• Daimler celebrates 1 lakh sales of BharatBenz trucks in India
• Over 130 million parts exported globally proves ‘Make In India’ success
• Mr. Rajaram Krishnamurthy, Vice President Marketing and Sales: “BharatBenz trucks are specifically designed for India. Reaching 100K truck sales so soon shows how much Indian customers appreciate Daimler’s quality and value. We are very proud to celebrate this milestone and look forward to many more.”
Chennai – Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV), Daimler’s commercial vehicle subsidiary in India, achieved yet another major milestone during the first quarter of 2020. Within eight years of the start of production in 2012, the company sold more than 100,000 medium and heavy-duty trucks in India. This marks an unprecedented ramp-up in the world’s toughest commercial vehicle market.
Mr. Rajaram Krishnamurthy, Vice President Marketing and Sales commented that,“BharatBenz trucks are specifically designed for India. Reaching 100K truck sales so soon shows how much Indian customers appreciate Daimler’s quality and value. We are very proud to celebrate this milestone and look forward to many more.”
Additionally, Daimler Buses has sold more than 4500 BharatBenz buses in India since the start of operations in 2015. DICV recently also celebrated important export milestones. Since 2012, DICV has exported more than 30,000 vehicles under the brands BharatBenz, MercedesBenz, Freightliner and FUSO to more than 50 markets around the globe. Moreover, the company has exported 130 million parts to other plants within the production network of Daimler Trucks since 2014.
“DICV is real proof of the ‘Make In India’ concept. We combine Daimler’s worldwide network and long history of engineering with India’s ingenuity and frugality. That’s how we’ve exported over 13 crore parts from India to all over the world”, added Mr. Satyakam Arya, Managing Director and CEO.
Bengaluru, 28th April 2020: Over a Century ago, a silent process was put into motion, that has helped and continues to transform humanity today. In the form of Heartfulness Meditation, this ancient yogic form of meditation has reached out to millions across 160 countries and helped them live a more evolved life. Shri Ram Chandra Shahjahanpur, the Founder President of Shri Ram Chandra Mission, the first Heartfulness organisation formalised the meditation practise to be spread by the organisation he founded. Fondly referred to as Babuji he was born on 30th April 1899, in the North Indian town of Shahjahanpur (Uttar Pradesh) and attained mahasamadhi on 19 April 1983.
To mark Babuji’ s 121st birth anniversary more than 1,50,000 practitioners of Heartfulness across 100 countries will come together virtually to join the celebrations on 29th-30th April & 1st May 2020. This grand virtual celebration will include a series of 6 group meditation sessions across the 3 days, filling all hearts with love and spiritual charge. Proceedings can be viewed Live at http://youtube.com/c/heartfulness/live from 7am to 6 pm on all 3 days
Year 2020 is the 75th platinum anniversary year of the legal founding of Shriram Chandra Mission (Heartfulness Institute) by Babuji, so this event is of special significance. International Headquarters of Heartfulness was inaugurated recently at Kanha Shantivanam in Hyderabad on Feb 2, 2020 and houses the world’s largest meditation centre with 100,000 capacity.
Commenting on the occasion Mr. Kamlesh Patel (Daaji) the Guide of Heartfulness said, “Babuji spurred the spiritual movement in India with his ability to draw the attention of people across the globe, culture, background and religions to the transformative powers of meditation. He distilled the essence of meditation practices into a simple method suitable for everyone – in other words, he demystified yogic practices for modern humanity. Babuji redefined our understanding of yogic science in the same way that Einstein redefined our understanding of physics. He recorded his discoveries in these ground-breaking books that were written in the 1940s.”
“Babuji’s spiritual legacy is of such a stature that he will be remembered for thousands of years into the future, and his ability to help seekers to evolve spiritually is legendary. We are truly blessed to be able to celebrate his birth by coming together virtually”, Daaji added
At the time, back in 1945, this method of Raja Yoga was known in just a handful of areas in North India, and Babuji was hardly known outside his circle of associates and followers, but that was to all to change as people came searching for him from all over the world.
From an early age, he displayed a craving for spiritual realization that overshadowed all other interests. He held the position of clerk in the district court of Shahjahanpur for more than thirty years. In June 1922, at the age of twenty-two, he met Lalaji, whom he accepted as his guru. Lalaji also bore the same name of Shri Ram Chandra of Fatehgarh, UP. Lalaji recognized Babuji as the person who had appeared in his dream years before as his successor. In 1972, he took the Heartfulness method of meditation across the length and breadth of India, Europe and America and popularised it in those countries.
· Launched in March 2020, Discovery+ app has received rave reviews and a rapidly expanding user base
· ZEUX’s UX design expertise enabled the app to stand out in terms of discoverability, stickiness, share-ability and intelligence
· Unique features including Shorts and WhatsApp sharing have garnered tremendous traction & praise from users
Bangalore; 28th April 2020: ZEUX Innovation, India’s pre-eminent outcome driven UX design firm, proudly partnered with Discovery India to design the Discovery+ app. The app was launched on 18th March 2020 and continues to garner rave reviews across major app stores for its content and user experience.
Commenting on the ZEUX & Discovery collaboration, Issac John, Business Head, Discovery India said, “As a product, our team was very conscious of solving barriers for user adoption in a cluttered OTT market like India. The various researches and design workshops that ZEUX led for us, placed user motivations at the heart for solving these barriers. The iterative work, completed over several months, has paid rich dividends for us as expressed by the umpteen user reviews that have highlighted the rich yet simple to navigate UI & UX of Discovery Plus”.
ZEUX designed the Discovery+ app with an end objective to deliver a best-in-class and differentiated OTT experience.
The ZEUX Edge: 5 key UX design pillars for Discovery+
One-stop-shop
As a first step, ZEUX conducted foundational research with target users across India to ascertain Discovery’s app consolidated strategy. Other insights gathered regarding content preferences, subscription models, pricing, etc. also helped establish a clear app strategy and laid down a solid foundation for the design effort.
Discoverability
ZEUX completely re-imagined the content categorisation approach for Discovery+ and created several innovative content buckets and micro-genres (such as: time of day, emotion, content length, life stage, brag value, etc.). This not only ensured that the overall information architecture of the app matches the target users’ mental models but also enhanced content findability.
Stickiness
The unique ”Shorts” feature was an innovation crafted specifically to enhance engagement for the new-age generation. Never seen before on any OTT platform, Shorts brought snackable non-fiction content & infinite scrolling to offer a unique engagement strategy for Discovery+
Shareability
ZEUX built a hyper-simple sharing experience by seamlessly integrating user’s most preferred sharing channel (WhatsApp) into the app interface. This innovation has proven to be a key factor in enhancing content share-ability resulting in higher organic user acquisitions for Discovery+
Intelligence
Circular content toggles at the top of key pages were created by ZEUX to ensure that the home & landing pages for core content categories showcase Discovery’s vast content breadth and depth. Click-data from the toggles also fortified the app’s intelligence gathering mechanism and fuelled its content personalisation & recommendation engines.
Commenting on the success, Saurabh Gupta, Co-founder, ZEUX Innovation, said, “We are proud to be the UX design partner for Discovery+. We leveraged the science of human performance & persuasion design to craft an OTT experience that is a perfect balance between delivering specific business outcomes, addressing diverse user needs and effectively managing technology considerations”.
Adding to the perspective, Hemal Gathani, Co-founder, ZEUX Innovation, said, “Client support was the key factor in transforming our thoughts into reality. The fact that the Discovery team supported our thought process and empowered us to think laterally, led to a seamless delivery from our end”.
Analyze your indoor workouts and manage your health with Garmin’s health monitoring data
With the current pandemic situation resulting in activity restrictions, staying healthy and fit has become a challenge. These sudden changes have brought about drastic lifestyle transformations, making it difficult to get into a routine. More than ever, it is critical for us to exercise regularly to boost our immunity.
With gyms, fitness centers and clubs closed, meditation and exercising at home have become the newfound routine for fitness enthusiasts across the nation. According to Garmin Connect data, from January to March 2020, the activity count for outdoor activities had an overall drop of 15.5 percent, with activity count for golf, hiking trail running and running decreasing by 87.6 percent, 34.9 percent, 29.2 percent and 18.8 percent respectively. In comparison, indoor activities such as floor climbing, yoga, Pilates and indoor cardio workouts showed an overall increase of 38.5 percent in the same period.
With travel and activity restrictions implemented from March 2020, overall outdoor activity count from January’20 till 21 April’ 2020 dropped by 71.2 percent while indoor activity count increased by 40.2 percent in the same period.
In light of the lifestyle changes, it is crucial to keep a consistent check on one’s physiological data to actively monitor physical health and wellbeing.
World Health Organization’s “Clinical management of severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) when COVID-19 disease is suspected” Interim Guidance[i] spotlights the importance of health monitoring data; one of the clinical syndromes is severe pneumonia where the patient may experience fever or suspected respiratory infection, plus respiratory rate of more than 30 breaths/min; severe respiratory distress; or SpO2 of less than 93 percent on room air.
Garmin smartwatches enable users to track their physiological data[ii], providing daily insights to their health status. Garmin India has identified five key health indicators to enable Garmin users to track and manage their health profile. Users should refer to data from their Garmin smartwatch with the five health indicators to identify any changes rather than depending solely on own assumptions to determine their own health status.
Garmin’s Five Health Indicators
· Heart Rate: The heart is the pilot of all body activities. The health status can be effectively monitored by analyzing your heart rates. It is generally believed that when the body temperature rises abnormally, the heart rate will increase; likewise, when the body temperature drops, the heart rate and strength of heart contractions will decrease accordingly. Those with a higher resting heart rate can indicate a higher risk of getting cardiovascular diseases. By doing regular exercises, the body’s sympathetic nervous activity decreases, which will lower the resting heart rate, improving the heart function and resulting in a more flexible neuromodulation.
· Respiratory Rate: Respiratory rate plays a critical role. The normal respiratory rate of a healthy adult is 12 – 20 breaths per minute (brpm). A low respiratory rate is a general indication of good health. Even while exercising, the respiratory rate of those with better physical fitness levels tend to be lower. There are many breathing techniques that can help you to manage your stress levels, relax and improve your concentration and sleep quality. Indulging in breathing exercises daily will help reduce the anxiety and stress and keep the health on track.
· Blood Oxygen Saturation: Blood oxygen saturation is closely related to lung health. Blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) refers to the concentration of oxygen in human blood, which is the key index to measure health. The ideal Spo2 level should be between 95 – 100 percent. A figure lower than 90 percent is considered too low, however, the figure may vary with individual physical differences. For instance, some people may feel discomfort at high altitudes because of the decrease in Spo2 levels. Monitoring how your body responds and changes with different blood oxygen saturation levels in different states can help you understand your own body better.
· Sleep Monitoring: Your immunity is the first line of defense against viruses. Quality sleep is the key to maintaining healthy body functions. When people go to sleep, they experience several cycles of rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement. The non-rapid eye movement stage can be further divided into deep and light sleep. During the deep-sleep stage, the body will begin to repair, build bones, grow muscles and enhance the immune system. In normal circumstances, a healthy adult will get approximately 15-25 percent of deep sleep each night. However, this figure varies amongst individuals. Garmin’s sleep monitoring function records the level of blood oxygen saturation and the number of times you toss and turn throughout the night so you can closely monitor your sleep quality.
· Stress Monitoring: The tenser a situation is, the more we will need to stabilize our physical and mental states. When we are caught up in highly stressful situations over long periods of time, our physical and mental health can get affected from coping with the stress and these responses could be destructive to our health over time. Garmin’s stress detection function uses Heart Rate Variability (HRV) to estimate the body’s stress levels. Training, physical activities, sleeping conditions, mental state and other daily activities will affect your stress levels. Garmin’s stress monitoring function measures stress levels from 0 to 100; 0-25 suggests a low stress level, 26-50 suggests a moderate stress level and 51-75 and 76-100 indicates high and extremely high stress levels respectively. This function will enable you to monitor your daily stress levels.
~Announces partnership with leading corporates including Mahindra Logistics, Uber, IDFC FIRST Bank, Brihati Foundation (by Claris), Crompton Greaves, Blowhorn to raise funds
~ The first tranche of direct benefit transfers has already benefitted over 93,000 people
Mumbai, April 27th 2020 – Samhita Social Ventures, a leading social sector consulting firm, aims to impact the lives of over 1 million people affected by the COVID-19 crisis. It has set up two coalitions – India Workers Alliance and India Protectors Alliance – which bring together companies from various industries in India with effective partners in the social sector to help vulnerable sections of the society. Between the two alliances, Samhita hopes to benefit over 1 million people. The firm works with various stakeholders such as companies, donor organizations, government agencies and social organizations and builds long term partnerships between them to achieve maximized social impact.
The India Workers Alliance aims to help gig economy professionals, construction labourers, truck drivers, daily wage earners and other blue collar workers while the India Protectors Alliance works with the people who are at the front lines of the fight against the virus including healthcare workers, policemen and sanitation workers. Samhita has partnered with leading corporates including Mahindra Logistics, Uber, IDFC FIRST Bank,Crompton Greaves,Brihati Foundation (by Claris) and Blowhorn to mobilize resources that will aid those who are most affected.
The Samhita Model of combating COVID-19 is strongly focused on ensuring efficiency of the funds that is being deployed and therefore adopts evidence-backed solutions. These solutions have also been recommended by experts such as Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in their respective interviews and media interactions. Further, the solutions have been curated in consultation with advisors such as Dr. Nachiket Mor of the Banyan Academy of Leadership and the former Country Director of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Samhita has, over the last 10 years, mobilized over INR 500 crores from companies across the geographical landscape of India.
Priya Naik, Founder and CEO, Samhita Social Ventures said “At Samhita, we believe in solving wicked problems through the power of collaboration. We have adopted the same approach in addressing the current COVID-19 situation – forge partnerships across samaj-sarkar-bazaar to help those most impacted by the pandemic. We understand that the pandemic has also gravely impacted companies and stressed their cash and fund flows. But now is the time to pool all available resources and help those who form the backbone of your industry, your ecosystem and your economy. It is time to not just help your own workforce but also support those who work across your value chain. Be a part of a bigger coalition – whether existing alliances or a new one that you choose to champion in your industry.”
The India Workers Alliance will undertake direct benefit transfers to blue collar workers who have been most affected by the crisis. Further, it will help facilitate access to eligible government schemes and affordable insurance or security products so that the workers and their families are secured from the effects of this pandemic situation. This Alliance will work in partnership with Super Money and Haqdarshak to ensure that the benefits reach the targeted people and there is rigorous monitoring and reporting of the benefits derived from the solutions.
The first tranche of direct benefit transfers has already been made and over 93,000 people have benefitted.
The India Protectors’ Alliance aims to support some of the people who are fighting on the frontline of the war against COVID-19 – healthcare practitioners and sanitation workers. This Alliance will provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), training and capacity building to the healthcare personnel and aim to provide access to innovative financial and insurance products.
What some of their partners have to say –
“We are pleased to partner with a leading social enterprise such as Samhita in aiding our effort to help driver partners in these challenging times. Samhita is helping us disburse the grants from Uber Care Driver Fund to the accounts of driver partners effectively, and supporting us in helping driver partners meet their immediate and essential family needs.” – Pavan Vaish, Head of Central Operations, Uber India and South Asia
“With over 30% of commercial vehicles stranded on roads across the country, drivers need urgent support. Truck drivers and their families are in immediate need of cash for food and other basic facilities. We have launched several programs to support the driver community along with our business partners. Through this initiative with Samhita Social Ventures, we aim to help these drivers and their families, until the situation in the country is restored.” – Mr. Rampraveen Swaminathan, MD & CEO, Mahindra Logistics Limited
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