e-filing startup ClearTax hires top Flipkart talent

Three top techies of Flipkart have joined the e-filing website ClearTax, as the exodus from the homegrowne-retail marketplace continues.

Announcing the appointment, Archit Gupta, CEO & Founder, ClearTax said, “The appointment of three veteran professionals — Prasanth Nair, Aakash Bapna and Jai Santosh — will bring in critical domain-specific expertise to our team and help propel us to the next phase of our growth journey.”

Nair will be vice president – engineering, apart from heading the product and technology group at ClearTax. Bapna and Santosh have been roped in as senior software engineers.

As director engineering at Flipkart, Nair was responsible for scaling up the company’s fulfilment platform.

Bapna helmed Flipkart’s front-end systems and teams from scratch while Santosh was busy with software engineering and tech development, the statement said.

“Given its focus on technology as a solution enabler, ClearTax is solving a real problem for the Indian consumer by making the process of filing taxes and financial savings simpler and more efficient,” said Santosh.

Founded in 2011 by IIT-Guwahati pass-out Archit Gupta, his chartered accountant father Raja Ram Gupta, Srivatsan Chari and Ankit Solanki, ClearTax enables individuals to file their tax returns online through its website.

“All a user has to do is upload their Form-16 PDF and the ClearTax software prepares the tax return instantly and automatically,” said the statement.

In the assessment year 2014-15, ClearTax processed e-filings for 300,000 individuals, which increased to an estimated one million people in 2015-16 fiscal.

Meanwhile, the list of top-level exits at Flipkart is only rising with the departure of its chief product officer Punit Soni, head of commerce platform Mukesh Bansal, chief business officer Ankit Nagori, Manish Maheshwari, CTO Amod Malvyia and senior vice president Sameer Nigam.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Business

Twitter eyes Japan, Britain to push users’ growth

In a fresh bid to recover from the stalled users’ growth and declining revenue, micro-blogging website Twitter has joined hands with business listing and review site Yelp to supply location services for Japan and Britain inside its app.

The Yelp integration will give Twitter users in Japan and Britain an option of selecting places provided by Yelp when they tag a location in their tweets, technology website TechCrunch reported on Saturday.

According to Yelp, the service has gone live on iOS and Android platforms and will soon be available to Twitter on internet.

“Twitter users in the UK and Japan can now simply tap the location icon to add Yelp geotags to Tweets,” Chad Richard, senior vice president of business and corporate development at Yelp, posted.

When users click on particular places, they will see a separate card with businesses’ Yelp ratings, locations, and even a direct link to Yelp’s app.

When Twitter users click on places when reading tweets, they will get a separate card with more details like address and Yelp rating, along with a link to go directly to view that venue on the Yelp app itself, the report added.

More location data can help Twitter lay the groundwork for a new advertising unit based around locations. It can also potentially sell that on to the companies that are being flagged in the tags.

However, Twitter users in the US will keep receiv

Source : IndianMediaBook - Business

Telecom industry stakeholders express ‘deep dismay’ over TRAI comments

The telecom industry stakeholders on Friday expressed their “deep dismay” over the remarks made against them in the Supreme Court by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in respect of business practices and ethics.

“The industry is deeply hurt by such strong remarks especially when it is a well-known and acknowledged fact that huge investments have been made by the operators which has yielded in connecting and empowering a billion people,” the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) said in a statement.

“At the same time, it is universally known the world over, that the Indian telecom service providers charge the lowest tariffs in the world, while paying one of the highest spectrum charges and other levies.”

Assailing the contentions raised by the telecom service providers (TSP) for not imposing penalty for call drops, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that there was huge gulf between the revenue being earned by the TSPs and the investments being made by them on augmenting the infrastructure.

If between 2010 to 2014, the revenue of TSPs has increased by 48 percent, the investment in infrastructure in wireless access service segment rose by only 4.6 percent from Rs.2,02,399 crore in fiscal 2012-13 to Rs.2,11,691 crore in fiscal 2013-14, he said, adding that investment in telecom infrastructure in 2015 here was $5 billion whereas in China it was $50 billion.“

“Further it is also equally known that the industry has leveraged its financial ability and taken on debt to the tune of Rs.3.8 lakh crore, to further invest a cumulative figure of over Rs.8 lakh crore, not only to meet its service obligations but in strongly partnering the government at every step to shoulder the massive responsibility of providing the highest standards of service quality and in establishing the best technology infrastructure,” the statement said.

“We, therefore, respectfully request and urge the concerned authorities to refrain from the use of such harsh and unsubstantiated language at any forum against the telecom service providers, which is not only uncalled for but also projects them in a poor light,” it added.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Business

Hathway launches series of new channels in the music & movie genres

In the present day & age where consumer demands are growing and content is becoming accessible across multiple platforms, several broadcasters have been launching channels in different genres to cater to varied audiences and increasing reach. MSO and broadband service provider Hathway launched a series of four new channels in the music and movie genres namely DJay, Lamhe, Home Theatre and Marathi Talkies.

Commenting on the launch of the new channels, Jagdish Kumar, Managing Director & CEO, Hathway Cable & Datacom Ltd said, “As we move ahead to build the Hathway brand and achieve our business objectives, we have set another big milestone to launch a dedicated bouquet of channels which will redefine the way consumers look at Digital Cable channels. These 4 new channels are a start to our endeavor of creating a strong bouquet in multiple genres which will add a new dimension to Hathway and offer varied content to our loyal subscribers.”

DJay-Music redefined and Lamhe-Music Forever are the music channels from the Hathway stable which will bring the best of new and old melodies to music-lovers. While DJAY is Infinite, Young and Energetic bringing latest Bollywood tracks from the 2000 era which will appeal to the Gen-X, Lamhe brings back the old melodious flavour in a new-age persona by reliving the golden era of 50’s to 80’s.

Moving on from the music genre, the 2 new movies channels- Home Theatre-Entertainment Recharged andMarathi Talkies-Cinema Aapla packs the movies from Hindi and Marathi cinema, respectively.  With its slick and youthful packaging, Home Theatre will provide the latest movies from multiple genres like action, romance, thriller, comedy, family etc. The new entrant, Marathi Talkies inspired by the warm, rustic, earthy yet colourful Marathi flavour will offer the old and new Marathi movies.

Speaking on the development, T.S. Panesar, President-Video Business, Hathway Cable &Datacom Limited said, “With DJay, Lamhe, Home Theatre and Marathi Talkies, we have started on an aggressive journey to create a potent line-up which will match the best of satellite channels and offer similar experience to our consumers. We are changing the face of cable channels in India by investing in content, technology, design, aesthetics, packaging which is young & dynamic and appeals to younger audiences. These channels will add a new dimension to our business, giving us an edge over competition and help us grow to the next level. Very soon, we will reposition and rebrand the entire existing stable of channels to have a strong family. ”

Hathways’ new channels have been designed on this very insight that content packaged in the right way and with technology upgrade is the new mantra to bringing consumers closer to entertainment. To build hype and buzz about the channels, Hathway has launched teasers campaigns both offline and online and will be doing a series of marketing activities in the coming days across Print, TV (internal and cross), Digital, PR and OOH to create consumer and trade awareness.

From today, 25th April, DJay, Lamhe and Home Theatre will be available across the country for Hathway subscribers while Marathi Talkies can be enjoyed only by audiences in Maharashtra.

The channels will be available on FTA basis for now and part of the BST and Prime packs. The company is also working aggressively to build strong revenue from advertising sales and subscription in days to come.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Business

DMRC’s free Wi-Fi project fully operational by early next year: Prashanto Das

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is all set to enhance experience of passengers by providing free Wi-Fi and Multi Media Services. Multi-platform video network,Techno Sat Comm will execute the whole project in association with Ping Network. The project implementation will be towards the end of this year and fully operational by early next year.

Speaking exclusively to IndianMediaBook, Prashanto Das, Co-Founder, Ping Network said, “Our partners TechnoSat put in their bid for the DMRC Wi-Fi project – this is part of the government’s initiative to digitize and make the metro journey of consumers more comfortable.TechnoSat has the technical superiority to implement a project of this scale, they were awarded the project.”

The app

Around 2.75 million passengers across the Delhi/NCR region will be able to experience high speed broadband by just logging onto the internet via a dedicated App.This App will also intelligently display the location, approach and destination stations on a real-time basis and help navigate between different lines. This is in addition to the exclusive entertainment and city-based content that passengers can see on a real-time basis.

Key features & highlights

The key feature is the access to high speed Wi-Fi in a seamless manner through the entire journey while on the Delhi metro – from the time they enter the concourse, through their entire metro journey and till such time they exit.

As they stay logged on to the Wi-Fi they will have access to content which engages them and more importantly a range of services making their journey easier – Ex: the ease which with they can book a cab on exiting the station, information on their journey, train schedules etc.

Das informed that the entire back end, technical infrastructure to enable the Wi-Fi project is by TechnoSat, who have partnered with 21Net the world’s leader in providing Wi-Fi during mobility. They will be implementing this cutting edge technology that enables superior connectivity during the passenger’s journey.  They are also piloting this in a few long distance trains.

“We want to create a platform that consumers find engaging – as a creator network, this will help us partner and work with some of the best creators in the country and also work with brands who want to reach out to this very valuable consumer base. Our future plans involves us achieving our vision of becoming Asia’s largest network for creators and short form content along with building communities on line,” concluded Das.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Business

LogiNext Acquires YourGuy to expand Sprintr

The software company LogiNext acquired YourGuy, a cross-category last mile delivery startup based out of Mumbai. YourGuy, valued at $ 1.5 million, will be completely acquired by LogiNext for Sprintr, with the founder and the team coming on-board.

Speaking on the acquisition, Dhruvil Sanghvi, CEO & Co-Founder, LogiNext Solutions said, “YourGuy has already acquired a good number of matured and loyal customers and is a renowned name in the field of B2B deliveries. Since our new delivery vertical, Sprintr, is also clocking around the same number of deliveries, our delivery volumes and network reach will increase by 100 per cent with this acquisition. On top, we will also be selling our technology to YourGuy customers.”

Sprintr is the last mile delivery platform envisioned and launched by LogiNext in December 2015. Any individual can sign up and become a delivery boy on their mobile app. Sprintr also aggregates delivery capacity by providing its technology to many delivery companies across India.

“LogiNext is one of the most sincere and earnest addition in the organized logistics and big-data analytics. I am glad that the consolidation came through, following which we are looking at polishing the platform, merging in innovative technology and offering further reformed services to our clients,” expressed Alay Jhaveri, Founder, YourGuy.

YourGuy, founded in 2014 is now going to be part of LogiNext’s vision of revolutionizing the last mile delivery. It has already worked for clients from multiple segments including Pharmaceuticals, Documents, Food, Retail, Laundry and Grocery. As an acclaimed B2B delivery portal, working with clients like Godrej Nature’s Basket, iChef, Wellness Forever, Suburban Diagnostics and several Tiffin Services.

Following the acquisition, the company’s first major task would be to upgrade the fixed expense model of YourGuy to an automated model, allowing users to sign up and start delivering automatically.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Business

IRCTC ties up with Simpli5d for empowering Captcha Solutions

IRCTC announced its partnership with Simpli5d Technologies the digital advertising and audience Intelligence Company to enhance their security and boost advertising revenues. Captcha, a security tool used to differentiate between humans and other malicious programs, was until now offered as distorted letters but this is all set to change. With this partnership, IRCTC would be using image based NLPCaptcha by Simpli5d Technologies.

“At IRCTC, security and user experience are the most critical concern for us and at the same time we look for new avenues of revenue other than the core business of ticketing. NLPCaptcha fits in beautifully into all this – it provides better security, enhanced user experience and an altogether new stream of advertising revenues for IRCTC. We look forward to a long term and mutually beneficial partnership with Simpli5d Technologies,” informed a senior official from IRCTC.

IRCTC has accounts for more than 1 million e-commerce transactions per day. More than 100 million captchas are solved on the platform every month and all these will be replaced by NLPCaptcha, a patent pending technology to monetise captchas by Simpli5d Technologies.

These Captchas will carry messages from leading brands in the country. This presents an opportunity for the brands to engage with the audience of IRCTC. This partnership gives Simpli5d Technologies sole monetization rights for the entire Captcha inventory on the ticketing website.

Speaking on the association, Amit Mittal, Founder & CEO, Simpli5d Technologies, said “This partnership with IRCTC is a huge milestone for us,” says Amit, “On an average 125 million captchas are solved on IRCTC every month and this gives us a reach of more than 50 million unique audience. Effectively we will be reaching out to every person in India who does an online transaction and we are sure that our advertisers would love it.”

Source : IndianMediaBook - Business