Aviva Life Insurance today said it has appointed Prashant Sharma as its Chief Investment Officer (CIO).
With over 15 years of fund management experience, Sharma was earlier the head of equity and CIO at Max Life Insurance, Aviva Life said in a release.
"We are delighted to have Prashant on board. His vast experience in the insurance industry and fund management will be a great asset for us", said Trevor Bull, MD & CEO, Aviva India.
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Housing.Com adds feature to provide construction update * Realty portal Housing.Com has introduced a new feature on its platform to give construction updates and legal approvals for the residential projects being developed in major cities across the country.
In a statement, Housing.Com said it has introduced 'construction update' feature that would provide homebuyers the complete timeline of a project under construction.
"The feature will also allow them to track the status of all the necessary legal approvals required for the timely completion of a project," it added.
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Idea launches 4G in Maharashtra and Goa * Idea Cellular today launched 4G services in Maharashtra and Goa, expanding its footprint to 300 towns across 10 telecom circles in the country.
Idea, which is the third largest mobile operator, aims to exit FY16 with nearly 550 towns and targets to cover 750 towns with 4G LTE services by June 2016 in these 10 telecom circles, it said in a statement.
"Beginning December 23, we rapidly expanded our 4G LTE services in these 10 markets in a record time frame of just 3 months. We have revised our capex guidance for FY16 from Rs 65 billion to Rs 75 billion mainly on account of accelerated 4G capex and associated fiber rollout," Ambrish Jain, Deputy Managing Director, Idea Cellular said.
HCL Care rolls out experience service centres for Xiaomi
* HCL Care, a unit of HCL Infosystems, today said it has rolled out 37 exclusive Experience Service Centres (ESCs) for Chinese handset company Xiaomi.
HCL Care Services has commissioned 37 ESCs out of the scheduled 40 within 5 months and has deployed almost a workforce of 250 at these Xiaomi ESCs, HCL said in a statement.
Within the next two years, these centres are expected to be able to handle a load of above 43,000 calls, it added.
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BankBazaar appoints ex-Microsoft exec Murari Sridharan as CTO * BankBazaar.Com today said it has appointed Murari Sridharan as its Chief Technology Officer.
Sridharan was previously the GM, Engineering at Microsoft.
Based in Chennai, Murari will lead the technology initiatives pioneered by BankBazaar.Com, the company said in a statement.
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Capital Float introduces schemes for women entrepreneurs * Capital Float, a digital lending platform, today launched a new programme specifically for women entrepreneurs across India.
The move is aimed at encouraging and driving women entrepreneurship in India. The programme is currently active and is scheduled to run till March 31, it added.
According to a Nasscom report, only nine per cent of India's over 4,200 start-ups have been founded by women.
As a part of this initiative, woman entrepreneurs can apply for collateral-free working capital with zero processing fees, with a turnaround time of two days for loan approval. The interest rate for borrowing across their products has also been slashed to 16 per cent, it said.
Penguin Random House partners Tinder to promote book reading
* Publishing house Penguin Random House has partnered dating app Tinder to promote book reading and literature.
It has set up Tinder Nook at Spring Fever 2016, started today in New Delhi, and Tinder users will be invited to explore Penguin's open library where they can browse through a wide range of books, discover new authors, explore different genres and follow a recommendation by a fellow invitee via Tinder, the publishing house said in a statement.
"...We hope this association will extend to readers finding their interests in books and discovering new authors and meeting fellow book lovers," Penguin India Senior Vice President and Publisher (Children) Hemali Sodhi said.
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* Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company (KMAMC) has launched a campaign to urging the countrymen to start investing in mutual funds as a prudent fiscal practice.
Under its investor education initiative, KMAMC aims at reaching out to working professionals who have sufficient disposable income, but are apprehensive about market cycles and its pitfalls, a company statement said.
Through campaign, Kotak Mutual Fund addresses risk-averse investors' common misconceptions about mutual fund investments, it said.
The campaign aims to instill confidence in investors' minds in mutual funds in general, and SIPs in particular as the simplest way to invest, while looking to inculcate a consistent and disciplined approach to investments, it added.
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Liberty Videocon GI launches online health insurance * Liberty Videocon General Insurance Company today said it has launched its health insurance product Liberty Health Connect on an online platform.
After a strong response to its flagship health insurance product-Health Connect Policy-all across Indian markets since its launch in December 2014, the company has now introduced this product online to cater to a wider basket of customers.
The product aims at reducing the financial burden incurred by customers during a medical exigency thereby letting them concentrates on their recovery and well-being. This is a comprehensive health insurance product, which provides wide coverage with minimal exclusions and sub limits.
French firm Groupe SEB eyes 20% growth in revenue
* French home appliances major Groupe SEB along with its brand Maharaja Whiteline is aiming for a 20 per cent growth in sales revenue this year from Delhi/NCR market.
SEB India, which has doubled its distribution base in the region in the last one year has witnessed 62 per cent growth sales in the region during the period.
"The region has seen an exponential growth in terms of overall sales and distribution in the past 1-2 years. North India is definitely our strongest base and Delhi being the capital city, is all the more important for us in terms of revenue augmentation," said Groupe SEB India CEO Sunil Wadhwa.
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AIPIA organises meet on plastic industries * The All India Plastics Industries Association (AIPIA) in association with Dubai-based Verifair is organising a four day international meet on plastic industries here.
The show which is supported by the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) would be held from April 5, 2016 in the capital.
Around 25 global firms from China, Iran, Saudia Arabia, Korea are expected to participate in it.
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Idea's music concert in Delhi tomorrow
* Idea Cellular today said its music concert 'Idea Jalsa - Music for the Soul' will take place in Delhi tomorrow.
The 12-city concert tour commenced from Chennai on February 5, 2016 and will now travel to Ambala and Pune with the finale in Bengaluru on March 26, 2016.
The 'Idea Jalsa' platform has already presented more than 7,000 musicians across genres. "A proud achievement for Idea Jalsa this year, is the support that the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has extended," the company said in a statement.
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TCS ranked number 1 for customer satisfaction * Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been ranked number one for customer satisfaction in Europe's largest survey of service provider performance.
This is the third consecutive year that the company has topped the customer satisfaction ranking for the IT services industry, with TCS also being rated number one across all nine individual key performance indicators (KPIs), TCS said in a statement today.
Conducted across 13 countries in Europe, the study is based on the experiences of more than 1,500 business leaders (CIOs, CEOs, CFOs or their direct reports), who oversee 4,500 IT services contracts with a combined annual total contract value of over 40 billion Euros.
