Last week, the Global Nagpur Summit was hosted by Nagpur First at Chitnavis Centre on December 22. The events focused on four sections of Nagpur’s startup ecosystem — women entrepreneurs, social startups, tech startups and taking the startups to an international forum.

The event hosted some eminent speakers like Tang Guocai, Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Mumbai; Anand Sancheti, managing director of SMS Limited; Jalen He, chief architect of Kavout Corporation and Dr Alex Li, Alibaba Cloud – GM, Alibaba Cloud South Asia.

Nagpur First, which was founded in 2006, is a group of stakeholders that want to be a catalyst towards making Nagpur a global city by 2020.

As we step into a new week, here’s a list of upcoming events:

Mixer By Inc42

Mixer is Inc42’s signature #NoAgenda event, which allows important minds of the Indian startup ecosystem to come together and network. With the Mixer, Inc42 aims to bring together enablers and contributors to the Indian startup ecosystem, hoping for interesting collaborations and innovations in the future. Mixer is a relaxed evening to know each other better and catch up on what’s happening around them.

No appointments needed, Mixer by Inc42 is a platform that allows entrepreneurs, investors and founders to catch up with each other over great food and cocktails. The event is supported by annual partners—NetApp, AWS, Paytm, Times Internet and HSBC—the event will be held on January 9.

Who Should Attend: Startup founders, entrepreneurs, investors, work
Date: January 9, 2020
Venue: Delhi

Pulse42 By Inc42

Begin the new year with Inc42’e signature tech party Pulse42. This relaxing evening will connect the investor community and startups in an informal setting. Pulse42 is all about getting conversations going among stakeholders with a no-agenda approach. For 2020, Pulse42 is bringing ‘The Pulse of Tech’ outside monotonous meeting rooms in India’s startup capital, Bengaluru. The event is supported by annual partners—Times Internet, AWS, Paytm, HSBC and NetApp Excellerator, the party to bid adieu to the decade-gone-by is on January 23, 2020, at The Bier Library, Koramangala, Bengaluru.

Until last year, Pulse42 had been a closed-door event for the attendees, but with the ever-growing community and after doing 10 editions of Pulse42 and engaging over 1000 founders, investors and ecosystem enablers, it was time to give more people a chance to experience the same.

Who Should Attend: Investors, Startup founders
Date: January 23, 2020
Venue: The Bier Library, Koramangala, Bengaluru

Drone Festival of India

Indian government’s flagship Startup India, in collaboration with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, is hosting the Drone Festival on January 6 and 7, 2020. The event will have keynotes and panel discussions dedicated to the drone policies of the world, the advancement of drone technology, operations, and traffic management in the drone ecosystem. Moreover, the event will also hold a session on the future of the drone industry.

The Drone Festival of India invites aviation regulators, drone manufacturers, drone service companies, drone software companies, flying training organisations and enthusiasts and consumers from both government and private enterprises.

Who Should Attend: Startups, drone manufacturers, drone service and software companies, Investors, Tech Enthusiasts, and other stakeholders
Date: January 6 and 7, 2020
Venue: Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi

The government of India is planning to soon launch an information portal with all official data on employment, industry, health, GST and trade.

At present, different ministries have different websites. The launch of the all-in-one platform is expected to ensure easy access of data and improve transparency.

The website is aimed at sharing timely, credible and user-friendly official data through a single window. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is developing a digital repository of all official statistics in the country, called the National Integrated Information Portal (NIIP), officials aware of the development were quoted as saying by ET.

The website will reportedly on-board data from ANMOL (National Health Mission), the HRD ministry’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), corporate affairs ministry’s Corporate Data Management, labour and employment ministry’s Unified Shram Suvidha Portal and National Career Service, ICEGATE and Government e-Marketplace.

“It will have a dashboard for socio-economic indicators to monitor the health and progress of the economy on a real-time basis and suggest leads for sector-specific interventions,” officials were quoted by ET. They also added that the portal will provide a high-end platform for data analytics and to interpret socio-economic data to the Centre, states and the general public.

The NIIP is expected to ensure the credibility of data, which has often been questioned. The website also ensures a faster flow of information that can also be useful in achieving sustainable development goals.

According to the media report, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has floated a tender to hire an agency to develop the portal and to implement it in a phased manner for integrating statistical data from key ministries into the NIIP.

The MoSPI takes care of the coverage of statistics released. The ministry has two departments, one concerned with Statistics and the other takes care of programme implementation.

The integrated platform will be developed in three phases. First, the government will start by integrating all statistical activities of the MoSPI. After that, it will take up important data sets available with other departments and add them to the website.

In the third phase, data available in the states will be also be added to the NIIP. According to the plan, data will be shared with the public in a standard, unified and harmonised format.

Highlighting the success of the government’s skill development mission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off his last Mann Ki Baat radio programme this year. Urging the youth to take part in development programmes, Modi cited examples of numerous individuals who, leveraging the government’s skill development schemes, made it big from themselves as well as for the society.

Modi stressing about the success of the Himayat scheme, a government’s skill development programme running in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, said that so far 18K individuals have been trained in 77 different expertises. “The programme helped 5K individuals to get employment,” Modi was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

During his radio talk, the PM also urged individuals to enrol in skill development programmes. Further citing an example of a women self-help group, which started their own footwear manufacturing unit under the Grameen Aajeevika Mission, Modi said that their operation and business is working so well that it is now equipped with a modern manufacturing plant.

To support India’s manufacturing space, Modi urged fellow Indians to buy products made in India until the 75th Independence Day, which will be in 2022.

Govt To Train Four Lakh Individuals

Recently, the government has launched an initiative to reskill the workforce in emerging technologies and job roles — Programme for Reskilling or Upskilling of IT Manpower for Employability (PRIME).

PRIME is an upskilling or reskilling programme, which will train industry professionals across different segments, higher education students, and government officials. The goal of the government with this programme is to train around four lakh professionals in the next three years.

According to the government, the programme is an expansion of the Future Skills initiative, which was launched in February last year, and offers reskilling or upskilling opportunities in around 10 emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, blockchain, among others.

For this programme, the government has estimated to spend around INR 436 Cr over a period of three years. The programme will identify learner preferences and skill gaps to acknowledge the problem of upskilling in India.

Additionally, the programme will also offer online upskilling courses in identified numerous skill competencies. The courses provided under PRIME will follow an omnichannel approach with both online and classroom training to upskill or reskill Indians.

The government’s digital initiative, Common Service Centres (CSCs) plans to open a new centre for Aadhaar enrolment and other services in 700 districts across India by 2020. The decision of restarting Aadhaar services enrolment comes after it was stopped due to security concerns and poor infrastructure in 2017.

The CSC e-governance services CEO Dinesh Tyagi told ET that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has approved the proposal to restart the Aadhaar services. The service will be provided at CSC offices for now. Currently, there is one CSC office in every state and the government is planning to expand centres in each district.

Furthermore, Tyagi said that the CSCs will be similar to Aadhaar Seva Kendra in terms of facilities. It will also ensure that the highest standards of security for enrolling unique identity number or changing details are maintained. It will be operated by CSC e-governance services, under Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), and not by CSCs-led local village entrepreneurs.

CSC To Push Govt’s Digital India Initiative 

Last year, the IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had also said to restart Aadhaar services in nearly three lakh CSCs, where he said that these centres will be playing a significant role in ensuring that government welfare scheme and services.

He further said that the CSC is the best model that can support people living in rural areas and are helping to create digital infrastructure in villages, including connectivity, to convert them into Digital Villages. CSCs were initiated by the government to push Digital India programme across rural parts of the country and act as an access point for social welfare schemes, healthcare, banking, education and agricultural services in remote areas. In the past, CSCs were also entrusted with Aadhaar registration services.

Last week, Prasad said that the government will stop its free WiFi and internet service under BharatNet from March 2020.  It further plans to deploy CSCs to expand the scope of the service and charge citizens for internet usage and other allied services like telemedicine, digital education, banking and others. The decision to end free internet services has been taken by the government from a revenue standpoint.

As the reports of Delhi Police’s mass surveillance with the “Automated Facial Recognition System” (AFRS) surfaced, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has condemned the action and demanded a recall.

In response to the mass surveillance reports, the IFF sent a legal notice to the secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs and the commissioner of Delhi Police highlighting the illegality of the action and urged the authorities to halt the use of the facial recognition system.

The advocacy group on digital rights and liberties, IFF, also noted that the AFRS system was sourced by M/s Innefu Labs Private Limited, which offers law enforcement solutions, including an AI-enabled 360-degree facial recognition technology called Prophecy.

Additional Security Measure At Modi’s Rally?

The Delhi police acquired the AFRS software in March 2018 to identify missing children. According to a report published in the Indian Express, the Delhi Police used the same software in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent rally in Ramlila Maidan to screen the crowd.

“This was also the first time Delhi Police used a set of facial images collected from footage filmed at the city’s various protest events to filter “law and order suspects” at the Prime Minister’s rally,” the report added.

A police official told the publication that each attendee was recorded on the camera fitted on the metal detector gate. The live footage would then match attendees to the facial datasheet in five seconds.

The development comes at a time when the law and order are on the brink of collapse due to massive anti-Citizenship Amendment Act and anti-National Register of Citizens protests across the country. In Delhi, especially, the government has been recording the protests using drones to maintain “law and order”.

IFF Warns Delhi Police

The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) confirmed that IE report upon further investigation. “All of these clearly point to multiple illegalities and harms. From building an underlying database of people from public protests to running it on crowds of people attending rallies. This directly impairs the rights of ordinary Indians from assembly, speech and political participation,” IFF added.

IFF also highlighted that the use of facial recognition systems is unreliable and has a high inaccuracy rate. Since the facial recognition software is used by the law enforcement agency, there is a high probability of coercive actions against innocent citizens, IFF noted. The advocacy group also assured that it has highlighted the same to the Delhi Police.

Delhi Police Assures Safety

A Delhi Police’s spokesperson told Indian Express that the initial focus of the AFRS system was on enhancing the security measures during Independence Day and Republic Day, which can be achieved by creating a dataset of terror suspects, etc.

“In the next stage, we focused on law and order also and accordingly expanded the datasets to those with known criminal records of relevant categories and also to law and order suspects, identified through extensive archival videography and behaviour analysis at sensitive public protest venues. We have used these datasets last Sunday based on credible intelligence inputs about possible disruptions,” added the spokesperson.

The official also assured that the government has the best industry-standard checks and balances system in place to ensure that the collected dataset is not misused. The spokesperson added that the dataset is updated periodically and racial/religious profiling is not a relevant parameter here.

Since the demonetisation in 2016, the Indian government has taken several initiatives to promote digital payments in the country. One such initiative, which the industry and the government were reiterating, was to eliminate merchant discount rates (MDR) charges. And now, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on Saturday, announced that the government will be revoking all MDR charges on digital transactions via RuPay and UPI platforms from January 1, 2020.

MDR, usually 1% to 3% of the overall transaction, is the rate charged to a merchant for digital payment processing services leveraged on debit and credit card transactions.

According to ET, Sitharaman after meeting with heads of public sector banks (PSBs) said that the department of revenue will soon notify that there will be no MDR charges on transactions done by RuPay and UPI. Notably, officials from the Reserve Bank of India, Central Bureau of Investigation, finance ministry, IT ministry, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) were present in the meeting.

The announcement from the government comes in the backdrop of its Budget 2019 promise wherein it had stressed that establishments with annual turnover over INR 50 Cr should offer low-cost digital modes of payments to their customers and RBI and banks should absorb the cost of transactions.

With this move, NPCI’s UPI and RuPay will gain a competitive advantage over international payments players such as Mastercard and Visa.

To popularise this new initiative, Sitharaman said that all banks will kick off campaigns to popularise RuPay Debit card and UPI. “These campaigns strengthen the digital payment eco-system and move towards a less-cash economy,” she added.

For implementing this initiative throughout the country, the government has amended two regulatory laws — Income Tax Act and the Payments and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.

Boon For Innovation?

Though the government believes that this move will help in promoting the digital infrastructure in the country, private payments operators and associations are calling this as the nationalisation of the payments industry.

Vishwas Patel, chairman of Payments Council of India (PCI) and director of Infibeam Avenues said that the prohibition of MDR charges on Rupay and UPI would kill the industry and make the business model unviable. “There would be a negative impact on the payment ecosystem in terms of innovation, job losses and a slowdown in the expansion of the digital payments in India,” he added.

Patel further added that the elimination of MDR will dry out revenues and therefore will create a serious situation for new startups, especially fintechs, as banks will not pay for their service.

Citing that the decision to hastily implement zero MDR is going to impact the whole digital payment industry, Navin Surya, chairman of Emeritus, PCI urged the government to discuss with a larger ecosystem of payment Industry rather just banks and payment networks.

Indian Navy has reportedly banned all the personnel from using social media platform Facebook after seven officials, who were allegedly honey-trapped, were found leaking sensitive information to Pakistan’s intelligence agencies online.

ANI reported that in an order issued on December 27, the Indian navy has banned the personnel from using any messaging, networking, blogging, content sharing and hosting and ecommerce websites as well to avoid such situations in the future.

The development comes after eight people, which included seven navy personnel and one Hawala operator from Mumbai, were arrested on December 20 from Visakhapatnam.

The Andhra Pradesh police, in partnership with the central agency, had launched a special joint operation, Operation Dolphin’s Nose, to uncover the same. According to reports, eight individuals have been arrested from different parts of the country.

Media reports highlight that out of the seven Navy officials, three sailors belonged to Eastern Naval Command of Visakhapatnam, which is an important strategic location. Whereas three others belonged to Western Naval Command and one was posted at Karwar naval base of Karnataka.

This is not just one instance, there have been several other instances where officials have been duped in similar honey-traps. If reports are to be believed, Pakistani intelligence and other organisations usually create fake accounts on social media and befriend Indian soldiers, their family members and retired army personnel to know more about the Indian defence strategies and the technology they rely on.

Recently, the Home Ministry has also reportedly cautioned Indian defence forces saying that Pakistan intelligence agency ISI has been planning a big trap to get security force personnel talking.

In November 2019, the army had also cautioned officials against 150 fake social media profiles that are looking to honey-trap Indian soldiers. An official told ET. “the profiles are generally 2-3 years old. So, they do not raise suspicion and appear to be authentic. It is then that they started targeting,” the official said.

Around the same time, the Indian army’s advisory board had also banned all social media and messaging apps like Facebook and Whatsapp to prevent leakages of sensitive information. However, this was amidst the Pegasus spyware attack through WhatsApp that was used to spy on 121 Indian citizens.

The Indian army also conducted an analysis of social media trends before banning social media. The Indian army claimed that social media platforms have the potential to gather intelligence, and can pose a threat to the army personnel families and friends.

As a safety precaution, the army officials and their families have been advised to stop posting their pictures in uniform or photographs of their locations on these social media platforms.

The Kerala government has upgraded its official investment portal to facilitate fundraising for the Kerala-based startups, while promoting the ease of doing business in the state. The portal will provide all the details required by investors to set up new ventures in the state.

Elaborating on the Investment portal, industries minister EP Jayarajan said, “The [Investment] portal is the common repository for land bank details, investor wizard, various services and schemes, and lenders. It is a huge investor-friendly initiative that is designed to address all the queries and concerns of prospective and aspiring investors and includes details about IBPMS (Intelligent Building Plan Management System).”

The Kerala government will showcase the upgraded investment portal at the State’s ASCEND 2020 Global Investors Meet to be held on January 9 and 10, 2020. The portal, which comes under the state’s Ease of Doing Business initiative, will be managed by Kerala’s Investment Promotion and Facilitation Cell. The Cell will be constituted on behalf of Kerala State Single Window Board.

The body will ensure speedy approval and smooth interaction with applicants. The Single Window Board will also be allowed to issue composite clearances that will be binding to all state departments and agencies.

“Deemed licenses can be issued by the respective Boards in cases where the stipulated time period of 30 days has been exceeded,” the industries minister Jayarajan said.

The licences will be valid for five years, and renewal will also be valid for the same time span. The industries minister clarified that the renewal will be automated based on a fee payment and no separate application process will be required.

In addition to this, the Kerala government will also showcase more than 100 “credible” projects at the ASCEND 2020 Global Investors Meet. Out of these almost 60 projects are from the Industries department and 40 will be from other government departments and agencies.

The projects will focus on diverse sectors — petrochemicals, infrastructure, electronic hardware, defence, agriculture and food processing, tourism and hospitality, port and harbour and aeropolis, sciences, fisheries and mobility transport, among others.

In a previous statement, Jayarajan had highlighted, “Kerala is witnessing a paradigm shift for harnessing industrial investments in the state. It now ranks second among Indian States in the World Bank’s Investment Climate Index.”

Kerala government has been pushing for better policies and infrastructure for states startups and businesses under Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) launched in 2006 to promote tech startups. Under the mission, Kerala-based startups have been moving beyond conventional sectors and expanding their presence.

The KSUM initiative is in partnership with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Kerala. As per DPIIT’s Ranking Framework 2018, Kerala is one of the top-performing states in India. The state is said to have one of the most progressive startup cultures in India and is home to over 1,500 startups.

With the aim to speed up infrastructure and housing projects, the Indian government is now planning to leverage the latest Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology. According to ET, the new technology will help the country in speeding up the construction work across the country and achieve one of the government’s ambitious target of housing for all.

The technology will help the government to optimise the cost of ongoing and upcoming housing construction projects in the country. Additionally, with the implementation of this technology, the government will also be able to reduce the costs incurred in these construction projects.

The media report added that the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation estimates that the government has incurred INR 3.88 Lakh Cr in overrun costs. Moreover, the ministry also estimated that around 552 projects have witnessed time escalation as well.

However, leveraging BIM is expected to save around 20% of the total infrastructure project costs by reducing the overall construction time. Impressed with the BIM technology, India’s think tank Niti Aayog has further urged all other ministries to implement it for their projects. Notably, BIM extends the normal 3D infrastructure approach by leveraging time as the fourth dimension and cost as the fifth dimension.

A Niti Aayog official said that with the implementation of BIM, even the minute attributes of the construction can be modelled, monitored and analysed for further design updates. “The modelling further enhances the visualisation of the design for the stakeholders to understand what the project will look like,” the official was quoted as saying.

In addition to implementing new-age technologies for the government’s housing projects, Niti Aayog is also considering the use of other technologies in projects such as national highways constructions, airport and metro projects, redevelopment of railway stations, and improving the capacity of the railway’s infrastructure.

While the government is looking ambitious for its BIM projects, Sunil MK, the head of architecture, engineering and construction at Autodesk India, told ET that India needs to increase the speed of adoption of this technology. “The usage of BIM in large infrastructural projects will enable better efficiency, lower costs and less negative impact on the environment. BIM helps in simulating conditions and can fixing problems beforehand,” he added.

In a bid to bolster the startup ecosystem in the country, the Indian government is now looking to bring additional tax incentives for startups with the upcoming budget.

According to ET, the government has received suggestions from the department for the promotion of industry and internal Trade (DPIIT) on how startups can be given further support in India.

These suggestions include providing tax incentives to incubators registered under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), goods and service tax (GST) advantages, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) tax benefits, among others. The forthcoming budget is expected to be presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Indian Parliament on February 1, 2020.

Further sources close to the matter told ET that currently, the GST fees charged to fund managers of alternative investment funds (AIF) in India stands at 18%. However, the reduction in GST charges will encourage foreign investors to invest more in Indian startups.

One of the biggest steps from the Indian government in tax norms has been the relaxation of the angel tax for the startups registered with DPIIT. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal has previously highlighted that 1658 startups have been exempted from angel tax until November 25, 2019.

Startup India Initiative

Since the inception of Startup India programme in 2019, the number of startups now registered with the government has grown threefold in the past year, reaching nearly 25K startups.

According to Invest India, the government’s investment promotion and facilitation agency, 24,935 startups are currently registered under this programme compared to March 2018 when the total was 8,939 startups.

For promoting this startup ecosystem, the government has also established an INR 10K Cr Funds of Funds (FoF). The FoF was originally established to be deployed by 2024-25, however, with the recent boom in the number of startups in the country, along with various tax initiatives, these funds are expected to be disbursed before the dedicated timeline.

Moreover, Goyal, recently in Lok Sabha, revealed that out of this 10K Cr corpus, the government has invested INR 2,669.83 Cr in 279 startups. The government has also highlighted that 10% of this total corpus has been reserved for women-led startups. Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is managing the FoF.

The ride-hailing unicorn startup Ola, on Monday (December 30), announced that it has deployed a special fleet of ‘safety scouts’ and ‘quick response teams’ across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata for New Year’s eve.

Ensuring the safety of its customers, Ola has collaborated with the police authorities to support their on-ground efforts, across cities. Further, giving top priority to women’s safety, the ‘quick response team’ will also have lady police constables on-board to support the existing police fleet and attend to any SOS calls from women.

The safety scouts are said to comprise of trained professionals, who are set to provide safety and mobility support to citizens in high traffic areas  In addition to this, Ola is deploying ‘quick response teams,’ a special fleet of vehicles with medical assistance and trained personnel to attend to emergency situations through the night. Through these initiatives, Ola believes to encourage people to take a safe ride back home.

How Safe Is Ola or Uber?

Last week, Ola launched (artificial intelligence) AI-enabled safety feature called ‘Guardian’ a one-time-password (OTP) system that ensures safety of riders. Guardian, which uses real-time data from the trips to automatically detect irregular activities, including delays, prolonged stops and unexpected detours. Any abnormality in the trip will trigger a phone call by Ola’s safety response team. In case of any serious life threats, the Ola app also comes with an emergency button, which can be used to send a direct alert to the police authorities and loved ones immediately.

Uber, the arch-rival of Ola, on the other hand, has also incorporated built-in safety features like call anonymisation, rider and driver safety toolkit, emergency assistance button and 24/7 Uber safety line, among others.

Further, a recent Uber’s US Safety report raises serious concerns for the safety of the riders in India. It states that 2.9K and 3K sexual assault were reported in 2017 and 2018. Astonishingly, it also revealed that nine people were murdered and 58 were killed in car accidents. However, it has to be noted that there is no such safety report released for India, which highlights the incidents of any sexual assault or violence.

Amid the rising demand for bringing the fifth-generation (5G) technology of mobile networks in India as soon as possible, the government is now looking to kick start the trials for this technology in India.

While there have been certain concerns about allowing Chinese network operators to participate in these trials, IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that the government has decided to allow all stakeholders to show use-cases of 5G in India, including China-based networks such as Huawei and ZTE.

According to ET, Prasad said that the government has taken an in-principle decision to allow all stakeholders to participate in 5G trials. “5G is future, it is speed. We will encourage new innovation in 5G,” Prasad added.

US Alarms India For Using Chinese 5G Operators

Recently, amid concerns of Chinese telecom companies spying for Chinese authorities, the US has also alerted the Indian government about the risks which might come by allowing these networks to operate in the country.

Earlier, the US state department’s spokesperson Morgan Ortagus had said that while 5G networks will play a crucial role in the coming times, the stakes are too high to allow Chinese companies, which are under the control of authoritarian regimes, to provide this technology.

Ortagus further added Chinese telecom companies such as Huawei and ZTE must comply with the directives of the government and should work towards preventing misuse of data. “All countries should adopt national security policies in order to prevent untrusted companies from misusing any part of their future 5G network plans,” he added.

As of now, the road to 5G isn’t clear yet in India. However, Prasad, in the Rajya Sabha on December 12, said that the government is working on finalising the framework for 5G technologies. “The government is creating an enabling framework for the deployment of affordable and secure 5G services in India,” he had previously said.

While currently, the government is looking to start 5G trials, it has reiterated its focus on 5G spectrum auctions, including 5G airwaves, which is scheduled to be held by March 2020.

According to a 2019 Ericsson report, 5G network will make inroads in India by 2022. On the other hand, the US has already started testing 5G networks in selected regions. In addition to the US, 5G is also available in South Korea and parts of Europe.

Highlighting a slight increase Reliance Jio’s subscriber base in October 2019, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Monday (December 30), published its monthly report for October on subscription data of telecom networks in the country.

According to the report, the market share of Reliance Jio increased from 30.26% in September 2019 to 30.76% in October 2019. The market share for Vodafone Idea, which is currently the industry leader, stood at 31.49%. In September 2019, Vodafone Idea had a 31.73% share of subscribers.

Notably, the industry has been witnessing an increase in the market share of Reliance Jio since its launch in 2016. Moreover, if the same patterns continue for a few more months then there is no stopping Reliance Jio in overtaking Vodafone Idea to become the market leader.

Bharti Airtel, which had a 27.52% market share in October 2019, remained at the third spot. Bharti Airtel is followed by state-owned BSNL and MTNL with 9.92% and 0.29% market share respectively.

One of the interesting facts, which the October 2019 report revealed, was that almost every network operator was able to show positive growth in terms of adding new users to their subscriber bases.

During the 31 day period, Reliance Jio added 9.1 Mn users to its subscriber base. While Vodafone Idea added 189K new users, BSNL was able to bring 288K new users to its subscriber base. Moreover, Bharti Airtel also added 82K new users in October 2019.

Overall, the total number of subscribers in India also witnessed a month-on-month growth of 0.80%. From 1,195.24 Mn subscribers at the end of September 2019, the user base has increased to 1,204.85 Mn at the end of October 2019.

The recent TRAI report also highlighted that while urban subscribers increased by 0.55% to 523.16 Mn in October 2019 from 517.29 Mn in the previous month. Additionally, the total number of rural subscription also saw a spike of 1.14% and reached to 681.69 Mn in the reported month from 677.95 Mn at the end of September 2019.

The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) is reportedly in talks with ecommerce companies to rope them in for using their logistics hubs.

DFCCIL is a Special Purpose Vehicle set up under the administrative control of the Ministry of Railways which undertakes planning and development, mobilisation of financial resources and construction, maintenance and operation of the Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs).

The move by DFCCIL is expected to cut parcel delivery time to a large extent. For instance, with this, the time taken to deliver a parcel from Mumbai to Delhi will come down from five days to 24 hours.

According to the media report, the logistics industry’s parcel volume and revenue saw over 20% growth in 2018 compared to the previous year as per a recent industry report by the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index. However, the Indian Railways is reportedly seeing a downfall in its parcel business and the move is expected to revive the situation.

“This will be a game-changer for the parcel industry, as all the stations, small and big, will have dedicated hubs to handle parcel. Besides, hinterland customers will also benefit from this through our intermediate stations,” a DFCCIL source was quoted as saying by the Business Standard.

The eastern and western DFCs will be fully operational by December 2021. After that, ecommerce companies will be able to use the hubs. Except for the Sonnagar to Dankuni stretch in eastern DFC, the rest of the project will reportedly be commissioned by 2021.

Railway Board’s Tie-Up With Amazon

In July this year, there were reports of Railway Board giving Amazon, as part of its pilot project, space in two of its premium trains, namely Sealdah Rajdhani and the Mumbai Rajdhani for a period of one month.

As per the agreement, zonal railways will dedicate a space of 2.5 tonnes in the parcel van of the trains for loading and unloading of Amazon India consignments and the remaining space of 1.5 tonnes will be for railways.

The move, however, saw opposition from the Bharatiya Railway loading union, who had called for a strike, claiming this would cost them their livelihood.

Meanwhile, in September this year, the Indian Railways partnered with Amazon to set up pickup kiosks in four railway stations across Mumbai. The initiative was launched as a pilot in CSTM, Thane, Dadar and Kalyan.
The kiosks were reportedly placed in high foot traffic locations inside the station.

This was expected to provide easy accessibility and convenience to Amazon customers who can easily pick up their packages on their way in or out. Customers can select these points as a pick-up location on the checkout page of their order while shopping on the platform.

“Millions of people use the suburban railways as a primary mode of transportation. We welcome this partnership as the launch of Amazon kiosks will help elevate our commuters’ experience at these stations,” the Indian Railways had earlier said in a statement.

To allow users to protect their data, the telecom ministry has launched a web portal that allows users to blacklist their mobile phones once stolen or lost. The services that were launched in Maharashtra back in September 2019, will now also be operational in Delhi soon.

The project, which is backed by Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIRs), proved to be successful in Maharashtra. Therefore the government decided to expand it in the national capital as well.

The ministry of telecom has been compiling a list of International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), 15-digit unique serial number for mobile phones, under Equipment Identity Register (EIR) since 2017. The platform will help users block their phones and any access to it, preventing any further damage due to data loss.

EIR is a database where all the numbers are collected and categorised in three lists — white, grey and blacklist. The white list comprises mobile phones which are permitted for use, whereas the grey list is composed of devices that do not conform to the standards but can be permitted to connect under supervision.

The blacklist compiles all the IMEI numbers/mobile numbers that have been denied permission due to various reasons. These numbers are denied from having access to any mobile network, making the device redundant.

Users whose phone is stolen or lost can simply log in to the portal and register a complaint, along with a copy of the police report and their ID proof. Once submitted, the lost mobile phone will be blocked. In addition, the mobile can also be traced and recovered through tower signals, assured Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash.

The initiative is expected to benefit close to five crore mobile subscribers in Delhi and adjoining regions. The telecom department took up the project to address security, theft and other concerns including reprogramming of mobile handsets.

The CIER will also have access to an international mobile network operator body’s Global System for Mobile Communication’s (GSMAs) IMEI database. With access to this database, the Indian government can easily identify any counterfeit handset by comparing the two lists— CIER’s Indian IMEI database and GSMA’s IMEI Database.

This article on the most active angel investors in India compiled by Inc42 based on investments made between January 2014 and October 2019. It is not meant to be a ranking of any kind and is simply a list of angel investors that are the most active based on the deals announced. For a look back at the major talking points of the year, check out the Inc42 2019 In Review section.

The angel investment landscape in India has significantly changed over the last decade. The number of deals and the average ticket size has improved tremendously, along with the ease of investment for both startups and angels.

From less than 50 angel investors a decade back, the Indian startup ecosystem has recorded angel investments from more than 2,000+ angel investors.

An earlier analysis of DataLabs by Inc42 based on 2014-2017 funding data showcased that the total number of angels who participated in the Indian startup ecosystem during that period i.e. 1,777, over 1410 made just a single deal and about 192 have made two. This figure came along with 175 angels who participated in three or more deals.

Thereby taking the list of active angel investors that have backed more than 10 startups to a few hundred in number.

With the rise in the number of startups, availability of resources to smoothly sail the startup ship, Indian ecosystem is growing like never before. Here are the some of the most active angels in the Indian startup ecosystem.

• • Sanjay Mehta

    No. of Startups Funded: 103

    Key Sectors: Sector Agnostic

    Location: Mumbai

    Key Investments: LogiNext, Locus, Box8, OYO (Exited), PrettySecrets, FabAlley

    Founder and Partner at an early stage venture fund 100X.VC, Sanjay Mehta is an entrepreneur and angel investor, who has angel invested in 103 startup companies spread across sectors. He has also been a part of Mehta Ventures Family office and a director at CORE (Centre of Recognition and Excellence). Mehta is an active member of Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels, B2B 1K Ventures & CIO Angel Network, Venture Nursery. Mehta’s portfolio also includes OYO, where he got 280 times the returns while exiting.

  • Abhishek Bhatewara

    No. of Startups Funded: 9

    Key Sectors: Real Estate, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Bengaluru

    Key Investment: FalconBrick, Meetingsandoffices.com, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose

    Abhishek Bhatewara is currently the business head of Bengaluru-based Rohan Builders and the director at cleantech Clique Solar. He has previously served as a managed at MacquarieBank, based in Sydney. As an investor, he is a part of Mumbai Angels — an Indian angel investment network.

  • Anand Govindaluri

    No. of Startups Funded: 55

    Key Sectors: Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Singapore

    Key Investment: LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular

    Dr Anand Govindaluri is the founder and CEO of Govin Capital, a Singapore-based early-stage investment company. He has also founded Govin Capital, a technology accelerator focused on digital health and technology. He has had over 22 years experience in healthcare and over 19 years of experience in investment management in the healthcare and technology sectors. Govindaluri has had 17 exits till now, and 2 unicorn exits.

  • Anoop Mathur

    No. of Startups Funded: 8

    Key Sectors: Consumer Services, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Mumbai

    Key Investment: Aadhaar API, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems

    Anoop Mathur is the president of CORE Media (Centre of Recognition & Excellence). Anoop has also founded CIO Angel Network and B2B 1K Ventures to boost and invest in early-stage tech startups. He has had professional experience in the healthcare, insurance, financial services, BPO and IT-enabled services business verticals. Mathur has held senior positions in organisations such as Prudential, Capita, ICICI OneSource and United Healthcare.

  • Bharat Banka

    No. of Startups Funded: 8

    Key Sectors: Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Mumbai

    Key Investment: Faaya, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular

    Bharat Banka is a founder and CEO of the Aditya Birla Group and has also set up Aditya Birla Private Equity (ABPE) in 2009. Bharat has is currently working as an Advisor at Sterlite Technologies ltd, a digital technology multinational company. He has a diverse experience of working over 23 years in running businesses, strategy, principal investing, post-merger integration and capital market. Bharat has also served as an advisor at TVS Capital Fund for a brief period.

  • Devesh Chawla

    No. of Startups Funded: 7

    Key Sector: Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Mumbai

    Key Investments: Faaya, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular

    Devesh Chawla is a mentor and investor, who has worked with hundreds of startups including crowdfunding platform Catapooolt, pre-sales platform Strike, digital trading app Market Pulse and many more. Chawla also runs entrepreneurship programs across colleges and startups along with Ajeet Khurana, former CEO of IIT Incubation centre SIN. Devesh is also the founder and CEO at Chatur Ideas.

  • Dishit Shah

    No. of Startups Funded: 7

    Key Sectors: Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Mumbai

    Key Investments: Faaya, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular

    Dishit Shah is working at Artha India Ventures as an Investment associate overlooking 60 portfolio companies and scouting for early age investment. The company’s aim is to expand its portfolio to 100 companies in 3-5 years. Previously, Shah has worked at the Bank of America as an Analyst with the Mergers and Acquisition team. Dishit has over seven years of experience across various segments like early stage investing, equity research, strategic advisory, accountancy, statutory and internal accounting and tax.

  • Gagan Gupta

    No. of Startups Funded: 7

    Key Sectors: Real Estate, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Hyderabad, Telangana

    Key Investment: Meetingsandoffices.com, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems

    Cofunders, Kyt Ventures, Gagan Gupta is an angel investor and a serial-entrepreneur. He has been deeply involved in the startup ecosystem for 16 years as an expert panelist, jury member, mentor and advisor. Gagan also provides his expertise to various institutions, incubators and accelerators. Currently, he is also a venture investor at Rajasthan Angel Innovators Network (RAIN) and member of TIE Rajasthan.

  • Sharan Aggarwal

    No. of Startups Funded: 8

    Key Sectors: Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Mumbai

    Key Investment: Faaya, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular

    The CEO and cofounder of Delta3D, Aggarwal is a Cass alumni and has been associated with Lead Angels and Mumbai Angels Network. His investments are known to be sector-agnostic and recent deals involve SaaS, fintech, healthtech, and F&B among others. His startup Delta3D manufactures clip-on 3D glasses for cinemagoers, targeting those who wear powered glasses.

  • Siddharth Ladsariya

    No. of Startups Funded: 100+

    Key Sector: Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Mumbai

    Key Investment: Faaya, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular, Symphony, Shunya O/S

    Siddharth Ladsariya started angel investing in the year 2008. Today, he has a portfolio of over 100+ startups in India, Singapore and the USA. He believes that startups should concentrate on team-building, continuous fundraising and aim to become self-sufficient through growth and sales. He is also a founding member of YVO -Young Volunteers Organization (www.yvorg.in). YVO’s objective is to make a difference by collecting a significant corpus of small donations on a monthly basis in a time-efficient and effortless manner So far, YVO.org has donated over INR 1 Cr to over 43+ organisations and sustainable causes.

  • Tufail Khan

    No. of Startups Funded: 7

    Key Sectors: Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

    Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra

    Key Investment: Faaya, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular, Symphony, Shunya O/C

    Tufail Khan is the cofounder of online auto classifieds platform Carwale, which was acquired by its competitor CarTrade for somewhere around $90 Mn in November 2015. Tufail is a marketing professional and has worked in online and offline advertising in firms like Automotive Exchange and Veracious Solutions. He also business development and operations.

• VC Karthic

  No. of Startups Funded: 7

  Key Sector: Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Enterprise Application, Entertainment Tech, AI and Big Data

  Location: Mumbai

  Key Investment: Faaya, LegitDoc, TravelShelf, Giscle Systems, rePurpose, Minocular, Symphony, Shunya O/S

  As serial entrepreneur, VC Karthic has so far launched six ventures — two folded, two sold, while two others are on hold. Currently, the founder of Buzzworks, a contracted payroll & contact centre technology services platform, he is looking to solve hard problems at scale using technology.

  As Karthic has said earlier, “Along with innovative technology and good market opportunity, the quality, commitment and integrity of the founders and the team was among the factors that struck a chord with all the investors.”

• Binny Bansal

  No. of Startups Funded: 27

  Key Sectors: Edtech, Hardware & IoT, Entertainment Tech, Healthtech, Real Estate, Ecommerce, Consumer Services, AI and Big Data, , Fintech, Logistics, Enterprise Services

  Location: Singapore

  Key Investment: Ather Energy, Inshorts, Roposo, Unacademy, Purple Style Labs, GreyOrange

  After Binny Bansal exited from Flipkart under controversial circumstances in 2018, he has taken to angel investing more aggresively. Bansal continued his entrepreneurial journey along with former McKinsey consultant Saikiran Krishnamurthy to launch his new venture — XTo10X.

  As a parting gift from Flipkart, he got $100 Mn as part of an early exit deal with US-based retail giant Walmart. In June this year, he reportedly sold more of his Flipkart stake to Walmart for almost $76.4 Mn. Seems like we can expect Bansal to invest more in 2019.

• Sachin Bansal

  No. of Startups Funded: 25+

  Key Sectors: Edtech, Hardware & IoT, Entertainment Tech, Enterprise Application, Healthtech, Real Estate, Transport, Consumer Services,

  Location: Bengaluru

  Key Investment: MadRat Games, Ather Energy, Inshorts, NewsInShorts, Tracxn, trueHb, Plabro, SigTuple, Intelligent Interfaces, Unacademy, Ola, Ola Electric, Milkbasket

  Former Amazon executive, Sachin Bansal, had partnered with Binny Bansal founded Flipkart in 2007. Just like Binny Bansal, Sachin Bansal also turned to investment more aggressively after Flipkart’s acquisition by Walmart.

  In December 2018, Bansal along with his friend Ankit Agarwal registered BAC Acquisitions Pvt Ltd (now Navi Technologies) in Bengaluru with the vision of developing platforms which can optimise business automation and enable digitisation of processes across sectors.

  A few months ago, Bansal announced the acquisition of Chaitanya Rural Intermediation Development Services Private Limited (CRIDS), a non-banking finance company (NBFC) in a deal worth $104 Mn. With this, Bansal took over as the CEO of CRIDS.

• Kunal Shah

  No. of Startups Funded: 27

  Key Sectors: Ecommerce, Entertainment Tech, Enterprise Application, Healthtech, Consumer Services, Fintech, Edtech, Real Estate,

  Location: Mumbai

  Key Investment: Flyrobe, DailyNinja, Unacademy, CrownIt, Innov8, Cred, TapChief

  An MBA dropout from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Kunal Shah comes from a business family and was naturally inclined towards startups. Shah founded Freecharge in 2010 along with Sandeep Tandon and in April 2015, Freecharge was acquired by Snapdeal for around $400 Mn. Meanwhile, Shah also had a small stint and Sequoia. Since 2018 then Shah has been working on credit card rewards app Cred and has been one of the busiest angel investors in India.

• Ritesh Malik

  No. of Startups Funded: 48

  Key Sectors: Sector agnostic, but focuses on content, robotics, nanotech, health tech, real estate tech, SAAS

  Location: Delhi

  Key Investment: MyChild, Babygogo, PumpKart, WittyFeed, Leverage Edu, StyleDotMe, Dockabl

  Doctor by profession, Ritesh Malik has founded innov8 coworking in 2015, which was later acquired by OYO for INR 220 Cr in July this year. Ritesh has also founded Woodapple Hospitality and ThinkPot, and co-founded AdStuck Consulting and Harvin Academy. In terms of investment experience, he has been investing in indian startups from more than 5 years. In 2015, Malik started Project Guerrilla, a startup accelerator, based in Delhi.

• Mekin Maheshwari

  No. of Startups Funded: 12

  Key Sectors: Entertainment Tech, Enterprise Application, Edtech, Enterprise Services, Online Travel, Healthtech, Ecommerce

  Location: Bengaluru

  Key Investment: Aisle, Hansel.io, Docwise, Purple Quarter, Crio, TapChief, Urban Clap

  Founder of Udhyam.org and CoFounder of Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), Mekin Maheshwari has taken up the role of an angel investor since three years. Through, Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) Maheshwari plans to 10 Mn mass entrepreneurs to create 50 Mn Mn jobs by 2030. Previously, Mekin had joined Flipkart in 2009 has the Head of Engineering and later he became the Chief People Officer of Flipkart in 2013. However, he quit the company in 2016.

• Rajat Gupta

  No. of Startups Funded: 4

  Key Sectors: Logistics, Consumer Services, Enterprise Services

  Location: New York

  Key Investments: Rivigo, Zappka, Teamonk Global, Dockabl

  Gupta was most famously the first foreign-born managing director of McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003. He has continued to back tech startups even after stepping down from McKinsey amid insider trading controversy. Premium tea brand Teamonk Global raised $1 Mn in Pre-series A funding round led by Gupta and Roots Ventures in April this year. He also invested in the pre-series A funding round of $1.26 Mn in employee experience platform Dockabl.

• Ramakant Sharma

  No. of Startups Funded: 10

  Key sectors: Consumer Services, Logistics, Ecommerce, Enterprise Application, Real Estate, Fintech

  Location: Bengaluru

  Key Investment: Zooty, TruckMandi, Pitstop, Fynd, Shop101, BuildSupply, ZunRoof

  Ramakant Sharma has over 11 years of experience in software product development, product management, entrepreneurship and online marketing. He has cofounded two platforms — Bengaluru-based Zing Ecommerce and online interior design and renovation platform Livspace.

  Zing Ecommerce was incorporated in 2011 and Livspace in 2015, along with Anuj Srivastava. Previously, Ramakant has also has served as an operating partner Jungle Ventures and the vice president of engineering at ecommerce website Myntra.

• Ravi Garikipati

  No. of Startups Funded: 4

  Key Sectors: Healthtech, AI and Big Data, Edtech, Ecommerce

  Location: Bengaluru

  Key Investment: CareonGO, VideoKen, Crio, Rapawalk

  Ravi Garikipati started his career in 1988 and is a software industry veteran. He has served as CTO and head of fintech at Flipkart and an on the advisory board at ICICI Lombard. Currently, he is also an investor and an investor at Emergent Ventures, and the cofounder and CEO at an NBFC, Davinta Financial Services.

• Alok Mittal

  No. of Deal: 16

  Key Sectors: Consumer Services, Edtech, Transport, Healthtech, Fintech, Online Travel

  Location: Gurgaon, Haryana

  Key Investments: Bite Club, Cuelearn, Drivezy, Baxi-Fresh, Wysa, LifCare, Touchkin,

  Alok Mittal is the CEO of Indifi, a platform to expand access to debt financing for SMEs. Mittal is also a founding member of Indian Angel Network. In his previous stints, he was the managing director at Indian operations of US based venture capital firm Canaan Partners. During his tenure, Canaan Partners invested in AdNear and WibiData.

• Anupam Mittal

  No. of Startups Funded: 50+

  Key Sectors: Edtech, Enterprise Application, Consumer Services, Entertainment Tech, Ecommerce, Logistics, Online Travel, Transport, Fintech, Healthtech, Hardware & IoT, Adtech, Real Estate

  Location: Mumbai

  Key Investments: Flintobox, ZapStitch, Whatfix, InstaLively, InnerChef, DailyNinja, @(AT)

  Anupam Mittal started his entrepreneurial career with People Group, which manages businesses such as Shaadi.com, Makaan.com and Mauj Mobile. The group is recognised as one of the most innovative enterprises in the country. Previously, he has also worked as a product manager at MicroStrategy. He is an active angel investor with over 50 investments in companies like Ola Cabs, Druva and Pretty Secrets.

• Girish Mathrubootham

  No. of Startups Funded: 20+

  Key Sectors: Ecommerce, Enterprise Application, Fintech, Enterprise Services, Edtech, Entertainment Tech, Consumer Services, Transport, Real Estate, Logistics, Online Travel

  Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu

  Key Investments: LetsVenture, MadRat Games, CrownIt, Innov8, The Ken, Whatfix, Josh talks, FactorDaily

  Girish Mathrubootham founded SaaS unicorn Freshworks in 2010. Previously, he has worked as the Vice President of Product Management at ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp. There, he used to oversee product marketing, product management and customer support. As an investor, Mathrubootham has had 6 exits from companies like coworking and shared space provider Innov8 Coworking, cybersecurity platform Shield Square and marketing software startup Zarget.

• Kunal Bahl

  No. of Startups Funded: 29+

  Key Sectors:Online Travel, Consumer Services, Transport, Ecommerce, Enterprise Services, Edtech, Enterprise Application, Logistics, Fintech, Healthtech

  Location: New Delhi

  Key Investments:CredR, Bewakoof, UrbanClap, LetsVenture, Fynd, Snapdeal

  Kunal Bahl cofounded ecommerce website Snapdeal in 2010. He has worked in companies like Deloitte Consulting and Microsoft in the US. Till now, he has had 4 exits. These companies include data analytics firm Zenatix, ecommerce platform Gigstart, fashion shopping platform Fynd and content production platform Betaout. Kunal, along with Snapdeal cofounder Rohit Bansal, set up an investment vehicle Titan Capital, earlier this year.

• Ratan Tata

  No. of Startups Funded: 30

  Key Sectors: Mobility, Cleantech, Consumer services, Fintech

  Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra

  Key Investments: Urbanladder, Paytm, Ola, LetsVenture, UrbanClap, ThePrint, Ola Electric

  Ratan Tata has been a part of the Tata Group since 1962. He became the chairman of Tata Industries in 1981. He started Tata Trust in 2017 both as a social impact fund as well as a business incubator. The fund has invested in more than two dozen companies across businesses.

• Vijay Shekhar Sharma

  No. of Startups Funded: 50+

  Key Sectors: Fintech, Consumer Services, Media & Entertainment

  Location: New Delhi

  Key Investments: Flintobox, GOQii, BetaOut, InnerChef, Intelligent Interfaces, Tapchief, FactorDaily, Remitware Payments, Unacademy, Innov8, The Ken, Nurturing Green

  Vijay Shekhar Sharma founded One97 Communications and Paytm in 2010 He was ranked as India’s youngest billionaire in 2017 by Forbes. He has previously worked as the CTO Startec Global Systems and Tech head at India Today.

• Sonali Thapar

  No. of Startups Funded: 15

  Key Sectors: F&B, Education, Energy, Gaming, FinTech.

  Location: New Delhi

  Key Investments: GetMyParking, Carbon Masters, Witlinger, Innov8, Cubical Labs, Inc42, Biryani by Kilo

  Sonali Thapar took charge of the investment arm of the Thapar Group — Tapar Capital — in 2015. As the Director, Sonali has made strategic investments in both debt and equity, stocks, mutual funds and real estate. Prior to this, Sonali has worked with the Ministry of External Affairs. Sonali believes in mentoring and funding startups that could align with the Thapar groups’ business interests, and also address a need in the ecosystem.

• Apurva Chamaria

  No. of Startups Funded: 20

  Key Sectors:

  Location: New Delhi

  Key Investments: Inc42, Innov8, Chqbook, Josh Talks

  Apurva Chamaria is currently working as the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at SaaS company RateGain and Charter Member at TIE Delhi. Previously, he was the Vice President and head of corporate marketing at HCL Technologies and business managers Ranbaxy Laboratories. Apurva has written two bestsellers “You are the key- Unlocking doors through social selling” and “Master Growth Hacking: The Best-Kept Secret of New Age Indian Startups.”

• Abhishek Rungta

  No. of Startups Funded: 25

  Key Sectors: SaaS, Enterprise software, Digital, Analytics

  Location: Kolkata, West Bengal

  Key Investments: Plivo, CropIn, Aureus Analytics

  Abhishek Rungta is the founder and CEO of Indus Net Solution. He founded the company back in 1997 and it a digital strategy consulting and offshore outsourcing company, which provides its services to digital agencies, enterprises and governments. He has also set up Indus Net Academy to bridge the gap between academic education and professional demand. He has also cofounded EnergyTech Ventures.

• Rajesh Sawhney

  No. of Startups Funded: 77

  Key Sectors: SaaS, Health Tech, Consumer

  Location: Kolkata, West Bengal

  Key Investments: Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook), Whatfix, Daily Rounds, Instalively and Docsapp

  Rajesh Sawhney is a serial entrepreneur, who founded (and cofounded) Times Internet, Reliance Entertainment, GSF Accelerator and GSF Superangels and InnerChef. GSF is a tech-startup accelerator programme founded in 2012. Moreover, Rajesh had introduced private radio, Times FM, to the Indian audience in the early nineties. He also led the biggest investment deal between Hollywood and Bollywood, Dreamworks.

• Rohit Chokhani

  No. of Startups Funded: 30 (in last five year)

  Key Sectors: B2C & Services Industry, Financial Impact, Food & Beverages, AI Deeptech, PropTech, Media & Content

  Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra

  Key Investments: Drivezy, Aisle, Routofy

  Rohit Chokhani is the managing director of Easy Home Finance and Nominee Director at Azuro.in. He is also a shareholder in real estate company Lakshachandi Group, public-private Revelador India and foodtech Swadeshi India food. He has an extensive educational background with masters a bachelors’ degree in Finance and a masters in construction management, from Europe. He also has an experience of working in UK’s financial service sector.

• Mridul Upreti

  No. of Startups Funded: 16

  Key Sectors: Prop-tech, News & Media

  Location: New Delhi

  Key Investments: StayAdobe, FalconBrick, NewsBytes

  Mridul Upreti defines himself as a “Real Estate, Technology Evangelist and Investor”. He has served as the SEO of the segregated fund group and Jt. Managing director at JLL. Real estate, asset management, and portfolio management are some of his areas of expertise.

• Anuj Munot

  No. of Startups Funded: 65

  Key Sectors: Agnostic

  Location: Mumbai Maharashtra

  Key Investments: NewsBytes, Inc42,

  A Chartered Accountant (CA) by qualification, Anuj Munot is currently the commercial director at real estate developer Kalpataru limited. He joined Kalpataru in 2002 and his inclination towards business helped the company explore more avenues and sectors. He is also a member of the Built World Technology alliance, Venture Catalysts, Inflection Point Ventures, LetsVenture, Startup Network and Indian Angel Network.

• Anand Chandrasekaran

  No. of Startups Funded: 50

  Key Sectors: Agnostic

  Location: San Francisco, US

  Key Investments: – Khatabook, EkAnek, Upekkha (accelerator), Dealshare.in, Oye Rickshaw, InVideo, Fiddler.ai (US)

  Anand Chandrasekaran is currently working in EVP (engineering, procurement and construction) position at Five9. Anand has also worked on five lease products globally with over 10 Mn users across omni channels of various sectors — communication, commerce, financial services and content.

  Previously, Anand cofounded Aeroprise Inc, which was acquired by BMS software in 2009. Later, he served as a director of a platform for Messenger at Facebook and CPO at Snapdeal.

• Hiro Mashita

  No. of Startups Funded: 50+

  Key Sectors: Fintech, Healthtech, Agritech, Consumer Service

  Location: Singapore

  Key Investments: Faircent, Healofy, Ninjacart, Silverpush, Cashify, Primaseller, GigIndia

  Hiro Mashita is the founder and director of M&S Partners, which is a Japanese Investment firm. The company has recently invested in India-based women and parenting-focussed social networking platform Healofy. As an angel investor, he forces on startups based in India, Japan, China, Singapore, US, and other Asian countries.

  Hiro has played different business roles in his work life. He has headed startups, venture capital, internet businesses, corporate planning, distribution channel in Japan and New York, US.

• Aniruddha Malpani

  No. of Startups Funded: 12+

  Key Sectors: Healthtech

  Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra

  Key Investments: AllizHealth, Plus91 Technologies, VdoCipher, MultiBhashi

  Doctor-turned investor, Aniruddha Malpani is a director and founder at Mumbai-based Malpani Ventures, which specially focuses on early stage startups. He has also served as a director at venture capital firm Solidarity Investment Advisors and was a member at TIE Mumbai. In terms of angel investing, Aniruddha has been on Bengaluru-based Evobi and Mumbai Angels. As a doctor, he is an In vitro fertilisation (IVF) specialist.

• Amit Gupta

  No. of Startups Funded: 30

  Key Sectors: Agnostic

  Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka

  Key Investments: Healthifyme, Razorpay, Wooplr, MyChild, BharatBazaar

  Cofounder and CEO of Yulu, Amit Gupta also cofounded InMobi in 2017. Previously, he has worked at Mobile Marketing Association, Analyticsworks and Citifinancial India. InMobi was one of the “50 Most Disruptive Companies” according to MIT Technology Review. In addition, it was named as the “Outstanding Startup of the year” by Forbes India Leadership Award, 2014. Outside of InMobi, Amit is an angel investor and mentors entrepreneurs on the various aspects of running a startup.

• Amit Ranjan

  No. of Startups Funded: 10

  Key Sectors: Agnostic

  Location: New Delhi

  Key Investments:Tracxn, Wishberry

  Amit Ranjan is currently working as an architect with the National Digital Locker Project, under union ministry of information technology (IT). He has also worked on the OpenForge Project, an Indian government’s initiative to build a national software source code sharing platform. Previously, he has worked at PepsiCo, Asian Paints, and Godrej & Boyce. As an entrepreneur, Amit cofounded Slideshare in 2004. The company was acquired by LinkedIn in 2012.

• Bhavish Aggarwal

  No. of Startups Funded: 10+

  Key Sectors: Agnostic

  Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka

  Key Investments: Avail Finance, OfBusiness, Tork Motorscycles

  IIT-Bombay graduate, Bhavish Aggarwal is famously known to have cofounded Indian cab hailing service Ola in 2010. He started his career with Microsoft. In March 2019, Bhavish set up a new electric vehicle service called Ola Electric Mobility. By July, the company managed to enter the unicorn club, with $4.2 Bn SoftBank investment.

• Aneesh Reddy

  No. of Startups Funded: 9

  Key Sectors: Agnostic

  Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka

  Key Investments: Skillenza, Whatflix,EasyEcom, JustLikeNew

  Aneesh Reddy is the cofounder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at a SaaS solutions company Capillary Technologies. Previously, he has also worked with ITC limited and is an IIT Kharagpur graduate. Aneesh is a featured expert in various segments — global retail, marketing, and technology forums. With the aim to create a sustained product ecosystem in India, Aneesh works closely with acclaimed institutions.

• Ankit Nagori

  No. of Startups Funded: 5

  Key Sectors: Agnostic

  Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka

  Key Investments: Groww, Doubtnut, Blinge, Rapido

  Joined in 2010. Ankit Nagori quit Flipkart in 2016 along with Mukesh Bansal. In 2016, Ankit and Mukesh Bansal founded health and wellness startup Cure.fit. Previously, Ankit has worked for social media startup Youthpad and ESCP Europe.

• Arjun Rao

  No. of Startups Funded: 20

  Key Sector: Tech and tech-enabled businesses

  Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka

  Key Investment: Murdex, Vogo (exited), CheckGaadi (exited)

  Other key investments: Mudrex (YC backed)

  Arjun Rao is a general partner at Speciale Invest, a seed stage micro venture capital investment firm. He has more than 15 years of experience in the technology and internet startup ecosystem in India. He has cofounded TravelYaari and has worked in product development, product management, digital marketing at growth stage companies such as ibibo Web and Yahoo Inc.

The usage of drones for surveillance by law enforcement authorities in Delhi during the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests has raised concerns about privacy. Digital rights activists are calling the act of mass surveillance as illegal.

The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an Indian organisation which advocates for the protection of digital rights and liberties, has written to the office of the Director General of Civil Aviation urging for urgent action. “There has been a growing use of drones by policing departments across India. Quite often these are deployed across peaceful protests to record the movements of people and pose a risk to their privacy,” the IFF says in its website.

“They also may fly close to crowds threatening injury and causing anxiety. These concerns made us look more closely as to their legal framework and to our shock we discovered that these are completely illegal,” it added.

IFF has also written to the Delhi Police commissioner asking the Delhi Police to stop the use of facial recognition technology and video surveillance to identify protesters rallying against the legislation.

Quoting media reports, IFF says that the facial recognition system being used in Delhi is disturbing. “All of these clearly point to multiple illegalities and harms. From building an underlying database of people from public protests to running it on crowds of people attending rallies. This directly impairs the rights of ordinary Indians from the assembly, speech and political participation,” it says.

India Ranks Third In Surveillance

India ranked third in the surveillance index, after Russia and China, according to a study conducted by UK-based research firm Compritech. The score of 2.4 out of 5 on the privacy index indicates a systemic failure to maintain data privacy safeguards.

The survey ranked countries based on constitutional protections, statutory protection, privacy enforcement, biometrics, data sharing and the government’s access to data among other things.

“Several countries are creating what can only be described as surveillance states, with data privacy rights seemingly taking a serious back seat. Though European nations fare better due to the stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, not one country is consistent in protecting the privacy of its citizens,” the survey, conducted across 47 countries, added.

The government has been pushing for the facial recognition system claiming it is helpful for the defence forces and the law and order authorities. The central government said in September this year that it will open bids to build a centralised facial recognition surveillance system across India.

The system will be linked up with a database of individual’s details ranging from passports to fingerprints. The new interface aims to help India’s police force identify criminals, missing people and dead bodies.

India’s ecommerce major Flipkart, on Monday (December 30), partnered with the Indian government’s Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM).

DAY-NULM, which works under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, is a poverty alleviation project. Under this partnership, Flipkart will help in the skilling of underserved sections of society and will also bring them to its ecommerce platforms.

Moreover, Flipkart, along with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, will collaborate with other projects registered with the DAY-NULM to establish the Flipkart Samarth programme in 22 states in India.

The ecommerce company will help self-help groups (SHGs), which includes local artisans, weavers and crafts producers, and producers of raw and organic food items, by providing them market access, training, and support.

Additionally, the sellers registered under this programme will receive incubation support from Flipkart. The incubation will help sellers in getting domain expertise in cataloguing, account management, among others.

Through this initiative, Flipkart also aims to support financial weak sections of society, especially in urban areas, by providing them with the tools to attain economic and financial stability.

Sanjay Kumar, joint secretary and mission director of DAY-NULM said that the collaboration with Flipkart will be instrumental in the capacity building of women entrepreneurs in skills of branding, digital marketing and financial management. “Additionally, the partnership will help these entrepreneurs to get access to a wider customer base which buys locally-made high-quality products from SHGs,” he added.

Rajneesh Kumar, chief corporate affairs officer at Flipkart Group, said that this initiative will enable these sellers to overcome geographical and socio-economic constraints by leveraging the Flipkart platform to reach more than 200 Mn customers across India.

Flipkart Samarth Programme

The Walmart-owned company had launched the Flipkart Samarth in July 2019. The initiative aims to bring India’s artisans, weavers and handicrafts producers onto their ecommerce platform. The Samarth programme aims to do so by offering dedicated support for onboarding, cataloguing, account management, business insights and warehousing support among others.

Under this initiative, Flipkart works closely with NGOs and government bodies to promote and encourage rural entrepreneurs, with a special focus on women-led enterprises, artisans and weavers. Flipkart claims to have around 100K MSME sellers on its platform.

According to DataLabs by Inc42, the total gross value added (GVA) by the Indian MSME sector by MSME sector by FY20 is estimated to stand at $866 Bn, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.12%.

The Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), a nodal agency for startups in Kerala, on Monday (December 30), announced that it will be organising the second edition of Scalathon on January 7, 2020, in association with Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce Industry (FICCI) and Wadhwani Foundation.

The programme, Scalathon, will be held at Abad Plaza, Ernakulam and invited all the growth-focused startups with an annual turnover of INR 5 Cr and above, where KSUM plans to help them scale their business. It also provides mentorship programme to budding entrepreneurs to accelerate business growth in Kerala. Through this initiative, it belives to create job opportunity in the state.

The first edition of Scalathon was held in December 2019 at KSUM’s Integrated Startup Complex in Kalamassery. Additionally, KSUM had also announced the fifth edition of Seeding Kerala initiative, which will be held on February 7 and 8, 2020. The programme will include angel investors and early-stage venture capitalists from across the globe taking part in the seed funding round of emerging startups in Kerala.

In addition to this, the programme will be giving startups the opportunity to showcase their ideas to investors, entrepreneurs, ecosystem enablers and stakeholders.

KSUM Going The Extra Mile To Help Startups Grow 

In November 2018, the fourth edition of Seeding Kerala was started with a workshop called ‘Elevate,’ an investor education programme. This initiative introduces potential investors to various startups from across sectors, including healthcare, deeptech, rural and social enterprises, hardware and electronics among others. ConceptOwl, an edtech startup emerged as the winner of the pitching session of this programme, where it had raised funding of INR 3 Cr from Indian Angel Network.

Started in 2006, KSUM is headed by Saji Gopinath. Over the years, KSUM has evolved to boost the startup ecosystem to the next level. It has collaborated with international education institutes, accelerators and tech conferences to take the Kerala startup ecosystem to the next level. The startup nodal entity has helped more than 130 startups till July 2019 to take their product and services to the international market.

KSUM also offers International Entrepreneurial Exchange Programme, where students and young entrepreneurs from Kerala are given the opportunity to experience the international startup ecosystem. The selected startups will be undergoing an exchange programme to startups located in Silicon Valley, London, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Singapore and others.

KSUM believes that this will give the startups an international platform to showcase their products and services. Interestingly, 90% of the travel expenses are borne by KSUM. Last year, 80 startups were part of this programme.

State-run Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), on December 30, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation to set up electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure across the country.

Under this partnership, EESL and Hindustan Petroleum will be planning, developing and installing charging facilities at “suitable locations” across India. These EV charging stations will be equipped to change two, three, and four-wheeler vehicles.

“With the installation of public charging stations, the range anxiety of EV owners is expected to reduce, which will increase the adoption of electric mobility. This will also bring down automobile emissions, enabling a cleaner and greener environment, in turn, safeguarding the public from health risks,” Hindustan Petroleum said, in a press statement.

EESL’s managing director, Saurabh Kumar, also added that the partnership will further address the “range anxiety” concerns that the customers may have, which are further enhanced due to the lack of charging facilities.

“Increased access to charging infrastructure is vital for the uptake of electric mobility across the entire EV ecosystem of two, three, and four-wheelers. Our partnership with HPCL will also establish more visibility of charging infrastructure, sending a signal to the general public that India’s electric mobility vision is being realised in full potential,” Kumar added.

Recently, EESL also inaugurated the first electric vehicle public charging station in South Delhi, in partnership with South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC). The charging station was installed near SDMC market area of Greater Kailash.

It is just the first one of the 75 charging stations the authorities are planning to install in Delhi. This is a part of EESL and SDMC’s initiative to boost the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in the national capital.

Besides EESL, another state-run organisation Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has decided to set up EV charging points at Delhi-Chandigarh highway to ensure that customers are not skeptical about adopting EVs.

The boost for EV infrastructure is not just limited to government organisations, private players like Tata Motors, MG Motors and Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL), in a joint venture with British Petroleum, have taken up such operations.

Recently MG Motors set up its first charging station in Gurugram. In addition, taking EV charging points to customers’ homes, MG Motors has also partnered with Delhi-based eChargeBays. Tata Motors, on the other hand, has decided to set up 500 EV charging stations by 2021.