Aditya Birla rides on the Startup bandwagon to incubate 25 start ups.

Aditya Birla group will partner with 25 startups to enter into new areas of business pertaining to telecom, retail and financial services. The company started a Biz lab program and has so far added Red Monster Games, Torch, Dressy, ePaisa, Mswipe, Touchfone, Instakash, Bankbazaar, Wealth Pack, Cloud Cherry, Faircent and Coverfox Insurance to its kitty.

These startups will align with the company’s core business and would help them consolidate their position in their respective territory. It is interesting to see as many big enterprises are focusing on startups to keep themselves abreast the technology wave in the country.

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Snapdeal on a mission to capture ‘Bharat’.

In order to capture a bigger pie in Indian Ecommerce market Snap deal today initiated “Project Bharat”. The company plans to launch the site in 11 different Indian Languages in a bid to appeal the Non-Metro Audience. The project would enable 130 miilion Indian citizens to access and explore various products on the platform.

The company aims to attract more and more local vendors from different cities across the country and this move would help them connect to deeper cities across the country. In a statement issued on the launch of project the company said that 10% of the Indian population converse in English while 30% of them have access to internet. Thus the company want to join the remaining 20% in the main stream commerce economy.

This is one of its kind initiative by the company and other e-tailers are also expected to follow the suite.

 

Please welcome “Baby Uber “.

So we have the first baby Uber in town. Yes you heard it right , a woman gave birth to a child in an Uber cab last week. The lady who was going towards Safdarjing Enclave in Delhi went into labour . The cab driver initially panicked but then took the matter in his hands and delivered the baby in the can itself. It was a difficult situation for the cab driver, Shahnawaz, and the onlookers but it all ended well when a healthy baby was born.

“I asked them to get an ambulance”, says Shahnawaz. But even after repeated calls no ambulance was seen in sight and the driver had to take the important decision.

This is a positive news for the cab provider after the unfortunate rape incident in an uber cab last year. The woman wanted the cab the driver to name the baby and the cab driver decided to name him Uber.

After this news we wish to hear about the ‘OLA’ baby soon :).

Zomato adds in app customer service.

Food e-tailer  Zomato has added a new feature in their app by which the users can chat with the restaurant owners regarding reservations and menu details. User can also connect to Zomato executives and can get updates on promo codes , offers and discounts. User can interact with the Customer service executives between 9 AM to 11 PM.

This a another step by Zomato to convert into a full service food app where users can browse and order food anytime anywhere. The app is available in many countries while the in app customer service is only launched in India and middle east.

Flipkart won’t sell ebooks anymore.

Country’s top etailer Flipkart has decided to stop selling ebooks on their platform. All the existing orders will be served by Canadian E-book supplier Rakuten Kobo.

“The Indian book market is overwhelmingly dominated by physical books and this is a market that is growing at a fast clip. Flipkart will continue to be a leading player in the overall books market in India,” the company said in a statement. “In its overall strategy for books, Flipkart does not see the e-Books service as a strategic fit and hence the decision of transitioning the e-Books service to Kobo.”

This seems to be an interesting move as the rival ecommerce giant is focusing hard on selling e-books through their iconic reading tablet kindle. This is the third biggest category close by flipkart after music service “Flyte”  and payment gateway payzippy.

Flipkart has recently grossed a loss of 200 crore and company is focusing on high value products like electronics  goods.

GO Air Announces special flights to GOA.

GO Air has announces special flights to GOA in order to tap the growing rush of passengers from Metro like Delhi,Mumbai , Kolkatta and Chennai.The flights will be introduced in December 18th and will ply till 5th of January 2015.The airline has recently announced tickets starting from Rs 603 and has an offer where every 25th passenger gets a chance to win a free ticket.

NASA no longer interested in International Space Station

Nasa will end the ISS mission soon and would move to he cislunar space — the area of space surrounding the moon — for an ambitious human exploration programme.According to Willian Gerstenmaier , NASA’s chief of human flight “We are going to get out of ISS as quickly as we can. Whether it gets filled in by the private sector or not, NASA’s vision is we’re trying to move out”.

The company plans to make the international obervaory inactive by 2024 , 2028 at the latest. The budget of the programe to phase our the ship has also been increase from 3 to 4 billion dollar.

“NASA cannot afford both a robust space station programme and active human exploration programme in cislunar space,” Gerstenmaier was quoted in an interview to ANI.

Audi Launches Q7 in India, price it elegantly at 72 Lakhs.

Audi has launched one of its premium SUV Q7 today . The Car is priced at 72 lakhs and will be availble in two variants from January 2007. The company has priced the TDI variant at 72 Lakh while the TDI premium plus is priced at 77.5 Lakhs.The Cars were launched at a glamorous event by Indian Test Captain Virat Kohli.

The company has focussed on a sharper design and futurustic appeal.The company has also added Matrix LED lamps so as to give a sharp look. As per the design the car is 5,050mm long, 1,970mm wide and has a wheelbase of 2,990mm.The company has tried its best to reduce the weight of the car to 325 KG.

Air Fare became cheaper this year : Reports.

According to a report by International Air Transport Association , the airfare has reduced this year which has lead to an increase in the number of people taking skies for holiday’s or other reason. Average return fares have reduced by 5 % worldwide as compared to airfare in the same period last year . This has lead to a increase in 3 % rise in the passenger traffic in the recorded period.

According to Tony Tyler, Director General IATA “In most parts of the world we see strong demand for travel exceeding the growth in capacity, Load factors (the number of seats filled) are averaging over 80 per cent and consumers are the big winners with fares trending downwards.”

Meanwhile the average fares have not decreased as the dollar value remained string due to a dip in oil prices. The increase in passenger traffic could have been more but weak traveler sentiment due to attacks by ISIS had lead to a  marginal increase. It will be interesting to see for how long the trend sustains

UK’s royal family’s security on a all time high after UK’s fighter jets bomb Syria.

Unprecedented security measures have been taken to protect the queen and other member of the UK royal family as UK has decided to actively participate in Europe’s effort to destroy ISIS.  Of the entire clan, Prince Harry is said to be the most vunerable as served in the Afganisthan war. As per intelligence reports  UK’s capital London will be the next target of Islamic state and the all the prominent locations and personalities have been provided unprecedented security cover .

The Duke and Duchess Of Cambridge are slated to visit India this spring but it is still not confirmed whether the visit will remain intact or will cancel. In a statement issued by Dai Davies, a former head of royal protection, said: “They are unlikely to increase the number of PPOs (personal protection officers) because there is only a small pool of them, but the sort of things they will be looking at are the arrangements around royal visits, and especially the arrangements when they are travelling from A to B, which is when 90 per cent of attacks happen.

“They will be reviewing every visit to decide if it’s necessary and safe, they will be working with the intelligence agencies to go over any information about threats, and they will be looking at where they are staying overnight.

“PPOs want reaction times, so if you’re staying in a hotel you want to be high enough that you’re not on the initial approach but not so high that you’re going to get trapped. When they’re out and about it will mean extra local officers on duty and extra concentric rings of security around them.”

Mr Davis has insured that that security will be at their highest level for the Royal family and there is nothing to worry for the people of UK.