Ride Hailing is Back 🚕
India overtakes Italy, Universal Orlando reopens, and Indian startup to launch satellite.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Ride safe India🚕
The phased re-openings have allowed ride-hailing companies to resume business in many parts of the country.
Ola has kicked off services in over 200 cities across India along with a “Ride Safe India” initiative that outlines measures taken to ensure safety for riders. The company is investing nearly 500 crore to ensure safety programs on an ongoing basis, including ramping up sanitization by making fumigation of cars compulsory after every 48 hours.
The drivers will also be required to wipe and sanitize all surfaces that are touched by customers frequently. Also, drivers will be made to undergo compulsory temperature checks and a continuous selfie authentication mechanism will be in place to ensure that the drivers wear masks.
All rides of Ola including cabs, two, as well as three wheelers will be a part of the “Ride Safe India” initiative.
WHO revises guidelines🗞️
WHO has issued new guidelines for people, which call for everyone to now wear a 3 layered mask to prevent the spread of the virus.
Wearing masks has been made compulsory in many countries. But while shifting its stance WHO advised people who wear cloth masks to choose one with 3 layers which is made of absorbent cotton and one which remains close to the face.
A study conducted showed that respirators and multilayered masks were more protective than single layered masks in containing transmission of the virus.
While the intentions of the health body are constructive, its back and forth repeatedly on how to manage the pandemic has many doubting the efficacy of the organization.
Startup to launch 24 satellites🛰️
Bangalore based space-tech startup Pixxel is getting ready to launch its first satellite at the end of the year. Pixxel was started in May 2018 by BITS graduates, Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal. The worsening climate conditions and water scarcity fears urged the teenagers to start Pixxel.
The small satellite to be launched at the end of this year will go up in a Russian vehicle and will be used to provide high quality satellite imagery. This imagery will be helpful for governments and private organizations to collect data powering predictive AI models for broad use in agriculture, pests control, illegal mining and to monitor natural disasters.
Pixxel’s original plans of launching the satellite on Soyuz next month were disrupted by the pandemic. The company also has active plans to launch a second satellite by July 2021, and eventually have a constellation of 24 satellites ready to launch after that.
The startup has teamed up with Leaf Space which is an Italian service provider for ground station services to collect and review data from the satellite.
Pixxel is the only startup from Asia to be selected for the first batch of 10 startups in Tech Stars Starbust Space Accelerator in Los Angeles, USA.
Panic in India ensues as cases cross Italy’s mark😷
India in the last 24 hours added nearly 10,000 cases bringing the tally to 257,000 total reported cases. The number exceeds the tally of Italy, one of the worst hit nations, putting India on the number 5 spot of global cases reported.
Total deaths cross over 7000, with the older and previously sick demographic finding itself most vulnerable to the disease. As of this morning, the Global death toll has now surged past 4 lakh.
In India at least, testing is lagging the transmission of the virus. With cases continually rising, experts believe that there are still cases being spread in the wild without much control. States like Goa which were declared COVID free early on are now seeing a resurgence in spread. Rapid migration due to economic fallout is partly at blame here.
In a bid to stop the economic leakage, the government is planning to reopen in phases, starting with non-containment zones. While that may not do much to salvage the economy, it most surely will do a lot to aggravate the situation. We urge you to self lockdown.🔒
Tweet of the day-
Airbnb and other vacation rentals are seeing surging demand this summer as consumers look to avoid traditional hotels and opt for long stays, sheltered at exotic locations.
When the pandemic began, nobody had imagined how quickly we would adapt ourselves to the new normal of increased sanitization and social distancing. Experts and analysts were quick in calling the death of platforms like Airbnb that rent out apartments and homes to vacationers thinking the cost of sanitization will be too high. But defiant vacationers in search for secluded vacations are proving everyone wrong.
Airbnb, Expedia, Booking, Make my trip etc. are all coming out with more than 50% growth in bookings compared to previous year. In a previous issue we also wrote about how RV rentals are surging more than 600% since the pandemic began.
It seems that people are embracing the outdoors, choosing hikes, camps, adventures while avoiding most traditional vacations that include hotels, high end restaurants, and shopping.
What else are we Snackin’🍿
✈️Bombardier to cut jobs- manufacturing and high-end goods industry continues to take a hit. The famed canadian train and plane maker is set to cut 2,500 jobs which makes up 11% of its workforce. Last week rival plane maker Boeing had come out with a similar move.
🌡️ Apple to offer coronavirus tests to its employees returning to its Sillicon Valley headquarters - Apple has started bringing back some employees at its HQ in Silicon Valley as the phone maker, known for its secretive nature, is reticent to allow workers to work from home for too long. The employers will provide active testing at its location.
😱 Panic spreads as local tests positive for corona in Goa - panic spread in the hinterlands of Goa after a local was tested positive and was known to visit several public areas in the town including grocery shopping and other. Potential contacts are now being tested.
🎡Universal Orlando resort reopens- After months of being shut due to the virus, Universal Orlando in Florida reopened for the public on Friday. The resort has strict safety measures in place to prevent further spread of the virus. It remains to be seen whether visitors show up at the door though.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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