Tag: into

Amazon’s Travel Strategy Comes Into Focus

Loknath Das

So why would Amazon choose to re-enter the travel industry through a seemingly loss-generating proposition hawking already low-margin airline tickets via a Cleartrip partnership in the domestic Indian market? It sounds crazy, but Skift Research believes that airline tickets are a sensible entry point for a new Amazon foray into travel. Flights is a fairly commoditized product with far fewer suppliers to tangle with —hundreds of airlines worldwide versus hundreds of thousands of hotels, for example. But the challenge of selling airfares is that it is a low-margin offering, typically the least…

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Leading Higher Education Into The Future

Loknath Das

Ensuring the value of a college education and degree in our evolving professional world remains front of mind for Alison Byerly, the first woman to lead Lafayette College. Here, we chat about her strategy for equipping Lafayette graduates to thrive after graduation, how higher education can better support the professional growth of women and the reason why you can often find her at a Lafayette tailgate. Jessica Pliska: Your career began in the classroom teaching Victorian literature. What sparked your passion for literature? Alison Byerly: I always loved books and always loved…

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Parliamentary panel on finance seeks inquiry commission into IL&FS crisis

Loknath Das

The government had re-constituted the IL&FS board after the crisis surfaced. The parliamentary standing committee on finance has asked the government to set up a high-level inquiry commission to identify the reasons behind the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) default crisis. ET has reliably gathered that the panel, which will table its report in the matter on Wednesday, has specifically sought an investigation into the role of credit rating agencies (CRAs) and Life Insurance Corporation, IL&FS’ largest institutional stakeholder. The committee members met on Monday, and are said to have unanimously…

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Germany and China plot to turn Frankfurt into EU finance powerhouse after Brexit

Loknath Das

The bilateral pledge came as a result of German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz visiting the Chinese capital this week. Mr Scholz met China’s vice-premier Liu He who promised to take down economic hurdles for German financial institutions interested in doing business in his country. The German minister said he would reciprocate, hoping Chinese banks could be persuaded to open in Frankfurt, the heart of Germany’s finance industry, turning the city into a European powerhouse after Britain leaves the EU. According to German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, the two officials signed three…

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4 Instagram Travel Couples On How They Turned Their Passion Into Their Career

Loknath Das

Travel is one of Instagram’s most popular verticals for a reason. From the comfort of your phone you can explore some of the most beautiful places on the planet, and daydream about your next vacation. A comment frequently seen on the platform is something along the lines of “I wish I could travel for a living” or “I would love to quit my job and see the world.” While that’s just a fantasy for many, a few couples on Instagram have actually taken the plunge and done just that — made…

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How fintech companies are bringing the magic of the digital frontier into finance

Loknath Das

From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and Gujarat to Assam, fintechs, the new and trendy financial companies, have become darlings of investment angels. The odds of the fabulous and trendy fintechs beating banks are narrowing by the day. The fintech threat to the banking industry is no longer a headline. It is close to an accord. China is one of the clearest examples: Tencent and Ant Financial absorbed huge chunks of the payments market which was overwhelmed with big banks and their spaghetti-like Information Technology infrastructure. But fintechs are a new league…

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Ex-Googler Turns Mom’s Money Into a Billion Dollars

Loknath Das

HIGHLIGHTS With less than $1 million in capital he moved from California to Shenzhen Anker is now valued at about $1.1 billion Company is embedded with the supply chain in Shenzhen After Steven Yang left his coveted job at Google, he asked his mother whether he should take venture-capital money to fund his business idea. If his online consumer-electronics enterprise was a risky bet, she told him, go with the venture capitalists. But if building the business into something great was his destiny, he instead should use her money from a…

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How Technology Is Leading Us Into the Imagination Age

Loknath Das

In many ways, the future is unpredictable. A report by the World Economic Forum reveals that almost 65 percent of the jobs elementary school students will be doing in the future do not even exist yet. Combined with technological automation and the disappearance of traditional jobs, this leaves us with a critical question: how can we survive such a world? The answer may be imagination. Initially coined by Rita J. King, the imagination age is a theoretical period beyond the information age where creativity and imagination will become the primary creators of economic value.…

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Partner at private equity firm denies being jogger who pushed woman into bus

Loknath Das

A man arrested on suspicion of pushing a woman into the path of an oncoming bus that nearly hit her has denied any involvement in the incident. Eric Bellquist, a partner at a Mayfair-based private equity firm, said he was not the jogger caught on CCTV shoving the woman into the road on Putney Bridge in south-west London. The American investment banker’s lawyers state that Bellquist has “irrefutable proof” he was in the US at the time of the incident. While the encounter occurred in May, it came to the…

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Phone boxes across the UK are being turned into free 1Gbps Wi-Fi hotspots and charging stations

Loknath Das

Abandoned phone boxes scattered around London and other major UK cities are being transformed into Wi-Fi hotspots offering free calls and digital services. BT has partnered with Intersection and Primesight to launch LinkUK, following the launch of LinkNYC in New York in January 2016. As part of the scheme, existing phone boxes are being turned into “sleek, ultramodern kiosks” – called InLinks – across the capital and new kiosks are being installed in areas where phone boxes have been removed. The partnership was unveiled in October and now the first…

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