<ul><li>Amazon’s Great Indian Festival is the longest this year as the brand hasn't set an end date yet and the sale is likely to go on for a month. </li><li>This year’s sale has already broken some of the records set last year. </li><li>Manish Tiwary, Vice President, Amazon India shares with us some of the trends that the e-commerce giant has seen so far, how the platform is working towards improving overall consumer experience, marketing strategy and much more. </li></ul>Consumer sentiment seems to have picked up during Navratri after seeing a muted affair during Raksha Bandhan and Ganesh Chaturthi. E-commerce firms Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and Snapdeal together sold goods worth $3.1 billion in the first 4.5 days of the first festival season sale, revealed management consultancy Redseer. This growth trajectory of e-commerce platforms in India testifies how customers are increasingly recognising the importance of comfort shopping within closed doors, and after seeing their businesses take a plunge in the first three months of the lockdown, more and more sellers are coming online with the increasing adoption of e-commerce platforms. Similarly, Amazon India has also been seeing a year of firsts in its ongoing Great Indian Festival and is breaking last year’s records already. So far, the platform has recorded the highest number of first time shoppers, saw a 50% increase in new sellers and witnessed the strongest-ever start for SMBs. 91% of its first-time shoppers were from smaller cities who browsed the app in local Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Total iPhones sold on Amazon in one day were more than the total iPhones sold in the entire festive sale period of last year. The sale has also helped Amazon accelerate growth across its portfolio. Over 1 lakh customers bought Amazon devices, Echo and Fire TV devices. Kindle sales were around 2.5X higher than the first day of the sale last year. Manish Tiwary, Vice President, Amazon India calls this year’s Great Indian Festival ‘Bharat’s biggest celebration on Amazon ever’ as Tier II and III towns take the forefront. He further told us some of the trends that the e-commerce giant has seen so far, how the platform is working towards improving overall consumer experience, challenges of breaking the clutter in the e-commerce landscape, marketing strategy, and most demanded products on the platform. Excerpts: Q. The role of engagement and communication has never been more important, especially in today’s digital-first world. How are you making sure your communication during this year's Great Indian Festival is relevant to consumers? These are unprecedented times and COVID-19 has impacted the sense of normalcy for everyone. This Great Indian Festival, our focus remains on providing reliability to customers, ensuring safety of employees and helping sellers as they get back on their feet. These include more than 6,50,000 sellers &amp; SMBs including artisans, women entrepreneurs, emerging Indian brands and local store owners from programs like Karigar, Saheli, Launchpad and Local Shops. At the same time, we want to help customers find everything they need – from the latest mobile phone to groceries and get them delivered safely to their homes. Our campaign with the ‘Khushiyon Ka Darwaza’ symbolizes the joy Amazon’s Great Indian Festival brings in the lives of this entire ecosystem of customers, sellers, delivery associates, brand partners and more. Q. What are some of the exclusive deals you have on the platform to woo consumers? This festive season, lakhs of Small &amp; Medium Businesses (SMBs) are offering unique selection to customers helping them rebuild and accelerate their business in tough times. Over 4 crore products from Small &amp; Medium Businesses (SMBs); products from over 20,000 local shops across 100 cities will be available during the Great Indian Festival. Customers across the country will have the opportunity to shop for unique products from thousands of Amazon sellers under various programs such as Local Shops, Amazon Launchpad, Amazon Saheli, and Amazon Karigar and enjoy deals/offers extended by lakhs of small businesses. This year witnessed the strongest ever start for SMBs with record sales; over 5,000 sellers clock sales worth INR 1MM (10 lakh) in SMB pre-festive lead up &amp; first 48 hours of the Great Indian Festival. With over 1.1 Lakh sellers receiving orders, we are humbled how sellers, brands and ecosystem partners nationwide have come together during these unprecedented times to spread joy across the country. Q. What are some of the other trends you are expecting to see this festive? At this moment in time, our focus is to ensure our customers get all that they need safely and that we are able to strongly help our small business partners with their business revival to manage through these challenging times. Customers recognize that ecommerce is the safest way for them to get what they need, and sellers know that e-commerce is the best way for them to serve their customers as their footfalls have been impacted. We are seeing a 50% increase in new seller registrations vs pre COVID19. The sellers on Amazon.in have been receiving orders for consumer electronics, study from home essentials, kitchen &amp; home appliances, smart devices, laptops, mobile phones, phone accessories, personal grooming products, apparel and more besides groceries and other essential products. Q. With the on-going festive season, many other platforms will have their Sales days too. How do you then cut the clutter and make sure you win consumers? How will you be different from the other players in the segment? As a customer-obsessed company, we remain focused on ways to serve the customers in the country everywhere and fulfil all their needs. Our focus remains on what is best for our sellers &amp; customers. This Great Indian Festival is all about them. Q. How are you working towards improving the overall consumer experience? Tier II &amp; III towns see a significant number of customers shop on Amazon.in, with many being first time customers. To address customer needs and enable millions of customers from India to discover the joy, convenience and benefits of online shopping, ahead of the festive season, they can shop in one of the six languages of their choice including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. In fact, the largest number of new customers shopped for the first time on Amazon.in; 91% of new customers came from smaller cities as customers experienced the Great Indian Festival in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Q. Do you anticipate people to buy more, considering a lot of people might have pushed buying things for the festive season? With over 1.1 Lakh sellers receiving orders, 66% sellers, 91% of new customers, and 66% of new Prime sign-ups from small towns; shopping in 5 Indian languages; and orders from over 98.4% of India’s pin-codes in just 48 hours, this Great Indian Festival is truly Bharat’s biggest celebration on Amazon ever. During the first 48 hours, top sold categories were Smartphones, Large Appliances and Consumer Electronics with leading brands OnePlus, Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi making record sales. New products received a rousing response; popular new products were OnePlus 8T, Samsung M31 Prime Edition, OnePlus Nord (Gray Ash), Xbox Series S, Maggi 2 minute Desi Cheesy Masala, Samsung 6.5 kg fully automatic washing machine, new collection from BIBA &amp; Max among over 1,100 new launches Customers shopped for everything big and small <ul><li>Smartphones remained popular among customers: iPhone 11, Redmi Note Series, Redmi 9A, OnePlus 8T, OnePlus Nord and Samsung M31 Prime Edition were among the popular smartphones on Amazon.in; Total iPhones sold on Amazon.in in one day were more than the total iPhones sold in entire festive sale period of last year</li><li>Popular appliances were fully automatic top &amp; front load washing machines, direct cool refrigerators, air conditioners, microwave ovens and dishwashers</li><li>Top-selling electronics were laptops, headphones, tablets, cameras and smartwatches. Customers also loved selection across security cameras and drones. Asus, Lenovo &amp; HP were leading laptop brands; Samsung &amp; Apple leading tablets, and TP Link &amp; Netgear were leading in networking products</li><li>TVs with Alexa OnePlus 43”, OnePlus 32” and Samsung 32” popular this season</li><li>Smart bulbs and bedsheets in Home, water purifiers and mixer grinders in Kitchen</li><li>Women’s kurtis, sarees, casual tops, t-shirts and athleisure popular in Apparel</li><li>Suitcases, luggage sets and gold jewellery popular this season</li><li>More customers are looking at gaming as a hobby – gaming consoles popular during GIF </li><li>In health &amp; hygiene categories, Savlon disinfectant Sprays, Whisper sanitary pads, Chyawanprash, Dettol &amp; Dove bathing soaps see a spike</li><li>Within grocery, products with dry fruits, spreads &amp; cooking supplies were popular</li><li>Vaseline &amp; Ponds Body lotions, Dove &amp; Wow shampoos, Lakme Kajal were popular beauty products</li><li>For pet parents, Pedigree Adult Dog Food and Whiskas dry cat food were among the popular products </li><li>Baby products such as diapers &amp; skincare products like Himalaya baby lotion &amp; Pampers anti rash diapers were widely sought after </li><li>The Nerf rival blasters - a new launch in India was among the most sought after newly launched toys</li><li>Treadmills in fitness essentials, grills, fertilizer and soil in Garden &amp; Outdoors, Car care in Tools &amp; Equipment also popular in the country</li></ul>Amazon Devices <ul><li>Customers loved Alexa – Prime Early Access during the Great Indian Festival was the single biggest day of sale for Echo devices on Amazon.in</li><li>Customers loved the new Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite; streaming media player category sold nearly 2x units vs. the first day of GIF last year</li><li>Over 1 lakh customers bought Amazon devices, Echo and Fire TV devices</li><li>The Echo Dot (3rd Gen) and the All New Fire TV Stick were among the top 10 products sold on Amazon.in </li><li>Kindle sales were more than 2.5X vs. first day of the sale last year</li></ul>

Amazon's ongoing Great Indian Festival has already broken last year's records

<ul><li><keyword id="874458" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Xiaomi">Xiaomi</keyword> already has a wide range of <keyword id="3465192" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="IoT-products">IoT products</keyword> in China, but so far, it has only launched a select few of those products in India. This is all set to change in 2020. </li><li>Xiaomi’s competitor, <keyword id="6485927" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="realme">Realme</keyword>, is also planning to expand its portfolio in India next year. </li><li>With Xiaomi planning to expand its portfolio and competition from Realme, the prices of smart home products could reduce further in India next year. </li></ul>After competing aggressively in the smartphones space, Xiaomi and Realme are gearing up to take on each other with new Internet of Things (IoT) product launches in 2020. While Xiaomi has already launched a few IoT products in India, it says that it will launch “exciting and aggressive” new products in the near future. In a statement to <a href="http://ians.in/index.php?param=news/C-1-1178754">IANS</a>, Xiaomi VP and Xiaomi India MD Manu Kumar Jain revealed his company’s plans to expand its portfolio of smart home products in India. He said, “We're excited to lead the IoT growth story in this country along with bringing the most cutting-edge smartphone technology. It's safe to say that the Indian market will continue to see exciting and disruptive products in the coming times.” At the moment, Xiaomi has launched several smart home and internet-connected products in India like air purifiers, water purifiers, smart bulbs and more. Despite these launches, Xiaomi’s smart home products portfolio is much bigger in China. Thankfully for Xiaomi fans in India, this could change in 2020. Realme to follow suit as well Over the last year or so, Realme has emerged as one of the primary competitors of Xiaomi, especially in the budget and mid-range segments. Now, Realme CEO Madhav Sheth has revealed his company’s plans to venture into the smart home segment in India. In a statement to IANS, he said Realme is “especially focusing on introducing IoT-based products in the coming year which will include audio and wearables.” Realme has also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/smartphone-makers-realme-and-xiaomi-will-compete-in-the-financial-services-market-too/articleshow/72832681.cms">announced</a> its credit lending platform Paysa to take on <a>Xiaomi’s Mi Credit service</a>. Looking beyond smartphones With both Xiaomi and Realme aiming to launch new smart home and connected products in India, it is apparent that they are looking beyond just smartphones. This should also help in improving their profitability, especially since the smartphone industry in India has cut-throat competition and margins in the budget segment are especially thin. Becoming tech-lifestyle brands also opens up a wide range of products for both Xiaomi and Realme. While Xiaomi already has plenty of experience and a large portfolio in this segment in China, it will be interesting to see Realme’s approach since it is a newbie in this regard. Diversifying its portfolio of products should also help Xiaomi in avoiding the fate of Samsung and Nokia in India. Launching new smart home products should help Xiaomi in creating an ecosystem of connected products, allowing it to not only retain its existing users but also draw in new ones. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/heres-how-you-can-avail-an-instant-loan-from-mi-credit/articleshow/72350608.cms">Here’s how you can avail an instant loan from Mi Credit</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/smartphone-makers-realme-and-xiaomi-will-compete-in-the-financial-services-market-too/articleshow/72832681.cms">Smartphone makers Realme and Xiaomi will compete in the financial services market too</a>

Xiaomi and Realme gear up to launch IoT products in India in 2020

Noida, Jan 11 () With an aim to increase its presence in India, <keyword id="2522945" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Opple">Opple</keyword> lighting has launched a <keyword id="1674865" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="new-line">new line</keyword> of products in the domestic electronics market, a company statement said on Saturday. Opple is a Shanghai-based company which is rapidly emerging as a global leader in LED lighting. Established in 1996, the company now has significant presence in over 50 countries including India and a team of 6,000 employees. The company wants to increase its presence in India, and with this aim a new range of products have been launched. Opple has also increased its sales target by 20 per cent in 2020, the company said.
 "The EcoMax COB Spotlight comprises innovative lens for a clean beam, the V7 LED bulb has a wide beam angle greater than 180 degrees, the US Spot Utility is a flicker-free clean beam and the 'HPB E-1' has a high lumen output of 100lm/w and is flicker-free," the company said.
 Besides, other line of products launched include the 'Smart Bulb' which has dimmable, tunable and CCT change options, a 2W spot bulb, an emergency bulb with 500 battery charging cycles with a lifetime of 15000 hours, linear office utility for offices, shopping centres, conference halls, airports and lobbies, etc. ABI RHL

Opple lighting launches new line of products in India; eyes to increase presence

<ul><li>In Q3, Signify was 64% carbon neutral and 79% of its revenue came from sustainable products. It will be executing the same programs to reduce its carbon footprint in India to drive sustainable revenues. </li><li>On the other hand, the brand also aims to become an intelligent software company that offers lighting solutions designed for the IoT world. It invests 4.5% of its global budget on R&amp;D and its latest bet is LiFi. </li><li>Signify currently spends only 5% on digital and 55% of its overall marketing spends on TV, here is why...</li></ul>Philips Lighting, for more than a century, has remained synonymous to bulbs across the globe. Being one of the first in its category, Philips started its operations in India back in 1931 and now, after renewing its brand name to Signify Innovations, aims to become an intelligent software company that offers lighting solutions designed for the IoT world. ‘Lighting can now make every home smarter, cities safer and offices more energy efficient’ and Signify aims to drive this change across the world. Currently, the Indian lighting industry is worth Rs 15,000 crore with LED lighting constituting almost 80% of this. Last year, Signify invested 4.5% of its global sales on Research and Development (R&amp;D) and its latest innovative bet is on Light Fidelity (LiFi), a technology in which high quality LED lighting provides a stable and fast broadband Internet connection through light waves. The company has installed 7 LiFi pilot stations in India across different segments and on the other hand, it also aiming to gain 80% of its revenues from sustainable products. While the company is focusing more on innovation and technology, it continues to spend 55% of its marketing monnies on television and only 5% goes to digital. Sumit Padmakar Joshi, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, <keyword id="7600657" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Signify-Innovations-India">Signify Innovations India</keyword>, has led the company through this transformation. He talks to us about the vision for Signify, its plan to recover from the ‘slightly muted’ quarter, making the company sustainable, and much more. Excerpts: Q. What have some of the key highlights of your journey with the brand been? One of the key highlights of my journey here has been the transformation of the company from a bulb manufacturer to a software company, now offering lighting solutions designed for the IoT world. Our new company name – Signify reflects our company’s purpose – the meaning of light. Light is now a language and can be used to transmit data via LiFi or communicate with other devices via the IoT. Moving away from a pure hardware manufacturer, we have transformed into a company that offers not just lighting but also important business insights and data that can help our customers become smarter and more productive. Leading the company through this phase has been an exciting journey so far. Q. Why did the brand change its name from Philips to Signify, considering Philips is a household name in India? Founded as Philips in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, we’ve led the lighting industry with innovations that serve professional and consumer markets for over 127 years. In 2016, we spun off from Philips, becoming a separate company, listed on Amsterdam’s Euronext Stock Exchange. The renaming of our company was the next logical step in our transformation journey since we became a standalone company in 2016. We changed our company name in line with contractual requirements of the Company Name License agreement with Royal Philips, which requires that we change our company name after Royal Philips, who no longer has a controlling interest. Signify will continue to use the Philips brand for its products, under the existing licensing agreement with Royal Philips. The choice of our new company name originates from the way light has become an intelligent language, which connects and conveys meaning. It’s a clear expression of our strategic vision and purpose to unlock the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world. We believe that our new name will further shape our company’s profile as both the world leader in lighting and the lighting company for the Internet of Things. Q. We have seen advanced technology and innovations at Signify now, where did Signify source that new technology? We invest heavily in R&amp;D to stay at the forefront of technological developments. In 2018, we invested 4.5% of our global sales in R&amp;D. We spot an opportunity which nobody focuses on and grow in that segment by coming up with futuristic solutions. As a leader in lighting, we innovate, design, build, and deliver world-class lighting systems embedded with intelligence and connected through software to deliver capability to manage, monitor and control lighting assets, enable data harvesting and analysis for improvement of lighting operation and business performance. We are positioning ourselves as the lighting company for the Internet of Things. We recently announced the launch of our Interact IoT platform for connected lighting, which will enable our professional customers to unlock the full potential of their connected lighting assets. The platform delivers new insights to help customers drive operational efficiencies and take more effective decisions. It also supports our company’s strategy to deliver new data-enabled services as value expands from lighting products and systems to services. Q. Talking about innovations, are you seeing LiFi changing the game in India? How has the response been so far? Light Fidelity (LiFi) is a technology in which high quality LED lighting provides a stable and fast broadband Internet connection through light waves. Unlike other forms of wireless communications (WiFi, 4G/5G, Bluetooth, etc.) that use radio waves, LiFi uses the broader spectrum of light waves to transmit and receive data wirelessly. LiFi’s bandwidth is more than 1,000 times the size of the radio spectrum. LiFi works in such a way that each luminaire is equipped with a built-in modem that modulates light at speeds imperceptible to the human eye. The light is detected by a USB access key/dongle plugged into the socket of a laptop or tablet (in the future such technology will be inbuilt into laptops, mobile phones, and devices). The USB access key returns data to the luminaire through an infrared link. While radio frequencies are becoming congested, with more devices trying to connect and overloading networks, the visible light spectrum is an untapped resource with a large bandwidth suitable for stable simultaneous connection for a vast array of Internet of Things devices. With our efforts and constant drive for LiFi in the market, we already have 7 pilot installations in India across different segments, including banks, Information technology, Co-Working spaces, B2G, Infrastructure amongst others. We were also specially invited by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Government of Gujarat to showcase LiFi as a Futuristic Technology at the Vibrant Gujarat summit which received a footfall of 25,000 delegates, including Central and State Ministers, several corporate houses and government officials. Q. Globally, Signify has been talking about becoming Carbon-neutral. How successful have you been so far? What exactly are you doing in India to become Carbon-neutral? We are taking a leading role to bring better light to the world and to help provide a more sustainable future. We do this by delivering light which is energy efficient, saves resources, and improves lives. At Signify, we also ‘walk the talk’ and commit to becoming carbon neutral by 2020. We are already carbon neutral in 9 markets as of 2019. We have made some bold promises that we’ll deliver on by 2020. 80% of our revenues will be sustainable and we’ll also deliver 2 billion LED lamps and luminaires to the world. As of Q3, 2019, we are 64% carbon neutral and already 79% of our revenues come from sustainable products. 89% of our purchased electricity comes from renewable sources and we are recycling 82% of our manufacturing waste. We are executing the same programs to reduce our carbon footprint in India as well, including driving sustainable revenues, zero waste to landfill, striving for a zero-injury workplace, and building a sustainable supply chain. Q. With your brand repositioning and new brand endorsers, we have seen your focus shifting to smart lighting. What part of revenue do you make from that category now? Which category brings the lion’s share home? In India, smart lighting for homes is a Rs 100 crores+ category and is expected to grow by 45% over the next 3 years as many more houses adopt connected lighting in a major way. We are by far the market leader in this segment as well, as we virtually created this category when we launched our Philips Hue range in India 4 years back. While smart lighting constitutes a very small share of our overall business right now, it has a lot of potential for growth in the future owing to increasing urbanization and internet penetration. Ultimately our focus is on new homes and renovations, where we see a lot of consumers trying out connected lighting for the first time. The biggest categories for our company are LED lighting in both professional and consumer applications. We recently introduced a range of new products for the consumer segment, including our Philips T Beamer, Philips CeilingSecure and Philips EyePro Bulb. For our professional users, we recently introduced lighting solutions such as Interact and LiFi. Q. How has the year been, in terms of business? We witnessed high single digit growth in the first half of this calendar year, and expect growth to be ‘slightly muted’ during the remaining half of this year due to overall economic slowdown in the country. In Q2 we saw some projects getting delayed due to elections in the country, however, we were expecting a recovery but it looks like it is getting slightly delayed. It will take another three-to-six months for things to start picking up in the Indian lighting sector. The current economic slowdown has impacted industries across sectors in India and we are no different. Q. People in rural areas are still not ready to accept LEDs in their lives because of high costs. What are you doing to bring down the cost of your products? Government electrification schemes like Suabhagya are helping even remote towns and villages to have access to electricity. Moreover, with rising rural incomes and penetration of media, aspirations and awareness about new products amongst rural households has increased over the past few years. While rural households still use conventional lighting in a big way, we’re witnessing a steady and growing demand for LEDs from these areas as well, owing to its reduced prices and enhanced awareness about its advantages, such as high durability and lower power consumption. We have launched an LED range of products, Philips Ujjwal, to cater to this audience, offering a better price value suited to their budget. The technical specifications of these products have been specially designed keeping in mind rural lighting requirements and preferences. Q. Can you walk us through your larger marketing strategy for the brand? India is amongst the top 5 markets for Signify globally and we invest a lot in marketing to support our brand and activities. Our spends on TV Advertising in India are by far the highest across all Signify markets, keeping in mind that India has traditionally been a TV-advertising-focused market. 55% of our overall marketing spends in India are towards TV advertising to reach out to our target audience. Our TV advertising in India is biased towards promoting our new product categories like TBulb, Ceiling Secure. In the last two years, we have launched 2 major TV ad campaigns for these two products. 5% of our overall marketing spends are on digital marketing in India, whereas the lighting category’s digital spends in India stand at 3-4%. Majority of our digital marketing spends are towards SEM and lead generation, highlighting our IoT products like Interact, LiFi and Philips Hue. 26% of our overall marketing spends in India are directed towards creating brand awareness and preference. Q. What areas will you focus on going ahead, to amplify growth? The overall market size of the Indian lighting industry is Rs 15,000 crore with LED lighting constituting almost 80% of this. The LED portion of the industry is expected to grow in high single digits. The conventional lighting market is, however, expected to decline in double digits, owing to faster conversion towards LED. It is not possible for companies to deliver on their top-line as well as bottom-line costs without category-first innovations. As a result, we don’t see many companies in India being able to manage that equation successfully. We’ve managed to increase our profitability over the last 3-4 years, thanks to new innovative products like Philips T Beamer, Philips EYE PRO and Philips Smart WiFi LED bulb. We will also focus on expanding our presence in the rural channel with our customized offerings. Our focus is on innovation and expanding the premium segment where nobody focuses on right now. We believe that companies that don’t innovate, that are entering the lighting industry from other backgrounds are going to have a difficult time surviving in this market. However, if the government continues to allow cheap and sub-standard products to be sold in the market, we foresee that it will become a big roadblock for the industry, which can further impact the price point for the whole industry. We are also investing significantly to grow our smart home lighting business in both offline and online channels, through our exclusive Philips Smart Light Hubs and with our presence on all major e-commerce portals. By the end of the year, we expect to double our retail presence for smart lighting in the country with new Philips Smart Light Hubs opening across various cities. In the professional lighting space, we will strive to grow our Interact connected lighting installations in offices, public buildings, retail stores, hotels and landmarks. Signify has already installed 53 million connected light points worldwide and plans for every new LED product it produces to be connectable by 2020. The highly secure, scalable cloud-based Interact platform uses sophisticated and modern data management and data processing capabilities, including machine learning, to bring sense to all manner of data – creating data-enabled services for customers that will deliver benefits beyond illumination. In the coming year, we will focus on new LiFi installations, trying to expand to new user applications. There is a lot of potential for LiFi in India, with millions of internet devices being added into the connected ecosystem every day.

Signify to make 80% of its revenue from sustainable products in 2020; will continue investing 55% of its marketing monnies on TV

The market is excited about the NDA government’s plan to develop 100 new smart cities as it could boost demand for several other industries. 
 
For instance, Assuming a population of two lakh in each of the 100 cities and four people in each house, the smart city plan would generate demand for 50 lakh new homes. 
 ETIG has identified 10 <keyword id="6354298" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="stocks">stocks</keyword> that will likely be among those benefiting the most from a construction boom. Although the <keyword id="6484188" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Sensex">Sensex</keyword> fell 350 points in the past one week, most of these stocks bucked the trend. 
 
Asian Paints and Berger Paints 
 Asian Paints and Berger Paints together control close to 75% of India’s organised retail paint market. The Indian paint industry, which was growing 1.6-1.8 times the pace of gross domestic product until a few years ago, now expands at twice the speed of <keyword id="35050" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="gdp">GDP</keyword> as consumers shift to branded products. 
 
 
 
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	And, both Asian Paints and Berger Paints have posted a compounded annual growth rate of more than 15% over the last three years. With new cities coming up, the growth of these companies could pick up and there could be a rise in their earnings multiples. Both also pay high dividends.
 
 
<keyword id="54253" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="UltraTech">UltraTech</keyword> and Ramco Cement 
 
Construction of new houses for the smart cities will improve cement demand. The slowdown has resulted in subdued demand over the past two years. But the likely increase in demand will not only give volume growth, but should give pricing power, which would result in higher profitability. 
 
 
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	UltraTech remains the safest bet, given its presence across the country. Ramco Cements is the most efficient among peers. The southern region has seen the lowest cement demand, which has resulted in lower valuations. However, this could change if demand picks up.
 
 
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Indiabulls <keyword id="100080" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="housing-finance">Housing Finance</keyword> and <keyword id="6367143" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="LIC">LIC</keyword> Housing <keyword id="25455" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="finance">Finance</keyword> 
 
With the new houses, demand for housing finance is also expected to improve. The industry expects housing finance companies to show more than 20% growth in net profits in this fiscal year. 
 
Indiabulls Housing Finance, due to its small base and tie-up with major banks, may continue to grow at a higher pace. 
 
In fiscal 2014, its loan book grew 20% year-on-year. 
 
 
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	In addition, post its reverse merger in 2013, the company became a housing finance company, which will result in lower cost of funds. What makes LIC Housing Finance a likely winner is strong brand recognition. The shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance and LIC Housing Finance are trading at a price-to-book value of 2.2 and 2.1, respectively. Considering the expected growth, these stocks look attractive at this level.
 
 
HSIL and Kajaria Ceramics 
 
Despite the slowdown over the past few years, the sanitary-ware and ceramics businesses of these companies have grown at more than 20% and that too without compromising on the profitability or operating margins. HSIL manufactures bathroom products while Kajaria is mainly into tiles manufacturing. 
 
 
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	Both have strong dealer networks across India. They have both added new capacities recently and have plans to expand further to cater to rising demand. Shares of HSIL have given a return of 159% year-to-date and Kajaria Ceramics 70%. Analysts continue to be bullish on these stocks.
 
 
Havells India and Orient Paper 
 
Construction of new cities will result in huge demand for cables, switchgear, lights, bulbs and fans. While Havells has all these in its portfolio, Orient Pa-per (Orient Electrical) is one of the oldest fan manufacturing companies and its other product categories include lighting, water heaters and kitchen appliances. 
 
 
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Both companies have shown a strong growth pattern over the past few quarters. In FY14, Havells’ sales grew 13% and Orient Paper’s 21%. Havells’ stock is trading at FY15 P/E of 32 and Orient at FY15 P/E of 12.

10 Stocks Poised To Fly High On Government's Smart City Plan

Sweating it out due to long <keyword id="6361137" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="power-cuts">power cuts</keyword>, something that northern and western parts of India are habitual of in summertime, may be a thing of the past.

	When Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government took charge two years back, the government had promised to make India free of power cuts in the next two to three years.
 India’s <keyword id="2341785" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Power-minister-Piyush-Goyal">Power Minister Piyush Goyal</keyword> said the work to achieve this is on track.

	When asked about how prepared was the government to tackle the situation in Delhi, Goyal said meetings were conducted with the Delhi government and the situation was also reviewed in the national capital.

	“The work, which I had initiated here a year and a half ago, is progressing on various fronts to augment and strengthen the capacity of Delhi to withstand increased demands or support or provide for increased demand particularly in the summer months,” he said.

	Goyal, who is from Mumbai, said he took keen interest in Delhi now as it is his “Karma Bhoomi.

	Another interesting thing that Goyal pointed at was that Mumbai had ever heard of invertors or gensets there.

	Goyal said he had plans to make Delhi free from diesel generators.

	“I have taken concrete steps in Delhi but the NCR will take some time as it includes Gurgaon and Noida– areas where transmission and last mile connectivity or sufficient ability to move large volumes of power is a constraint. States also have to identify this problem and strengthen their transmission capabilities,” said Goyal.

	He enlisted several schemes like UDAY, UJALA, LED bulbs, etc to boost power in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana too.

	“I am working closely with them for 24×7 power for all and UDAY program. States like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are a part of UDAY 24×7 plans and I do believe that by 2019 they should be able to have adequate capacity. Energy savings schemes like the LED bulbs, smart and efficient agricultural pumps for farmers, energy efficient fans and going forward air conditioners also, all are plans to reduce energy consumption. With reforms like UDAY and UJALA, I am confident of achieving this by 2019 when power cuts will become a thing of the past,” he said.

	(Anupama Airy is the Founder and Editor of EnergyInfraPost.com and DefenceAviationPost.com. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:anupama.airy@gmail.com" target="_blank">anupama.airy@gmail.com</a>​, Twitter handle: @anupamaairy)

Shout out to northern India! Power cuts will be a thing of the past, assures Power Minister Piyush Goyal

We are entering an Age of Complexity manifested by intensified economic unpredictability, tectonic demographic and technological shifts, and accelerating scarcity of resources. Adversity has become the new normal. The good news is that we humans are typically good at coping with adversity. From a biological perspective, humans are pre-programmed to react predictably to adverse—and even hostile—situations thanks to our well-perfected “fight-or-flight” instinct. Sadly, however, this preconditioned “fight-or-flight” reaction fails to produce optimal responses in today’s complex world. When we face an intractable problem many of us tend to throw in the towel quickly or keep on fighting the issue wishing it will vanish. Now visualize this: what if you could transcend this binary “fight-or-flight” reaction and uncover a “third way”—a new outlook that empowers you to see adversity as an opportunity for personal and collective growth? Adversity will suddenly morph into your ally—an ally that can ignite your ingenuity and drive you to the unearthing of revolutionary solutions that yield amazing value for yourselves and for humanity. You will become a modern day alchemist—one who can literally transmute adversity into opportunity. Such alchemists do exist—and many of them live in emerging markets like India. 
 
Take Kanak Das, a young man who lives in Morigaon, a remote village in the northeast Indian state of Assam. Das got sick of riding his bicycle on poor village roads filled with potholes and bumps. Assume you were an R&amp;D engineer who works for <keyword id="6355174" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ford">Ford</keyword>, <keyword id="6355119" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="BMW">BMW</keyword>, or <keyword id="6374528" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Toyota">Toyota</keyword> trying to design a car that can ride smoothly on such potholes-filled roads: your “fight” instinct would have told you to design better shock absorbers to overcome the bumps. But Das didn’t “fight” the bumps: instead, he used this constraint to his advantage by equipping his bicycle with a makeshift device that converts the shocks it gets into acceleration energy—enabling his bicycle to run faster on bumpy roads! 
 
Das literally transformed adversity into an opportunity to innovate and extract value from the very problem he confronted. Das epitomizes the spirit of jugaad. Jugaad is a hindi word meaning an innovative fix or an improvised solution born from ingenuity and cleverness. Jugaad is, quite simply, a unique way of thinking and acting in response to challenges; it is the gutsy art of spotting opportunities in the most adverse circumstances and resourcefully improvising solutions using simple means. Jugaad is about seeing the glass always half-full. 
 
Jugaad Innovators: The Modern Day Alchemists 
 Jugaad is practised by almost all Indians in their daily lives to make the most of what they have. Jugaad applications include finding new shrewd uses for everyday objects—Indian kitchens are replete with empty soft drink or pickle bottles reused as containers for water, spices, or lentils— or inventing new utilitarian applications and ingenious solutions with everyday objects, like using cellphones to make “missed calls”. 
The entrepreneurial spirit of jugaad is not limited to India. It is widely practised across all emerging economies such as China, <keyword id="12925" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="80" keywordseo="Africa">Africa</keyword>, and Brazil, where resilient entrepreneurs are also pursuing growth in difficult circumstances. The Brazilians have their own word for this resourceful approach: jeitinho. The Chinese call it zizhu chuangxin, or indigenous innovation (in contrast with shanzhai, meaning copycat versions of foreign-made products). The Kenyans refer to it as jua kali. In our book Jugaad Innovation, my co-authors and I delved into the frugal and flexible mindset of thousands of ingenious entrepreneurs and enterprises around the world practicing jugaad to creatively address critical socio-economic issues in their communities. In Kenya, for instance, entrepreneurs have invented a device that enables bicycle riders to charge their cellphones while pedalling. 
 
In the Philippines, Illac Diaz invented A litre of light—a recycled plastic bottle containing bleach-processed water that refracts sunlight, producing the equivalent of a 55-watt light bulb. This product—which costs only $1—is a boon for scores of Filipino families living in makeshift houses in off-the-grid shantytowns. And in <keyword id="15735" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Lima">Lima</keyword>, <keyword id="6360497" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Peru">Peru</keyword> (a country with 98% humidity that receives only 1 inch of rain a year), the local university of engineering and Technology (UTEC) has designed advertising billboards that can generate up to 100 litres of potable water out of humid air each day. 
 
The jugaad innovators we studied all hail from different cultures and social and professional backgrounds. Yet they all share one unique quality: their uncanny ability to “make lemonade with any lemon” they are given. They are resilient entrepreneurs who overcame tremendous difficulties to invent ingenious solutions to vexing issues afflicting our societies. Like magicians, they conjured up these innovative solutions out of thin air—using meagre resources. Just as an alchemist can convert low-value metal into high-value gold, these frugal innovators can “do more with less”: they can create lot more value using far fewer resources. 
 
What Makes Jugaad innovators— And Their solutions—Unique? 
Despite their diversity, all the jugaad innovators—be they entrepreneurs or corporate leaders—we studied in India and other emerging markets all have the following unique personality traits in common: 
 
They are empathetic 
They recognize that their fellow citizens are suffering from adverse circumstances (e.g., poor access to healthcare or education services) and strive to lessen their pain. It is this compassion for other beings that sparks their own passion to discovering pertinent solutions to issues afflicting others. 
 
For instance, Jane Chen, a Stanford MBA, was deeply moved by the fact that 20 million babies are born prematurely or with a low birth weight each year worldwide, and four million of them die, most in developing nations, because their parents can’t afford to maintain them in baby incubators, which are too expensive. To address this issue, Jane co-founded Embrace, which makes inexpensive portable infant warmers that low income mothers in rural India, China, and Africa can use to keep their premature babies warm, and thus save their lives. 
 
They are driven by a higher purpose 
 
Jugaad innovators are not driven by fame or money. Rather, they are motivated by the aspiration to build “a better world”. This higher purpose provides them great ethical clarity and serves as an inner compass that guides all their decisions and actions. 
 
For instance, brothers <keyword id="299988" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Abhishek-Sinha">Abhishek Sinha</keyword> and Abhinav Sinha co-founded Eko to make <keyword id="6354241" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Financial-Services">financial services</keyword> affordable and accessible to the 600 million Indians who can’t avail of banking services. Eko enables low income people to open a savings account in a kirana (neighborhood retail store) and then merely use a mobile phone to deposit/withdraw cash as well as send/receive money. 
 
They are nonconformists 
 
Jugaad innovators boldly challenge the status quo by relentlessly posing the question: “why not?” They exhibit what Samuel Taylor Coleridge calls “uncommon common sense”: they develop counterintuitive solutions that flout conventional wisdom or even turn it on its head. 
 
For example, when <keyword id="6360722" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="ratan-tata">Ratan Tata</keyword> announced his decision to produce the Nano industry experts and media analysts scoffed at the idea of making a $2,000 car, for which they believed there would be no market. But the maverick Tata stuck to his counterintuitive decision and he ended up creating not only a breakthrough car but he also shaped an entire new market for subcompact cars that western automakers are jumping into lately. 
 
They are ingeniously resourceful 
 
Just like MacGyver (the famed TV action hero who can escape from any predicament by improvising solutions using just his Swiss Army knife), jugaad innovators display great ingenuity in the face of challenges. They leverage their (inner) resourcefulness when they have no external resources to tap into. They embody the frugal “bricoleurs” whom the legendary anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss lauded in his seminal book La Pensée Sauvage. According to Lévi-Strauss, a bricoleur taps into existing resources to quickly solve a problem—unlike an engineer who goes searching for the best resources available to design a perfect solution. 
 
Mansukh Prajapati is one such bricoleur: a potter by training, he created Mitticool, the world’s “greenest” fridge made entirely of clay that consumes no electricity and is 100% biodegradable. 
 
They are adaptable 
 
Jugaad innovators possess an agile mindset that enables them to rapidly shift course and reach their objectives by trying out various approaches. They are not wedded to any specific approach or tool to solving problems. Their sense of purpose is steadfast (“make the world a better place”) but their method to serving that purpose is dynamic and constantly evolving. Hence, they are resilient and can “reinvent” themselves continually. 
 
For example, Harish Hande founded Selco in 1995 to debunk the myths that poor people can’t afford <keyword id="6357019" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="solar-energy">solar energy</keyword> and cannot maintain sustainable technologies. Conservative banks refused to fund his start-up and he initially struggled to convince rural consumers to switch from cheap-but-polluting kerosene to solar systems. But Hande applied his flexible thinking to improvise an ingenious solution that involves a grassroots network of micro-entrepreneurs who charge, install, maintain, and collect payment for solar lighting systems that they rent to people in remote villages. 
 
These personality traits of jugaad innovators also pervade the clever solutions they conceive. All their astute solutions (products or services) share the following attributes: 
 
• They deliver more value at less cost: Their ingenious solutions are low-cost (or much less expensive than alternative solutions in the market) and yet they offer much greater value for users. As a result, these solutions deliver “more value for less”. For instance, the embrace portable infant warmer costs less than $200—or 1% of the cost of western baby incubators priced at $20,000. More importantly, mothers can now hold against them their premature babies— dramatically boosting their chances of survival. That’s real value! 
• They are simple to use and maintain: The solutions are designed to be incredibly simple to use and maintain, thus lowering their “adoption barriers” for a larger number of users. For example, Eko’s mobile banking and payment services can be accessed using even the most basic mobile handset. This ease of use is a key success factor of Eko’s service which today counts 2 million clients. 
• They are inclusive: The solutions make critical products and services available and accessible to “marginal segments” of the society—e.g., low income people, the elderly, ethnic minorities— who traditionally couldn’t afford or access these products/services due their high cost or high complexity. For example, Selco’s solar lighting systems are now used by over 125,000 rural households across India (Selco aims to serve 200,00 households by 2013). 
• They are sustainable: The solutions are both environmentally and socially sustainable. First, these solutions are eco-friendly and minimize use of natural resources. Second, these solutions contribute to the social sustainability of local communities by spawning new “ecosystems” that create new jobs, etc.—thus catalysing a virtuous cycle of enduring socio-economic growth. For instance, Mansukh Prajapati involves many women in his village in Gujarat to produce his Mitticools, thus creating gainful employment for local community members. 
 
The rise of Jugaad innovation in The West The developed world, like emerging economies, is increasingly facing its own problems in areas such as healthcare, education, finance, and community development. Cash-strapped western governments, however, are unable to deal with these challenges on their own. In this context, a new wave of flexible-minded jugaad innovators in the US and Europe are emerging. These nonconformists are turning the conventional practices of many industries upside down, and in the process creating affordable and sustainable products and services for more citizens. 
 
For instance, Sal Khan founded Khan Academy to democratize access to education and make learning more fun for kids. He has created over 4,000 video tutorials for math, sciences, and engineering that are freely available on <keyword id="10879" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="YouTube">YouTube</keyword> and are today viewed by over 6 million users a month. Similarly, Erik Douglas co-founded CellScope, a start-up that converts your smartphone into a medical diagnosis tool so you can do ear, throat, and skin exams at home without having to visit an expensive lab. CellScope is a boon for the 50 million Americans who lack medical insurance. And to meet the needs of the 68 million Americans today who are unbanked or underbanked, <keyword id="2787085" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Danny-Shader">Danny Shader</keyword> founded PayNearme, which enables US citizens without credit/debit cards to pay for online transactions by cash in local convenient stores. 
 
Universities too are joining this jugaad innovation movement in the west. Several higher education institutions in the US and Europe are training a new breed of engineers and managers to design next-generation products and services that can deal with scarcity in a frugal and sustainable manner. For instance, Stanford runs a very popular multidisciplinary program called entrepreneurial design for Extreme Affordability. And <keyword id="54274" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="MIT">MIT</keyword>, with funding from Ratan Tata, recently launched the <keyword id="2481320" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Tata-Center-for-Technology-and-Design">Tata Center for Technology and Design</keyword> to train future generation of engineers and business leaders to create affordable technologies and inclusive systems that meet the needs of resource-constrained communities in the developing world. Finally, several vanguard western corporations— helmed by visionary CEOs—are pioneering the adoption of jugaad innovation. The most notable of them is the global carmaker <keyword id="70040" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Renault-Nissan">Renault-Nissan</keyword>, whose CEO, <keyword id="69288" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Carlos-Ghosn">Carlos Ghosn</keyword> famously coined the term “frugal engineering” in 2006 to describe the Indian engineers’ unique ability to conceive high-quality solutions faster, better, and cheaper. Ghosn is a big admirer of the jugaad mindset. As he puts it: “In the west, when we face huge problems and we lack resources, we tend to give up (too) easily. Jugaad is about never giving up!” In 2012, he sent Gérard Detourbet, a senior French executive in charge of <keyword id="43777" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Renault">Renault</keyword>’s entry-level car business, to India. From his new R&amp;D center in Chennai, Detourbet will be designing and producing several vehicles—all built on the ultra-low-cost “A-entry” platform—that will first be launched in India and then marketed in Brazil and <keyword id="6355117" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="South-Africa">South Africa</keyword>. There is no doubt that when Detourbet returns to Renault’s headquarters in Paris, he will carry with him the flexible jugaad mindset he acquired in India. 
 
Ultimately, the ingenious solutions devised by these audacious jugaad innovators—our modern day alchemists—in emerging markets as well as in developed economies stand out not because they are “clever” but because they bring hope to millions around the world. In today’s morose economic climate and challenging social context, these alchemists help transmute pessimism into optimism—and that, by itself, is priceless. These ingenious alchemists—and their frugal and agile jugaad mindset—not only represent the hope for humanity but they also help restore our faith in humanity. 
 This article is partially adapted from the book Jugaad Innovation: A Frugal And Flexible Approach To Innovation For The 21st Century (<keyword id="189391" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Random-House-India">Random House India</keyword>, 2012). 
 (<keyword id="373112" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Navi-Radjou">Navi Radjou</keyword>, an innovation and leadership strategist based in <keyword id="6357722" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="silicon-valley">Silicon Valley</keyword> and <keyword id="192175" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="co-author">co-author</keyword> of best selling books including Jugaad Innovation; From Smart to Wise: Acting and Leading with Wisdom; and most recently Frugal Innovation: How to do more with less, leads an engaging discussion with a group of like minded individuals brought together by Thinkers (<a href="http://www.thinkers.in/">www.thinkers.in</a>) on how new technologies (mobility, social media, Internet of Things, 3D printing) and groundswell socio-economic movements (e.g., sharing and circular economy, maker movement) are dramatically lowering the cost of innovation worldwide.)

Thinkers/Thinkers 50: Know what 'Jugaad' or frugal innovation has done for the world!

<ul><li><keyword id="874458" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="xiaomi" source="Orion">Xiaomi</keyword> is reportedly working on an electric car, dubbed as the MS11.</li><li>The images of the <keyword id="16365376" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="xiaomi-ms11" source="Orion">Xiaomi MS11</keyword> have leaked, giving us a good look at the car.</li><li>The car is expected to be launched in the next two years.</li></ul>Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is gearing up to enter a new industry, and leaked images have revealed its upcoming product. After launching smartphones, wearables, laptops, smart home accessories, and more, the company is now looking to enter the electric vehicle (EV) industry with the launch of an electric car. Xiaomi has been working on an electric car for some time now. A <a href="https://www.rushlane.com/xiaomi-ms11-electric-car-photos-leak-debut-12459528.html">report </a>by Rushlane has given us a look at the company’s upcoming electric car, dubbed the MS11. The leak has revealed the car’s design, but there is very little information about the car’s specifications. <div type="image" title="Xiaomi MS11" msid="97643873" hostid="261" sizebytes="28888" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Xiaomi MS11&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> The Xiaomi MS11 looks identical to the<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/auto-expo-2023-chinese-electric-carmaker-byd-india-to-launch-luxury-sedan-in-2023s-last-quarter/articleshow/96911767.cms"> BYD Seal</a>, which is scheduled to launch in India this year. The MS11 features a large windshield and side glass, giving the driver and the passengers a nice view of their surroundings. The car is expected to come with a sleek bonnet and air scoops near the headlights. The car is equipped with a sleek headlight with four LED projectors. On the top, the car features a large panoramic sunroof that extends to the rear. The car is equipped with a LiDAR sensor and other sensors housed in a bulb on top of the car. The alloy wheels on the car are modern and give the car a good look. At the moment, there is no information about the car’s launch. We should soon hear something from the company, and the car may be launched in the next two years. An Indian launch may not happen anytime soon as the company has only tested the car in China. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/tata-nexon-ev-vs-mahindra-xuv400-price-range-and-features-compared/slidelist/97118201.cms">Tata Nexon EV vs Mahindra XUV400 – price, range and features compared</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/french-automaker-citroen-has-unveiled-its-ec3-electric-hatchback-ahead-of-its-india-launch/slidelist/97048865.cms">Citroen eC3 electric hatchback unveiled – range, booking date, and everything you need to know</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/mahindra-xuv400-electric-suv-launched-starting-at-15-99-lakh-range-specs-and-more/slidelist/97046819.cms">Mahindra XUV400 electric SUV launched starting at ₹15.99 lakh – range, specs and more</a>

Xiaomi MS11 EV image leak gives us a look at the company’s upcoming electric car

Amazon Great Freedom Festival sale deals and offers

<ul><li><keyword id="2950278" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="amazon-prime-day">Amazon Prime Day</keyword> 2021 will take place on July 26 and July 27.</li><li>Amazon has teased a couple of deals and offers for <keyword id="11178246" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="prime-day-2021">Prime Day 2021</keyword>.</li><li>Take a look at some of the smartphone deals and Amazon devices. </li></ul>Amazon Prime Day is scheduled to start in India on July 26. It will be a two-day sale with offers on products from multiple categories for Amazon Prime members. Amazon offers its Prime membership annually at Rs 999, and quarterly at Rs 329. There’s a 50% off on Prime membership for 18-24 year olds. Ahead of the sale, Amazon has revealed some Prime Day deals that consumers can avail during the sale days. You can go to <a href="https://www.amazon.in/amazonprime">this link</a> to avail the Prime membership offer. There are quite a number of deals and offers planned for products such as smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, laptops, smart speakers and tablets. Smartphones will be available with no-cost EMI options, discounts of up to Rs 5,000, and Rs 3,000 with coupons. <keyword id="215177" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vivo">Vivo</keyword> smartphones will get up to 30% off along with an additional discount of up to Rs 2,500. Oppo smartphones will also be available with up to 20% off, and up to 12 months no-cost EMI. Phones from more brands such as OnePlus will be available with up to Rs 4,000 off with coupons, and up to Rs 5,000 off on exchange. Consumers can also get Xiaomi phones with exchange offers and no-cost EMI options. <keyword id="10591" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Samsung">Samsung</keyword>’s popular Galaxy M series will get discounts up to Rs 10,000, and no-cost EMI options as well. Amazon has also teased deals on iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 Pro. Amazon <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/amazon-prime-day-2021-big-discounts-on-kindle-echo-fire-tv-and-more/articleshow/84561783.cms?">Echo devices</a> will also be available with many deals during Prime Day 2021. <keyword id="2586591" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="amazon-echo">Amazon Echo</keyword> smart speakers and smart displays will get up to 50% off. The Echo Dot 3rd Gen and smart colour bulb can be purchased at a reduced price of Rs 2,299. Echo smart speakers will also be offered with select smart ACs and smart TVs including the <keyword id="11681180" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="oneplus-u-series-tv">OnePlus U series TV</keyword>. Amazon has also revealed it will offer Fire TV devices with up to 50% off. These offers include a 55% off on Fire TV Stick bundle with annual subscriptions of Zee5, Sony Liv and <keyword id="8612979" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="voot-select">Voot Select</keyword>. Fire TV Edition smart LED TVs will get up to 50% off, and Kindle eReaders will be available with discounts up to Rs 4,000. SEE ALSO - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/apple-could-finally-bring-the-always-on-display-feature-on-the-iphone-13/articleshow/84542970.cms">Apple could finally bring the always-on display feature on the iPhone 13</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/g-r-infraprojects-ipo-makes-a-strong-listing-on-exchanges-with-over-100-premium-shares-open-at-1700/articleshow/84542747.cms">G R Infraprojects IPO makes a strong listing on exchanges with over 100% premium, shares open at ₹1700</a>

Amazon reveals the upcoming offers for Prime Day 2021

The best Amazon Prime Day 2022 deals and offers

New Delhi, Apr 21 () Having access to just the bare essentials in isolation is no longer doing the trick for those who shop online as they are now craving for luxuries like hair trimmers, board games and even automatic roti makers amid the ongoing lockdown, a new survey has revealed. The survey by e-commerce company Snapdeal noted that there has been a whopping "24 times" increase in the number of products being added to customers' shopping carts and wishlists, since the nationwide lockdown began on March 25."On average, buyers had nine items in their carts and wishlist," it said, adding that the price of these products range anything between Rs 68 to Rs 18,200. Unlike most online shopping portals that had temporarily stopped taking orders for non-essential items owing to the restrictions imposed during the lockdown, Snapdeal continued to receive and accept orders for all kinds of products, promising to ship them as soon as the restrictions are lifted.Four days after allowing e-commerce firms to also deliver non-essential items such as electronic goods and readymade garments, the government on April 19 said sale of non-essential items will continue to be prohibited during the lockdown period which last week got extended till May 3.Apparel, including t-shirts, bermuda shorts and lounge wear, accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the products being ordered, emerging as the clear favourite in the colossal non-essential category."Reflecting the current lifestyle of users, casual wear items like track pants and nightwear products including top and pyjama sets and nighties figured high on shopping lists. "Open sandals and flip flops priced between Rs 300 - 900 were another popular pick with buyers," said the survey.With salons and parlours shut, it is no surprise that "personal grooming products" are also high in demand at the time, followed closely by "household products".The survey noted that personal grooming products -- hair trimmer, epilator, beauty products and waxing strips -- were picked by over "80,000" customers, while household products saw an "80 per cent growth over usual demand trends". "Pressure cookers, roti makers, egg boilers, kitchen tools like multi-function scissors and automatic mops reflected the efforts on the parts of the users to manage their households with limited or no domestic help," the survey said.The current state of affairs have also given rise to a new category of products - work from home essentials, which have turned out to be a major attraction with customers.These range from headphones, laptop tables, home printers, and wi-fi routers to USB chargers, data cables, extension cords and back support pillows.Lockdown and the great Indian hankering for 'non-essentials' -- pyjama set, roti-maker, ludo and what not According to the survey, over "75 per cent" of the shopping lists were being generated by customers in non-metro cities, with Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh topping the charts."Bedsheets, towels, wall decorations, planting accessories and vegetable seeds for home gardens were other items in high demands. LED bulbs, emergency lights also figured high on the demand index," said the report, adding that "25 per cent" of customers were first-time buyers.School supplies -- notebooks, textbooks, stationery items -- and fitness products like weights, tummy trimmers, gym balls and smart bands too found themselves on the "most sold" list during the ongoing lockdown."Other popular items that India bought or added to their shopping carts include anti-snoring devices, spiritual books, stress-buster balls, indoor games like Ludo, Scrabble and Uno, soft toys, anti-clogging filters for kitchen sinks and musical instruments like guitars, flutes and mouth organs," the survey said. MG TRS MGMG

Lockdown and Indian hankering for 'non-essentials' -- pyjama set, roti maker, ludo and what not

K Sivan, well-known rocket scientist and Director of the <keyword id="6382619" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vikram-Sarabhai-Space-Centre">Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre</keyword> (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram, says with a little tweaking, these materials and technologies developed for hi-tech space applications can easily be spun off for societal use. 
 
“ISRO uses tax payer money so it is answerable to the Indian public,” he says. 
 <keyword id="6358064" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="ISRO">ISRO</keyword>’s rockets and satellites certainly help people but there are many more developments hidden in the ‘temples of technology’ like the VSSC that can be used to save lives. 
 If some of these technologies were being used possibly Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad and the nine other soldiers who lost their lives earlier this year at the <keyword id="42770" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Siachen">Siachen</keyword> Glacier could well have been saved. If only these soldiers were using clothing made of the ‘silica aerogel’ they may possibly have been saved from freezing to death. Similarly, if the soldiers were equipped with suitable hand held ‘search and rescue’ devices, their location could have been easily pin-pointed using Indian satellites and rescue efforts could have been speeded up. 
 
Recently India’s main lab that specialises in making rockets for the country mastered the art of making the ‘world’s lightest artificial material’ called ‘silica aerogel’. This aerogel is actually a solid but within its complex matrix it encapsulates 99 per cent air. This gives it several unique properties– it is incredibly light, it is a great thermal insulator. 
 
Naga Priya, scientist in Advanced Materials &amp; Ceramics Division at VSSC who is part of the team that made this material, explains that the process to make the silica aerogel is highly guarded so standardising the procedure to make the aerogel took her team a lot of effort. 
 
The team hopes to use some of the ‘silica aerogel’ for insulating the tanks that hold the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in the cryogenic engines. Since it is lightweight, it could also be used in designing the space suits that future Indian astronauts may be wearing. The small buggy that will be part of the Chandrayaan-2 and will run around the lunar surface in 2018 could also see the use of the ‘silica aerogel’ as an insulator. 
 
Naga Priya explains her lab is already in discussion with the Indian Ordnance Factory that manufactures clothes for the soldiers to see how this new material can be sandwiched between layers of cloth for making light weight parkas, socks and gloves for the soldiers who are posted at Siachen. 
 
The Indian space scientists have already made small pieces of the silica aerogel that resemble a fabric but still it is very fragile and suitable fabric has to be developed that can effectively sandwich this great insulator. 
 
There are other societal benefits of using the ‘silica aerogel’, if window panes are given a coating of this new material, light would easily pass but heat would be contained, says Naga Priya. 
 
She says imagine a building, whose exterior is coated with this top class insulator, the building would be cool in summer and warm in winter. It would reduce the load on air conditioning and could lead to saving a lot of electricity and help combat climate change. 
 
It is not that the material is fully ready to be deployed for all these varied uses, it is still very expensive to make and some of it is very fragile. The team at VSSC uses evaporation at ambient temperature to make some of the aerogels. This is cheaper than the specialised super critical drying technique used to make aerogels for special applications. There are many industrial applications like in furnaces where these special materials can also be easily used. 
 
Scientists at ISRO have developed small portable devices that can help in search and rescue. There are handheld devices that can be carried by trekkers and soldiers when they traverse the desolate regions. These smart devices can be activated using a button and once initiated it emits a radio beacon that can be detected by satellites. 
 
Using the Global Positioning System (GPS) the exact location of the person who is in distress can be automatically pin pointed. The battery-powered device sends up a signal, which can then be automatically tracked at ground stations in Lucknow and Bengaluru. If only Lance Naik Hanumanthappa were carrying this device his rescue could have been greatly speeded up. 
 
A similar but slightly larger device has been made by VSSC for use by fishermen. This can be fitted on the fishing boats and can be triggered manually or when it encounters salt water it gets triggered. This device transmits a pulsed signal in the 406 MHz band and can help in locating ships lost at sea. 
 The batteries are robust enough to transmit a signal for at least 65 hours at a stretch. ISRO has helped save the lives of many trekkers in the <keyword id="52569" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="himalayas">Himalayas</keyword> and is eager to help the Indian Armed Forces in case they seek to use the device at the remote locations in times of emergency. 
 
Ensuring uninterrupted maintenance-free power supply at remote locations is a nightmare for technologists, now the scientists at VSSC have made a portable fuel cell system that can produce electricity directly from fuel through an electrochemical process where the only inputs needed are hydrogen gas and air. 
 
Based on the ‘proton exchange membrane’ technology the gadget made at VSSC can generate up to about 100 watts of power. This is like lighting a single bulb but then there are several small devices that need only a small amount of power for it to work round the clock. An all-weather automatic weather station powered using this indigenously made fuel cell is currently being tested at Dehradun. 
 
Another digital GPS device has been deployed at the Gangotri Glacier to see how this hydrogen powered device works at high altitudes. There are also plans to use the sophisticated G-SAT-6 satellite’s multimedia communication capability to deploy surveillance systems in remote locations from where Pakistani infiltrators creep into Indian territory and make devastating terrorist attacks on India. 
 
Such automatic remotely operated cameras could be powered using the maintenance free ‘fuel cells’ and then they could beam pictures up to the Indian satellites through which soldiers could maintain a 24×7 vigil from far away, this would be akin to having closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) but in places where there is neither power supply nor continuous human presence. 
 
Sivan says suitable industrial partners are being actively identified and the technologies will transferred so that so called ‘rocket science’ no longer remains rocket science. More importantly he says ‘desi technology’ can be used to power the ‘Make in India’ effort and help save lives.

​Here's how ISRO's space technology can save lives of soldiers at Siachen

‘Save thy <keyword id="6356826" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="environment">environment</keyword>’ is a cause that is not new in any way. The battle started long ago with scientists, researchers and technology experts highlighting the varied <keyword id="74957" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="climatic-changes">climatic changes</keyword> and their ecological impacts occurring across the world, most often with disastrous results. There are several on-the-face environmental scenarios that also pinpoint how the imbalance created by rapid urbanisation is accelerating the depletion of <keyword id="6368742" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="natural-resources">natural resources</keyword>. But this <keyword id="2034087" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ecological-disparity">ecological disparity</keyword> is man-made and it is our responsibility to try and control it. And there can be no better way to act than starting it from your home. 
 
On the macro level, green buildings or eco-friendly homes as a concept are at a nascent stage in India. As of now, it constitutes a very small percentage of the booming Indian real-estate market. But there is optimism among developers, governments and experts indicating, as a tremendous opportunity exists for expanding energy-efficient construction in India. 
 Also, the ‘green construction technology’ is a wide category, covering everything from energy-efficient appliances to <keyword id="1226286" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="geothermal-heating">geothermal heating</keyword> to <keyword id="70990" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Solar-power">solar power</keyword> to bio-degradable paints and many more. Given the breadth of this category, this article will narrow down the theme to three key product categories – <keyword id="2034096" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Water-closets">water closets</keyword>, <keyword id="1609750" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Faucets">faucets</keyword> and tiles, elements that a home cannot do without. As every act counts, every micro step is a step towards a macro initiative and ultimately, the objective is to build a greener environment in and out of home. 
 Clean and <keyword id="95422" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Green-Technology">green technology</keyword> is more advanced than ever before, and can be as beneficial for your wallet as it is for the Earth. What’s more, adopting or rather installing those products is not at all cumbersome. Plus, they are well-designed to match your taste. A variety of products are already there in the market and that will make designing your <keyword id="2034084" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Green-home">green home</keyword> even easier. Here are some simple choices to look at when you build your home or renovate it. 
 
Water closets: Bathrooms happen to be the primary source of water and its usage. So the products used here are designed around eco-friendly technologies. The modern-day water closet is an intelligent toilet. The 3/6 litres per flush has become the norm and products like NANO, which uses 1.5 litre per flush, waterless urinals and star-rated, WEP-certified closets usher in a contemporary outlook to the concept of water-saving. 
 In India, we have already switched to energy-efficient appliances, ranging across various products, even the light bulbs. But when it comes to a stamp of approval for water-saving products, both awareness and a trusted certification seem to be missing. But things are now getting better, with the <keyword id="2034080" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="International-Association-of-Plumbing">International Association of Plumbing</keyword> and Mechanical Officials (<keyword id="2034102" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="IAPMO">IAPMO</keyword>) issuing its <keyword id="524544" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="WEP">WEP</keyword> certification. A safe and sustainable environment is everyone’s responsibility and IAPMO has taken the initiative to blend experienced leadership and broad resources, necessary to ensure a focused code development and produce model codes to help the industry and the consumer go green. 
 And the result? The WEP – 1 star-rated certification designed to provide information through labelling at the point of sale to consumers buying products that use water. A natural choice for authentication across the world with its 80 years of experience, IAPMO is equipped with the tools to build a better, more sustainable co-existence with the planet. So, if you have set your mind on being a wholehearted person looking to save our precious natural resources, choose from India’s first <keyword id="2034103" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Water-star-rated-product">water star-rated product</keyword> and you can save over 50,000 litres of water per year. Over 10 models of <keyword id="2034105" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Star-rated-water-closets">star-rated water closets</keyword> are available under the Hindware Italian Collection, all in different shapes and designs. The choice lies with you. 
 
Faucets: After water closets, faucets are probably the most used in a house! Be it your washroom or kitchen, faucets are in use every two minutes or so as you wash your hands or clean vegetables or rinse your crockery. So is it possible to do without water and a faucet? The answer is – no. 
 However, what you surely can do is to choose the right faucet to lessen <keyword id="66392" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="water-wastage">water wastage</keyword>. Several ranges are available in the market, which are technologically smart, in tune with consumers’ diverse styles and requirements, of superior quality and offer best value for money. The single-lever faucet mixes hot and cold water smoothly, made possible by the new cartridge technology incorporated in the faucets. Then there is the quarter-turn faucet, a traditional two-handle faucet with the ability to turn from full turn to half turn to quarter turn, as per usage. Not only does it make the entire experience better, but it also helps reduce water consumption without compromising on the water pressure. 
 Modern faucets use a technology called the <keyword id="2034111" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Faucet-aerator">faucet aerator</keyword>. It adds air to the stream of water coming out of the faucet by breaking the water into fine droplets. Finally, there are the sensor-operated, <keyword id="2034113" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Pressmatic-faucets">pressmatic faucets</keyword>. They have a standard, <keyword id="2034114" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Predetermined-water-flow">predetermined water flow</keyword> timer, which controls <keyword id="2034112" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Water-flow">water flow</keyword> for every usage. 
 
Flooring: The main purpose of floor tiles is protection. But technological advancements such as digital-printed, <keyword id="1064949" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="glazed-vitrified-tiles">glazed vitrified tiles</keyword> and stain-free, multi-charged vitrified tiles offer plenty of designs and surface finish options like marble, wood, stone, rustic, metallic, satin and matt. High-definition, <keyword id="2034118" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Multi-colour-digital-printing">multi-colour digital printing</keyword> technology offers the perfect replacement of natural marble and wooden flooring. These are technically superior and reduce the consumption of precious natural resources. GRIHA-certified tiles are easily available in the market today, and the product range reaffirms the commitment towards our environment. Once you install them, you become a part of the go-green community as well. 
 In short, the best way to design a green home is to make the most of the space and elements around you. This includes using <keyword id="790505" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="natural-light">natural light</keyword> and environment-friendly materials &amp; products. Your home can run on the beauty and wonders of nature, with a <keyword id="2034127" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Minimal-carbon-footprint">minimal carbon footprint</keyword>. 
 
About the author: Sandip Somany is the JMD of HSIL Ltd. 
 
Image: Wikipedia

Eco-friendly Home Technology: Now Design Your
Green Home

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-business-insider-interview"></a><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">Mike Nudelman / Business Insider</div></div></div> The most remarkable thing about meeting Bill Gates in person is beholding his mental map of the world - how advances in technology, the well-being of humanity, and the fate of our world are all intertwined.Tech Insider met with Gates on Monday to discuss his <a href=" https://www.gatesnotes.com/2016-Annual-Letter">2016 annual letter</a>, in which he discusses the balance of bringing electricity to the billion people who don't have it and finding power sources that don't kill the earth.The head of the<a href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/"> Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation</a> spoke about how to make an energy miracle happen, the stakes of climate change, and what the role of the world's billionaires is in all of this. Interview edited for clarity and length.Drake Baer: What are the most exciting things happening right now in clean energy?Bill Gates: A lot of it is pretty early stage. The most straightforward path would be if we could bring the cost of solar electric and wind down by another factor of say, three, and then have some miraculous storage solution, so that not only over the 24-hour day but over long periods of time where the wind doesn't blow, you have reliable energy. That's a path. But energy storage is hard. That's not a guaranteed path.In fact, batteries haven't improved over the last 100 years as much as they would need to in order to make that happen. So I'm invested in a lot of battery companies - and there's a lot that exists I'm not in. They're all having a tough time achieving it. We need to look at less obvious paths, things like the wind in the jet stream, which is very high up. The material <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> of what type of kite string you would need to connect up to that. That's still at the basic research level.That's the part where the governments have a unique role, and then when it progresses well enough, then existing companies or new startup companies should take it. In the $3 trillion a year energy market, the rewards will be quite fantastic.At some point, that risk-taking private capital can take over, and have patents and trade secrets and things that let them lead the way, which happened with the steam engine and some other things, although with energy, the time of adoption is a lot longer than it is with, say, IT products or even medical advances, like drugs and vaccines.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">Skye Gould / Tech Insider</div></div></div>Other paths would include making nuclear fission cheap enough and safe enough that people broadly embrace it, so that could be scaled up. Or, if you really could take the CO2, when you burn hydrocarbons - coal, for example - if you could really capture the carbon and sequester it - they call it CCS - if the extra capital cost, energy cost, and storage costs over time didn't make it super expensive, then that's another path that you could go down.I could name about a dozen paths, and you'd like to have a whole bunch of research on all those paths, and then, eventually, at least four to five companies with really significant financing try and get to big scale, going down and really trying to prove it out.Then, in the same way that when the car got going, people thought it would be an electric car, people thought it would be a steam car. Actually, the dark horse in that race was internal combustion, but because of the energy density of gasoline and discovery of oil in large amounts at that point in first Pennsylvania and then Texas, it won out over those other two, to the point that those other two are actually viewed as obscure footnotes in history.Baer: Was there a moment for you when the light bulb went off, and you realized how important energy was to the world?Gates: When I was trying to figure out why lives have improved so much in the last 300 years, where we've gone from a third of kids dying before 5 to - by 1990 it was down to 10% - now it's down to 5%. And saying why, over all history, there were smart people, but that number didn't change. Average life span didn't change. What's magical about what's been deemed the Industrial Revolution? It's really energy intensity.When I was high school I had a vague sense of it. When I was in college I had a vague sense of it. I'd say that I didn't really start to understand it fully until I started reading <a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/A-Rational-Look-at-Energy-Energy-Myths-and-Realities">Vaclav Smil</a>, who has written a lot about this. David Christian, in "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-lecture-by-david-christian-2014-10">Big History,"</a> writes about this. It's energy intensification, where we essentially have, through our light bulbs and cars, the manpower of [hundreds of] people working on our behalf, helping our food being created, helping our materials like steel and plastic and wood and paper be created. Our lifestyles are incredibly energy intense.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image">GatesNotes</div></div></div>Recently I've been studying how quickly we can get energy out to the poor countries - a lot of which are in Africa - and how little progress we've made there. There's no more electricity today in sub-Saharan Africa per person than there was 20 years ago.The world is very disparate, in terms of the US using the most energy per person, and then the other rich countries - Europe, Japan, New Zealand - using about half of what we do, and then the world average being about a fifth of what we use, with China just now surpassing the world average.My broad sense of this is that authors like Smil really paint the clear picture, and once you see that, it's kind of Oh, of course. That's such a primal thing to all these physical services that we take for granted.Baer: In your letter you say you expect an energy miracle in the next 15 years. When I read that, I was like, Wow, that's bold. What are you expecting?Gates: When I say "miracle" I mean a kind of thing like a computer on a chip, or the internet, or the cellphone, that are really quite miraculous. Most people would not have predicted them, and their effect has been very, very dramatic. In medicine, we've had a lot of miracles, and I think all of us expect and count on more.In the next 30 years, I really do think cancer will largely be a solved problem. I think most of the infectious diseases like malaria - our <a href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/">foundation</a> is very involved - once we're finishing polio eradication, then starting up this malaria eradication, and getting that done as fast as we can.So on the demand side [for energy], there have been a variety of policies that globally have been way over $50 billion a year of tax credits, raising the price of electricity through things like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_portfolio_standard">renewable portfolio standards</a>, so the total amount of money that's gone into sending a price signal to push up demand versus what would happen without it has been gigantic.On the supply side, for innovation, you'd say, go look at those R&amp;D budgets, and they haven't moved in the last 20 years. In the case of the US - which is the majority of R&amp;D funding across every category you can name: health, energy, whatever - it's been about $5 billion a year from the Department of Energy.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">Skye Gould / Tech Insider</div></div></div>It was kind of a milestone to get this commitment from Paris to get <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/paris-climate-agreement-approved-2015-12">20 countries, including all of the big ones - US, India, China, France Germany, the UK, Japan - to double their energy R&amp;D budgets over a five-year period</a>.Finally, assuming that many of those are fulfilled, which won't be easy in tight budget times, we're taking the supply side at the basic research level, because that's where government is absolutely fundamental.How much further beyond basic research the role of the government should be, you could have a really good debate about it. Almost nobody would say it's zero. But that's where at least we need the private sector to play a big role. That's why we paired this announcement of the R&amp;D [commitment] with the so-called <a href="http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/en/index.html">Breakthrough Energy Coalition</a>, which is 27 [major investors] saying, "Hey, we'll put significant money into [energy innovations] when they're ready to spin out probably into startup companies."When I say "an energy miracle," I mean that there will be some form of energy whose 24 hour cost really is competitive with hydrocarbons given, say, 20 years of learning curve. You invent it, then you look at how much its costs go down over the next 20 years, that it really beats hydrocarbons. You might say, well, aren't people saying that about wind and solar today? Not really. Only in the super-narrow sense that the capital costs per output, when the wind is blowing, is slightly lower.But the reason it still needs subsidies, and it can't go above a certain percentage, is this intermittency [in availability for wind and solar] - it changes the economics, particularly this requirement that the power company at all times be able to require power. That's large. At the end of the day, natural-gas peakers sit back there and get financed so that the Midwest corridor can have a huge [period] of four to five days of no wind. The peakers are running big time to make that up, because that is the swing piece that can always be turned on. (Editor's note:<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant"> Natural gas peakers</a> are power plants that run when there's a big, or "peak," demand for energy.)Baer: You've said it will be the world's poorest who are most affected by climate change. Can you paint a picture of what that will be like?Gates: We need to get a broader awareness. People say climate change is really bad, but painting that picture of what you're putting at risk.First of all, there are ecosystems like coral reefs [at risk] through ocean <a href="https://sharkresearch.rsmas.miami.edu/conservation/coral-reefs-and-the-threat-of-ocean-acidification">acidification</a>. Those are valuable things that we should protect. But humans - the first big effects will be farmers that live on the edge. Today's weather, they barely get by. Their kids, a high percentage are malnourished, and so if you impose more variable weather and more heat, you're getting more floods, more droughts, and during the germination time, the high heat, most crops...do poorly when there's more heat.Maize, rice, wheat - all have heat sensitivity. Sorghum is kind of unusual. It can go to very high heats, but it's not as productive in most environments as maize is. So we need to help those poor farmers out. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image">GatesNotes</div></div></div>Over 80% of the poor are people who have small plots of land and grow their own food and they don't grow enough to sell much into the marketplace. So they will be hit hard by the worst in climate. They really get hit hard starting in the 20-year time frame and thereafter.Then, depending on how quickly you get ocean rise, you have people who live in river deltas [at risk]. Bangladesh is largely a river delta, and the rising sea level means that when storms come in, the human sanitation is backing up, the ability to farm, it's destructive-type situations like you saw in New Orleans with Katrina. You're increasing the frequency of that stuff in low-lying areas fairly dramatically.Now, if you're rich, you can spend a lot of money, Netherlands-style, and reduce that. But Bangladesh or parts of India, like Calcutta, they just simply won't be able to afford that kind of protection.Baer: Can billionaires save us in this situation?Gates: Billionaires should never be responsible for solving problems, because they're not the government.The government is there day in and day out, if you want all kids to have education, if you want to run courts, if you want to have an army, if you want to have roads, you've got to have the taxation system that funds everything that you expect.The only role other than paying their taxes, whatever those are, the only role for philanthropy broadly - of which the rich should give disproportionately - the more, the better - and I think there is a positive trend in that direction - there are certain risk-taking things, like trying out a new type of charter school or funding a new kind of medicine. The government's ability to select scientists and pick things that are fairly strange, because politicians don't like failures. They're only in office a short term, and many of these things take a long time.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image">Skye Gould / Tech Insider</div></div></div>For philanthropy, although it's tiny compared to the government, it's 2% of the US economy, which is the largest percentage, other than the Middle East. There are economies like China's economy where it's less than a tenth [of a percent] today, although it is growing, is quite small, because of the notion that the government takes care of everything, and Europe and China, philanthropy has not been nearly of the same scale.But if you think of global public goods like polio eradication, that kind of risk-taking new approach, philanthropy really does have a role to play there, because government doesn't do R&amp;D about new things naturally as much as it probably should, and so philanthropy's there. That doesn't mean with the day in, day out things that you want to make sure get delivered to everyone that you should create a dependency. It's not big enough and it's not reliable enough.Baer: To bring it back to the US, does the US have the right political priorities to deal with energy?Gates: The US spends more on energy R&amp;D than all other countries put together, and I personally consider it quite inadequate. In fact, I would have said we should more than double it, if I thought the absorptive capacity could scale up and if it was actually possible to get to that level. I think given all the different imperatives - getting energy to Africa, security of energy, climate change, that we should be spending half as much as we spend on health, which will get you all the way up to $15 billion - the health people don't like it when things get compared to their number.The US in some ways has been the best. Who figured out shale gas? Although that wasn't a good thing [for CO2 levels], it was very innovative. It's led to low-cost energy. Who figured out nuclear power? Largely the United States. Once you get past the steam engine, which is mostly British, then the US has been at the center of most of the energy things that have happened.You say, what are the top 20 universities in the world that do good materials research that might create carbon fibers to do <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_wind_power">jet stream kites </a>or new magnets that will allow [energy] generation to be done up there and you just bring the electricity down. You either have to bring down rotational energy, which is hard, or you have to have the generator up there and bring down the electricity. Well, putting the generator up there is hard to do because it's too heavy.Anyway, the US, as in most issues, is the best, has the best capability to lead, and really needs to lead. It doesn't [mean] that other countries won't pick different tacks and emphasize different things. In aggregate, they're almost half of the energy R&amp;D. Europe, China, Japan - it's very important that they come along and contribute to these things.The US really has to get out in front. We are the biggest per person, by a substantial amount, greenhouse emitters, and we give the most foreign aid, not per person but in absolute. This is another issue where hopefully we will take a long-term approach which, even though we sometimes have a hard time doing that, it's easier for us, as a rich country with this kind of scientific depth, than it is for the poor countries who will suffer the problems. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image">ReutersBill Gates, flanked by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Barack Obama, at the 2015 World Climate Change Conference.</div></div></div>

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