When it comes to your wedding you have already indulged in some extravagant shopping and why not? It’s your D-day, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. With the rise of conscientious consumers who demand cruelty-free skincare products, natural products have taken Centre stage in the cosmetic industry. Every bride-to-be wants to look her best on the big day but getting that bridal glow doesn’t always require getting artificial or chemical-infused skincare or spending a lot of money at the salon. We bring you some at-home natural facial kits to get you that natural radiant, glowing skin at home.
Bridal Glow Kit
This bridal glow kit, which is made up of the ideal combination of skin care products, is intended to be given to all brides, bridesmaids, and women who want to look their absolute best when they attend weddings. This wedding glow skin care kit is made with natural ingredients like Kumkumadi Tailam, saffron, liquorice, orange peel extracts, apricot extracts, walnut shell extracts, and many other natural actives. Regular use is recommended for the best results.
It lightens dark spots and reduces pigmentation. It refines blemishes, reduces acne, hydrates and brightens skin, and unifies complexion to reduce the signs of aging.
It contains:
Kumkumadi Tailam Ubtan Facewash – Gently cleanses your face and gets rid of dirt and deep-seated impurities to make your skin glow and plump.
Kumkumadi Tailam Face Scrub – Gets rid of dead skin cells, blackheads, and whiteheads and smoothens texture for soft, even-toned skin.
Kumkumadi Tailam Face Cream – Prevents 9 skin problems and moisturizes the skin making it firm and healthy. It also unifies skin tone and gives a natural golden glow.
Glow Face Pack – Absorbs excess sebum and mattifies the skin, making it smooth. It lightens the tan on the skin and brightens the face. It makes the skin naturally radiant and glossy.
Glow & Radiance Blend – Ideal to use in a night-time skin care regimen, glow & radiance blend is made with brightening oil in a nighttime skincare regimen, glow & radiance blend is made with brightening oils for skin to nourish and give a golden glow!
Overnight Lip Sleeping Masque – Lightens dark lips and melts away dead skin making lip look naturally pink, plump, and softer.
Mini Bridal Kit
It contains highly regarded components that are used in Ayurveda to treat a range of skin issues. Along with 25+ natural extracts, there are 4 potent core ingredients, including lavender, ylang-ylang essential oil, chironji, & saffron, that work to control excess oil production, lighten dark patches, give skin antioxidants, and much more! It prevents acne scars/spots, blemishes, uneven skin tone, dull skin, dark circles, suntan, wrinkles, and skin infections.
It contains:
Kanti Kaya Whitening Ubtan | Pure Chironji – Chironji is known for reducing acne problems. It absorbs excessive amounts of oil, removes dead cells/excess oil from pores & makes skin glow magnificently. Other powerful ingredients include tea tree extracts. It prevents inflammation & fights bacteria. The Ubtan also contains almond oil extracts that reduce puffiness & dark circles.
Kumkumadi Tailam Cream – This one is a powerhouse of natural ingredients. Along with the healing essence of saffron, it contains 21+ Ayurvedic natural extracts to counter 9 major skin problems. Other powerful ingredients include sandalwood. It soothes irritated skin & prevents the formation of pimples.
Glow & Radiance Blend – It contains a unique combination of ylang-ylang & lavender. The combination of both these flower extracts acts as a moisturizer & prevents the formation of cracks & breakouts on the skin. The blend boasts healing properties so that cuts, scars & sun-induced damage can be dealt with, quickly.
With the 3 products combined, the kit lightens all forms of dark patches on your skin in less time. You prevent early aging symptoms like wrinkles, breakouts, age lines, expression lines & so on. Your skin gets nourished with Vitamin B, Vitamin C, amino & fatty acids, and antioxidants & which promotes skin cell regeneration. pic credit: crosshairscommunication.com
Indiai, 14th December: WorkIndia Referral Program, one of the most successful programs of WorkIndia is now powered by Rapid Web View. The software powers and ensures a seamless user experience to provide smooth browsing of their website and application.
WorkIndia’s RapidWebView consists of Rapid Asset Cache, Web View Request Interceptor, and Java Script Interface which enables quick delivery of features via web applications while retaining the native user experience.
Whereas in traditional android releases, features are rolled out slowly and deployed into the app, taking the user nearly 15 to 45 days to reach the audience, RapidWebView allows the organization to release updates directly to the end user, in a matter of seconds.
To reduce the load time, the Web View Request Interceptor, a smart component of RapidWebView, decides which web components to load ahead of time. The JavaScript Interface, which communicates with the operating system, assists the user in making phone calls, sending notifications, uploading data, opening other applications, etc.
Commenting on the same, Moiz Arsiwala, Co-founder and CTO, WorkIndia said, “Our objective with RapidWebView is to deliver impact to maximum job seekers on our app and to iterate quickly in order to provide best user experience. RapidWebView continually enables us to adapt to job seekers’ feedback and changing needs so as to provide the best possible experience when they are searching for their next job.
Designed in-house, the project is open-sourced on GitHub, which helps the developer community to implement the updates in a much faster way. The advantage of RapidWebView can be seen in the success of WorkIndia Referral Program which has enabled the support team at WorkIndia in providing easier and faster support. The feature is also behind the accurate assessment of candidates who are applying through the WorkIndia portal. All of it has been possible thanks to RapidWebView which has allowed the team to ship quickly, experiment rapidly, and gather feedback early. Utilizing RapidWebView, WorkIndia will be able to assess as many as 35000 job seekers and ensure meaningful livelihoods.
Mumbai, 14th December 2022: India’s favorite reality show Colors Bigg Boss has come a long way in its 15 years journey and has gone on to become a phenomenon in the television entertainment landscape. The 16th season of the hit show has bagged the No. 1 spot in the non-fiction category. The show has been instrumental in providing an unprecedented dose of glamour and entertaining audience with its engaging content and adding grand new elements year-on-year. Within 6 weeks of its launch, the show attracted over 127 million viewers on Colors and 600 million views on Voot. Bigg Boss 16 catapulted itself to the pole position in the non-fiction category with a massive reach of 3 billion along with 1 billion views and 97% share of voice on Colors Digital, making it one of the marquees shows in the Hindi General Entertainment category.
The Bigg Boss has become a huge platform for brands to collaborate over the last decade and a half that offers a great canvas for advertisers to connect with their target audience. The sponsorships aim to provide brands with an opportunity to engage and collaborate through various touch points. During the show, the brands will gain prominence and visibility through ad spots, task integrations, the caller of the week segment, special zones, and other peripheral branding opportunities.
The 16th Season of Bigg Boss has Licious as an associate sponsor. Licious’s one-of-a-kind ‘Licious Greed Zone’ is created in the house which occasionally opens up the window of surprise for the BB contestants to satiate their meat cravings. To build excitement and engagement with its audience, Licious debuts into the Bigg Boss kitchen vowing to bring in new enthusiasm among the viewers as they can vote on the Licious App to choose and decide from the endless range of products that will go inside the house for their favorite contestants to enjoy delectable dishes. To top it all up, and to build more excitement, The Top 3 Lucky voters would get a once in a lifetime opportunity to “Meat and Greet Salman Khan!”
Speaking about the association, Santosh Hegde, VP, Brand, Licious said, ‘Our partnership with Bigg Boss is a huge pop culture moment for us! Our strategic and steadfast approach to making Licious offerings a part of the BB house has culminated in a breakthrough in the brand collaboration space, especially giving consumers and audiences the chance to vote for their Licious favorites and making them a part of this experience. While our ready-to-eat range was at the heart of it, we are pumped to give the contestants a taste of our diverse portfolio which only goes to show how Licious caters to all types of cravings, both on-screen and off-screen.’
Pavithra KR – Head, Revenue, Colors, Viacom18 says “This year’s Bigg Boss saw a lot of excitement and food cravings, especially where meat was concerned. This opened up an opportunity where we felt that Licious, a D2C, farm-to-fork platform, found space in the Bigg Boss house. Hence the idea of a Licious Greed Zone germinated for the meat lovers in the house. We co-created a contest on the Licious app to drive audience engagement and give the viewers the “Power to Choose” from the Licious Menu. For the first time ever, viewers decided on the menu that goes inside the house keeping in mind the indulgences and cravings of the housemates. Hence the brand became a part of the narrative and added to the immersive experience of the show.”
The 16th Season of Bigg Boss is focused on offering a robust experience to brand partners through means of Engagement, Excitement & Entertainment. The idea is to assist the brands in creating a Powerful & Impactful narrative that has the potential to build a lasting connection with the audience through content present in multiple markets cutting across geo-social cross-sections in India. pic credit: kaizzencomm.com
Bangalore, December 2022: NPCI Bharat BillPay Ltd. (NBBL), the wholly-owned subsidiary of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced that customers of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), the commercial gas company, can now make their gas bill payments through Bharat BillPay enabled channels.
The Biller Operating Unit (BOU) PayU has on-boarded BPCL as the first commercial gas category biller on the Bharat BillPay ecosystem. With this integration, commercial establishments can now pay their gas bills anytime and anywhere through Bharat BillPay-enabled channels such as banks, non-banks, and payment applications. Consumers will be able to book BPCL commercial cylinders using Third Party Application Providers (TPAPs) such as PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, etc. Customers will get instant confirmation on their bill payments, providing convenience, ease of fee payment, and the facility of digitization in their gas bill payments.
Noopur Chaturvedi, CEO of, NBBL said, “We are delighted to introduce BharatGas Commercial cylinder on the NBBL ecosystem, as our first commercial gas category biller. We believe this development will revolutionise the way commercial establishments make their gas bill payments in the future. We have augmented our ecosystem with numerous new categories in recent times to expedite the creation of NBBL into a complete one-stop bill payments destination for our users.”
“BharatGas is committed to bringing customer-centric solutions to enable ease of doing business. In this connection, we have facilitated digital payments of commercial LPG cylinders under Bharat Bill pay. This is an industry-first offering and will bring easy, two-step, transparent payments for restaurants, hotels, eateries, and industries using BharatGas commercial cylinders,” said Mr. Santosh Kumar, Executive Director charge (LPG), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
Speaking on this partnership, Sonika Chandra, Vice President, Consumer Business at PhonePe said, “We are happy to be a part of this integration with NBBL and BharatGas as a Consumer Operating Unit (COU). We are committed to playing an important role in taking digital payments to every possible sector and geography in the country. This integration is in line with our vision of building a truly open payments ecosystem platform for a billion Indians. We believe that this will further enable greater convenience, while also providing easy and hassle-free digital bill payment options to commercial establishments.”
Hyderabad, December 2022: Daifuku Co., Ltd, the world’s leading provider of automated material handling technology and solutions plans to construct a new manufacturing facility in the state of Telangana. The new state-of-the-art factory with a footprint of more than 200,000 square feet will augment its current facility of 60,000 square feet and is slated to produce world-class intralogistics equipment such as automated storage and retrieval systems, sorting transfer vehicles, conveyors, and sorters.
The first phase of expansion envisages a planned investment of INR 2 billion and Daifuku expects to operationalize its new factory within the next 18 months.
Speaking on the occasion Shri KT Rama Rao, Hon’ble Minister for IT, Industries, MA & UD, Govt of Telangana; said, this is indeed an excellent occasion to celebrate and that’s the reason we wanted to make it happen. The world at large and especially post-pandemic of us needs more infusion of positive news. Daifuku coming to Telangana and setting up a brand-new factory with Rs 450 CRS., of investment, providing employment to eight hundred plus people, was indeed something we wanted to celebrate, my compliments to the entire team of Daifuku. You made the right choice I can tell, by choosing Telangana and Hyderabad. Before I came here I had a meeting with the new US Council General, Jennifer Larson. She asked me a very interesting question what do you think about manufacturing, and services, and what do you think is the primary sector, as an Industries minister, give me your and your state’s perspective. How do you see this landscape changing in the next few years and a few decades? One of the things I told her, is whoever I meet, wherever I meet, whichever Industrialist or potential investor I meet, they have a renewed enthusiasm to set up a manufacturing base in India. Post-covid the world has realised that there is too much dependence on China for everything, be it bulk drugs, or medical supplies, and when the supply chain was disrupted, every single industrialist, be it small, micro, medium, or large, was affected one way or other. So the World started thinking of this excessive reliance and excessive dependence on China. You talk to the biggest of the biggest players, the Fortune 500 companies, or even the smallest player, and they all tell me the same thing, there has to be a China plus one strategy, you can manufacture in China for China and for the rest of the world, we need to start looking at other bases. Because we are similar in our sizes, China and India, 1.4 Bn people each, in terms of the workforce in terms of think force, people draw an oversimplified comparison and say, if we are moving away from China the logical place to go to would be India. But a lot of overseas investors, be they Japanese, Americans, or Europeans ask me if China is able to do certain things in a way, why can’t India do it? I tell them one thing China is a country that is very unique in terms of how it is structured, controlled, and administered. India is very different, India is democratic, India is not one, but there are 28 different Indias if you ask me, because of the federal structure we have, each state is so uniquely empowered. Makers of our constitution had envisioned that India is a union of states, therefore each state, and especially the gateway you chose to enter India through will determine your impression of India and how easy you find doing business in India, that’s a general thought I leave with any of my potential investors. Having said that, when I visit countries like the US, Japan, and other large economies, I was never more impressed than I was impressed with Japan. When I was in Japan one of the things that struck me was the grooming of Japanese kids from a very young age of design thinking, and engineering from a very early age. It was a way to tell the kids that manufacturing really holds the key to the growth of the world, to the expansion of your thinking and abilities, as the world can’t do without manufacturing. What the Japanese are trying to inculcate in those kids is design thinking from a very young age and the importance that needs to be given to manufacturing from a young age. What I admire about a country like Japan and a company like Daifuku, is the amazing tenacity and resilience they have shown over the last few decades. Remember Japan was the only country in the world that had experienced the most tragic, devastating atomic explosion at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, despite the natural disasters, the human intellect that the Japanese have invested in has really propelled them to one of the largest economies in the world, in spite of having a very small population, forces of nature stacked up against them. The Japanese continue to be a dominant force economically compared to the West and Asia. What I told the US consul General is that we need to pick up the best elements from each part, India can’t and doesn’t have the latitude, and India doesn’t have the luxury to grow at its own pace. You can’t miss this opportunity; we have to seize this opportunity. We are uniquely positioned now when the world is looking at different manufacturing locations outside of China. If India has to latch on to this, we have to do what the US did in the last 30 years in a span of the next 10 years, we have to do what China has done in the last 25 years in a span of 10 years. We don’t have the luxury of leapfrogging, we have to jump a few hoops, and we have to cover a few bases. We should focus not just on Hi-tech manufacturing or advancements or smart manufacturing. We have to also focus on basic manufacturing, we also need to ensure we also get the efficient smart manufacturing which is coming out as part of Industrial revolution 4. O and we also have to ensure and inculcate design thinking at the school curriculum level and most importantly even in the vocational training institutes we have. We had a meeting with Proctor and Gamble, and I told them to tag along with one of our institutes, in fact, IIIT at Basara, which has some brilliant youngsters, to create an apprenticeship model. It will be a win-win proposition for the company and the student. So, we need four things, basic design thinking at the school level, an apprenticeship model at the higher education level, and we have to compete on the scale if we have to compete with large manufacturing countries like China. We of course need to create the world’s largest pharma parks, industrial parks and through which economies of scale are bound to come. Delighted to share that we are building Telangana’s largest Industrial park at Dandumalkapur and it’s shaping up very well. I would wish FTCCI, CII, FICCI or even Japanese come together and create such large parks. We need to learn from the Japanese, they have done some very smart things, either they have gone underground in some cases or they have gone up vertically, so we need to do those disruptions or innovations, because the land is a very luxurious commodity and is in limited supply and it’s getting more and more expensive, there is huge demand and it becomes more difficult for the Government to procure and for you to get the land at a reasonable price so that your bottom lines are not affected. How many Companies from India have really disrupted and become global names, how many of our products are world-class and compete on a world scale? But unfortunately, not many of these disruptions or innovations are truly world-class, therefore we need to start thinking on a larger scale, need to be a bit more ambitious, we need to start being more aggressive as well. Capital is no more an issue if you have an idea that can really work, unlike in the past. With the world looking at us with renewed enthusiasm, Indian entrepreneurs need to make some bold moves, I request Telangana entrepreneurs to please think big and think of products for the world, not just for India. I am a strong believer that we have in us to make world-class products.
“This expansion, which will include technology transfer from Japan will not only help us in expecting our localization plans but will also accelerate our product development pipeline in India so that we can serve the needs of our Indian customers with greater efficiency,” says Srinivas Garimella, Managing Director of Daifuku’s Indian Subsidiary, Vega Conveyors & Automation Pvt Ltd.
With the Indian economy anticipated to remain one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Daifuku expects that the intralogistics automation market will continue to grow rapidly and plans to employ 250 people and products that on full plant capacity utilization, the number of which may move up to more than 800 as it continues to stay vested in India.
Hiroshi Nobuta, Daifuku Board Member and Responsible officer for its Indian operations while thanking the government of Telangana for being proactive in fast-tracking its expansion plans, states that India will continue to be a focus market for Daifuku and remains committed to the company’s Indian operations. pic credit:Totem PR
Hyderabad, 14th December 2022: Workruit, a career-tech platform, with its flagship product Resume Builder, one of the leading AI-based Resume building platforms in India, aims to reach about four million+ resumes across all domains and fields, which includes more meaningful resumes relevant to industry & resources for every career stage. The company, so far, has reached over 1.5 million resumes and the critical domains covered include IT, Business Development, Sales, Finance & Communications.
Pic Credit: Synapse PR
To achieve the goal of 4 million+ resumes, Workruit, along with Tier 1 markets, aims to focus more on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and educate them on the resumes that create a stronger impact. The company also aims to partner and create awareness among youth about the platform and how it can create several job opportunities for them & bridge the gap that is visible today. Together, Workruit aims to build a career development ecosystem for both the industry and job seekers through its suite of B2B and B2C solutions, which includes an AI-powered Resume Builder and a Job Search & Recruitment platform.
Resume Builder from Workruit uses AI and ML technology to help job seekers create resumes from scratch with little to no human intervention. The platform makes cover letters and the critical first copy’ professional resume’ using job-winning resume analytics, keywords, and various creative tools. The platform also focuses on Video interviews/CVs that have become the new normal in hiring. The AI algorithm uses an ultra-powerful user interface with a databank of over 200,000 HR-approved statements, jargon, and more from 40+ HR experts.
Furthermore, the platform’s intelligent AI enables a superior Job Discovery Platform that filters job search results and presents a customized list of jobs best suited to each qualification, skill, and experience. Through its Tinder interface, the platform uses technology to automate hiring and improve recruitment efficiency and effectiveness.
Workruit has an impressive roster of world-class universities, job boards and companies using their technology. The company currently works with scores of education players and colleges, including institutions like Indian Institute of Management Commerce, Vasavi Engineering College, GITAM University, Mohan Babu University, and BLDE Association among others. Furthermore, more than 2500+ employers, from Just Dial, BYJUs, HDFC, Fortune Group, Reliance Group, Amazon, Asian Paints, etc., have hired job seekers. Workruit also operates the Digital Employment Exchange of Telangana (DEET) platform in collaboration with Telangana State and is currently in talks with other Governments. DEET, over time, has built global and national partnerships with Equifax, NASSCOM, ISB, CII, ICICI Foundation and many other organizations.
Speaking on the plans, Manikanth Challa, CEO & Founder, Workruit, said, “Since its inception, Workruit has grown by more than 110% year on year. To bring equal opportunities & access, Workruit intends to expand its solutions to more regional and international languages, and make the Mobile platform available to a broader audience in their preferred language to build a digital resume.”
The company has recently raised over $500,000 in pre-Series A round led by the family office of Kantamaneni from the US.
Chennai, Dec 2022: Celebi India today announced its appointment and has submitted its acceptance to the Airport Director at the Airport Authority of India, Chennai, and has started fulfilling the requirements to start the services. Celebi will provide complete ground handling support to scheduled and non-scheduled airlines at domestic and international terminals.
Mr. Murali Ramachandran, CEO of Celebi India, said, “We understand the needs of the airlines and the growing aviation industry in India and are well equipped to meet current and future airline and passenger traffic. We will provide the much-awaited quality ground handling services at Chennai airport and develop a sustainable ecosystem to meet the larger goal of the aviation industry to become carbon neutral in the very near future.”
Chennai is the 9th airport in India for Celebi after Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Goa (Manohar International airport, Mopa), and Kannur. Recently, Celebi won the bridge-mounted equipment services contract for Bengaluru airport and introduced 100% electric, air-conditioned tarmac coaches for passenger transportation at the Delhi International Airport.
Lexus India opens a one-of-a-kind, Meraki-inspired brand experience centre in Coimbatore. The brand space design takes inspiration from Coimbatore’s industrial legacy of engineering and its tryst with textile, the city’s undying passion of motorsports and amalgamates it with the Japanese spirit of precision, perfection, and subtle luxury.
The Lexus brand space – Meraki in Coimbatore, has subtly blended the Japanese design sensibilities into the accentuated entryway and brought the outdoors in with the Zen court. The distinctive spindle design, a trademark of Lexus, has been used into the ceiling design to create a delicate lace-like effect to stitch the storyline.
The pièce de résistance is the mural in the Zen court that represents a deconstructed portrayal of the famous bull race tradition of southern India with specially designed carts, drawing parallel to the efficient engine of a Lexus that are energy efficient and have smaller carbon footprint while enhancing the rider’s excitement and experience. Thus, Lexus commemorates the “REKLA TO HYBRID” journey in this Lexus brand space “MERAKI” in Coimbatore.
In line with the brand’s ethos of creating a better tomorrow through sustainable design, the use of “soot” powdered in the cast in-situ concrete floor and the Zen court wall add to energy efficient, sustainable, and eco-friendly structure. This also contributes to reduced carbon footprint in a small way.
The Lexus Meraki – Coimbatore joins the current network of Lexus Brand Spaces in Gurugram and the Lexus Guest Experience Centres in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Chennai, and an upcoming one in Kochi, along with the Lexus virtual guest experience centre that will soon be hosted on the Lexus India website bringing the Lexus brand and its offering closer to the discerning luxury consumer located across India.
Speaking on the occasion, Naveen Soni, President – Lexus India said “We have always believed in establishing stronger ties with our guests, and we are delighted to announce the inauguration of our new brand space in Coimbatore, just few months after the introduction of our brand space in Gurugram. With the opening of numerous facilities across the country, this innovative concept gets us one step closer to welcoming many more of our guests on a journey of luxury, uniqueness, and amazing experiences with Lexus”
Lexus India aims to enhance its immersive experience not only via powerful proximity but also through various digital means to further strengthen its presence in India. With the opening of the Lexus Meraki in Coimbatore, Lexus India establishes its footprint in 13 cities with 15 guest touch points across India.
Pic Caption: Nidhi Bhasin, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation along with Rakesh Ranjan, Mission Director, NITI Aayog launched NASSCOM Foundation’s Aspirational Districts Programme
Pic Credit: On Purpose & NASSCOM Foundation
New Delhi, December 14, 2022: NASSCOM Foundation today announced the launch of its “Aspirational Districts Programme” with the objective of digitally enabling and skilling more than 3.5 million lives by March 2024, thus empowering the marginalized in remote and backward sectors of India. The event was graced by the presence of Shri. Rakesh Ranjan, Mission Director – Aspirational Districts Programme, NITI Aayog who emphasized on how the programme is a promising step towards accelerating the country’s progress in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Implementation Partners of the programme Arvind Chaturvedi, Vice President, AISECT and Madhura Karnik, Haqdarshak were also present at the event.
Under the programme, NASSCOM Foundation is tapping into more than 100 aspirational districts out of which 55 districts have been identified as of now across 23 states (Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur) and a few have already been established across the country. The programme directly aligns with NASSCOM Foundation’s core philosophy of TechForGood wherein technology initiatives are utilized to create positive social impact. Apart from strengthening the efforts to meet the SDG agenda, this will also prioritize economic development across communities in alignment with the PM’s vision of Digital India mission.
The aspirational districts will be equipped with Digital Resource Centres that will act as change agents and engines of development, ensuring they provide need-based information, resources and an array of government-based services, that will positively impact citizens’ lives and their livelihoods. Community members will also be further trained to be digital ambassadors, and e-Governance tools will be made available to communities at large. By leveraging technology and digital knowledge, this programme will empower the youth to appropriately nurture their talents and also focus on aspiring women entrepreneurs to improve the quality of life at both community and society level. Another key focus area of the NASSCOM Foundation programme is to generate awareness of appropriate government schemes and e-governance services in addition to imparting quality training in digital skills.
Announcing the launch of NASSCOM Foundation’s Aspirational Districts Programme, Nidhi Bhasin, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation said, “The Government’s Aspirational Districts Programme spearheaded by NITI Aayog has triggered equitable growth and development in every corner of the country. As an extension to the government’s initiative, NASSCOM Foundations’ Aspirational Districts Programme focusses on the two aspects of inclusive growth and meeting SDG commitments. We are confident that through our collective efforts to roll out people-centric digital initiatives we will be able transform 55 districts and empower over 3.5 million lives and thus, make technology affordable, equitable and most importantly accessible to the last mile.”
Shri Rakesh Ranjan, Mission Director, NITI Aayog commented, “There is no doubt that India is on a high economic growth trajectory and the key is to take the entire country along in this development journey. With initiatives like NASSOM Foundation’s Aspirational Districts Programme, I am confident that significant progress will be made towards equitable development. This is one of the first steps in ensuring a national inclusive development strategy that fosters technology and ensures that no district is left behind.”
Even though remarkable socio-economic measures have been undertaken for the country’s progress, they do not adequately reflect on the quality of life of the people. NASSCOM Foundation through the Aspirational Districts Programme makes an attempt to address this shortcoming and is a step forward in making India a digitally empowered nation and an extension to the Government’s vision of inclusive growth.
Covestro is proud to announce the successful completion of Circularise’s pioneering project with the certification scheme ISCC in which partners tested a blockchain system to complement the ISCC PLUS certification. For the first time ten companies from the chemical industry and respective downstream sectors got together to test such a digital system to bridge the inter-company gap in the sustainability certification process across complex value chains.
Circularise’s blockchain-based digital system was tested with the ISCC PLUS certification to make auditing of certified parties more efficient, and to strengthen the integrity of certified data. Participants used a public blockchain enabling authentication, accessibility, decentralization, and encryption of data verifying material flows and related sustainability attributes. “We are excited to bring our knowledge in supply chain traceability and data management to project partners to test a public decentralised blockchain with the ISCC PLUS certification,” said Mesbah Sabur, Founder of Circularise.
Material traceability and verification of data at individual sites and across the value chain are guaranteed by ISCC PLUS certification of each site of the operators, requiring site-specific audits, certification, and company-specific mass balance calculations to provide reassurance about the sustainable content. The data was uploaded to the Circularise software system to improve mass balance bookkeeping and reporting along the value chain through several companies.
“Certification will become more digital in the future. It will allow certification schemes to simplify the auditing process of supply chain actors and reduce the risk of mistakes. Companies will have an easier way to show compliance and adhere to auditing rules,” says Jan Henke from ISCC. “We are excited to have tested Circularise’s traceability software on ISCC procedures.”
Digitized ISCC certification for Covestro downstream customers Covestro joined the ISCC pilot to understand how they can more efficiently communicate their sustainability information to their downstream partners.
“With other Circularise pilot projects, for example with Porsche, we were able to communicate raw sustainability data without a problem, but we had not yet addressed sustainability certifications. In the ISCC pilot we have shown now how we can easily attach certifications that can be digitally carried all the way through the value chain from Covestro to our downstream partners and finally to OEMs and beyond,” explains John Fox from the Digital R&D area at Covestro. The company is seeing increasing demand from customers and partners for a digital certification system that can validate material sustainability claims via a system like ISCC.
Mass balancing is an emerging concept, not yet fully understood on the consumer side. So, in order to help ISCC and the entire mass balancing approach to reach out further down the value chain, the delivery of digital certified information through a simple and compatible system can give downstream partners an easier and more recognized tool to communicate and share sustainability attributes externally, all the way down to the consumer.