MUMBAI: Bank of Baroda has come out with a motivational new music video titled ‘#PhirJeetenge’ that aims to boost flagging morale in the nation’s fight against Covid, amid its second debilitating wave.
Featuring National sports icons and world-renowned badminton players like PV Sindhu and Srikanth Kidambi alongside singers Javed Ali & Aishwarya Majmudar, and radio jockeys Kartik & Archana, the film calls on all citizens to come together and fight the virus.
With the pandemic is creating a paradigm shift in terms of the new normal, the campaign advocates the importance of a positive mindset and working unitedly- both physically and emotionally, towards a better tomorrow. As India is on the threshold of completing 75 years of Independence, the bank seeks to spread the message of overcoming hurdles and vanquishing the pandemic together.
The short film also relays the significance of getting vaccinated and on the continued need for maintaining safety checks and caution.
The bank shared the video on its LinkedIn account stating:
“#PhirJeetenge song is our attempt to spread the message of winning. India as a Nation has conquered many odds with the never say die attitude of people. This song reignites the flame of optimism, hope, and fighting spirit in us. The 135Crore+ Indians will fight against this virus together. We shall win this battle by getting vaccinated, wearing a mask, and maintaining social distance. #JaiHind #PhirJeetenge #Unite2FightAgainstCorona #AzadiKaAmritMahotsav
Speaking on the initiative, Bank of Baroda’s chief general manager Purshotam Kumar said, “At a time such as the current pandemic situation, it is important for us, from all walks of life, to unite, with one overriding emotion, that of hope. We all need to follow the guidelines set by the government and support each other. ‘PhirJeetenge’ is an anthem for each and every individual, to believe and draw on the strength that we possess, confident that we will succeed, like we always have, as a country.”
MUMBAI: Short video app Chingari has collaborated with Rotary International and Being Human for ‘Project Breathe’ to contribute to the country’s fight against the devastating second wave of Covid-19.
The project aims to provide oxygen concentrators in the under-served regions of Southwest Maharashtra, North Karnataka, and the entire state of Goa which have been grappling to meet oxygen demands for the past few weeks.
Speaking on the plan of action, Chingari App CEO & co-founder Sumit Ghosh said, “Rotary International and Being Human have always come forward to help those in need. As an organization that believes in building a better future for the nation, we are no different. It is the time to be with the people, and so, without a second thought, we have extended our support to help foster ‘Project Breathe’.”
Under the project, Rotary Dist. 3170 will procure oxygen concentrators and send them to various hospitals in the region. These concentrators will be used by hospitals as an Oxygen Concentrator Bank for patients under home isolation, thus proportionately reducing their influx to hospitals that are already overwhelmed.
Chingari and Fireside intend to start a fundraiser with CovidCitizens.org to support Covid initiatives undertaken by various NGOs across the country.
Speaking on the collaboration, renowned laparoscopic surgeon & Director of Rotary International Dr. Bharat Pandya said, “Rotary International has been in the forefront of carrying out humanitarian projects across the world for more than a century. Rotary during Covid times has spent about $ 35 million across the globe and $ 5 million in India alone towards Covid relief measures and medical infrastructure support. We are grateful to Chingari and Being Human for collaborating with Rotary in supporting this noble cause and look forward to partnering with them in the future too.”
Speaking on the collaboration, Chingari App co-founder and COO Deepak Salvi said, “These are testing times for the country & we all must extend our help to serve our people. We must take the battlefront to help our corona warriors. In its quest to help those suffering due to the shortage of oxygen, Chingari App will be extending its full support as part of its social responsibility and welfare initiative. I urge everyone to come together and help those around you in whatever way you can.”
KOLKATA: Roposo founder Mayank Bhangadia has announced the launch of CloseAPP – a hyperlocal social app to help people across the country as they combat the devastating second wave of Covid-19. The new app will help people to connect with each other virtually and get medical help in real-time. The launch comes at a time when people are increasingly turning to social media to meet their medical emergencies.
CloseAPP users can seek help by posting their requirements on the app and learn about the availability of Plasma, Oxygen, ICU Beds, Vaccines, and Ventilators around their location. Bhangadia created this app with former colleague Harsha Chhabra, who led product development at Roposo and also founded GoParento. The team was supported by many Covid volunteers in the initiative.
“During my Covid crisis, I realised that current social networks aren’t as efficient in connecting help seekers with volunteers within one’s neighbourhood, nearby societies, or geo-location. Some posts get viral, but many times the useful resources get exhausted by the time they reach the masses. So, we felt there was a need to create an open, decentralised platform to help people connect hyper-locally with one another and get immediate help,” explained the Roposo founder, who is also building an active community of volunteers and alongside building a robust Technology Team.
India set another grim record on Wednesday, after losing as many as 4,529 lives during the last 24 hours. Over 2.67 lakh news cases were recorded across the country, according to the government.
Mumbai: Financial services provider TVS Credit Services Ltd has extended additional financial assistance under its Employee welfare program – Parivaar to support employees during the health crisis.
The company had added several benefits to the welfare program during the initial outbreak of the pandemic. This included plans to provide monetary compensation equal to three years of the employee’s salary to the families of employees who lost their lives in the pandemic. It also provided three years of family medical insurance and a dedicated financial adviser to guide the family on managing the fund effectively.
Elaborating further on the program, TVS Credit Jayashubha K, chief people officer said, “While we understand that no financial aid or assistance can compensate for the loss of loved ones, it is important for us as an organization to reassure and provide security to the families while they overcome the bereavement. Since the surge in Covid-19 cases across India, several families of our employees struck with the misfortune have been assisted. We are committed to continue our efforts and support our employees to get through these unprecedented times.”
It has also introduced various other welfare initiatives which includes special insurance schemes to cover Covid centric hospitalization and medical expenses and assistance in emergency consultation for the employees and their family members. To provide additional help, the organization has also set up a Covid helpdesk & support centers in Maharashtra, New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh to assist with immediate medical treatment and provide emergency support to the ones in need.
New Delhi: OMD India has bagged the communications mandate to service the new-age edtech platform, Cuemath.
The creative and marketing agency will drive Cuemath’s business by generating targeted campaigns based on audience data and making a positive impact on the potential customers’ brand recall.
Cuemath is a LIVE online math learning and coding program for over 2,00,000-plus KG-12th grade students across all school boards, spread over 20+ countries (UK, USA, UAE, Singapore, Canada, Thailand, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and more). The Cuemath Program is designed to nurture future problem-solvers.
Leveraging OMD’s home-grown data platform, Omni, the creatives will be planned and optimized by analytics-driven insights to reach the target consumers through personalized communication.
OMD CEO Priti Murthy said she believes that the precision marketing and analytics platform will help meet the client’s business KPIs by creating targeted strategies to communicate to the audience in a familiar environment.
The Google-backed ed-tech start up has recently raised $40 million in Series C funding led by LGT Lightstone Aspada and Falcon Edge-managed Alpha Wave Incubation.
“We at Cuemath believe in making the world’s children great at math and coding and create invincible problem-solvers who will go on to solve humanity’s biggest problems. Since OMD is armed with the much-needed technological tools based on real-time, accurate, and representative data, we plan to use their strength to not only fulfil our mission but also create maximum impact,” says Cuemath, marketing director, Arvind Iyer.
Due to the disruption brought in by the Covid-19 pandemic and a significant increase in online learning platform consequently, OMD India plans to address the demand in the market by reaching the untapped geographies and how it can address the fear factors surrounding maths among most school-going children.
Mumbai: Nothing about our lives or the world we dwell in today is like what we knew it to be, till a little more than a year ago. This is perhaps a good enough incentive for brands and advertisers to adapt to the present world – Not ignore the elephant in the room and accept the irrevocable, undeniable truth of our reality today. After all, how long can the advertising world remain oblivious to the devastating changes brought by Covid-19 all around us.
Here are some brand campaigns which have chosen to take a different route as we endure a global pandemic. They have chosen to embark on the route of empathy, kindness, and most important of all, humanity:
Facebook India | More Together Hum Aaj Ek-duusre ka saath denge, toh ek behtar kal zaroor hoga. #MoreTogether
The campaign captures the grief and sense of loss many of us have gone through because of the devastation caused by Covid. However, it does not dwell on the grief for long, portraying brilliantly how a personal tragedy can transform an ordinary person into a do-gooder. While all of us watch out for the wellbeing of our loved ones, it’s only a few special ones who look out for others- not their own. It is this extraordinary message that Facebook’s latest ‘More together’ campaign brings out poignantly while also driving in the need to vaccinate oneself and the community we live in to make a safer world. The film succeeds in conveying a sense of hope and a sense of being in this together during these bleak times.
SBI Life Insurance: SBI Life #MummyKahanHain
The creative portrays a day in the life of a family in the new normal during the pandemic. It shows through the eyes of a child how she is initially upset to not have her working mom cater to her needs while at home, as the mother is busy working from home. For children, their mother is their sanctuary, and “#Mummy Kahan Hain” is the constant query thrown at the other members of the household if she’s missing for a moment. The heart-warming ad wonderfully depicts how during this pandemic, kids learned to adapt to ways of the new normal, and for every time that they asked #MummyKahanHain, they also realized the many hats a mother dons working from and for home. By the end, the child learns to truly understand and appreciate how a mother has an identity separate from motherhood.
Ariel’s ad of a transgender doctor Priya #MakeItPossible
Tough times never last, tough people do. Ariel’s new ad narrates the inspiring true story of Kerala’s first Transgender Doctor, V.S. Priya. Growing up in a conventional household and having lived all her life as a male, Dr. Priya took the bold and life-altering decision of embracing her feminine identity. Challenged by societal norms and stereotyped gender roles in families, she lived as a man for almost 30 years. Now, as Kerala’s first transgender doctor, she wants to be known for her work and is a beacon of hope not only for all transgendered people who want to be known for what they do but for everyone who continues to battle the odds and face impossible challenges. @Ariel India has been championing the cause of gender equality and celebrates these heroes who overcome the odds to #MakeItPossible.
TATA Steel Apno Ke Liye Aage Badho
It’s been just over a year since the pandemic changed our lives forever. While every festival that comes around brings a semblance of warmth and cheer, we need to remember the people who have lost their loved ones to this deadly nemesis. This film by TATA Steel celebrates and pays homage to the Covid warriors- those doctors and health workers who sacrificed their lives in the larger need of humanity. It reminds their loved ones to not stop living in their absence and celebrate the indomitable human spirit that fights against all odds and keeps moving ahead.
Ashok Leyland #AapkiJeetHamariJeet
One of the lessons the pandemic has taught us is the power and value of kindness of strangers. Ashok Leyland made a touching ad dripping with warmth, that shows how every celebration begins with caring and sharing. The film shows two people stuck up on a deserted road, with one of the person’s car breaks down. The video beautifully shows how sometimes it is important to rise to the occasion and go beyond one’s calling- purely in the name of humanity, empathy, and compassion. The underlying message being ‘Let us together spread positivity and goodwill.’
Colgate – Smiles always find a way
To sign off, here is a brilliant but simple concept by a brand that sells its product by displaying models with gorgeous smiles with the perfect set of teeth. However, in this International print ad, the brand chooses to demonstrate how truly warm smiles do not always need a perfect set of teeth. That, in fact, one can smile most warmly even by having a mask cover one’s face – the smile will find it through one’s eyes. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, face masks have become a part and parcel of our everyday lives. Gradually, we have got used to living with our smiles hidden behind a piece of cloth. But this Colgate print campaign, conceptualized by French agency VMLY&R, brilliantly conveys how you don’t need to see a smile to feel it. That a smile is more than just a curve- it’s a way of standing up and dealing with the adversities life throws at you. “Smiles always find a way”
Brands have an opportunity to shape a better, more accepting, and humane world and ads such as these hit us at a deeper level to be so. They go beyond mere advertising. And every effort accelerates a change, one step at a time.
New Delhi : In the current scenario, where every section of the society has been impacted by the pandemic for over a year, help and relief have been of prime significance. People across sections have been deprived of appropriate healthcare, employment and education opportunities.
Continuing with their ongoing relief initiatives, B4U Network has partnered with various NGOS to launch Project Revive to help revive education, healthcare, employment and environment for different sections of society.
As a part of the project, B4U network has partnered with multiple NGOs – CRY (Child Rights and You) to support children education programs, Disha Foundation to support migrant workers’ employment and healthcare, Sarthak Educational Trust to support specially abled people with upskilling and employment, Responsenet to support women empowerment projects and SankalpTaru Foundation for tree plantation.
B4U Network through this project aims to provide immediate relief as well long term development programs for various affected sections of the society across India, it said in a statement on Monday.
India is facing one of the worst health crisis in years, with the second wave of coronavirus taking a massive toll on people across states. The country is losing as many as 4,000 lives due to Covid-19 daily, as the number of infections continue to surge.
Mumbai: Struggling to combat the devastating surge in the number of Covid-19 cases, West Bengal and Odisha on Monday decided to suspend the shooting of all television shows and films with immediate effect.
The decision to suspend shooting comes as a part of stricter lockdown measures imposed in these states to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. West Bengal on Sunday reported the highest single-day Covid-19 toll with 147 deaths that pushed up the fatality count to 13,284.
The Odisha government, in its new circular, ordered the suspension of both indoor and outdoor shooting activities. Earlier, shooting was permitted in Odisha subject to permission from the local authorities.
Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India President Swarup Biswas told PTI that the shooting of 36 serials, three web series, and one film will be suspended until 31 May due to the new restriction imposed by the government.
However, Biswas requested the authorities to permit shooting in West Bengal and assured that all Covid safety procedures will be followed while filming. Thousands of people working in the industry will become unemployed due to the new order, he beseeched. “Our request will be to the chief minister Mamata Banerjee to see if something can be done so that hundreds of people involved in this profession are not rendered unemployed. It will be better if they can carry on their work following all COVID safety procedures,” said Biswas.
Biswas also added that all actors and technicians will soon undergo Covid tests so that they can keep the shooting area coronavirus-free zone.
TV and film shooting also remains suspended in Maharashtra, Kerala and Goa which are also reeling under the second wave of Covid-19. On Saturday, RK Selvamani, the president of the Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI) said that the shooting of films and serials in Tamil Nadu will be suspended until 31 May. FEFSI made this decision after 26 members of a TV serial crew tested positive for Covid infection.
New Delhi: With people struggling with one of the worst health crises in recent times, the need for continuous blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) monitoring has become the need of the hour. Keeping this in view, the global smart-device brand OPPO announced the launch of its new Sleep Sign-in campaign for its consumers.
People can wear the OPPO Band Style while sleeping and connect it to the HeyTap Health app on their Android phones, for 30 days simultaneously. The company also announced that the first 500 lucky participants will stand a chance to win another OPPO Band Style, absolutely for free. Through its campaign, the brand is also encouraging people to have a good night’s sleep without having to worry about their blood oxygen saturation levels.
OPPO had also brand donated 5,000 units of OPPO Band Style to front-line warriors of Delhi Police and Greater Noida Authority, reinforcing that safeguarding citizen’s health and wellbeing has always been one of OPPO’S topmost priorities.
Starting 17 May till 31 July, all participants can sign in to ‘activity in the app’s Health tab. Post joining, they are required to wear the OPPO Band Style every night when they sleep. The data collected after 8:00 PM each day will be taken as sleep data. “When you wake up the next day, make sure your OPPO Band is connected to your phone via Bluetooth so that you can punch in on the activity page. You need to punch in 30 days in a row. Once you punch in, the day count starts. If you forget to punch in, the day count will reset automatically,” said the company during the launch.
OPPO will send a voucher to the Amazon account of winners within ten workdays after they submit their address and contact information on the prize page of the HeyTap Health app. Once they get the voucher, they can go to their Amazon account that has their valid delivery address in India, add to cart, choose the Payment method, add the gift card or promotion code and continue to finish the transaction.
New Delhi: The ferocious second wave of Covid-19 continues to take a heavy toll on the news industry. Sunil Jain, managing editor of Financial Express passed away on Saturday after battling with post-Covid complications. He was 58.
“My brother, Sunil Jain, passed away this evening after post-Covid complications. He suffered a cardiac arrest earlier in the day but was revived, and finally passed after another cardiac arrest around 8.30 p.m. The doctors and all medical staff at AIIMS did their best and more. I thank you for standing by us in this dark hour,” his sister Sandhya Jain said in a statement.
We lost my brother Sunil Jain this evening to Covid+its complications. Doctors+staff at AIIMS battled heroically, but the demon was too powerful. May Tirthankaras guide his onward journey; deep gratitude to all who stood by us in these darkest days @drharshvardhan@rajivtuli69
A senior journalist with over three decades of experience, Jain started his journalistic career as a reporter in India Today magazine in 1991 and went on to become the magazine’s business editor. He then moved on to head the business and economy coverage for The Indian Express. Six years later, he joined Business Standard. He returned to the Express Group in 2010 as assistant editor of The Financial Express.
His sudden demise has left the news media world in a state of shock, with several friends, colleagues, and prominent personages expressing their grief over demise on social media. “Your Express family will miss you,” said The Indian Express’ executive editor Anant Goenka.
Sunil Jain, Managing Editor of Financial Express lost his battle to Covid today. He was a friend, of unquestionable integrity & inspired us with his professional commitment. Privileged to have known him, will cherish his passion, balance & wisdom.Your Express family will miss you
President Ramnath Kovind took to Twitter to condole the senior journalist’s demise. “Sunil Jain was an editor known for his candour and forthright views. It was a treat to read his columns. After his untimely demise, his absence will be deeply felt in the world of journalism. My condolences to his family and friends,” he said in a tweet.
Sunil Jain was an editor known for his candour and forthright views. It was a treat to read his columns. After his untimely demise, his absence will be deeply felt in the world of journalism. My condolences to his family and friends.
— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) May 15, 2021
“You left us too soon, Sunil Jain. I will miss reading your columns and hearing your frank as well as insightful views on diverse matters. You leave behind an inspiring range of work. Journalism is poorer today, with your sad demise. Condolences to family and friends. Om Shanti” said Prime minister Narendra Modi in a tweet.
You left us too soon, Sunil Jain. I will miss reading your columns and hearing your frank as well as insightful views on diverse matters. You leave behind an inspiring range of work. Journalism is poorer today, with your sad demise. Condolences to family and friends. Om Shanti.
Several Union ministers including the minister of Information and Broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and Railways minister Piyush Goyal also paid tributes.
Anguished to hear about the passing away of Sunil Jain ji. He will forever be remembered for his journalistic brilliance. His untimely demise has left a huge void in the media fraternity.
My deep condolences to his family. Om Shanti
— Prakash Javadekar (@PrakashJavdekar) May 15, 2021
Hundreds of journalists have lost their lives in the catastrophe that has ravaged the country. India now accounts for half of all global new infections. On Saturday, India recorded 3.26 lakh Covid-19 cases and lost 3,890 lives that pushed the death toll to 2.6 lakhs.
