Citi Foundation to invest in India Innovation Grant Program

Citigroup Inc's Citi Foundation will invest Rs 130 million (USD 2 million) to help eight NGOs execute innovative programmes under the 2015 India Innovation Grant Program that will accelerate and deepen financial inclusion.

"The Citi Foundation today announced an investment of Rs 130 million (USD 2 million) under the 2015 India Innovation Grant Program to support eight innovative programmes that will accelerate and deepen financial inclusion in India", it said in a statement.

The eight NGOs part of 2015 India Innovation Grant Program are: Navya Disha Trust, Swadhaar FinAccess, Anudip Foundation for Social Welfare, American India Foundation Trust, Pratham Education Foundation, MelJol, Kalighat Society for Development Facilitation, and Grameen Foundation.

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Pumpkart.Com opens first store in Chandigarh * Water pump portal Pumpkart.Com today launched its first hybrid store-O2O here and announced to open 100 more such outlets in the next four years.

"We today opened our first online to offline (O2O) store here. The aim of opening this store is to give touch and feel to our customers about water pumps," Pumpkart.Com Founder, K S Bhatia said here today.

"Customers can have a look at water pumps in the store and then they can place order online here and the product will be delivered to their homes," he said.

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Essential Energy delivers 10MWh clean power to telecom towers * Essential Energy, the distributed power and generation firm has delivered over 10MWh of clean and efficient power to telecom towers in India in just three months.

"Essential Energy...A wholly-owned subsidiary of UK-listed Intelligent Energy Holdings today announced it has in just three months, delivered over 10MWh of clean and efficient power to telecom towers in India," the company said in a statement.

The breakthrough clean energy project, which will run for ten years, saved more than 55 tons of CO2, it added.
Telenor increases mobile internet speed using Huawei tech

* Telecom operator Telenor today said that its mobile internet transmission speed increased by about 20 per cent at select places across six circles after the company deployed Huawei's Lean GSM solution.

"At the sites which have been migrated to Lean GSM, we already have 85 per cent less congestion and data throughput has gone up by over 20 per cent. In addition, the new equipment is environment friendly as it consumes almost 30 per cent less power," Telenor India Chief Operating Officer Tanveer Mohammad said in a statement today.

As part of its mobile sites modernisation plan, the company said that it has commercialised Huawei's Lean GSM solution which paves way for it to offer mobile broadband (MBB) transformation in its six circles.

Telenor has operation in UP (West), UP (East), Bihar (including Jharkhand), Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The solution has been deployed in 28 cities, including Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Varanasi.

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Shoogloo appoints Bhupinder Tomar as the Group CEO * Digital marketing company Shoogloo today has roped in Bhupinder Tomar on board as its Group CEO effective February 1, 2016.

Capitalising on over fifteen years of work experience in managing large multi-country operations in three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe, Bhupinder would now be driving Shoogloo's operations. His current role in the company entails managing all day-to-day operations and decisions, implementing the company's long and short term plans and guiding its strategic vision.

Tomar has earlier worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as their Chief Operating Officer for Africa in Nairobi, Kenya.