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  Gaming unicorn Mobile Premier League (MPL), has launched a gaming studio to step up the development of AAA (high-profile) mobile games for domestic and global markets. Mayhem Studios, a subsidiary of MPL, aims to use India’s developer community to produce high-quality games. The studio will have a team of professionals in the area of animation, art, cinematics, design, engineering, UI and UX game design and game production. “India has the potential to become a gaming hub of the world,” said Sai Srinivas, co-founder and CEO, MPL. “It is imperative to create requisite infrastructure for making world-class games to help achieve the country’s vision to make the Indian digital gaming sector a world leader. Mayhem Studios launch is our first contribution towards achieving this vision." Read More

  In a major initiative aimed at giving fillip to industrial development of the state on one hand and opening new vistas of employment for youth on the other, Tata Technologies on Wednesday offered to set up its ambitious electric vehicle (EV) production centre in Punjab. A delegation of the Tata technologies called on Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann here at his official residence. During the deliberations, the delegation comprising Global CEO of Tata Technologies Warren Harris, President Global HR and IT Pawan Bhageria and others evinced keen interest to set up this unit in the state with a current investment of Rs 250 crore and future investment of Rs 1,600 crore. Click Here

  With an aim to woo Gen Z users in India, Taiwanese tech giant ASUS on Wednesday unveiled the new BR1100 Windows laptop series that comes with high performance and long battery life. With a starting price of Rs 24,999 and Rs 29,999 for non-touch and touch versions, respectively, the newly-launched laptops are now available on online and offline platforms. Asus BR1100 Window Laptop "Continuing with our passion for offering the best solutions for Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers in India and democratise digital education, I am proud to announce our new range of laptops," Dinesh Sharma, Business Head, Commercial PC and Smartphone, System Business Group, ASUS India, said in a statement. Click Here

  Future Retail Ltd (FRL) on Wednesday held a meeting of its shareholders to consider and approve the sale of the company's retail assets to billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd . The meeting was chaired by Shailesh Haribhakti, FRL said in a regulatory filing. Haribhakti has been appointed by the NCLT to chair the meeting. The result of the voting will be announced in due course, it added. The meeting was held through video conferencing and "requisite quorum was present", the filing added. Read More

  German luxury carmaker BMW on Monday launched the 'Silver Shadow Edition' of its X4 model with price starting at Rs 71.9 lakh (ex-showroom). BMW X4 Silver Shadow Edition Locally produced at BMW Group plant in Chennai, the new exclusive edition comes in both petrol and diesel engine options. The petrol engine variant has a 2-litre engine with a power of 252 hp and is capable of accelerating from 0-100 kmph in 6.6 seconds. It is priced at Rs 71.9 lakh, the company said in a statement. Click Here

  With an aim to make the online railway travel booking experience better, online bus ticketing platform redBus on Tuesday launched a standalone lite app called ' redRail . redRail, which was launched as an in-app feature on redBus late last year, will now be accessible on all mobile devices, including entry-level Android OS smartphones. "redRail is a rail ticket booking service launched by redBus, in collaboration with IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation), as the authorised partner. All of IRCTC's scheduled train services, which include about nine million daily seats, are available for booking on the redRail app," Prakash Sangam, CEO of redBus, told IANS. Sangam mentioned that the app has been designed keeping in view the issues faced by users across the country. Read More

  The Tata group's much-hyped "super-app", Tata Neu , will be launched on Thursday, bringing every digital service by Tata Group into one platform. The app will go live along with the IPL match between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Delhi Capitals (DC) at 7:30 pm. In a listing on Google PlayStore and Apple's App Store, the company announced that Tata Neu would make a debut on April 7. “Find everything from groceries, to gadgets, to getaways on Tata Neu. Pay instantly for any of your online and in-store purchases, utility bills, and more, using Tata Pay,” the Play Store listing said. Read Full Article Here

  Popular video streaming platform Netflix is planning to pause password sharing outside a single household by charging users extra for doing so. Netflix Password Sharing "While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members," Chengyi Long, Netflix's director of product innovation, said in a statement. The main account owner will receive an email with a code, to enable the new sub-accounts. The user must use the code to verify the additional devices are a part of their household. Read More

  Bounce, the Bengaluru-based smart mobility solution company, reinforced its commitment to support India’s EV (electric vehicle) potential by unveiling its first consumer electric scooter , the Bounce Infinity E1. The Bounce Infinity E1 will be offered with a unique ‘Battery as a service’ option – the first of its kind in the Indian market. The scooter with battery and charger is Rs 68,999 (Delhi Ex-showroom) and the price for Scooters with Battery-as-a-Service is priced at Rs 45,099 (Delhi Ex-Showroom) plus subscription to Battery-as-a-Service. Customers can pre-book this smart scooter by paying a minimal amount of Rs 499 which is totally refundable. Bounce Infinity E1 scooters are FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle ) II eligible. “I strongly believe in the potential of electric vehicles in India – it is with this vision that we launched our in-house EV mobility solutions in June 2019,” said Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO and co-founder of Boun...

  Two of the world’s richest men, fighting over a near-bankrupt Indian retailer, have made so much noise that its board has woken up super cranky. In less than a week, the three independent directors of Future Retail Ltd . have shot off two letters to the country’s competition authority, alleging that Amazon.com had deliberately misled the regulator about the true nature of its 2019 investment in a related entity. They want the antitrust watchdog to cancel the transaction. The 2025 dollar bonds of Future Retail rose a little Monday, though they still trade at 61 cents to the dollar. Based on what an arbitration tribunal in Singapore has had to say on the issue of alleged misrepresentation by Amazon, the maneuver looks like a long shot. But one never can predict the course of regulatory action in India. If the gambit succeeds, Asia’s wealthiest businessman, Mukesh Ambani, may be able to get his hands on Future’s retail stores after all, a deal Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has so far m...

  Meesho, a fast-growing internet commerce platform, has announced a $5.5 million ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) liquidity programme for all eligible current and former employees with vested stocks. This is the company’s second such liquidity program in less than a year. Last month, Meesho raised a $570 million Series F from Fidelity Management & Research Company, B Capital Group, and other new and existing partners like Prosus Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Facebook, growing its valuation by over 2x to $4.9 billion. “We continue to see meteoric progress not only as a business but also in our efforts to democratize internet commerce for everyone,” said Vidit Aatrey, founder and CEO, Meesho. “Our employees have been at the forefront of driving this momentum, and we want to give them ample opportunities to celebrate and grow with us. As we hire across the board and scale our tech and product talent by 2.5X, ESOPs will give employees high ownership, while provid...

  In a boost to its electric vehicle (EV) push, Tata Motors on Tuesday closed a deal to raise Rs 7,500 crore from TPG Rise Climate and Abu Dhabi’s ADQ. This is the first major fundraising by an Indian carmaker to push clean mobility. The investment will be in a newly formed subsidiary Tata Motors has formed for the EV business. The Rs 7,500 crore (close to $1 billion) will give a stake of 11-15 per cent stake to the TPG-ADQ combine in this subsidiary. Bank of America was the advisor to TPG Rise Climate, and Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan have advised Tata Motors’ EV unit. The group is the leading player in the EV business with more than a 70 per cent market share. Chief Financial Officer P B Balaji said the company would invest more than Rs 16,000 crore over next five years. The investors will be issued compulsorily convertible instruments over an 18-month period. Investment will be made in tranches. Read More

  Ola Electric, the ride-hailing firm's electric vehicle arm, on Friday said that it sold e-scooters worth over Rs 1,100 crore in just two days, during its sale of Ola S1 and S1 Pro scooters. The SoftBank-backed company said this was unprecedented not just in the automotive industry, but also represented one of the highest sales in a day (by value) for a single product in Indian e-commerce history. “Day 2 of the EV era was even better than Day 1. Crossed Rs 1,100 crore in sales in 2 days,” tweeted Bhavesh Aggarwal, co-chairman and group chief executive officer, Ola, on Friday. Thursday was the second and final day for the purchase of the Ola S1 and S1 Pro, the first in Ola's range of electric scooters. The company had sold scooters worth over Rs 600 crore in just 24 hours. Click Here

  K Raheja Group-owned retailing firm Shoppers Stop has collaborated with global IT and professional services company Accenture to accelerate its digital commerce transformation across retail channels, a joint statement said on Tuesday. The programme aims to enhance customer experience and profitability, as well as support Shoppers Stop's goal of being the go-to digital destination, it stated. Shoppers Stop Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Venu Nair said omnichannel commerce has been a huge focus area for the company. "By collaborating with Accenture, we want to further strengthen our digital commerce strategy for greater reach and access and also improve the overall shopping experience of our customers," he said, adding that the company aims to "achieve significant profitable growth" in the digital commerce revenues over the next three years. Read More

  Omnichannel eyewear brand Lenskart on Wednesday said it plans to expand its workforce and add over 2,000 employees across the country by March 2022. In addition, Lenskart will also expand its international teams in Singapore, West Asia, and the US by adding 300 more employees. Lenskart has been aggressively hiring across verticals, especially the tech and data science team, roping in data scientists, business analysts, data engineers, and experts, a statement said. The company is looking to add 1,500 more retail employees "to manage their rapidly increasing stores" and over 100 engineers to the technology team across Bengaluru, NCR, and Hyderabad, it added. Over 300 employees will join the supply chain and manufacturing operations, while another 100 people will be hired for corporate functions across finance, consumer insights, human resources, and merchandising. Click Here

  Bollywood actor Sonu Sood on Friday launched Travel Union, a rural business to business (B2B) travel tech platform to democratise travel services. Travel Union members (travel agents) will work towards serving the travel needs of rural customers at every district, block and gram panchayat level. With a mission to support, digitally empower and build a leading travel agent business community in rural India at zero investment, Travel Union aims to be the largest rural digital travel services platform. At the rural level, the travel sector has been largely unorganised with no player focusing on the needs of Indians in tier-2 cities, towns and villages. Travel Union addresses multiple unfulfilled needs of rural travel agents, small business owners and enterprises, called Travel Union Members, the primary one being the absence of travel-tech platforms designed for rural travel at the core. Read More

  Walmart-owned Flipkart on Thursday said it has expanded its network in Gujarat with the addition of four new supply chain facilities that will support local sellers from the state and to cater to the growing demand for e-commerce. The new facilities are located in Ahmedabad and Surat, and are collectively spread across an area of nearly 5 lakh sq ft, helping create more than 5,000 direct and indirect local jobs in the state, a statement said. This will further help strengthen the support for close to 35,000 local sellers from Gujarat to get national market access while ensuring wider selection and faster deliveries for the customers, it added. "The expansion of the supply chain in Gujarat is a testament to Flipkart's commitment to serving customers from the state and nearby region in a fast and seamless manner and contributing to its economic growth by enabling market access to MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and other local sellers," it said. Click H...

  Microsoft is giving all its employees a $1,500 (over Rs 1.12 lakh) pandemic bonus, in recognition of a challenging fiscal year that the tech giant just completed. According to The Verge which has seen an internal memo, Microsoft is gifting the bonus to all staff below corporate vice president level that started on or before March 31, 2021. Microsoft bonus payouts It will also include part-time workers and those on hourly rates. "Microsoft's chief people officer, Kathleen Hogan, announced the gift to employees today, and it will apply to all eligible employees in both the US and internationally," the report said on Thursday. Microsoft has 175,508 employees worldwide. Read More

  Premium smartphone brand OnePlus on Friday said it has roped in cricketer Jasprit Bumrah as the brand ambassador for its wearables category. "The partnership with Bumrah reiterates the brand philosophy of 'Never Settle' and the company's pursuit towards perfection. For young India today, Bumrah represents a passion for a healthy, fit, and an active lifestyle while believing in constantly becoming better, a philosophy that truly resonates with what OnePlus stands for," a statement said. The OnePlus wearables category includes the OnePlus Watch and OnePlus Band. "As a brand, OnePlus has always believed in challenging itself, constantly redefining standards and delivering on our promise to 'Never Settle.' A disruptor throughout his career, we see these ideologies reflected in Jasprit, his grit and his determination," a OnePlus India spokesperson said. Click Here

  Amazon said Wednesday that it plans to give more than 500,000 of its workers a raise as it seeks to attract new workers. The online shopping giant, which already pays new hires at least USD15 an hour, said it will start increasing pay between 50 cents an hour to USD3 an hour starting next month. Those getting raises include warehouse workers, who pack and ship orders, as well as those who work in Amazon's package sorting centers and other facilities. Amazon said the pay raise is part of its push to hire more workers. The company has needed more people to get orders to shoppers during the pandemic as Americans increasingly shop online. Click Here