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Asahi Kasei’s innovative Cooking Sheet for all your healthy baking

February 2023: Healthy cooking has become a part of everyone’s life be it regular cooking or for special occasions. This Valentine’sthose who are looking for baking yummy cookies, cakes and other savouries now have an option of making a healthier variant of these.

This is when a Cooking Sheet comes to rescue where one can bake various types of dishes using the product. Best part is that no butter or oil is required before baking/cooking. The silicone coating sheet does not allow food to stick to the sheet and also does not affect the taste of the food. The best part, there is no need to grease the pans before baking/cooking and this makes it so convenient to use as there is no need to wash utensils after use. It is a multipurpose product as it can be used in Microwave and is Oven safe as well.

A must use for health-conscious people as by using Asahi KaseiCooking Sheet for oil free cooking, reduction in oil intake can reduce their calories intake.

The Cooking Sheet is now available in stores like Big Bazaar, Spencers, Le Marche, Foodhall in Delhi NCR, Reliance stores and many general trade stores in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kerala, Punjab and also online at Big Basket, Amazon and Flipkartat a price point of INR249/-

HCL Foundation announces 2023 HCL Grant recipients: top winners focused on tech-led teacher training, tuberculosis care and water body conservation

NOIDA, India, Feb. 27, 2023 – HCL Foundation today announced the NGOs selected for the 2023 edition of its flagship program HCL Grant – which supports pioneering work in sustainable rural development in India. HCL Foundation delivers the corporate social responsibility agenda of HCLTech.

Three NGOs—Planatearth, Innovators in Health (IIH) India and Meghshala Trust will receive ₹5 crore (appx. $620,000) each for their projects under the HCL Grant endowment. This year’s winners were chosen from submissions from more than 15,000 entities, an increase of 80% versus last year.

According to Ms. Robin Ann Abrams, Chairperson of the HCL Grant Jury and Board Member, HCLTech: “These organizations and their projects – aligned to the HCL Foundation’s core areas of focus in environment, health and education – will bring a visible and inclusive change to the ‘last mile.’ We believe their work will provide an important lifeline to rural communities by bridging inequality in healthcare, helping in freshwater conservation and more readily bringing education to underserved populations.”

In addition, six NGO finalists will receive grants of ₹25 lakh (appx. $30,000) each in the following categories:

Environment: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune (IISER); North-East Initiative Development Agency (NEIDA)

Health: MAHAN Trust, Sri Sri Rural Development Programme Trust (SSRDPT)

Education: Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan (GSSS)

HCL Foundation has funded more than ₹130 crore (appx. $16 million) to NGOs since the HCL Grant program’s onset eight years ago, reaching over 1.8 million beneficiaries in more than 25,000 villages in remote districts across 19 states and two Union Territories of India.

Dr. Nidhi Pundhir, Vice President, Global CSR, HCL Foundation, bestowed the recipients with their awards in a virtual ceremony attended by representatives of NGOs, HCL, HCLTech and the media fraternity. The ceremony was the culmination of a thorough, Grant Thornton-audited process, which earlier in the year involved a series of pan-India symposiums bringing together more than 2,000 representatives from NGOs, government and corporates.

“We are delighted at the volume of applications received for this year’s selection process. HCL Grant partners with these NGOs to strengthen their governance and help scale their innovative ideas for sustainable rural development. We look forward to working with this year’s selected NGO partners to scale innovative interventions that will supercharge progress for rural communities,” Dr. Pundhir said.

She also announced the release of the seventh volume of the compendium ‘Fifth Estate – NGOs Transforming Rural India in Environment, Health and Education,’ which chronicles the work done by past HCL Grant recipients. The book will be available in all national libraries and through international affiliates.

Planatearth was awarded HCL Grant in the environment category for its project on conservation of water bodies by cleaning plastics from oceans and invasive species like water hyacinth from ponds and backwaters. It is expected to directly benefit at least 170,000 fishermen across 45 villages in Kerala. The project aims to improve quality of water bodies along with positive impact on the livelihood of fisherfolk.

“The oceans of the world, and the coastal waters of Kerala in particular, are polluted by plastic, which seriously affects the livelihood of marine fishermen. The HCL Grant is the only way we could realize our goals of helping the rural fishermen of Kerala and conserving the planet,” said Sooraj Abraham, Founder, Planatearth.

Innovators in Health (IIH) India received the HCL Grant in the health category for a project on universal tuberculosis care in rural Bihar. The project aims to reduce tuberculosis burden through enabling public health system, improving diagnostics and treatment outcomes. It will reach out to more than 10,500 households in 1,260 villages in the Samastipur district of Bihar.

“I am deeply humbled by HCL Foundation’s trust in us. This grant will help us extend the services we are already providing to a wider audience and community and make Samastipur a unique district in tuberculosis care in India,” said Dr Manish Kumar, CEO, Innovators in Health (IIH) India.

Meghshala was awarded the HCL Grant in the education category for a project on technology-enabled teacher capacity building, with focus on local languages. It will directly benefit 2,700 primary and secondary teachers of government schools and 63,000 students from Grades 1-8 in 460 villages of Sikkim. The project will help in promoting digital literacy and encouraging the use of local languages among younger generation.

“We continue to keep languages at the center of all our development work and HCL Grant’s support will help us extend our services to more classrooms across the nation, especially those that teach local languages, where our intervention is most required,” said Jyoti Thyagarajan, Founder and CEO, Meghshala Trust.

Recipient NGOs were selected after screening and review of applications by an eminent jury, monitored and audited by HCL Grant governance partner Grant Thornton. Jury members include: Ms. Robin Ann Abrams, Chairperson of the Jury, Board Member, HCLTech; Mr. Suresh Narayanan, Chairman and Managing Director, Nestle India Limited; Mr. B. S. Baswan, Former Director, Indian Institute of Public Administration and Former Secretary, Human Resource Development Ministry; Ms. Pallavi Shroff, Managing Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co; Dr. Richard Lariviere, Sanskrit Scholar & President Emeritus, Field Museum (Chicago); and Mr. Shiv Nadar, Founder, HCL Group and Chairman Emeritus, HCLTech.

Explorex Partners With MSwipe to Streamline Payment Solutions to Its Partner Restaurants

Bengaluru, February 27, 2023: Explorex, a restaurant focused full-stack SAAS fintech start-up, has partnered with MSwipe, to facilitate streamlined payment solutions to their partner restaurants. This partnership will help the company in delivering one of its key USPs, which is auto settlement of tables and elimination of night audits. This helps in bringing a huge amount of relief to the restaurant staff because manual audits consume 2-3 hours of the staff’s time everyday post the restaurant closing operations for that day.

Explorex looks at disrupting the restaurant industry with its full-stack solution while also aiming at empowering business owners to nurture their dreams with care. Explorex does not only build software tools but also dedicates itself to creating an ecosystem for the restaurant industry that has never existed before. The company wants to empower restaurants to drive operational, financial and customer excellence to redefine the restaurant experience. The company has assisted more than 300 restaurants across India.

Sharing thoughts on the partnership with MSwipe, Mr. Mainak Sarkar, Co-Founder & CEO, Explorex, said, “At Explorex, our vision is to provide a holistic range of services to our clients, which will act as a one-stop solution to all their requirements. We understand the gap that is present in the larger hospitality industry and we try to integrate our software in a way that would help our clients streamline operations, making them hassle-free. In the two years of service, we have partnered with several restaurants across India. Our partnership with MSwipe is another step towards our goal, where we aim to make payment processes more swift and easy.”

Speaking about the partnership with Explorex, Mr. Ketan Patel, CEO, MSwipe, said, “Explorex is not just a software company, it believes in building products with empathy, just like us. Hence, the vision alignment process between both companies was super smooth. Streamlining an industry that has been operating with age-old methods is a huge task and the innovations that they have done for the restaurant industry are nothing short of spectacular. Building tools to eliminate night audits & auto settlement of tables is something no one in the industry is currently doing & we are happy to play a part in it. We believe in their vision and product as they are very unique, different from the market and new.”

NAR-INDIA projects to attain Business worth INR 1000 crore through its 15th Annual Real Estate Convention at Coimbatore with 2000 realtors from Across the country.

Hyderabad, 27th February 2023: NAR-India [National Association of Realtors India], India’s largest association for realtors has announced the 15th edition of its Annual Convention NARVIGATE 2023, to be held at Coimbatore in March this year. The Convention is a two-day event with 2000 + industry stakeholders.

The convention is named “NARVIGATE 11* 76*” based on the location coordinates of the city & PSG Convention Centre where it will be hosted by the Coimbatore Association of Realtors (COAREA). The event is held to showcase the available opportunity in different parts of the country in various aspects of real estate to all the stakeholders, thereby contributing to India’s goals of becoming a $ 10 trillion economy. Industry stalwarts will gather to discuss current and future trends in the Indian Real estate sector. The Convention is a much-awaited event and magnum opus for the real estate industry from India and abroad.

Going by past year events, NARVIGATE 2023 will bring together dignitaries from the Government, regulatory bodies and real estate sector. Realtors, developers, investors and financial institutions from India and around the world will network, learn and forge valuable business relationships. A special step to that end will be the 18-18-18 digitization initiative , under which on 18th March at 18:18 hours, under a single NAR-India mandate 2000 + brokers, builders and bankers will come on-board a common technology platform to list, showcase and transact real estate under their own unique brands.

President-Elect Mr.C.R. Shiva Kumar has an ambitious vision to leverage state-of-the-art technology to create a level playing field for every NAR-INDIA Realtor with their own brand, tech, and network to compete with the latest and best in real estate and proptech. This 18:18:18 digitization initiative will be available for free over the next 12 months for all the convention attendees and will be facilitated by Arun.C.R, member COAREA.

In partnership with NAR-India, COAREA is hosting the event with Casagrand as title sponsor and GRD School of Business, Coimbatore as a knowledge partner. Also, in presence would be, keynote speakers including industry stalwarts like, (M.N. Arun, Dr Sumit Chowdhury, Pushyamitra Bhargav (Hon. Mayor Indore City), Sudharsan Lodha, P.C. Mustafa, Sumit Jain, Shalini Saraswathi, Sridhar Vembu, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and many others)

Speaking about the Event the President-Elect, of NAR India, Mr. C.R Shiva Kumar said, “Real estate brokerage has always been a profession that enables every home buyer, every industrialist, every institution, every investor to achieve their very own dream, to professionalize this industry and make it a knowledge-based service to the people will be NAR-INDIA’s objective this year.”

From MUN to Manchester: Oakridgers Got It All Covered!

Hyderabad, 27th February 2023: Oakridge International School, Bachupally is proud to recognize its students as future leaders for their exceptional achievements on the national and global stage. These talented students have demonstrated excellence in various fields, including academics, arts, and community service. Due to their outstanding academic achievements and potential for future success, these Oakridgers from Grade 12 have now made it to some of the most prestigious universities around the world.

In addition, Oakridge like Ananya Jain (grade 12 student) have also excelled at the national level in JEE mains. She secured an impressive 95 percentile in JEE Mains while also serving as the Academic Head of her school and a member of the prefect council. She credits her success to the constant support of her teachers and the Oakridge community, which has made her journey to college admission a much easier one.

Dwihitha, another Oakridge student, is a talented artist, an accomplished MUN and UNICEF volunteer, and a born leader. Her skills and passion for change have earned her honorable mentions and outstanding delegate awards at MUN events, and her volunteering at UNICEF inspired her to pursue a career in law. With numerous dance competition wins and even a throwball tournament victory under her belt, Dwihitha credits her success to the incredible support of her school, teachers, and parents.

Dwihitha University Offers: The University of Manchester | University of Leeds

“My journey to becoming who I am today started at Oakridge, 7 years ago. The school encouraged my ambitions from 6th grade,” says Simran, an avid debater, TEDx speaker, and community service provider. She had offers from various universities with scholarships ranging from 28000 USD/year. With her passion for international relations and dedication, she makes a difference. She thanks Oakridge for encouraging her ambitions from a young age, allowing her to become the Perfect Head in the 12th grade.

Simran University Offers: University of San Francisco | Ohio University | University of Texas | Drake University | Bryant University | U Mass Amherst

Vaishnavi, with her passion for public speaking and debate, has been a natural leader since her primary years. She recently served as the event organizer for TEDx Oakridge Bachupally and has been a part of the MUN circuit and a UNICEF ambassador for over half a decade. Her segment head, Ms.Navneet, says, “Ms. Vaishnavi is a student with a flamboyant personality who, from a very young age, had a deep passion for experimenting with new endeavors.”

Vaishnavi University Offers: the University of Illinois Chicago | The University of Arizona | Indiana University Bloomington | University of Massachusetts Boston | The Ohio State University |Northeastern University

With offers from prestigious universities around the world, these students are ready to take on the world and make a difference.

Celebrating the student’s success, Ms. Baljeet Oberoi, Principal at Oakridge Bachupally, says, “Proud to see our students recognized and placed at top universities, these students are a shining example of an Oakridger who embodies our mission to inspire and equip the next generation for the future.”

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