News Roundup: 10 Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [28 Sept – 03 October]

This week, the  government  finally announced the names of the four people who will be ambassadors for the Digital India campaign. These included Ankit Fadia, Krati Tiwari, Satwat Jagwani and Pranav Mistry. The four will be responsible for creating mass awareness about the program.

Let’s Have A Look At The Important Developments Of The Week:

FreeCharge Wallet Crosses 1 Mn Users Within A Week Of Customer Rollout

The milestone reached by FreeCharge is not just fastest for wallets, but for any digital product.

Quikr Launches QuikrJobs

The new vertical of Quikr will caters to the blue-collar and entry level white-collar job seekers. With QuikrJobs the company aims at bridging the gap between job seekers and recruiters in India.

Goibibo Ventures Into Budget Accommodation Space

Goibibo launched GoStays, a budget accommodation marketplace. It aims to partner with the property owners to deliver a consistent experience.

Shopo Launches Peer To Peer Chat & Vernacular Content

Shopo’s peer to peer (P2P) chat feature allows buyers on Shopo to chat and exchange views, product images with their social groups and friend lists for quick shopping. Besides, Shopo is also piloting its vernacular content in Hindi.

Maharashtra Govt Proposes To Bring Cab Aggregators Under Motor Vehicles Act

In a bid to create a level playing field for black and-yellow taxis, fleet taxis and aggregator cabs, the Maharashtra state government proposed that online cab aggregators should be brought under the ambit of the Motor Vehicles Act.

Tyroo Launches One API To Maximize Revenues For App Publishers

Tyroo’s One API is a next generation mobile CPI (Cost Per Install) performance platform targeted at app developers and publishers around the world.

Online Automobile Marketplace Droom Launches C2B Marketplace

Droom launched India’s first C2B (Consumer to Business) marketplace named QuickSell. QuickSell will enable consumers sell their used vehicles to auto dealers for quick turnaround of the transaction.

Police Verification Might Become Mandatory For Startup Recruits And IT Firms In Bangalore

In order to keep a check on terrorist activities, the Bangalore police might make it mandatory for new recruits of startups and IT firms to undergo a background check.

Ola Opens Up Its API To Leading Brands

Ola announced the public release of its API, allowing major mobile applications as well as individual developers, to integrate Ola’s offering onto their platforms.

Let’s have a look at the other developments of the week

A Dupes Flipkart For INR 20 Lakh By Using Its Return Policy

Veera Swamy, an individual based out of Andhra found a loophole in the return policy of Flipkart. He tricked Flipkart for over 20 months using its return policy which ended company losing over INR 20 Lakh.

ZO Rooms Adds 3 Star Hotels Under Its Offering With 500 Zo Prime Rooms

ZO Rooms launched ZO Prime, a premium offering in the category of 3 star hotels across India. With this the company also plans to launch multiple categories like ZO Apartment, ZO Homes and ZO Star.

Snapdeal Launches SD Advisor Program

Snapdeal’s SD Advisor Program for its seller community aims at enhancing the level of engagement and hand holding for sellers on the marketplace.

Cloud-Based Software For Spas, ManageMySpa, Rebrands As Zenoti

ManageMySpa, the one stop solution, cloud-based software for salons, spas and medi-spas rebranded itself as Zenoti to reflect a broadened service offering.

Pakistani Hackers Attack Kerala Govt Website

The Kerala Government website, kerala.gov.in, was hacked by a team of “suspected Pakistan-based hackers” allegedly on Saturday night. However, Indian hacker group retaliated by hacking and defacing more than 100 Pakistani websites, including prominent government websites like pakistan.gov.pk, president.gov.pk, presidentofpakistan.gov.pk, railways.gov.pk and cabinet.gov.pk

AirAsia To Foray Into Ecommerce, Claims To Be An Internet Company

Low-cost carrier AirAsia is forming an ecommerce arm, whose core areas would include online shopping and social gaming.

IndusInd Bank Goes Social

IndusInd Bank launched “Onthego”, a social banking feature, which will allow customers to make transactions through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Abhibus Launches Wallet Service “Abhicash”

Abhicash will provide easy, fast and practical way to manage cashbacks, cancellations and booking refunds with Abhibus.

The Madras Chamber Of Commerce Launches SEE In The State

The Madras Chamber of Commerce (MCCI) launched SEE (Startup Entrepreneurial Ecosystem) to mentor and provide an ecosystem for startup companies.

IAMAI Teams Up With Google India & Paytm To Boost App Development In India

Aiming to bring capability and quality in app developers, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), launched Mobile10X to scale up mobile app developer ecosystem.

There Will Be Multiple $10 Bn Startups Started In India, Says Y Combinator’s Sam Altman

Sam Altman, President of the US-based startup accelerator YCombinator, foresees India spawning multiple $10 Bn startups in the next five years. Altman will be himself visiting India this year to meet startup founders, and scout for the ones to be funded by the YC programme.

Artificial Intelligence To Power Next-Gen Fashion At Myntra

Myntra introduced Artie, a smart bot that leverages Artificial Intelligence and big data analytics to forecast fashion trends, a move that will significantly shorten the fashion production life cycle.

Flipkart rolls out Turbo Charge Campaign for Sellers

Flipkart’s national Campaign is aimed at equipping sellers to tackle the increase in customer demands during the upcoming festive season.

Furlenco To Deliver Furniture Within Six hours

Furlenco launched the Phat-a-Phat campaign to deliver furniture within 6 hours or less for the first time in India. The offer is open to customers in Bengaluru from October 2nd to 4th.

ShopClues Ropes In Ex-PayU India Director Of Engineering, Gyanesh Sharma

ShopClues appointed Gyanesh Sharma as its AVP – Engineering to spearhead the technology team and develop robust cloud-based ecommerce operating platform to empower ShopClues sellers in increasing their business outreach and volume and delivers augmented value to customers.

Mumbai City FC Partners With Haptik As Their Official Personal

Mumbai City FC has partnered with Haptik Inc to provide on the go information and further engage with it’s fan base across the country for the upcoming second season of the Indian Super League.

FabFurnish Appoints Nimit Kumar as CTO

Nimit Kumar will be responsible for leading technology innovation and expanding FabFurnish’s service and product portfolio to support key industry trends.

Merchants Can Now Verify Themselves On Lookup With One Missed Call!

Lookup, a free and secure messaging app that connects shoppers with local businesses has a vendor assistance helpline through which businesses can get verified and assist them to scale faster.

IndianRoots launches exclusive FabIndia collection

IndianRoots announced its partnership with Fabindia to serve satiate fashion demands of Indians abroad.

HackerRank Hires Former Facebook & Google Exec

Grady Burnett has joined HackerRank as its president and chief operating officer. As HackerRank continues to streamline tech recruiting and build a meritocratic platform to unearth global talent, Burnett’s experience in leading strategic operations and sales will be critical.