Information Technology – Dutch Uncles

2021- A Year for Multibagger Stocks

Shalmoli Sarkar — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 08:51:01 +0000

With at least 46 stocks on the BSE delivering up to 340 percent returns 2021 is turning out to be a year for multibagger stocks. The stocks belonged to small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies. The stocks delivering such high returns can be attributed to good demand from the festive season that is expected to give strong earnings. Here are some of the multibagger stocks listed from the BSE 500 index that have gained the most since 1 January 2021.

Top multibagger stocks of 2021

1. Happiest Minds Technologies
Operating in the IT sector and incorporated in the year 2011, Happiest Minds Technologies is a large-cap company headquartered in Bangalore with its operations in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the Middle East. It offers IT services on disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud, digital process automation, internet of things, robotics/drones, security, virtual/augmented reality, etc.

At the beginning of 2021, the stock gained 320 percent with a market cap of Rs 49.9 billion.

2. JSW Energy
With its primary business being the generation of power from its plants, JSW energy has been acting bullish since the beginning of 2021 as the shares of the company have gained 270 percent. Its bullish nature can be owed to the company’s efforts to reduce debt consistently. Moreover, the increasing FII holding has helped the stock. As of June 2021, the promoters held a 74.7 percent stake in the company against FIIs 5.9 percent. With oil and crude prices surging, an increased focus on cleaner energy solutions will add more gains to its stock. JSW Energy shares have recently scaled new highs after the company’s arm signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).

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The stocks are turning out to be multibaggers ahead of the festive season.

3. Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar

As the company name, the returns delivered by this sugar stock have been sweet since the past month. The stock prices of Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar have increased from Rs 14.50 to Rs 16.60 thereby delivering around Rs 14.50 percent return to its shareholders. Considering the timeline from the start of 2021 the stock prices have grown from Rs 6.15 to Rs 16.60 – clocking around 170 percent. Such huge returns can be attributed to the soaring sugar prices globally and the Government of India’s recent decision to sell ethanol-blended petrol with the percentage of ethanol upto 20 percent.

4. Gujarat Fluorochemicals

The company specialises in manufacturing and trading refrigerant gases, caustic soda, chloromethane, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluoropolymers, fluoro-monomers, specialty fluoro-intermediates, specialty chemicals, and allied activities. The share price of Gujarat Fluorochemicals has risen upto 200 percent since the beginning of 2021 and has been receiving demand from overseas as well as domestic customers. The demand from the pharma and agro-industry to develop new molecules and add new products to its portfolio such as Lithium Heaxafluoro Phosphate- an important component for electric vehicles will further drive the rise in its stock price.

5. HFCL

HFCL is a telecom infrastructure provider that supplies and manufactures high-end telecom equipment, optic fibre cable, and optical fibre to telecom companies. Since the start of 2021 HFCL shares have gained 177 percent. The rise in the share price of HFCL is due to the rise in emerging 5G technology for which HFCL is gearing to offer various products, solutions, and services to the telecom companies.

With remote working becoming the new normal, and concerns to minimise pollution the emphasis on superior IT services, communication, and clean energy has been high, thereby the stocks of such companies have the probability to grow exponentially and will be delivering huge returns to emerge as multibaggers.

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Blaer Motors, Optimising Hybrid Technologies for Motorcycles

Shalmoli Sarkar — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 05:35:03 +0000

Google puts up dismal results when searched for hybrid motorcycles or 2-wheelers whereas the list is exhaustive in the case of automobiles. With soaring prices of fuel and increasing pollution, though several companies have launched electric vehicles, its acceptance is yet nascent in India due to people’s apprehension regarding battery performance.

The two-wheeler market in India is devoid of hybrid technology that combines the benefits of fuel as well as electric. The motorcycles found are either fully electric or run on internal combustion engines but Blaer Motors is revolutionising the two-wheeler mobility space with its innovative hybrid technology .

Why did Blaer Motors start this startup?

Hybrid technology has largely been focussed on automobiles but none for the two-wheelers. According to the society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers & ICE 2016 360 survey, two-wheelers are used by 37% of metropolitan commuters to reach work and are owned by half the households in India’s bigger cities and developed rural areas.

The two-wheelers are the main drivers of causing two-thirds of pollution that release 30 percent of the particulate matter load which is 10 percent more than cars. Sensing this to be an opportunity, Blaer Motors was started by four college graduates – Abinesh Ekambaram, Ashwin Badri, Adarsh Lakshmann and Niranjan Kumar.

The idea for Blaer Motors initially began as a passion-driven final year project in 2013 but was founded officially in 2014 with initial funding and incubation support from their alma mater NIT-Trichy.

What did Blaer Motors Do Right ?

Their project on hybrid technology further intrigued them to delve deeper to develop eco-friendly fuel solutions in the two-wheeler vertical that gave birth to SPA (Secondary Power Assist). It is a plug-in hybrid technology whose similar kind has been implemented in Toyota Prius.

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The two-wheelers are the main drivers of causing two-thirds of pollution that release 30 percent of the particulate matter load which is 10 percent more than cars.

How Blaer Motor optimises the hybrid tech for Motorcycles?

The SPA technology has three components:

Internal combustion engine (with a modified transmission)
Electric motor
BICS controller (Blaer Intelligent Control System).

As the powertrain starts, it activates the BICS controller which again activates the electric motor. The motor runs on electric mode till the first gear. For shifting into second gear or higher, the motor activates the hybrid mode with their patented drivetrain technology where both the engine and electric motor work together.

The advantage of the SPA system is that a vehicle can run either with an electric motor and internal combustion engine (ICE) in isolation or both synchronised in hybrid mode. The low-end torque offered by its electric motor ensures no knocking. While riding in hybrid mode if the battery charge depletes, BICS automatically switches to ICE thus no interruptions while riding.

The SPA technology of Blaer Motors improves the performance of a two-wheeler by enhancing fuel efficiency by 40 percent and reducing smoke emissions by 30 percent as compared to the petrol engine.

Pricing Matters

Blaer’s SPA hybrid system, when attached to the bike, adds 9kg which costs Rs 40,000. However, the price can go down to Rs 10000 if any original equipment manufacturer adopts the SPA system.

What is in it for the startups in the mobility space ?

Hybrid engine technology for two-wheelers is rare in India. To curb air pollution, the Supreme court has ordered a ban on BS (Bharat Stage) IV engine vehicles which are to be shifted to BS-VI to reduce emissions. However, this will impact the engine performance as well.

Therefore, the inclusion of hybrid technology in two-wheelers will reduce emissions without compromising on engine performance. Startups, such as Blaer Motors, in the mobility space offering sustainable and clean engine solutions in two-wheelers will be largely accepted in future.

However, one of the biggest challenges remains the cost factor, since most plug-in hybrids require Lithium-ion batteries which are imported in India. Though hybrid is in its infancy, to begin with, people perceive electrically driven vehicles to be weaker as compared to IC engine-driven ones. Therefore perception about hybrid-driven vehicles can be a hurdle.

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How CitiusTech Became a Holistic Platform for Healthcare Technology

Komal Mor — Thu, 20 May 2021 10:35:03 +0000

CitiusTech seized the opportunity of bringing a digital transformation in the healthcare sector through providing healthcare technology and consulting solutions. It is paving its way onto becoming a business which is globally relevant. The company came to the rescue of big organisations with its technology that helps organise patients’ data and drives data convergence across the healthcare ecosystem. CitiusTech has now been a leading global IT healthcare venture for 17 years now, but the question remains how the Company made itself the only unicorn venture from the whole country. This story of Rizwan Koita and his company is yet to be heard by many.

The Birth of CitiusTech

It all started when Rizwan Koita returned to India in 1995 after completing his masters’ degree from MIT, Cambridge. He started looking for jobs in the Indian market and landed himself in McKinsey and Company, a successful venture at that time and quite a reputation builder. However, life had other plans for him.

In 1999, he collaborated with an old acquaintance from IIT Bombay, Jagdish Moorjani and founded “TransWorks”, one of India’s first five BPOs. Yet, he sold this Company to the Aditya Birla Group. This call of selling the business came after Rizwan realized the inability of being able to differentiate his business among others in the crowd, and of course, the big guys like Wipro, Infosys had entered the market. And as luck would have it, he was the man who revolutionized the healthcare sector.

In 2005, Rizwan and Jagdish connected with Bimal Naik, another IITian fellow, to enter the healthcare domain. The three gentlemen identified innovative opportunities in the IT healthcare sector as it was heavily unorganised and not many IT companies focused on the healthcare sector specifically. Healthcare was one of the most underrated and unexplored sectors due to the complications that arise in coding the healthcare information. With such a large gap in the healthcare industry and the need to bridge that gap, CitiusTech was brought into existence.

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There is a need to realize a niche in the market to be a successful entrepreneur. And one change in a government regulation can give a push and create a billion dollar business out of it.

CitiusTech: From Zero to a 400 Crores Company in 10 Years

The company has built a domain centric IT business which healthcare organisations believe is a difficult and back-breaking task to execute. Being the first one in this market, CitiusTech had the first mover advantage. This advantage enabled the company to control and overtake the market and helped realize the importance of its products.

However, like any other IT company, CitiusTech struggled to attract a targeted audience to earn revenues. IT companies are often subject to security concerns and criticism. Moreover, as CitiusTech helps to organise a patients’ data, this data is very sensitive to the patient as well as to the organisation. CitiusTech focused on having the most skilled set of employees who were guided and drilled under experts. The company endeavored to build the systems to satisfy future customers with any of the concerns which can presumably occur. The company picked up its pace in the first few years and commenced to grow at the rate of 20-30 per cent every year.

Originally, the company was self-funded for nine years till the year 2014. The business ran as they wished to without any external intervention and influence. The primary market for the company was the US and not India because of its reluctance to change and the economy being loose and informal then. Hence, 90 per cent of the company’s revenues are from the US.

A Deep-Dive of the Platform: How Does It Work?

The company operates with various platforms to enable healthcare organisations to drive clinical value chain excellence across integration & interoperability, data management (EDW, Big Data), performance management (BI/analytics), data science (predictive analytics, Machine Learning, AI) and digital engagement (mobile, IoT). Following are a few of the platforms introduced by CitiusTech:

BI Clinical

This is a certified platform by HITRUST which ensures key regulations, protecting sensitive information and adhering to the industry requirements. This platform has centralized analytics for clinical, financial and operational metrics. Under this, there are various other modules such as BI Clinical-Rules Management Module (RMM), BI Clinical- Audit 360, BI Clinical- Rules Engine, BI Clinical-Analytics and BI Clinical-Compare.

SCORE+

SCORE+ is a specialized and one-stop platform for healthcare organisations to implement rigorous Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) program. This program is designed to help customers and providers with relevant information to compare health plan performances. This platform also has various modules under it such as campaign management module, chart abstraction, chase intelligence, and analytics and reporting.

FAST+

This solution provides an end-to-end Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) based platform which helps to increase the interoperability and access to patient level data. It ensures secured access of data and flexible implementation support on-cloud and on-premise.

H-Scale

It is a data integration and management platform for the Organisations and this data is the backbone of their strategies. This platform is compatible with various Hadoop distributions such as Hortons, cloudera and IBM BigInsights. This platform also satisfies the privacy and security considerations of the healthcare sector.

Medictive

This platform is another end-to-end suite of analytical tools to assist the healthcare organisations in extracting helpful insights from the data stored. It helps in making day to day decisions in operations for providing healthcare.

Perform+

Perform+ provides a solution to create, manage and monitor population health, operational and regulatory programs on a single, flexible platform with pre-built metrics. This platform helps health plans and provider groups to monitor and enhance provider performance.

The Pillars of CitiusTech’s Success

Training and certification

As the company was one of its kinds, they did not hire the employees directly from the workforce but started a referral programme. The existing employees would get in touch with other talented peers who would be fit for the job. Further, the new employees would be trained and guided within the company to differentiate them from the others in the workforce and bring a different level of sophistication within their job description. McKinsey and company also had a similar approach which motivated Rizwan to adopt for his own company as he believed it to be an effective strategy to attract and retain talent.

Client Work

The company exemplified how a business should encapsulate the projects it has executed with different clients to present actual life artifacts and case studies to potential customers.

Publications

To attract customers, CitiusTech made sure to hire enough people who can publish articles of success stories on the website and answer why to choose CitiusTech. Attractive writing and published articles can assure skeptical customers to choose CitiusTech over other companies.

Awards

The last dimension is to win awards to showcase the potential of CitiusTech to the outside world. Winning an award or simply being nominated in several awards can certainly help open doors for new customers.

These were the various dimensions that Rizwan Koita focused on to become an expert in this domain and could bring a WOW element. As he would say that many companies claim to be a “domain expert”, but none would have anything different or innovative. He believed that consistency in these dimensions could contribute to their expertise in the field. This different direction to build a business helped CitiusTech have an edge over many other companies established later in this sector, such as Health Catalyst, QuadraMed and Innovaccer, etc.

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The growth of CitiusTech is estimated to be steeper in the next 5 years looking at the relevance of its products in the healthcare market.

A Big Step towards Becoming a Unicorn

Since, United States of America was the primary market; CitiusTech got a major breakthrough after the US financial crises popularly known as the great recession, this was supposedly the best year of CitiusTech instead of being the worst one. When the US economy was shattered, Barack Obama, the then president of the US, pushed in a tremendous amount of money to rebuild its economy. He passed a law under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 called Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) making it mandatory for hospitals, physicians, etc. to implement IT systems for healthcare information and promoted the use of Electronic Health Record (EHRs) systems. Since CitiusTech was in the market for almost 5 years, it was able to build a level of trust among the potential customers and the business scaled in the US market. After this, there was no turning back for CitiusTech.

CitiusTech did have a lot of circumstantial advantages for its business to become a success. Having said that, it was also competent enough to attract foreign investments. In 2014, it was able to bring General Atlantic to invest in its company with a whopping amount of $111.25 million dollars. General Atlantic acknowledged that clinical data expertise and experience of the evolving provider, payer and life science ecosystems sets CitiusTech apart from conventional technology firms, providing a solid foundation for long-term development. Another reason for General Atlantic to invest in CitiusTech was that the company reported a growth rate of more than 50 per cent for six consecutive years since 2008.

CitiusTech: Standing in the Market

The rationale behind allowing investment in its company after 9 years was not to raise money but simply to reach international markets and to attract international talent. Rizwan Koita understood that if he wished to scale his business, he would have to allure foreign talent. Another intention behind this move was to formalise the company with an adequate number of Board of Directors since the company was headed by the founders and had international employees. An additional motive to allow this funding was to remove the general notion of the company being a “desi company”. To some extent, these objectives were fulfilled when they hired William Winkenwerder as their Chairman who was earlier a CEO at Highmark Inc. valued at $20 billion but later chose to be a chairman in CitiusTech because it had General Atlantic as one of its investors. The company is believed to have solved various problems with a single move. This strategic development certainly helped CitiusTech expand its business in the US market.

CitiusTech acquired Fluid Edge Consulting in August 2018 that was expected to increase the revenue of CitiusTech from $150 million to $175 million in the subsequent years. In July 2019, CitiusTech joined the elite unicorn club when Baring Private Equity Asia acquired CitiusTech for a valuation of $1 billion.

What Does the Future Hold?

CitiusTech is hoping to reach out to pharmaceutical and insurance companies in the near future. It also planned to expand in other countries but the challenges persist as the same approach cannot be used in other markets. The approach does not pose any clear sight to the future and might be too incremental for the company. CitiusTech however aims to explore more opportunities in the US market.

For more inspiring stories read our Inspire Section!

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Is India Still an Ideal Open Market?

DU Desk — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 06:05:04 +0000

It all began in the year starting 2000 – India’s internet exploded and everyone, including the big tech, came in to grab a piece of that pie. The global tech giants, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Google, provided India with powerful platforms to transact, seek and express information and consume entertainment while accelerating their own user base.

This honeymoon period, however, now seems to be fading for these companies. Something seems to have changed in the past few years. There is a common global sentiment – “Put a leash on big tech (social media platforms)”.

Countries have been seeking stronger regulations of social media platforms, some even banning them. Similar has been the case in India. Recently, the Indian government ordered Twitter and Facebook to take down 100 posts critical of its coronavirus handling. This comes two months after similar orders were passed to take down accounts and posts with negative narrative on farmers protests. In February 2021, the ministry came out with new rules and regulations for social media, which were criticised for being “anti-national and unconstitutional, suppressing freedom of speech”.

This brings us to an important question – Do regulations undermine the idealism of an open market in a country? The answer is no. Regulation is good. But the agenda behind it needs to be clear and not created to suit a particular narrative.

Tightening the Noose: What the Government Says?

While passing the recent orders to take down the 100 posts, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “We respect social media a lot, it has empowered common people. Social media has a big role in the Digital India Programme. However, if social media are misused to spread fake news and violence, then action will be taken on the misuse of social media in India whether Twitter or else.”

“There is freedom of speech but Article 19A says that this is subject to reasonable restrictions,” he said, adding that all the social media platforms will have to adhere to the Constitution of India which allows criticism of the government and the Prime Minister, but spreading fake news will not be allowed.

While the government came under criticism to create “unreasonable barriers” for big tech firms, the government itself counter questioned these firms by saying that they apply different parameters for different countries.

“Different parameters can’t be allowed for different countries. It can’t be different for the Capitol Hill incident and some other parameters for the Red Fort incident.”

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How can something that is freely expressed verbally in public or on other media platforms be “unlawful” for social media platforms

“Tweets must continue to flow…”

Twitter chose to remain defiant and issued a public statement that the safety of its employees was a top priority, but that the “tweets must continue to flow”.

In a statement, Twitter had informed that in such cases, a legal request is usually reviewed under both Twitter rules and local laws. If the content violates Twitter’s Rules, it is removed. If it is found to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter Rules, the company withholds access to the content in India only and the account holders are notified.

In today’s scenario, for a market to be open and ideal, regulations play an important role. As mentioned earlier, regulations are good, given the agenda and reasons behind them are clear. In India’s case, this is somewhat distorted. It’s a grey area when it comes to operating laws for social media platforms.

How can something that is freely expressed verbally in public or on other media platforms be “unlawful” for social media platforms. Moreover, is it the law of India or is it the law of the country where the parent company is based? Or, is it the ‘law’ as framed by the company, regardless of the law(s) of either the parent or the host country.

These unexplained questions dilute the idealism of an open market. “Selective” censor of tweets /posts /accounts /hashtags further undermine the transparency and purpose of the regulations. This is more hurtful for a country like India which is known for its vibrant democracy.

We can Chain them, but can we do without them?

An ideal open market is a long gone concept as “businesses” are at stake now. Governments across the global, including the US and Australia, are looking to regulate big tech firms but are also open to doing deals with them.

In some cases, big social media platforms and apps losing access to the Indian market may not be as big of an impact for the company than for the Indian government which relies heavily on them for global interactions and pushes forward its own messages and narrative. It goes both ways. Ideal or non-ideal, the business will continue as usual for nations.

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Top Technology Trends in the E-Commerce Industry

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 00:35:04 +0000

E-commerce shopping in Indians today is now the most preferred shopping mode. Though malls, retail stores, and local markets have reopened, the comfort and convenience of purchasing things within a click has caught shoppers to continue with online buying. According to a survey from LocalCircles, consumers have mostly bought groceries and essentials followed by medium-value items from e-commerce. The survey also says that safe deliveries and competitive pricing were the top reasons to shop with e-commerce. As per IBEF ( Indian Brand Equity Foundation), India’s e-commerce sector is expected to surpass the USA to become the second -largest e-commerce market by 2034. The E-retail market in the next five years is projected to exceed ~300-350 million shoppers, propelling the online Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) to US$ 100-120 billion by 2025. With easily available e-commerce website builder tools such as Shopify, Shoptimize at affordable costs is encouraging individuals to launch their business online thus creating cut-throat competition in the e-commerce market. E-commerce companies to remain relevant and cater to the changing customer demands need to upgrade themselves by implementing new technologies. Gone are the days when analysing the general patterns of customer shopping behaviour was sufficient to hold the customers. Below is the list of new technology trends that will be ruling the e-commerce industry.

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As per IBEF ( Indian Brand Equity Foundation), India’s e-commerce sector is expected to surpass the USA to become the second -largest e-commerce market by 2034.

Top Technology Trends for E-commerce

Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

A kind of application software that is built using common web technologies using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. PWA website appearance resembles that of a mobile app. It offers rich functionality and a smooth user experience associated with native apps. After the installation, when a user clicks on its icon on a device home screen it takes him straight to the website. With more competition brewing in the e-commerce space, entrepreneurs will pivot to PWAs to enhance user experience, generate superior traction, and drive business expansion.

Automated last-mile delivery

The yardstick to measure the efficiency of an e-commerce company is determined by faster deliveries and smooth logistics. To become more efficient with deliveries and logistics small e-commerce players are automating their logistics operations to cut down the delivery times of multiple products by introducing same-day and two-day deliveries. Features like real-time shipment tracking, COD acceptance, AI-driven courier recommendations, easy scheduling of pickups, optimized route planning will aid businesses to cut costs on delivery, improve customer retention and gain profits.

Collaborative recommendation

The data is the asset and lifeline of any business. Under AI, tools such as collaborative recommendations in websites suggest products to customers based on the historical data of other customers’ previous product purchases. The use of AI chatbots establishes seamless communication with customers instantly that gives companies adequate data to know and track consumers behaviour and provide personalized answers to address customer queries. Using ML, e-commerce can customize search results based on past purchases and browser history.

Voice-enabled shopping

Speaking takes less time than typing and also enables multitasking. With Google’s commercial featuring Gajraj Rao speaking about the benefits of voice search, it is enabling e-commerce marketers to consider voice search marketing as a part of SEO strategy. The use of keywords and phrases is slightly more elaborate while we speak than type. Thus, including them will enable the brand to rank higher when the words are uttered.

Google says that currently, more than 20 percent of the search queries are from voice searches. The voice search strategy will prove to be beneficial to the rural masses who are not comfortable to type or read in English. They might use a voice search to search for a product, nearby hospital or restaurant, etc. Reliance Jio’s affordable handsets have a stronghold in rural India, that has the voice search feature even though it is not android.

Real-time signal-driven analytics

Real-time data processing and analytics can help extract information of shoppers to provide actionable insights that will help in driving sales. With the shopper information on hand, the marketing and purchase recommendations can be more narrowed and specific for emerging customer micro-segments. Better business conversions can happen with better analysis of customer behaviour, demographics, and actions.

For the startups

Low entry barriers for setting up an e-commerce business are creating fierce competition. Companies need to differentiate themselves from the clutter by adopting various technology trends to offer customers a smooth buying experience and increase conversions.

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New Guidelines for OTT Platforms: Here Is How Netflix and Amazon Prime Will Be Affected

Anju Nambiar — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 06:35:04 +0000

OTT platforms in India had to brace for riveting news when the Government issued brand new guidelines for content on February 25. The central government’s new norms were awaited with anxiety and apprehension since the focus was entirely on the nature of these guidelines.

‘The 3-tier regulatory mechanism” which came into effect for apps will directly set boundaries on the most popular giants including Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix.

To make it simple to understand, the laws set forth are a 3-parter. One will be international, pertaining to the headquartered location of the company. The other two levels are rolled out at the country and state level.

The direct impact of this move on the Entertainment Industry will of course be the rise in content disputes if the streaming platforms are not too careful.

If the content which is painstakingly being created by platforms are marked down, it will be a major challenge for them and will need immediate workarounds.

Over-the-top digital streaming platforms will henceforth see this purported ‘soft-touch regulatory architecture’ in hindsight while publishing content. The government’s motive behind imposing these restrictions is to bring digital media and traditional media houses on the same page.

There was a lot of chatter regarding possible pre-censorship being imposed on Indian OTT platforms by the Government. Just like television and movies, streaming platforms would have to bear the brunt if this ever became a reality. But it didn’t and this was good news, especially for the low-level start-ups.

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The Government assumed overriding powers due to issues with OTT platforms around self-regulation.

Why was the law suddenly brought in?

The Government suddenly felt the need now to step in due to recurring grievances received from the audience. The Government assumed overriding powers due to issues with OTT platforms around self-regulation.

The need for regulation has suddenly arisen owing to several objections raised by religious and governmental bodies.

What’s in it for me?

Start-ups venturing into the entertainment space need to know the newest Indian IT laws like the back of their hand. Another note of caution here is that just like the seasons, content regulatory laws are changing as per the whims and fancies of governing bodies.

Start-ups need to be alert and active to survive the entertainment and OTT space. You need to be ready for quick changes. The bottom line here is that the big names like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video will hardly be affected by the arrival of these laws.

But the smaller players, especially start-ups and brands associated with big OTT productions will need to take extra care. The fact of the matter is that a single piece of content, however mediocre is generally associated with close to 200 small production units. Since the industry is large, small companies like makeup houses need to check how their funnel flow is affected by the new regulations.

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New IT Guidelines for Social Media Platforms

Smruthi Krishnan — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 06:30:07 +0000

Post the entire standoff between the government and Twitter, the centre has announced new guidelines for social media platforms which will make it compulsory for apps like WhatsApp to help in identifying seeds of unlawful messages spread across the country. It will be compulsory for all such platforms to provide information and verify identities to authorities within 72 hours of order. The main reason behind such stringent measures is that several citizens are misusing these platforms to spread false narratives and misinformation which often insinuate violence much like the farmer protest on January 26, 2021. To avoid such extreme scenarios, and to protect the spirit of democracy, the Centre has established new guidelines. The controversy remains that such censoring guidelines go against the core principle of democracies; freedom of expression and speech

The Information Technology Guidelines for Digital Media Ethics

The Information Technology Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021 was formed to tackle issues like sensationalism of fake news, abuse of these platforms to share morphed images of women, revenge porn and other explicit content.
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube must take down defamatory and controversial messages within a specific time-frame, set up grievance redressal mechanisms as well as assist government agencies in the investigation. Whatsapp has earlier refused to comply with the government’s request to trace the origin of a fake message as it undermines the private nature of the platform.
The rules enable the identification of the first originator of the information for prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of an offence related to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or of incitement to an offence relating to the above or in relation with rape, sexually explicit material or child sexual abuse material, punishable with imprisonment for a term of not less than five years.

On receiving a court order or notice, an intermediary will need to remove or disable access to unlawful information within 36 hours”.
Platforms need to appoint a Grievance Officer to deal with complaints and share the name and contact details of such an officer. Intermediaries shall remove or disable access within 24 hours of receipt of complaints of contents that exposes the private areas of individuals.
Further, they need to appoint a Chief Compliance Officer, a Nodal Contact Person, a Resident Grievance Officer and also publish a monthly compliance report mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken on the complaints.

What is in it for Social Media Businesses?

The very essence of such platforms is to amplify the voices that go unheard and help keep democracy in check. As a social media business, you must be careful about the kind of content that is shared on your platform and be wary of misinformation and fake news being spread via your social media. As a business owner, you cannot get caught in dubious scandals caused by your user base, thus having proper rules and guidelines will help you regulate the content share. However, understand that you cannot over-regulate and invade users’ right to privacy and free speech.

These new rules can lead to privacy challenges and also result in censorship by intermediaries. Not everyone misuses social media, however, exceptions exist. But you cannot control narratives just because of a few exceptions. The guidelines will help ensure the safety of the majority of social media users across India.

It is difficult to conduct a social media business when the guidelines can potentially undermine the principles of open and accessible Internet and violate the right to privacy and free speech of users. But users must follow a proper protocol and have their grievances addressed to avoid abuse and violence via social media.

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JIFFY.ai: Enabling Enterprises to Build Powerful Automation

Smruthi Krishnan — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 08:35:04 +0000

For any enterprise today, powerful automation has become indispensable and important. Power Automate is a service that helps you create automated workflows between your favourite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data, and more. For a more streamlined workflow and increased productivity as well as efficiency, a powerful automation system is required. This not only speeds work but also makes it more convenient to store and revisit past data. JIFFY.ai is a platform that has been enabling enterprises to build powerful automation making their work-life smoother.

What is JIFFY.ai?

An accelerating human-machine collaboration with a revolutionary app-based automation suite, JIFFY.ai works on turbo-charging productivity, transforming operating processes, and helps enterprises unleash their creativity and innovation.

JIFFY.ai works towards improving the ease of doing complex business processes to make your day-to-day job easier. Their products are specifically designed to provide enterprises with a one-stop, easy-to-deploy platform that automates complex business processes with ease. Building on complex process automation, continuous intelligent testing, automated software development, JIFFY.ai has led to a shift in the enterprise automation landscape.

JIFFY.ai’s projects:

JIFFY.ai came up with HyperApps to simplify the end-to-end business process automation with artificial intelligence, natural language processing, intelligent document processing, machine learning and advanced analytics. The COVID-19 pandemic also increased the pressure on telecom networks as the telecom’s global workforce was forced to work from home. The help desk teams struggled with the spike in customer inquiry volumes. JIFFY.ai Automate swooped in and helped improve help desk operations and increase agents’ efficiency by 30%.
As we know, the KYC or Know Your Customer process is often meticulous, expensive and inaccurate, Queue JIFFY.ai Automate is an intuitive automation platform that can take over repetitive tasks. Automation apps are built here to learn and improve over time with minimal human intervention.
JIFFY.ai Automate and Invoice Processing HyperApp have reduced automation errors by 80% and shrunk turnaround time by 60%. Companies that have implemented RPA in accounts payable and finance get their return on investment in six months or less.
JIFFY.ai also works with several Fortune and Global 500 clients across industries like Finance and Accounting, BFSI, Telecom, Retail and Airlines, as well as business areas like HR and IT.
A team of 150 people across 4 continents, they have delivered value to clients in 100+ projects whilst being recognized by leading industry bodies like Gartner, IDC and HFS, as well as publications like The Economic Times.

What is in it for you?

JIFFY.ai aims to transform how innovation happens, for a better future. At JIFFY.ai they wish to aim faster, create faster, automate faster, and innovate faster. With a fast-moving lifestyle, technology and power automation are something enterprises cannot do without. JIFFY.ai took advantage of this fact and built on various areas of automation which help enterprises streamline their working processes. There are two key takeaways from here. First, if you are looking for Power automation for your enterprise, JIFFY.ai will be your saviour given everything mentioned above. Second, if you are looking forward to venturing into the technology or AI platforms, the innovative initiative of JIFFY.ai will help you understand how to come up with unique solutions to enterprise challenges such that it makes your brand an indispensable one, resulting in you disrupting the automation landscape.

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Government’s SIP-EIT Scheme: What’s In It for Small Businesses

Smruthi Krishnan — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 06:35:03 +0000

MSMEs and Tech start-ups over the years have formed the crux of the Indian Economy but hundreds of them need external help and support to survive in the market. Many SMEs are unable to protect their Intellectual property because of the high investments required for IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) protection especially in cases of international filing which is a necessity for entering the global competition. SIP-EIT is an initiative by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology for lending financial aid to start-ups and MSMEs to increase competitiveness through innovation and protection.

The SIP-EIT Scheme comprises of two schemes:

Support for International Patent Protection in E&IT

This is to promote the filing of International Patents. The Scheme Supports International Patent Protection in Electronics & IT by SMEs and Technology Start-Up Companies

Scheme to Support IPR Awareness Seminars/Workshops in E&IT Sector

This is to provide financial support to Education Institutes, DeitY societies, etc. for organizing seminars & workshops on IPR awareness among various stakeholders.

What does the SIP-EIT Scheme consist of?

It provides financial aid for international filing in the Information Communication Technologies and Electronics sector. It also allows reimbursement up to a maximum of Rs 15 Lakhs per invention or 50 % of the expenses incurred in filing patents.
In respect of ownership of the patent, the application filed in the name of the owner may also be considered and the applicant may be asked to assign it to the company after DeitY’s approval to provide support under the SIP-EIT-II scheme, however, the individual at the time of applying under SIP-EIT-II scheme must be an existing employee or should be in the Board of Directors of the company.
Under the scheme, only one application for foreign filing in all countries for a particular invention will only be considered.
Being a pure grant subject to approval by Deity, no stake in the supported patent is envisaged.

What is in it for MSMEs and Tech Start-ups?

The main benefit that MSMEs and Tech Start-ups will gain from this scheme is the financial aid and support required specially to sign up for IPR protection. This will help them protect their research and development and also their unique technology. This scheme will also help them enter the global competitive market where they can compete with other similar companies across the globe. With Intellectual Property Rights, companies will be able to focus more on innovation as the necessary protection will be employed. The scheme also plans to conduct IPR awareness programmes and workshops to help stakeholders and MSMEs understand the concept and push them towards innovation and development.

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Are You a Teen Entrepreneur? : India’s Best Entrepreneurship Cells May Incubate Your Start-up

DU Desk — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 12:35:04 +0000

Young minds always have the fire and zeal within them to innovate and explore. Today’s youth in India come up with the brightest of ideas and unique solutions and problem-solving strategies that have immense potential of turning into successful start-ups. Being young does not inhibit your creativity and business skills, in fact if you are passionate about something, starting young won’t be an issue. If you are a teen entrepreneur and feel like the ideas and products in your mind could be turned into reality, do not let age be a hurdle. India has several Entrepreneurship Cells across different colleges that might incubate your start-up. These cells help you explore, innovate, ideate and find financial backers for your product. The best place to start is Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) who may give you the required push towards success:

E-Cell, IIT Bombay

A student organisation, The Entrepreneurship Cell at IIT Bombay encourages students to taper the entrepreneurial spirit within them. E-cell, IIT Bombay organizes annual business plan competitions like Eureka! and their flagship event, The Entrepreneurship Summit (E-Summit) to select best startup ideas and incubate them. Nearly 7000 startups have participated in these events connecting 250,000+ students and 100,000+ professionals. Through their initiative, National Entrepreneurship Challenge, they help colleges across India to establish their own E-Cell. Members meet, discuss and debate ideas with experts, brainstorm and engage in several activities throughout the year.

E-Cell, IIT Kharagpur

Established in 2006, Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur (E-Cell) is a non-profit student’s organization which promotes the spirit of entrepreneurship among students throughout India. Their flagship event, Global Entrepreneur Summit (GES) gives an opportunity for entrepreneurial minds from across the world to meet to seek inspiration from old ideas and develop new ones. They conduct several Guest Lectures, Workshops, Panel Discussions, Product Expo, Connect the Dots conference and a Global Entrepreneurship Conference. Kharagpur also conducts Empresario, India’s first business model competition in association with International Business Model Competition providing a platform for students to interact with experts and pitch their ideas to capitalists, angel investors and enterprise leaders.

E-Cell, IIT Madras

The Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT-Madras is yet another organisation that pushes young entrepreneurs to reach their goals. Their flagship event, E-summit is one of the highly celebrated Entrepreneurship fests across India. Their Startup Series initiative is an exclusive 45 day program for teenagers to enter with an idea and leave with the skills to convert their idea into a venture. They conduct workshops and mentoring sessions and provide practical learning from the workshops via different tasks.

It may often seem like the entrepreneurial world out there is scary and your idea may not succeed. Do not lose faith in yourself or your idea, your idea could be the next big thing that disrupts the market, you never know!

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