Archives May 2023

New Delhi, May 4, 2023 – In its ongoing commitment to helping enterprises seamlessly manage all stages of their last-mile operations, Locus – a global last-mile logistics technology company – today announced industry-specific enhancements of its premier, order-to-delivery Dispatch Management Platform for its growing retail, 3PL and CEP customer bases. These new features serve to unlock greater opportunities across all layers of the fulfillment ecosystem.

Retail and e-commerce brands must have the right technology in place to understand their real-world delivery constraints, fulfill delivery promises at scale, use the full potential of their fleets, and facilitate seamless order-to-delivery experiences that keep customers coming back. Locus has introduced several enhancements that cater to retail and ecommerce, including:

Powering superior consumer experiences: Retail can exceed consumer expectations by offering flexible and convenient delivery options with Delivery Linked Checkout, which optimizes deliveries via capacity-led slot bookings and includes multi-speed and time-definite delivery options for same- & next-day shipments. While Locus’ Order Management & Route Planning capabilities ensure seamless returns by optimizing reverse logistics, cancellations and reattempts with advanced routing

Enabling powerful omnichannel retail experiences: Retailers can provide consumers market-leading omnichannel fulfillment with Locus ShipFlex, which automates entire carrier workflows for optimal pricing and delivers end-to-end visibility of order-to-doorstep deliveries across in-house, contracted, and outsourced fleets. Cross-fleet Utilization facilitates efficient and cost-effective fulfillment by deploying the same fleet across different legs and business. Whereas Dark Store Optimization allows retailers to centralize dark store, in-store, and FC fulfillment on a single platform

3PLs and CEPs must also keep up with today’s staggering volume of shipments to build long-term relationships with the e-tailers and manufacturers they support. Locus’ technology enables faster and more efficient last-mile logistics by automating planning processes and enhancing real-time visibility, providing an easier way to manage challenging returns and cancellations, and connecting the dots across their operations and data. New enhancements to enable 3PLs & CEPs to perform at their best include:

Bringing efficiencies at scale to meet peak demand: Businesses can enable Daily Dynamic Optimization to optimize their routes and capacity allocation on a daily basis, thereby staying abreast with daily & seasonal fluctuations in capacity and demand. Similarly, Dynamic Zone Planning allows for the creation of daily custom zone clusters to ensure delivery capacity meets demand levels while optimizing on-ground resources. Finally, automated parcel sorting & processing allows for the accurate dispatch of orders in minimal time

Transporter Management: Allows carriers to bring all transporters onto a single platform to easily assign orders/routes to them at scale, thereby reducing the risk of deadlock if some transporters are out of commission.

“Locus has elevated our logistics operations to new heights of performance and productivity. Their advanced parcel sorting technology, combined with geocoding and route allocation, has transformed our order processing, resulting in faster order cycle times and 95% route mapping accuracy. The cost savings from reduced overhead resources have been a major boost to our bottom line. Locus has been an invaluable partner in our journey towards logistics excellence.” said Juster Correia, General Manager of Operations, BlueDart-DHL.

“The dramatic acceleration of online commerce channels coupled with dynamic customer preferences have spurred the growth of the Mexican e-grocery sector. Enabling convenience and faster deliveries has become the differentiator for business in this space. Thanks to Locus’s real-world ready dispatch management platform, we’ve improved our order visibility, optimized our delivery routes, enhanced our communication with rider personnel, and increased our on-time delivery performance, consequently increasing our customer satisfaction. Our partnership with Locus also helped us scale our business consistently and build brand loyalty amongst customers.” said Juan Pablo Diaz Rodriguez, Head of Last Mile of Jüsto.

“We’re constantly evolving alongside our customers in ways that give them a competitive edge and the latest updates to our Dispatch Management Platform are in direct response to their everyday needs,” said Nishith Rastogi, Founder & CEO, Locus. “Our solutions have already reduced dispatch planning time by 75%, minimized sorting time by 60%, and slashed 25% in operational costs for both industries, and we still see so much opportunity ahead.”

India, 4 May 2023: Vested Finance, a leading US investing platform, is excited to announce the launch of Extended Hours trading. This feature gives investors access to an additional 9.5 hours of trading on each trading day, providing them with more flexibility and the opportunity to make trades at a time that is favorable for them.

With extended hours trading, investors can react faster to important events outside of core market hours, such as earnings reports or reactions to the news from international markets. This feature will help their customers capitalize on price movements when the US markets are closed. However, investors should also be aware of the associated risks of extended hour trading, such as lower trading volume and higher price volatility, which can make it harder to execute trades at favorable prices.

Viram Shah, CEO of Vested Finance, said on Extended Hours, “We are thrilled to introduce Extended Hours trading on Vested. One of the key issues our customers in India’s face is the inability to place trades during the day. With Extended Hours, customers can now execute transactions from 1:30 PM IST, and we believe that this will give them much needed flexibility in creating their US portfolios.”

Users can buy and sell fractional and whole shares with all order types during extended hours. The pre-market hours are from 4:00 AM – 9:30 AM ET | 1:30 PM – 7:00 PM IST, while post-market hours are from 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET | 1:30 AM – 5:30 AM IST.

It should be noted that Extended Hours trading is limited to specific stocks/ETFs and will initially be rolled out to Vested Premium users. Basic Vested users can opt-in for Extended Hours by upgrading to a Vested Premium subscription. To learn more about Extended Hours trading, refer to this blog.

Vested Finance has pioneered US investing for Indian customers. With Extended Hours, Vested Finance continues to innovate and make diversification easy for their customers.

India, 4 May 2023 – Radio City, India’s leading radio network, has added to its impressive list of accolades with 19 wins at the 12th edition of the ACEF Global Customer Engagement Forum & Awards 2023. The awards ceremony was held on 29th April 2023 at Westin Garden City Hotel, Mumbai. This recognition is a testament to Radio City’s unwavering commitment to providing its listeners with engaging content that resonates with their preferences and contributes positively to their lives.

Out of the whopping 19 awards, Radio City has received 10 Gold, 5 Silver, and 4 Bronze awards spanning across various categories such as Effective Radio Campaigns, Most Admired Podcast, Most Admired Social Message and others. Podcasts and shows such as Character Dissector, No Politics Please, Kadak Currency, Pauranik Bharat with RJ Akhil, Radio City Whistle, and many others have been admired by the audiences. Additionally, RJ Shonali from Pune and RJ Nikhil from Rajasthan have been bestowed RJ of the Year award under the category of Individual Awards. Recognitions such as these showcase the modernization, commitment, and audience-centricity of Radio City while also demonstrating the authenticity and significance of radio as a medium.

Commenting on the awards, Mr. Kartik Kalla, Chief Creative Officer, Radio City, said, “It is a feeling of great pride to bag 19 awards at the renowned ACEF Global Customer Engagement Forum & Awards. These honours are acknowledgments for the dedication of our entire team in developing engaging as well as informative content and successful advertising plans. Our goal at Radio City has always been to foster relationships with our listeners by designing holistic content strategies that have a lasting impact. Our RJs have established deep connections with their audience and the two RJ of the Year awards are a testament to that. Radio City is committed to creating new milestones and achieving newer heights in the future too.”

Here’s a list of all the awards won by Radio City – 

The ACEF Global Customer Engagement Forum & Awards is known to recognize the best campaigns, creatives, and customer engagement activities across various marketing mediums. Radio City’s innovative campaigns, podcasts, and engaging content through their RJs have resonated with their audience’s content consumption preferences, which are now being celebrated by prestigious awards. With a finger on the pulse of its audience, Radio City has consistently delivered impactful award-winning campaigns.

There is another remarkable achievement for the radio station, as Radio City became the only radio station from India to win a Bronze award for the campaign ‘Blade Running Victoriously Through Life’ and four finalists certificates at the prestigious New York Festival Radio Awards 2023.

Bangalore, May 04, 2023: Kiwi, a revolutionary credit card platform, has announced the launch of its all-in-one “Credit on UPI,” solution for customers. Certified by the NPCI, Kiwi is the first app in India that will help customers experience “Credit on UPI” by issuing Rupay Cards in partnership with banks. With this launch, Kiwi aims to create one of the largest direct-to-consumer (D2C) models in the credit market through its cutting-edge mobile application, which offers users the ability to make payments using either a credit card or bank account directly through their phones in a secure manner.

The company has raised $6 million in pre-seed funding from marquee investors – Nexus Venture Partners, Stellaris Venture Partners, and a host of angel investors. Kiwi has been co-founded by senior fintech experts and banking industry veterans, Siddharth Mehta (ex-CEO, Freecharge), Mohit Bedi (ex-Axis Bank & PayU), and Anup Agrawal (ex-business head, LazyPay).

Speaking about the launch, Siddharth Mehta, co-founder, Kiwi, said, “UPI has become the most inclusive mode of payment in India, with over 30 crore unique users and 5 crore merchants onboarded on the platform. With the launch of Kiwi app, for the first time in India, users can now leverage the power of a (RuPay) credit card with the convenience and ease of UPI. Our vision is to enable access to credit on UPI for 1 million users over the next 18 months.”

RBI recently approved the linking of RuPay Credit Cards to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which will provide a seamless, digitally enabled credit card lifecycle experience for the users. Kiwi users will be issued a RuPay credit card, digitally and instantly. Post receiving the card, users will be able to link the card to UPI on the Kiwi app and will be able to use the “Credit on UPI” transactions facility at offline as well as online stores. The Kiwi app will also help users manage their cards with a host of facilities like blocking cards, increasing limits, and making card payments while rewarding them for every transaction. Starting today, users will be able to join the waitlist by signing up on the website. The Kiwi app (available on Android and iOS) is expected to go live by mid-May.

Praveena Rai, COO, NPCI said, “In our step towards attaining the goal of ‘Digital Payments for All’, Kiwi will be a game-changer in the Indian credit card industry. With the monthly expenditure on UPI P2M transactions amounting to approximately Rs. 3.2 lakh crore, which is almost 2.5x larger than the monthly credit card spends, Kiwi is set to capitalize on a significant untapped market. Moreover, the number of unique UPI users are more than 100 times the number of existing card users in India, and the acceptance points for ‘Credit on UPI’ are anticipated to be five times larger than regular credit card acceptance points. Looking at the whitespace that Kiwi is addressing, we’re confident that their model will support plenty of Indian credit card users on a daily basis.”

Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners said, “Kiwi will offer consumers the best of credit cards and UPI i.e. convenience, rewards and flexible repayment experience of credit cards along with unmatched acceptance rail of UPI which is ubiquitous across India. We are excited to partner with Team Kiwi in their mission to accelerate credit card adoption in India.”

Ritesh Banglani, Stellaris Venture Partners said, “UPI is the world’s second-largest payment network, and is truly world class both in scale and robustness. By enabling credit card usage over UPI, Kiwi will further deepen the consumer value provided by the network. We are thrilled to partner with Kiwi in their quest to revolutionise the Indian credit card market.”

Delhi, 4 May 2023: Skills Caravan – a SaaS-based B2B edtech platform has recently integrated Artificial Intelligence backed by robust features in its state-of-the-art experiential learning platform. This aligns with the platform’s goal to provide enhanced LMS, Live Classroom, Offline Training and External Content powered by generative AI and analytics.

Employees are the fundamental unit of an organization and they need to be constantly adaptive to adjust to the present age of technology. Skills Caravan utilises Generative AI models to understand the context of dialogues and enhance personalization within the platform.

The AI integration helps Skills Caravan to better engage the users and also understand and process the learning requirements of their workforce. It understands the context of the user’s learning path and their learning abilities. This set of information keeps growing with user activity which leads to further fine-tuning for every user action.

Improved targeting and upskilling can lead to significant, long-term impacts on employee engagement and performance, ultimately contributing to an organization’s business growth.

Commenting on the announcement, Sarita Chand, Founder of Skills Caravan said, “Today’s world determines competency by the smallest of competitive advantages. Companies strive to keep their employees engaged and ahead of the learning curve. At Skills Caravan, we strive to move from a monolithic to a modular learning approach through a technology-enabled and AI-embedded system.”

Launched in 2022, Skills Caravan is recognized as one of its kind platform that provides B2B learning and development solutions to listed BFSI, Real Estate and Automobile companies and Unicorn startups. It focuses on bite-sized learning and its daily micro-learning recommendations (like the Instagram and TikTok reels) have higher adoption rates.

Today’s world has become ultra-competitive which generates a massive demand for organizations to gamify employee training and learning programs. Skills Caravan stimulates progress by gamifying employee training and learning programs, fostering social learning and friendly competition.

As part of gamification, Skills Caravan leverages analytics to gain insights into human potential. It tracks KPIs that matter with 50+ points of data tracking. It further tests the skill competency of organizations’ workforce against industry and fulfils the learning goals and interests of employees.

Skills Caravan provides the most flexible LMS that features compatible content for learners. The platform boasts Blockchain certifications, Integrations with HRMS, Quiz and Quick Assessments and dedicated human assistance for L&D troubleshooting. Furthermore, the platform emphasizes on leadership learning programs featuring curated learning content from internal or external sources while also setting deadlines to monitor and guide employees to get there. To enable transformative leadership learning experiences, the edtech platform offers Live Classroom training with pre-reads and post surveys and performance tracking.

Integration of AI in Skills Caravan proves to be a game changer in the B2B learning landscape. The platform aims to provide a transformative learning environment to users with personalized learning experiences.

goEgo Network, India’s leading EV charging solutions provider, is inching closer to its vision of electrifying India’s commute needs by making EV transportation a mainstay. In line with their notable partnerships with revolutionary EV-promoting brands, goEgo Network has just announced a path-breaking development wherein they have partnered as the OEM vendor with Adani Total Gas, to provide them with EV charging infrastructure across Adani-owned and managed premises pan India.

As part of the agreement, goEgo Network is now a registered vendor with Adani for the supply of end to-end EV charging infrastructure required by Adani’s EV Charging Stations. As the OEM service provider for Adani EV Charging Stations, goEgo Network will provide them with their Make In India products for 2-wheeler and 4-wheeler charging stations. goEgo Network has already completed a few premium installations of Adani EV Charging Stations at IIT Powai, Adani Corporate House Ahmedabad, and Adani Managed Airports. Adani has further earmarked key locations across the country to set up their EV Charging Stations.

Excited about the partnership, Pravin Kumar, Co-founder, goEgo Network, voiced, “We thank Adani Group for having vested their trust in us as we emerged to be undisputed by the competitors while going through Adani Group’s rigorous vendor selection process. As one of the pioneering Make In India EV charging companies, we secured the OCPP 1.6 (Open Charge Point Protocol) certification as the first Indian company, having a dedicated manufacturing facility with state-of-the-art assembly and testing facility with potential for multifold future growth, which has led us to be at the forefront of providing all the stakeholders with thoroughly tested and quality products only. goEgo Network has installed more than 1700 charge points across 50+ cities in India. We at goEgo Network have already completed the flagship installations for Adani at IIT Powai, Adani Corporate House Ahmedabad, Adani Managed Airports, etc. We are bullish on completing the upcoming Adani EV Charging Stations as per the set timelines.”

Adding to Pravin’s comments, Dheeman Kadam, Co-founder, goEgo Network, said, “Adani group’s decision to put their trust on our company is special for us. The focus will be to deliver a world class product of Indian origin for the EV customers of Adani group. We are looking forward to the future and forging/strengthening this alliance.”

Washington D.C, Texas & Mumbai, May 4, 2023: JSW Steel USA Ohio, Inc. a subsidiary of JSW Steel Ltd. (India’s leading steel company and the flagship business of US $22 billion JSW Group), with over 750 employees in the United States, announced its plans to invest US$ 145 million in new projects to upgrade its manufacturing operations in Mingo Junction, Ohio. JSW Steel USA aims to meet the demand for quality steel products that are “melted & manufactured in the US”. This is in alignment with President Biden Administration’s Buy America policies. The new investments were announced at the SelectUSA Investment Summit held in National Harbour MD.

Announcing the new investments, Parth Jindal, Director of JSW Steel USA said, “These new investments reiterate JSW’s commitment to a sustainable & green future. The operational upgrades being made at JSW Steel USA are a progresive step towards achieving our long term ESG goals. These investments & projects will help us in producing high quality ‘melted and manufactured in USA’ steel products required by our customers in the infrastructure and renewable energy sectors.”

“JSW Steel’s continued investment in Mingo Junction demonstrates the company’s confidence to grow its global footprint with talent from Ohio,” said Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, “Choosing Ohio for this expansion brings good-paying jobs to Jefferson County while helping secure a stronger domestic supply chain for steel manufactured in the United States.”

“Ohio has always been home to ingenuity and innovation that makes this State a destination for investment from companies such as JSW Steel, which is advancing its manufacturing to meet evolving market demand,” said J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio President and CEO, “The investment at JSW’s Mingo Junction facility will bring new jobs and the latest technology for more sustainable methods of steel production.”

“This capital expenditure ensures not only job retention and creation but adds an element of economic sustainability to JSW Steel USA Ohio, Inc.’s footprint in Jefferson County,” said Robert Naylor, executive director of the Jefferson County Port Authority. “The Port Authority also appreciates the contributions of OhioSE and JobsOhio to assist the project and facilitate the steel maker’s future expansion.”

“We thank JSW for the investment in new jobs and capital in the Southeast Ohio region, and we’re proud to support the company’s efforts through the JobsOhio Revitalization Grant program,” said Mike Jacoby, President of Ohio Southeast Economic Development (OhioSE). “JSW’s commitment to grow and invest is a great opportunity for the people and businesses in the area.”

According to Samir Kalra, CFO of JSW USA, “These new projects will enable JSW Steel USA to serve its customers across several end-markets with steel products that are melted in USA in a facility with low carbon emissions. The improvement in JSW Steel USA’s domestic slab production capabilities through these new investments will mitigate risks associated with importing slabs, improve profitability of the business and create employment opportunities in the US.”

According to Mike Panzeri, COO of Mingo Junction facility of JSW USA, “We look forward to the successful completion of these upgardes. It will provide JSW Steel USA additional momentum for growth while ensuring our commitment to sustainability in our markets. This will also be a significant step towards achieving our emissions goals. We appreciate the assistance of Jobs Ohio and the Jefferson County Port Authority in partnering with JSW on our continued expansion.”

According to Cory Raimondi, Chief Commercial Officer of JSW USA, “JSW Steel USA’s investment is in line with President Biden’s Buy America policy, and the company’s focus on reducing emissions and achieving our sustainability goals. These projects will strengthen JSW Steel USA’s manufacturing capability, widen its product portfolio, and help us to streghten our service capabilities to meet the growing needs of the renewable energy and infrastructure segments.”

JSW Steel USA has long championed the Department of Energy’s (DOE) emission reduction priorities and applauds its recent efforts to promote infrastructure that reduces the carbon footprint of the iron and steel industry through pivotal legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act. The proposed investments by JSW Steel USA will be deployed to establish various projects to upgrade its operations including the installation of one of the largest Vaccum Tank Degasser (VTD) in the world and upgrade of supporting facilities including the manufacturing infrastructure. The proposed VTD has substantially lower carbon emissions profile compared to a traditional steam ejector vacuum technology. It will help JSW Steel USA to reduce hydrogen content in its steel products through electrification of metallurgical processes. As part of this investment plan, JSW Steel USA is also implementing Dynamic Soft Reduction (DSR) technology in its casting operations.

The proposed investments will enhance JSW’s manufacturing capabilities in the USA while enabling the company to produce “Made in USA” slabs for end use by the Renewable Energy and Infrastructure sectors. The proposed upgradations will also enable JSW Steel USA to promote centerline soundness of the casted steel slabs which will not only widen its product portfolio but will also help produce wide range of high quality and sophisticated grades of steel slabs in USA. This will help expand its “Made in USA” product portfolio and replace imports into the USA. The portfolio expansion will help JSW Steel USA to adequately service the growing needs of the renewable energy customer segment by providing “Made in USA” products they need. These new projects are expected to be completed & commisioned in FY26.

May 4, 2023, Bangalore, India – Today, Lenovo (HKSC: 992) launched its first-ever ‘Smarter Data Management Technology Playbook’ that captures insights from 550+ CIOs across Asia Pacific. The IDC led report highlights the current state of the data management landscape, digital maturity and readiness of CIOs to meet the data challenges and priorities now and in the future. Commissioned by Lenovo, the IDC study provides critical insights on infrastructure readiness, data innovation, sustainability, and selecting the right storage partner.

Key Highlights:

Digital Maturity

Businesses in AP expect 52% revenue to be digitally driven by 2027, but only 39% are at Stage 3/4 of Digital Maturity. Stage 3 or 4 indicates a well-defined multi-year execution roadmap of an organization.

India falls behind with 48% of businesses at Stage 1 of digital maturity. Lack of competitive pressure and cultural resistance to change hinder the transformation journey.

Digital Infrastructure Readiness

Majority of AP businesses (84%) consider digital infrastructure to be mission–critical or important for achieving business goals. However, only 38% are exceptionally or sufficiently prepared to maintain standard service levels, security and cost-optimization during events of unexpected business demands.

Nigel Lee, Director of Storage – AP, Lenovo ISG, said “Data innovation acts as a compass for CIOs, providing guidance to unlock new business opportunities and achieve digital success. By harnessing the power of data, companies can gain valuable insights to improve productivity and stay ahead of the competition. Lenovo’s open, reliable, and secure infrastructure solutions are helping customers modernize their data management infrastructure.”

A similar trend is in India, where digital infrastructure is either mission-critical or important for 87% of businesses, but in reality, only 33% are exceptionally/sufficiently prepared. To attain stage 3 or 4 of digital maturity, organizations must leverage future-ready IT driven by Hybrid Cloud platforms to utilize real-time business insights that lead to investment-focused outcomes.

Data Innovation

Data-driven innovation is critical for digital success and driving myriad business outcomes. However, lack of cyber resiliency, growing AI/ML workloads and limited data mobility in hybrid cloud impede data innovation.

Of 36% of the organizations in AP that are driving data innovation strategically or fairly strategically, 33% are investing in it to improve supply chain operations. The top two investment priorities for businesses in India are towards product & services engineering by 39% and driving competitive differentiation in products and services by 37%.

97% CIOs in India plan to accelerate their data-innovation journey in the next 2 years. To become digital natives CIOs will need to accelerate IT modernization and transformation. This also addresses the key challenges around data security and cyber resiliency, the growing mix of AI/ML-powered high-performance, and energy costs to support data explosion.

“It is interesting to see the majority of CIOs in India committed to accelerating their data innovation journey in the next two years,” said Amit Luthra, MD – India, Lenovo ISG. It presents a great opportunity for Lenovo to offer the best of data management systems and solutions to help organizations become digital natives and achieve their investment-focused outcomes.”

Information Management

Increasing deployment options, whether public, private, hybrid, or multi-Cloud, have led to challenges around data residing in silos. Businesses in AP are significantly investing in data storage and information management technologies for Hybrid cloud, Public cloud, and Software-defined storage.

Data Management platform for hybrid/multi-cloud is the #1 investment priority (53%) for CIOs across all AP geos, with the exception of India, which follows an inverse pattern. More than half (52%) businesses in India are looking to invest in software-defined storage solutions, followed by 44% in public cloud for data backup & business continuity, and 42% in data management platform for hybrid/multi-cloud.

Unified Data Management

Unified Management Platform is key to securing competitive advantage. Only 16% of the organizations in AP indicated that they have managed to build a single data management platform. 29% organizations have managed to minimize the number of data management platforms and made significant progress, opines IDC.

Businesses in India appear to be lagging with only 18% managing to reduce multiple Data Management platforms down to a few. Nearly 50% businesses still use multiple data management systems to independently manage block, file, and object data types with limited data mobility between public and private cloud, and edge locations.

Sustainability

93% of the organizations in AP indicated a strong focus on sustainability. 35% see a significant impact on brand reputation as the younger generation becomes much more concerned about climate change.

The sustainability wave is strong in India, with 94% businesses including it in their business agenda. Regulatory and compliance requirements, improving resource utilization, and attracting or retaining talent have become key business drivers of the sustainability agenda.

Amit Luthra added, “As Lenovo advances efforts towards a more sustainable world, we are delighted to see the growing importance and focus on sustainability in business priorities.”

To continue the focus and improve sustainability goals, CIOs and line-of-businesses (LOBs) need to collaborate to build a set of discrete business outcomes, beyond social branding and regulatory compliance requirements. Here’s how organizations in India see infrastructure and data management technology investments to drive sustainability:

AI/ML-based management, provisioning and orchestration software to increase storage capacity utilization levels
Inline compression & deduplication technologies to reduce storage capacity requirements
Consolidate departmental and workgroup storage with private cloud

Lenovo provides Data Management systems, platforms, and software solutions that enable customers to efficiently manage their data and information assets, from the edge to the core data center, as well as across myriad cloud deployments. Lenovo’s Data Management solutions underpin data mobility across the vast expanse of the heterogeneous IT infrastructure landscape, powering next-generation data and AI/ML powered business applications.

The Smarter Data Management Playbook studied 100+ IT and business decision makers (ITBDMs) from India.

03 May, New Delhi, India – Sightsavers India, a leading NGO that works towards eliminating avoidable blindness and promoting equality for people with disabilities, has developed an online app called “Student Tracking Assessment and Reporting (STAR)” to track the progress of visually impaired children in their inclusive education program. The tool has been designed to collect basic information, set baseline data of the children, capture progressive data of the Children with Visual Impairment (CVI), and generate reports based on monitoring of field-based activities.

Inclusive education is a key focus area for Sightsavers India, and the organization aims to ensure that children who are visually impaired are included in mainstream education for their overall development and inclusion. Blindness creates a cycle of illiteracy, poverty, and social exclusion for visually impaired children, making them one of the most vulnerable groups in the world. Sightsavers India supports inclusive education to break this cycle, promoting a positive and enabling environment in schools, families, and communities to support the holistic education of children with visual impairment. This is facilitated by the availability of assistive devices and accessible educational material, provision of compensatory skills training, infrastructure accessibility, and building education management and leadership, among others.

The STAR app will be used by the IE Facilitator (Inclusive Education), who will be responsible for collecting the information from the child through the app. The District Project Coordinator will be responsible for monitoring the data entries and ensuring timely submission of the data of their district, maintaining timeliness, completeness, accuracy, relevance, and reliability through the tool.

The STAR app has several features, including the ability to capture data both in offline and online mode, capture data on a real-time basis, mandatory fields that the user must fill in, the requirement to save data to move to the next page/section to avoid loss of data, the ability to review and verify data before submission, and the inbuilt functionality of the device.

Sightsavers India is currently implementing the inclusive education program in seven states, namely Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Chattisgarh., with the district as a unit of intervention. The program focuses on training general and specialist teachers to aid the inclusion process in the classroom, prepare visually impaired students for the classroom, provide one-on-one help to children in the classroom, and teach visually impaired children skills such as Braille.

“The STAR app is a significant milestone for us in our inclusive education program,” said RN Mohanty, CEO of Sightsavers India. “We believe that this tool will help us track the progress of visually impaired children more effectively and support our mission of promoting inclusive education in India.”

New Delhi, May 3, 2023: Shreya Poonja(22), the first Runner-Up in Femina Miss India-2023 pageant finale held recently in Imphal, draws her strength from her ‘never-to-be-defeated’ spirit.

“I believe that a never-to-be-defeated spirit helped me win the Femina Miss India-2023 first runner-up crown. It is a quality I have built into my personality and this certainly is the most crucial aspect that helps me overcome obstacles in life. I believe in constantly working on myself and evolving into the best version every single day and this I focused on religiously,” said Shreya on Monday during a media interaction held at Essex Farms, Aurobindo Road, IIT Gate, here. Shreya returned to her home town Delhi on April 28 from Imphal.

Sharing her feelings on winning the first runner up spot in the coveted national pageant, Delhi University’s Deshbandhu College’s Economics graduate Shreya said: “The feeling is settling in day by day. There were a lot of efforts that were put in the past few years and to have finally been able to achieve this makes me feel accomplished. The efforts have validated my victory.”

Poonja’s alma mater is St. Anthony’s Senior Secondary School, Hauz Khas and she will be visiting both her school and college on May 4. Shreya has been busy after landing in Delhi. She has had a meeting with Delhi’s Chief Fire Officer in the Fire Headquarters at Connaught Place among other social engagements. Reflecting about the Miss India journey so far, Shreya said: “I have evolved every single day of my 40-day journey. Learning new things about myself along the way. There were tight schedules and discipline of the self-played an important part. Each individual had something great that they offered towards my journey and I truly cherish the time now.”

Shreya gives credit to her parents – mother Bharti Poonja and father Sanjay Poonja – for the feat. “My parents have been instrumental in my win. I have not had an easy path to victory. However, my close friends and family members continued to support my vision and gave strength and encouragement to me whenever necessary.”

Talking about her future plans, she said: “I have always been in love with the camera, for as long as I can remember! I am keenly interested in the entertainment and show business and have already been working in the same since I was 17. I’m looking forward to commencing work soon.” When asked to share tips for young girls preparing for the title, Shreya said that the most important thing I believe is to be truly happy with what you do and not let short-term wins or defeats sway you away.

“Have a clear vision of why you want to do something and then work towards it every second of every day. Soon things are bound to work your way. Do not get impatient with the results of your efforts. Please know that it is not the win but the habit of pushing yourself to the limit that will in time bear fruit,” she concluded.