News Roundup: 10 Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week [23 November-28 November]

Ringo Goes Local

After revolutionising the international calling space, Ringo introduced local calling service in India priced at 19 paisa/minute. This will enable users to call without an internet connection.

Important Developments Of The Week

Quikr Forays Into Entertainment Industry

The company has signed an MoU with film maker, Vivek Bohra and casting director Aadore Mukherjee. With this partnership, Quikr plans to build a platform that will bring actors, casting directors, production houses and other segments together at one common platform.

Inshorts Goes Vernacular

Inshorts has moved into  vernacular mobile market by launching an interface in Hindi. It also plans to expand in other regional languages like Marathi, Kannada and Tamil by the mid of 2016.

CAIT Launches Ecommerce Portal E-Lala

To combat head on head with venture funded ecommerce marketplace players, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) decided to launch its own hyperlocal ecommerce venture called “e-lala”.

Ola Partners With Haptik

Now Ola users will be able to book cab through instant messaging on the Haptik mobile app. The 500,000 users of Haptik in 102 cities, where Ola is currently functional, can avail the service.

FoodPanda Ties Up With IRCTC

FoodPanda has tied up with IRCTC to offer meals to rail passengers. The order needs to be pre-booked and  the passengers need to place their orders at-least two hours prior to their journey.

Snapdeal’s App Rating Plummets

On account of Snapdeal’s brand ambassador Aamir Khan’s political statement on the growing intolerance in the country, the company felt repercussions by witnessing its app getting one star ratings in play store. Also, the company saw a number of  app uninstallation of  as a result of disapproval over the actor’s remarks.

Snapdeal Unveils Professional Services Panel For Its Seller Community

Snapdeal launched ‘Professional Services Panel’ on its site to provide an instant access to services like tax registration, photography, cataloguing, business consulting and outsourcing support from verified service providers to Snapdeal sellers.

Facebook Launches Free Basics In India

Facebook successfully launched it’s free internet service Free Basics (Internet.org) on the Reliance network in India. People will have access to the information and opportunity the internet brings in health, education, jobs and communication space.

Housing Dissolves Operating Committee Set Up By Investors

Housing has dissolved the operating committee set up by investors to oversee management. The committee was established after the trouble started at the company with CEO, Rahul Yadav, tendering his resignation from the company.

Other Developments Of The Week

Roadrunnr’s Runners Cause Ruckus Over Salary

Protesting against the revised salary over 100 delivery boys were reported creating ruckus and damaging office furniture in Bangalore. However, the company’s founder clarified that it was not the delivery boys, but the result of company’s stifle with several agencies who are facing high attrition due to Roadrunnr’s compensation policy.

Inshorts Launches Insiders

Content distributor app Inshorts launched Insiders, an exclusive community for the ‘power users’ of the application. Members of Insiders will get a first-hand experience of all new features that Inshorts will develop in the future.

Naaptol To Launch Regional Language TV Channels

Naaptol is planning to increase the number of fulfillment centres and launch a slew of regional language channels for its consumers.

Bus Pooling Startup Trevo Shuts

After operating for barely a month, bus aggregation startup Trevo has shut down.

Spencer Retail To Foray Into Grocery E-tail

Spencer will test water in the grocery ecommerce space and plans a limited test launch by this fiscal end.

Snapdeal To Launch Image Search Feature

In a bid to enhance user experience on its portal and bridge the gap between online and offline shopping, Snapdeal will launch SnapSearch. SnapSearch will allow users to click a picture of something they like, upload it on the website and then browse through similar products available on the platform.

ZeptoLab to Partner With Gamesbond

Mauj Mobile-leading mobile media company announced the mobile gaming distribution partnership with ZeptoLab. With an aim to enhance the presence in the Indian gaming community, ZeptoLab will now host its portfolio of games on the newly launched premium gaming platform Gamesbond.

Practo Launches Practo Ray

Practo announced the launch of Practo Ray with specialty specific modules for Physicians, Paediatricians and Dentists. Over the next few months, Practo Ray will cover more specialties including Ophthalmology and Gynaecology.

RightNow Digital Launches Cricket & Social Media App

Named as Rohit Sharma Cricket News, the app will be a one-stop-shop, featuring comprehensive news & social media updates on Indian cricket. It will curate all relevant, authoritative & trustworthy news and social media sources including articles from e-papers, social media posts, blogs, videos from platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

HeyBiz Partners With OYO Rooms

The association will empower HeyBiz users to find suitable rooms, and avail exclusive discount from OYO Rooms on their booking.

Localoye Announces Life  Insurance Cover Service Partners

Localoye will provide life Insurance cover worth INR 2 Lakhs to its top 100 service partners. The startup in the first phase will look at insuring top performing service partners from three categories i.e. electricians, plumbers and carpenters across Mumbai, Bangalore and NCR.

OYO Rooms Signs MoU With Tourism & Hospitality Skill Council

Tourism and Hospitality Skill Council (THSC) has selected nearly 3 lakh workers of OYO rooms across 150 cities to train and certify hospitality, in next three years. The two will exchange an MoU on November 26^th at the National Conference on Skill Development.

PayUmoney Hits Another Milestone

PayUmoney has crossed the benchmark of over one lakh merchant base. This has made the company as the most accepted online payment solution in the country.

CredR Launches ‘Loan-on-Bikes’ Facility

Announcing a unique bike loan facility for its customers, CredR will assist customers in making a purchase at zero down payment and subsequently pay through equated monthly installments. To provide complete assistance to customers, CredR has tied up with banks, aggregators and NBFCs to make loan facility available for all customers.

CommonFloor Introduces GIS Technology In Real Estate Sector

CommonFloor’s Geographic Information System (GIS) highlights key trends witnessed in real estate market across the cities. GIS refers to a number of different technologies, processes and methods. GIS along with location intelligence applications can be the foundation for many location-enabled services that rely on analysis and visualisation real estate world.

Now Book Kolkata’s ‘No Refusal’ AC taxis on Meru Cabs App!

Meru Cabs has tied up with local city taxis in Kolkata. Meru will act as a booking facilitator for local taxi segment through this partnership. Also, Kolkata’s local taxis using Meru’s platform will follow state regulated fares and customers will be charged over the fare displayed on the meter.

FreeCharge Wallet Achieves New Milestone

FreeCharge Wallet crossed 10 million registered active users in 60 days. FreeCharge Wallet version 2 was introduced a few weeks back with a major upgrade in UI and customer experience. With the new feature, FreeCharge customers are able to complete a transaction within 10 seconds with 99% plus success rate.

Paytm Ties Up With Lendingkart

To provide easy access to finance for sellers, Paytm has announced its partnership with Lendingkart, a leading online platform for credit evaluation for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), offering collateral free business loans to SMEs. The initiative is a part of Paytm’s commitment to provide easy access to finance for merchants and SMEs.