Free Electric, a bicycle that produces electricity was unveiled by billionaire philanthropist Manoj Bhargava recently. This product aims to help solve the problem of electricity shortage in the country, particularly rural areas. The US-based Bhargava plans to make 10,000 bicycles, expected to be priced in the Rs.12,000 to Rs.15,000 range in India by March 2016. The design and manufacturing of the product will be done in the States, and later he intends to start manufacturing the bicycle in India to reduce the final price. Free Electric works by converting Kinetic energy into electric energy. As the user pedals the flywheel it spins a generator which in turn charges the attached battery. One hour of pedalling can meet a rural household’s electricity needs for 24 hours, he said. As of now the bicycle will be able to light up 24 bulbs, power an electric fan and charge a mobile device simultaneously.
Neerja Bhanot’s Indian biographical film directed by Ram Madhvani starring Sonam Kapoor is a film about how a young flight attendant fought for the lives of her passengers. Neerja is a biopic on the life of 23-year-old Neerja Bhanot who gave up her life trying to save the lives of hijacked passengers on Pan am flight in Karachi in 1986. Neerja posthumously became the youngest recipient of India’s highest civilian award for bravery, The Ashok Chakra, while Pakistan also bestowed the prestigious Tamgha-e-Insaaniyat Award on her for showing incredible human kindness during the hijack. “Neerja is one of the unsung heroes of India whose story should be an inspiration for everyone.We will be releasing the film on Feb 19 for the people the world over to know and celebrate the story of a 23-year-old girl who found courage and self-sacrifice in an extraordinary moment in her life,” said Vijay Singh, CEO, Fox Star Studios.Directed by Ram Madhvani, the upcoming film will also feature Shabana Azmi, who will portray the role of Neerja’s mother in the flick.
Former Infosys Chief Financial Officer Rajiv Bansal will take over as the head, finance operations of Taxi aggregator Ola, as its part of expansion drive in the country. Bansal, who announced his resignation from the country’s second largest software services firm in October this year, will join the Soft bank-backed Ola in January 2016. “Rajiv brings close to 21 years of experience in finance with over 16 years at Infosys, where he was the CFO and recently transitioned to being an advisor to the CEO. Rajiv will be part of Ola’s core leadership team,” Ola said in a statement.Mitesh Shah, who is currently the CFO, will lead strategic finance initiatives as part of Bansal’s team, it added. “We are thrilled to welcome Rajiv on board. He brings with him a wealth of experience from his long tenure at Infosys. Rajiv’s expertise in the finance domain is extremely valuable for us at this juncture of growth,” Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said. His experience of being at the helm of finance for one of India’s most respected companies will help Ola in adopting best practices, he added. Before joining Infosys,Bansal has worked in different capacities.
The Readership Studies Council of India (RSCI),which brings out the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) for the print media, has appointed CVL Srinivas, chief executive of GroupM-South Asia,as its chairman for a period of two years with immediate effect. Srinivas takes over from Hormusji Cama, who was RSCI chairman for the last two years. RSCI, along with the Media Research Users Council (MRUC),brings out IRS, which captures print consumption patterns for use by advertising agencies and advertisers on the basis of which newspapers sell their advertising inventory. RSCI was set up when the Audit Bureau of Circulations and MRUC agreed to undertake joint readership studies as equal partners.RSCI is governed by a 20-member managing committee consisting of publishers representing the print media, advertising agencies’ representatives and advertisers. The managing committee of RSCI sets up the technical committee to work on IRS. In a recent development,NP Sathyamurthy was made the head of the technical committee to work on the new IRS.
Ravi Pillai, NRI businessmen from Kerala spent Rs.55 crore for his daughter’s wedding which took place in Kerala. In an extravagant display of wealth, Pillai married off his daughter, Dr Arathy to Dr Adithya Vishnu of Kochi, at the famous Asramam ground in Kollam.The wedding was organised by none other than the production designer who lent his capabilities to the blockbuster film, Bahubali. The musical fiesta was organised by Stephen Devassy to entertain 30,000 guests. The wedding pandal was constructed on a 3,50,000 sq ft expanse and was modelled after the royal palaces of Rajasthan by Sabu Cyril, the famous movie art director. It took nearly 75 days for Cyril to create the pandal.The entire wedding set itself cost around Rs.20 crore. “Various parts for this set were first moulded in clay in Mumbai, and then it was cast in plaster of Paris. It took us about 40 days to assemble the pre-fabricated structures here,” said Cyril. The festivities were kick-started by singer Gayathri who sang bhajans, followed by a Kuchipudi performance by Manju Warrier, a Bharatanatyam dance by Sobhana, and a musical treat played out by Stephen Devassy. As far as the guest list goes, some of the most well-known names graced the occasion with their presence such as CEOs of Japan Gas Corporation, family members from royal lineages of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia,Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, and movie stars Mohanlal and Mammootty. Chartered flights were arranged for Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the royal family of Bahrain who flew in on Wednesday. The security detail at the wedding included around 250 policemen and 350 private cops.
Flipkart appointed former Twitter executive Tarun Jain to the position of Head of Product of its online advertising division as the online e-commerce marketplace looks at alternate income streams to boost its revenues. Jain will be responsible for driving business strategy, product vision, product roadmap, execution, partnerships and customer adoption with Flipkart. He will report directly to Ravi Garikipati,an entrepreneur-in-residence at Flipkart who is helping the company build out its online ad business.“Tarun comes with an accomplished track record of building highly successful products and platforms in some of the leading tech companies in the world. He possesses deep understanding of digital advertising solutions and we believe that his leadership will bring invaluable insights and contribute to the growth the of ads group at Flipkart,” said Ravi Garikipati, entrepreneur-in-residence at Flipkart, in a statement. Prior to joining Flipkart, Jain worked with Twitter in San Francisco where he led the product strategy for advertising and commerce products for the social network. He also served a stint with Google, building products like AdWords Express, Dynamic Ads and products around offers and online shopping.
ICICI Venture, the private equity arm of ICICI Bank, on Tuesday said it has elevated Prashant Purker as managing director and chief executive with immediate effect. The appointment comes following elevation of the incumbent Vishakha Mulye as executive director on the board of the bank, ICICI Venture Funds Management Company (ICICI Venture) said. Purker has over 25 years of experience in global markets, across both equity and debt. He joined ICICI Venture in August 2009 and has been a member of the leadership team since then. He has been co-heading the private equity practice of the company and has been serving as an executive director on the board of ICICI Venture. Prior to joining ICICI Venture, he worked with Nomura India, Lehman Brothers India, Citibank and BNP, among others.
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan’s announced that they would give away 99 percent of their personal shares of the company to philanthropic initiative, recently.This was announced after the birth of their daughter,Max. Currently the shares which are valued at $45 billion, would be used to fund charitable causes via the initiative Chan Zuckerberg LLC. The pledged money would be used to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation. The announcement was made through a letter to Max, which Zuckerberg posted on Facebook. However, the pledge garnered an incredible amount of attention which was primarily owing to the CEO’s net worth. Zuckerberg received both bouquets and brickbats for his generosity. While some like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg lauded his generosity, several others questioned his motives and even called it a tax evasion ploy. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg said, he and his wife would receive no tax benefit from setting up their new philanthropic endeavor as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) and hinted at the types of efforts it would support. In a post on his Facebook page, he wrote that `just like everyone else, we will pay capital gains taxes when our shares are sold by the LLC.’
Carol M Browner, a board member of the Infosys Ltd and an independent director, has stepped down from the company with immediate effect due to personal reasons. The company didn’t immediately give any other details about Browner’s resignation and who her replacement will be. Browner, a former White House energy and climate change director as well as a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress,was appointed additional director on the Infosys board in April 2014.She was also part of the company’s nomination and remuneration committee that oversees the nomination process and the incentives and pay offered to its top level executives, including the chief executive and other directors. The Infosys board, which has eight members, including five independent directors and two executive directors, has two women board members, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, managing director of pharmaceutical company Biocon Ltd, and Roopa Kudva, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of rating agency Crisil. Browner came on the Infosys board after Ann Fudge,a long-serving independent director, announced her retirement
Paytm co-founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Saif Partners’ Alok Goel have joined on the board hyperlocal deal discovery app Little as directors. The development comes a few months after Paytm, SAIF Partners and Tiger Global Management invested $50 million in the mobile-only app.“Vijay and Alok are on our board, they will help immensely in taking the next leap,” said Manish Chopra, CEO of Little.The company which started operations three months ago offers 30,000 deals from over 10,000 merchants. More than 5,00,000 users on the app get access to last minute inventory deals on restaurants, movies, hotels and salons among others, on a real-time hyperlocal basis at heavy discounts across 11 cities. This model Chopra believes would continue to draw customers to its platform and help it achieve $170 million gross merchandise value (GMV) by March next year. The company plans to expand to 1000 people from 400 at present, and add more cities over the next four months.The company aims to offer 50,000 deals, which will drive in the business and scale up number of daily transactions from 15,000.Paytm’s capability and consumer base becomes an advantage for Little, Sharma said. “Paytm will help Little acquire customers faster, sort out payment and the preference level, and we’re able to bring these differentiators,” he added.The app has a close working relation with Paytm, the country’s largest mobile wallet, and offers its deals on the app after the recharge is done. With Paytm’s own focus on creating online-to-offline models, partnering with Little fitted perfectly in the payments provider’s game plan.“We will help the team in the strategic thinking process.Online to offline is a huge area but extremely difficult to crack.The ones who do will become the most valuable companies,” said Goel, who was former head of Freecharge.Little Internet Pvt Ltd is run by Manish Chopra and Satish Mani, both of whom co-founded online fashion brand Zovi. Both Chopra and Mani continue to run Zovi, which is also backed by SAIF and Tiger Global.Chopra added that the company will expand the board in the future, by adding independent members.
By Joe Williams
