in the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mirror on the wall | Book Review: Resolve by Perumal Murugan

A decade ago, Perumal Murugan published his controversial Tamil novel Madhorubagan, the story of a young couple tormented by their inability to have children. Translated into English as One Part Woman in 2013, the novel drew instant protests against its portrayal of a ritual where childless women hoping to conceive met strange men at a chariot festival. The protests took a heavy toll on the author who temporarily quit writing because of the demands of fighting a court case. Murugan is back now with another novel that questions the heavily prejudiced gender equations in the country. Resolve, the English translation of Murugan’s 2014 Tamil novel Kanganam, tells the story of a young man looking for an elusive bride. Marimuthu is a 35-year-old farmer in a village where there are only three young women looking for a groom. The number of potential bridegrooms is, however, 67. Praised by all for his farming skills, the young man is unable to find a match even in nearby villages and faraway l...
Post a Comment
Read more

SC gives 3 weeks to SpiceJet to resolve financial issues with Credit Suisse AG

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed for three weeks the Madras High Court’s December order directing winding up of SpiceJet for non-payment of unpaid dues of $24.01 million to Swiss stock corporation Credit Suisse AG. The high court had stayed the operation of its order, including the publication of the winding-up order for SpiceJet, till Friday so as to allow the airline to move the apex court. Senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for SpiceJet, informed a bench led by Chief Justice NV Ramana that the airline wants three weeks’ time as it is trying to “work something out” with the Swiss firm. Senior counsel KV Vishwanathan, appearing for Credit Suisse, agreed on an adjournment but contended that the current offer on dues made by the airline was “not even worth mentioning”. He further said Credit Suisse was not opposed to the adjournment provided SpiceJet made a “serious offer” and strictly stuck to the timeline. The CJI also slammed the airline for its conduct, asking, “Do you want...
Post a Comment
Read more

Half of newly-listed firms fall below listing price

By Yoosef KP The S&P BSE IPO Index, which tracks new companies for two years after their listings, has come off 10.6% so far in 2022, against the Sensex’ year-to-date loss of 1.8%. The BSE IPO index has yielded negative returns only five instances over the past 29 months through December 2021, with March 2020 witnessing the worst fall of 36.9%. The global rout in equities has done damage to the newly-listed, high profile technology companies, as half of them are now trading below their listing prices, Capitaline data show. As many as 30 companies that have gone public over the last one year have lost their value in the recent sell-off as investors take risk off the table. Among the 60 companies that raised as much as Rs 1.15 lakh crore from the primary market in the last one year, Cartrade Tech and One97 Communications have plunged 59.1% and 53.7%, respectively, since their listing. Another 10 companies have plummeted between 22% and 41%. Barring seven stocks that managed to ri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Canara Bank Q3 net profit rises over two folds on lower provision, healthy NII growth

State-owned lender Canara Bank on Thursday reported an over two-fold year-on-year increase in net profit in the October-December (Q3) at Rs 1,502 crore, on the back of lower provisions and healthy rise in net interest income (NII). On a sequential basis, the bank’s bottomline grew 12.7%. During Q3, Canara Bank’s global gross advances rose 9.3% on year to Rs 7.29 crore. Of these, retail loans grew 10% on year to Rs 1.23 lakh crore, agriculture and allied loans grew 11.9% to Rs 1.68 lakh crore and loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) grew 1.3% to Rs 1.15 lakh crore. Retail, agriculture and MSME loans formed 56% of the bank’s portfolio. Corporate loans, at Rs 3.2 lakh crore, grew 10.8% on year, as per the bank’s Q3 earnings presentation. Addressing the media in a post-earnings conference, Canara Bank managing director and chief executive officer LV Prabhakar said the bank will not face a challenge in delivering double-digit credit growth in the current fiscal. On the lia...
Post a Comment
Read more

Avanse Financial raises Rs 357 crore facilitated by Northern Arc

Avanse Financial Services, a new age, technologically advanced and education-focused NBFC, has raised Rs 357 crore via securitisation transaction from a renowned global financial institution. The funding which is for 10 years was facilitated by Northern Arc Capital. The funds will support expansion of the Avanse’s education financing programme. The organisation’s deep domain expertise, healthy portfolio and robust business strategy have enabled it to receive this long-term investment. Despite market fluctuations, Northern Arc Capital was able to facilitate due diligence and successfully completed the transaction between the parties, said a press release by the company. Amit Gainda, CEO, Avanse Financial, said: “This is a significant milestone as it is the first securitisation transaction in the education loan space, invested by a global financial institution, establishing this segment as an asset class at an international level. It has enabled us to boost our diversified long-term s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lenovo Smart Clock 2: More than just a timekeeper

If you haven’t noticed, over the past few years smart speakers in households have been a growing trend, especially in the big cities. These devices are gaining popularity primarily because they are extremely convenient and easy to use. Not only is it a wireless speaker, but it has voice command controls that help the speaker act as a virtual assistant. Specifically, people have access to their choice of music and songs, the latest updates on weather outside, news and sports updates and much more, especially in the ability to control your other smart home devices. If they come with a touchscreen display, even better because you can watch the latest trending video on the internet. In short, they are cool devices that appeal to the modern-day, tech-savvy consumer for the simple reason that they instantly make the lives of people easier, giving them assistance on anything they need. This reviewer has reviewed numerous smart home devices in the past, including the diverse Amazon Echo smart...
Post a Comment
Read more

Need of the hour: Social media an absolute must for banks

The need to have a physical presence across the length and breadth of the country has been long felt by public sector banks, especially to fulfill their role in the country’s economic development. This was the driving force for the establishment of State Bank of India which was followed later by nationalisation of the banks. The 20,000-plus branches of SBI as well as other banks in the country have undoubtedly provided the much-needed impetus for rural development and easy access to banking services to millions of people in the country. Today, with the increasing momentum for digital banking and other digital financial services, customers have an array of options to choose from. So the big question is how do banks build and maintain relationships with customers, specially when they are not expected to visit the branches as often as the previous generation did? Social media is the most important channel which could provide the much-required conduit for building customer relationship f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Digital radio technology can bridge India’s digital divide: Ashruf El-Dinary, Senior vice president, HD Radio, Xperi Corp

The HD Radio brand is an entity of San Jose, California-based Xperi Corporation, which offers digital radio technology for radio stations, car radio system, mobile phones and any device which has a radio built-in technology. HD Radio is a technology, which offers various digital services to the broadcaster and provides benefits to the listeners such as live city traffic data, emergency alerts, natural calamity alerts etc, says Ashruf El-Dinary, senior vice-president of Xperi’s HD Radio team. Recently, HD Radio successfully conducted a trial to provide digital radio technology for FM frequencies with All India Radio (AIR). “Over 80% of the Indian population listens to FM radio on a regular basis, so increased access to more local radio content will better serve diverse groups,” he tells Sudhir Chowdhary in a recent interview. Excerpts: What are the benefits of digital radio/broadcasting technology and how will this be of help to the broadcasters? Unlike analogue transmissions, digital...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rs 4,600-crore arbitral award: SC asks HC to hear DAMPEL plea against DMRC ‘without further delay’

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Delhi High Court to hear “without further delay” a petition by Delhi Airport Metro Express (DAMEPL) seeking execution of the Rs 4,600-crore arbitral award it won against the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). A bench led by Justice LN Rao asked lawyers for both the companies to appear before the HC on January 31 and request it to hear the dispute at the earliest. There should be no further delay in deciding the case as it is detrimental to the interests of both the companies, the SC said. The high court had scheduled the case for hearing on March 29. “The HC recorded the finding that there were efforts to settle the dispute relating to the manner of payments with the banks and financial institutions, which did not yield any results. Without commenting on submissions made on either side, we are of the opinion that hearing on execution application does not brook any further delay. The parties are directed to appear before the HC on January 31 an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Commercial papers maturing in March quarter likely to be rolled over

By Manish M Suvarna A majority of  commercial paper (CP) redemptions between January and March 2022 are likely to be rolled over, as issuers are expected to lock in lower rates before rise in yields as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) normalises liquidity by withdrawing the surplus from the banking system. According to the data compiled from market sources, CPs worth Rs 2.41 lakh crore are up for redemption in January-March, of which February has the highest maturities pending at Rs 90,760 crore, followed by Rs 83,296.65 crore in March. Reliance Retail Ventures, Reliance Jio Infocomm, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Reliance Industries and Tata Steel have heavy maturities pending in the January-March period. “We believe that a major part of the redemptions in January-March 2022 will be rolled over. The rolling over of CPs or money market instruments depend on a lot of factors and not just interest rates,” said Puneet Pal, head – fixed income, PGIM Mutual...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fintechs issue BNPL cards to push usage at offline stores

Fintech lenders active in the ‘buy now pay later’ (BNPL) space are now issuing physical cards to customers to push usage in the offline mode. PayU Finance, Slice and Uni Cards have tied up with banks to issue BNPL cards, which are essentially prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) bearing a credit line. BNPL is often touted to be one of the fastest-growing modes of digital payments and has often been seen as an alternative to credit cards, especially for people in their twenties. In a recent report on BNPL trends, lender ZestMoney said citing Goldman Sachs that BNPL forms about 2% of total retail gross merchandise value (GMV) and is expected to surge to nearly 7% by the end of FY26. The current GMV of $3 billion is estimated to go up to $35 billion by 2026, the report said. Taking BNPL beyond the online channel could play an important role in its growth trajectory. Prashanth Ranganathan, CEO, PayU Finance, told FE that opportunities for credit access are particularly low for young people...
Post a Comment
Read more

Unit linked insurance plans: Check tax norms for capital gains on Ulips

With rising stock markets, increasing financial savings and higher risk-appetite of young investors, unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) of life insurance companies have reported strong growth in the current financial year. In the individual regular new business, sales of Ulips grew 49% year-on-year to Rs 13,000 crore in the first nine months of this financial year. In the individual single premium new business, Ulip sales grew 85% y-o-y to Rs 4,330 crore during the same period, data from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India show. The bounce-back in Ulip sales despite the Union Budget 2021-22 eliminating the tax arbitrage between Ulips and equity mutual fund investments for high-value investors, indicates that individuals are willing to put money in life insurance for investments as they are cost-effective, secure and chances of mis-selling is less. Experts feel that the sales of Ulips will gain further momentum in the tax-saving season till March. Should you inves...
Post a Comment
Read more

CityMall: Taking community commerce digital

By Srinath Srinivasan Consumers in the smaller towns and villages of India are still underserved despite the rise in e-commerce platforms. CityMall procures products from local and popular brands. By making local leaders the interface between it and the customers, using their social capital in their areas, CityMall aims to market the brands and enable last-mile delivery of the products amongst the community. “These people are usually well-known in their communities and act as resellers of our products. We help them augment their household income by 40% at the moment. We make a small commission from the sales and charge these sellers for ads they want to upload on our platform to boost their visibility,” says Angad Kikla, co-founder and CEO, CityMall. The startup has raised $40 million and operates in over 20 districts across different states. “We are essentially trying to match the collective demand and the supply. Large platforms with over hundreds of millions of users do not cater ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drip Capital: Helping small businesses to access capital and scale further

Trade finance is an age-old paper-based industry dominated by banks focusing on large, established corporate customers. Hence, banks largely neglect small businesses, accounting for 40% of all international trade. A recent report by the Asian Development Bank highlighted the global trade finance gap to be $1.7 trillion, most of which exists across the SME segment in emerging markets, says Pushkar Mukewar, co-founder and CEO, Drip Capital, a company focused on addressing the trade finance gap for small businesses in emerging markets using data and technology. Basically it is a trade financing firm that utilises Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based risk assessment to lend working capital to MSME traders across India. Drip Capital uses new-age technology such as machine learning and cloud technology to make cross-border trade easy and accessible for small businesses, says Mukewar. An alumnus of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Mukewar started his career at Capital One—...
Post a Comment
Read more

Data monitor: Airlines facing steepest-ever loss in FY22

India’s airlines are flying towards their steepest-ever net loss of more than Rs 20,000 crore this fiscal — 44% more than the Rs 13,853 crore bled last fiscal — owing to the twin headwinds of the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and high aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices, CRISIL Ratings has said. This would push the industry’s recovery beyond FY23, its analysis based on three large airlines – IndiGo, SpiceJet, and Air India – has shown. from The Financial Express https://ift.tt/3KuoGfs https://ift.tt/3tPdXX1 Anish Mondal
Post a Comment
Read more

The era of smart savers: How fintech industry is revolutionising finance in India

By Reya Mehrotra When Mumbai-based Shahira Khan first started saving in 2012, she would give Rs 1,000 to her mother every month from her salary, which would be kept in a box at home. But that little amount never seemed enough. She would look at her savings and wonder if she would ever have enough money to buy a house or a car. Almost a decade later, the 32-year-old communications specialist has several investments in mutual funds and SIPs (systematic investment plan) and is now considering an LIC policy too. “After marriage, I started investing in mutual funds and SIP with wealth managers from Hum Fauji (a team working to help armed forces families with financial planning),” she says. During the pandemic, she started using the Angel Broking app, a stock broker company, to venture into the stock market. “Their commission is lower than banks and the settlement reports are easy to understand for non-finance people as well,” she adds. Khan is among the many youngsters today who are mone...
Post a Comment
Read more