XUV400 – Mahindra’s first e-SUV is truly Sustainable

Bangalore, 20 April 2023: At the beginning of its journey, the XUV400, Mahindra & Mahindra’s (M&M) first electric SUV, has crossed a very significant environmental milestone. The all-new e-SUV is produced in a 100% water-positive facility in Nashik, Maharashtra, using only renewable energy.

The energy saved in the making of these vehicles can illuminate more than 1000 homes for a year and is equivalent to the planting of 1 lakh trees. The water-positive manufacturing set-up saves more than 20,000 kilolitres of water and can provide water for 100 homes in a year.

Speaking on the achievement, Mr. Veejay Nakra, President, Automotive Division, M&M Ltd. says, “Manufacturing an environment-friendly vehicle is just one step of a modern automotive company’s climate action journey; a more holistic approach is to manufacture that planet-friendly vehicle in the most sustainable manner possible and we’ve managed to do that with our XUV400.”

The XUV400 is already the fastest booked electric SUV in India which saw 15000 bookings in just 3 days. Mahindra also announced that by 2027, between 20 to 30 percent of its passenger vehicles will be electric.

•  Mahindra group is entirely water positive
•  M&M is also the first Indian ‘automobile & components’ company to be included in the world index of Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for the 2nd consecutive year in 2022.
•  It is also the first Indian organization to sign EP100 and adopt a carbon pricing model.
•  Mahindra Ag North America’s (MAgNA) Houston facilities switched to 100% renewable energy recently.
•  M&M is featured in CDP ‘A’ list for climate & water for the years 2020 and 2021.

Chaayos Launches Chai Frappe, a Refreshing Twist on the Classic Milk Tea

New Delhi, 20 April 2023: Chaayos, India’s largest and most loved chai cafe chain, has recently introduced a new summer beverage called the Chai Frappe, with an equally unique and refreshing campaign #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai. This refreshing Chai Frappe boasts a rare fusion of the kick of chai and the cool and creamy goodness of frappe, challenging the preconceived notion that chai should only be served hot. Urging people to think beyond their limitations, the #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai campaign celebrates creativity and innovation by challenging stereotypes, with an unconventional twist on what to expect at Chaayos.

Known for its innovative and unique tea offerings that cater to the taste buds of tea lovers across India, Chaayos has yet again demonstrated its commitment to pushing the boundaries of the traditional tea category with the launch of Chai Frappe. The Chai Frappe is an inventive twist on the classic chai, providing a refreshing and indulgent experience that is perfect for beating the heat. Chai Frappe is available in 3 refreshing flavors – Caramel, Dark chocolate, and Magic spice.

The launch campaign showcases the beauty of the unexpected through a simple yet powerful tagline #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai, urging people to let go of their biases and open themselves up to new possibilities. Through its vibrant visuals and catchy tagline, #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai is a reminder that the world is full of endless possibilities and that we should never be afraid to step out of our comfort zone and experience the extraordinary.

Exploring unexpected moments of magic, #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai features two short films as well as a series of engagements through a digital-led campaign. In the first film, we show two girls having a conversation at Chaayos, where one girl is snacking and the other one is having her Chai Frappe. Suddenly, one of them spots three monks performing Tai Chi inside the café holding chai cups. The girl excitedly calls out Chaayos mein ‘Tai-Chai’ ho raha hai! The conversation leads to the discovery of Chai Frappe and the realization if Chai and Frappe can happen, then a Tai Chi class in a Chaayos café can also happen. The second film shows an Astronaut standing in line for his cup of Chai at Chaayos. He is seemingly looking out of place in his spacesuit. As one on-looker gawks at the situation, his friend tells him anything is possible, including the unbelievable combination of Chai and Frappe, emphasizing that #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai.

The Co-founder of Chaayos, Mr. Nitin Saluja said, “We at Chaayos are thrilled to launch our newest product, the Chai Frappe, and our #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai campaign. This campaign aims to break free from the traditional stereotypes that limit our thinking and encourages everyone to explore new horizons. Through #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai, Chaayos hopes to inspire its customers to challenge conventional thinking about chai and embrace new possibilities. The Chai Frappe is a perfect embodiment of this philosophy – a refreshing summer drink that blends two seemingly disparate elements to create something truly unique. The Chai Frappe is a testament to the brand’s commitment to innovation and excellence, and we believe it will be a refreshing treat for tea lovers this summer.”

The creative campaign has been designed by Wondrlab India. The digital-led campaign includes two short films as well as multiple promotional and teaser campaigns that build on the element of surprise and possibilities.

Amit Akali, Co-founder, and Chief Creative Officer, and Mandar Sawant, Content Director of the Content Platform, Wondrlab said – “The thrill started when we first tasted Chai Frappe ourselves and it totally amazed us. We wanted to create something as refreshing as the product itself, keeping the unique tone of voice of the brand Chaayos that’s relatable and quirky at the same time. Our main campaign thought ‘Aisa Bhi Ho Sakta Hai’ allowed our imagination to go crazy and turn situations like monks performing ‘Tai Chai’ and an Astronaut landing at Chaayos into a reality.”

Rishabh Dubey, Director of these films, adds – “It was exciting to bring to life the whacky idea of characters like astronauts and monks inside the Chaayos cafe. It was also challenging to make them look as real as the drink, Chai Frappe itself.”

As an extension of the campaign, Chaayos has collaborated with several Indian brands including Sugar Cosmetics, My Glamm, Colorbar, The Hosteller, EazyDiner, Spotify, Bharat Matrimony, Walgreens, and more, encouraging them to showcase their own #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai moments in their product offerings. An influencer campaign has also been launched, sharing their real-life #AisaBhiHoSaktaHai moments, which they never thought were possible but made it happen.

EV startups encouraging made-in-India vehicles in 2023

20 Apr 2023  India has seen an ascent in the interest in electric two-wheelers lately, primarily because of rising fuel costs and increased ecological mindfulness among customers. This year saw regulatory advances to encourage EVs and provide mechanisms for battery swapping. EVs are playing an important role in reducing pollution & promoting sustainable growth in the sector. As India strives for a greener future, the automobile sector has shifted towards (EVs). As a result of this transformation, numerous Indian EV firms are promoting sustainable mobility. Taking the charge, to make an eco-friendly planet, are some of the young startups. They’re reshaping the EV industry with their innovative products & manufacturing them in India. Below is the list of top EV startups to look out for in 2023.

1. RunR Mobility: RunR Mobility, an electric two-wheeler startup, was established in Gujarat in 2021. Supported by the solid leadership of MECPower Solutions Pvt Ltd. RunR has been manufacturing 100% indigenous smart-electric scooters which support the essence of the MADE IN INDIA vehicle. The upcoming RunR HS and HS+ models with LED Lights are supposed to have a range of 100 and 140 kilometers on a solo charge. The vehicle is equipped with swappable batteries and other advanced technologies. RunR Mobility soon unveil the 100% indigenous 2-wheeler EV that’s #DesignedToSpendSmart & #StopNotAtAnything
2. Okaya EV: Okaya EV is the fastest-growing EV 2-wheeler manufacturing company in India, offering a wide selection of high-quality electric scooters at competitive prices and encouraging the production of vehicles that provide consumers with the quality and dependability of an automobile. Okaya EV fully intends to achieve its goal of making India a 100% electric vehicle-driven country. Okaya EV features a power pack and an extremely safe LFP (lithium ferro phosphate) battery, which ensures enhancements in battery safety, reliability, and performance.

Okaya electric scooters have high-standard wires & chargers with overcharging protection, thermal protection, audio-visual warning systems, and smart BMS. Scooters have an autonomy of up to 160 kilometers on a single charge and a top speed of 70 kilometers per hour.

Okaya Electric Vehicle has received ICAT certification for its electric vehicles under AIS 156 Amendment III Phase 2, which covers safety requirements for electric vehicles and includes designing, constructing, and testing the battery pack and its components to ensure they meet the safety standards set by the government.

NAREDCO Next Gen to host NCR’s first Real Estate Conclave to promote innovation and collaboration in the industry

New Delhi, 20 April 2023: NAREDCO Next Gen, the youth wing of NAREDCO, is all set to host their NCR’s first-ever Real Estate Conclave on 26th April 2023. The conclave aims to provide a platform for young real estate players to come together and discuss the future of the industry, including the role of the government, banks, financial institutions, and other stakeholders.

Besides, Naredco Next Gen is set to honor distinguished real estate leaders from different categories within the industry, who have not only made significant contributions to the Indian economy but have also positively impacted their respective communities.

According to Mr. Jay Morzaria, President of NAREDCO Next Gen, “Our mission is to create an environment where young professionals in the real estate sector can share experiences, harness their skills, and bring about lasting change. We believe that by bringing together the best and brightest in the industry, we can drive innovation and progress.”

He emphasized the need for stronger collaboration between various stakeholders. ”The renewed partnerships and collaborations at the Conclave will ensure a bright future for the sector, and the NextGen youth wing is committed to making that happen”

One of the major topics at the conclave will be New Construction Technologies, which will highlight the implementation of construction software and innovative construction technologies covering all stages of construction, from project initiation to on-site activities and the complementation stage.

Another significant highlight will be a special session on NIRED (National Institute for Real Estate Development), a joint venture of Delhi RERA & NAREDCO to develop and build human resource capacity to enhance the quality and productivity of works in the Real Estate & Infrastructure Sector

Rajan Bandelkar, National President, NAREDCO, expressed that the NAREDCO NextGen’s Conclave in Delhi NCR aims to provide a platform for all the stakeholders and innovators in the real estate industry to collaborate and explore new alliances. The objective is to attract more youth to the sector and leverage their energy and innovation to drive growth.

Groundcover Launches Flora: A New eBPF Observability Agent, Outperforming Datadog By Over 3X

Tel Aviv, April 20, 2023 – Groundcover Introduces Flora, a newly released eBPF-based observability agent that was built with a strict performance mindset – promising full observability at high scales while costing next to zero overhead. Flora has dramatically outperformed all leading observability platforms as Datadog, OpenTelemetry and New Relic’s modern eBPF solution – Pixie Labs.

The conducted benchmark simulated a high-volume environment tracking a simple baseline HTTP server application for metrics of CPU and memory consumption before and after the integration of the various observability platforms in question.

Flora demonstrated minimal to zero overhead to the application’s CPU (+9%) and memory (+0%), while Datadog, OpenTelemetry, and the Pixie agent inflicted dramatic overhead of 249%, 59%, and 32% above the CPU baseline, respectively, and 227%, 27% and 9% above the memory baseline.

Additionally, under a limited CPU environment for the monitored application, the overhead added by Datadog, OpenTelemetry, and the Pixie agent was also demonstrated to significantly limit the bandwidth for the HTTP server, reducing the volume of handled requests by 71%, 19%, and 12%, respectively, compared to the measured baseline.

All other solutions but Flora raised the resource consumption of the application dramatically and in an unexpected manner, potentially causing the application to reach CPU throttling that might degrade its performance or even create an out-of-memory crash (OOM) in a limited environment.

Flora also proved to be highly efficient in the total resources it consumed, making it the most cost-effective solution at a high scale. When combining the resources consumed by the different agents tested and the overhead measured on the monitored application, Flora consumed a total CPU that was similar to the one used by OpenTelemetry and the Pixie agent, but that was 73% less than the CPU consumed by Datadog. Additionally, Flora consumed 74%, 77% and 96% less memory than Datadog, OpenTelemetry, and the Pixie agent, respectively.

One of the hardest challenges for any modern observability tool is being able to keep up with the ever-growing scale of data – delivering a comprehensive, accurate picture of a system, all while leaving a minimal footprint. With many leading observability solutions dramatically impacting the resource consumption of the applications they are in charge of monitoring – eventually limiting their performance or causing cost surges, engineers are more and more aware of the hidden overhead inflicted by their observability stack.

eBPF is on the fast track to becoming the next standard for observability platforms enabling low-friction integration and deep visibility coverage, yet existing eBPF-based approaches still have a long way to go when it comes to operating at high scale.

Flora is based on two key ideas that allow it to operate at a massively high scale. The first is the use of new, unorthodox eBPF concepts that unlock extremely low overhead data-transferring mechanisms. The second is a nearly zero-copy, memory-efficient pipeline which converts observations flowing from the kernel into meaningful outputs.

The Flora eBPF observability agent was developed by Groundcover and is generally available as part of Groundcover’s product where private users and organizations can experience it for free.

Spectrum Metro leases retail spaces to Restobars and Fashion brands

20 Apr 2023  Spectrum Metro, the high-street shopping commerce capital located in Noida Sector 75, has closed leased spaces deals with famous brands like Smaaash, Reliance Digital, Reliance Trends, Uni Applem Reseller, Toksik, and many more. Spectrum Metro is also coming up with many national and international brands in the coming months that are sure to attract people in the close vicinity and NCR.

Spectrum Metro has also onboarded popular chains of Restobars, cafes, and popular chain of eateries. high-street commercial hub has leased 3620 sq. ft. of space to Break-in Brew, 1115 sq. ft. to Bar Rosso Café, 6010 sq. ft. to BBQ Company, and 9,775 sq. ft. to Toksik. Moreover, it has also leased spaces of 25,075 sq. ft. to Smaaash, 2400 sq. ft. to Uni Apple Reseller, 6785 sq. ft. to Reliance Digital, and 10,928 sq. ft. to Reliance Trends.

The chief feature that’s attracting popular brands to Spectrum Metro is its excellent connectivity that comes with door-to-door connectivity to Aqua Line’s Sector 50 Metro Station and other major National Highways like NH 24, FNG, and Noida expressway.

“We feel proud to announce that we will welcome new brands in Spectrum Metro like Liberty, Bluestone Mia by Tanishq, Samsung, Haldiram’s, etc. over the next couple of months. Right from the beginning, we had pledged to provide our customers with an upscale retail, shopping, and dine-in experience. This is another concrete effort in bringing our promises to reality.”

Spectrum Metro, in no time, has become a lucrative center for expansion for retail brands. We observe a daily footfall of 3000 people at one of the biggest high-street commercials where people from the nearby residential township visit here for good food, a great shopping experience, and unlimited entertainment. We will soon make announcements of many new brands that would be a part of Spectrum in the future.” Quoted, Ajendra Singh, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Spectrum Metro.

BLive opens experiential EV store in Kolhapur, Maharashtra

Maharashtra, April 19, 2023: Expanding its countrywide presence to boost EV adoption, leading multi-brand EV platform BLive has opened its experiential EV store in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. It was inaugurated in the presence of Kiran Patil- Chairman, of Ghatge Patil Industries, and other dignitaries. BLive is experiencing a high EV demand across the country, and it believes this store will cater to the needs and aspirations of EV buyers in the region. The opening of this store is further aligned with the brand’s larger objective of building a greener, sustainable future by promoting 100% clean mobility adoption in India.

The exclusive store has been opened in partnership with Techno Vision and houses a range of EV options from leading brands for customers. Additionally, to encourage buyers to speed up their EV purchase decision and switch to e-mobility, the store will provide easy financing options along with exciting offers. With this, the customers will be able to purchase an EV with easy EMI options as low as Rs 2000 monthly. The store will also provide them an opportunity to exchange and upgrade their old petrol-run 2-wheelers for brand-new EVs.

Also, it will act as a one-stop, go-to destination for customers to get a hassle-free EV experience and a choice to select from well-known brands such as Gemopai, KineticGreen, Batt: RE, Hayasa, Detel, Amo, EMotorad, and Hero Lectro, among others. For holistic care of EV buyers, it will provide roadside assistance, extended warranty, easy financing options, excellent after-sales services, and many other facilities under one roof.

Commenting on the launch, Samarth Kholkar, CEO & Co-Founder, BLive said,” The launch of this store is BLive’s other step towards strengthening its footprints across the country. EVs are becoming mainstream and we believe providing a hassle-free EV experience by taking care of all of the customers’ needs under one roof will take EV adoption to new heights. We are receiving a great response which is a reflection of the high EV demand across the country. The customers have become more aware and responsible towards the environment and we believe this store will facilitate them in easily switching to clean mobility. Our high-end services, experience, and expertise being offered at the store will greatly benefit them. We are looking forward to working together with our partners to strengthen our India presence and make EVs accessible and affordable for all.”

BLive, which is a digital-first, multi-brand EV store has bolstered its presence with 20 stores across India, and with this launch, it has come one step closer to its goal of having 100 EV stores by 2024. The brand will soon expand its reach to newer locations to drive EV adoption, accelerate decarbonization,
and build a sustainable future.