Sharp fall in vegetable prices, lack of cash hit farmers, traders

Bengaluru, Mar 9: The first case of Nov Corona patient was found in Karnataka with a 40 year-old Software Engineer, who returned from US, developing fever today at Rajiv Gandhi Hospital in the City. This is the first case reported in the State.

Disclosing this to newsmen, Karnataka Minister for Medical Education Dr K Sudhakar said that the techie, his wife and their one child arrived from US on Feb 28 and were under observation.

He said that there were no indication or any symptoms immediately after their arrival and also for the first four days, but on March 5 the Techie developed fever and today (Monday) it was confirmed that he is suffering from the killer disease.

Bengaluru, Feb 1: The police have arrested two miscreants belonging to a saffron outfit after they threatened students in the city who were protesting the firing incident near Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, telling them they would meet the same fate as the injured student.

Saffron extremist Gopal Sharma had opened fire at students protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act near the Delhi varsity on Thursday, injuring one.

The Bengaluru incident took place at Maurya Circle, where the nightlong demonstration against the Jamia firing and CAA began around 7.30pm. By 11pm, the number of protesters reduced to 30 but the group decided to stay back after getting the news of another alleged attack on women and Jamia students by Delhi police.

According to Adrian, a student who was at the scene, the small group of protesters stayed within a barricaded area on the road, chanting slogans, singing patriotic songs and playing music. “While we were raising anti-CAA slogans, two men from among us began shouting pro-CAA slogans. The duo was unknown and when we looked at them, they quietly moved away,” said Adrian, adding they were drunk and returned after a few minutes.

Saqib Idrees, another student protester, said the duo began to issue verbal threats. “They threatened us in Kannada that they would repeat the Jamia incident in Bengaluru,” said Saqib, adding the duo also taunted them saying ‘it’s not CAA down down, but you all will be brought down’.

When the students questioned the miscreants, cops stationed at the spot detained the duo. “Police were very cooperative. Almost 20 personnel were with us till 5am,” said Saqib.

Meanwhile, a friend of the duo watched the drama from a distance and approached the protesters to apologise on their behalf. “He said they belonged to the working class and FIRs would destroy their lives. He apologised to us and we decided to let the matter go. After all, we are Gandhians,” added Saqib.

Adrian said though the two men were drunk, their threats exposed their ideology. After the duo was detained, the students continued their protest till 5am and dispersed after singing the national anthem.

According to High Grounds police, the men are bank employees and were detained for disturbing the protesters at Maurya Junction. “They are from Andhra Pradesh and work in a PSU bank in the city. One of them is set to get married in February. He had thrown a party for his other friends for the same reason. The duo was drunk when confronted by the protesters. We booked a case of public nuisance and let them off after a warning,” police said.

Bangalore , Mar 24: Bizom, India's leading retail intelligence platform, announced free subscription of its retailer app and tele-ordering solutions for consumer businesses in India and other emerging economies. Both solutions enable retailers to send their orders directly to the brand.
In COVID-19 times of social distancing and prophylactic measures, brands are conscious about the safety of their salespersons. Also, retailers don't want travelling salespeople to enter their premises. Consequently, many retail stores are facing stockout situations of fast-moving product categories. Bizom's self-ordering solutions help brands to avoid stockouts of their products.
Bizom trends, which analyses consumption and demand for consumer brands, showed how a near-complete shutdown during the Janta Curfew followed panic buying in early March. The asymmetrical demand and a lack of salespeople for order-taking are driving the industry towards social-distancing-based store-stocking mechanisms.
Bizom provides social-distancing-based store-stocking solutions for consumer businesses. They include the Bizom Retailer App and the Bizom Tele-ordering.
The Bizom Retailer App enables self-ordering for a brand's key retail outlets and can be implemented in under two weeks. The mobile app, a B2B shopping app, is a simple installation for retailers. It lists and groups the brand's products as per its product categories. The app's interface is no different from that of leading e-commerce apps. All the user has to do is select the preferred SKUs and add them to their shopping carts.
The app also allows brands to customize the app to meet the requirements of their continually changing product categories. For instance, if an SKU runs out of stock, the brand can disable the given SKU from the app.
With the Bizom Retailer App, brands can take orders directly from retailers instead of the traditional order-taking approach, which requires high-touch from a salesperson. Some of the key features of the app are, the ability to provide product information directly through retailers including SKUs, competitor comparison and pricing.
It also enables self-ordering from the retailer to maintain the flow of products as per demand, enables scheme rollout information through a notification on the app rather than through salespeople, tracks delivery of goods to the retailer and enables incentive payments to retailers directly rather than through distributor claims.
With Bizom Tele-ordering, as the sales teams go remote, the tele-ordering solution will become useful for brands who want to get salespeople to take orders from retailers, remotely. It ensures continued service to outlets despite not being physically present in the market.
Here, salespeople can discuss product requirements with retailers and enter orders based on specific outlet types (grocery, chemist etc.), outlet class (Class A, Class B etc.) or based on their beat or as per a distributor.
The key features of the Bizom Tele-ordering solution are, its ability to help salespeople collect orders from retailers remotely and enter it for fulfilment into Bizom using a tool, the flexibility offered to salespeople for remote servicing of retailers as per outlet type, beat, distributor area etc., secondary schemes get applied automatically, variable discounts will get applied as applicable at an SKU level.
"At Bizom, we are conscious of our responsibility to help brands run faster during these COVID-19 times. Our solutions of Bizom Retailer App and Bizom Tele-ordering have been built to ensure that brands can leverage this situation of low direct touch with retailers to enable a better way of working, remotely. I am trying to help brands go live in a few days so that they, in turn, can serve consumers better during these testing times," said Lalit Bhise, CEO, Bizom.