Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has won a mandate from India’s civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to digitise its daily operations.

As part of National Civil Aviation Policy (2017), it was planned that the aviation regulator’s daily functioning will be digitised. The project is named as E-Governance for Civil Aviation (eGCA).

The aviation regulator had called for the purpose in 2018. The project envisages online service delivery, automation of systems, processes at the back-end and implementation of required IT infrastructure and service delivery framework, DGCA said.

For TCS, it is another prestigious government project that it has won after server system for passport services, rural system for employment program MNREGA, India Post and GST service portal for multiple state governments.

“TCS has won the mandate for online transformation of workings of DGCA. The scope of work is huge-basically digitising entire functioning of the DGCA so that no airlines, airport operators and other stakeholders do need to visit DGCA for their work,” said an official aware of the development.

The entire work will be completed in two years, which will include digitising licensing pilots and crews, surveillance, reports of safety audit.

“TCS has been asked to digitise those process first for which airlines and common people have to visit the office often. In the second step, internal office work and files will be digitised,” the official said.

HCL Technologies has completed the planned acquisition of select IBM products for security, marketing, commerce and digital solutions.

Last December, HCL Technologies had announced that it will acquire select IBM software products for USD 1.8 billion in an all-cash deal.

"As part of the deal's close, HCL takes full ownership of the research and development, sales, marketing, delivery, and support for AppScan, BigFix, Commerce, Connections, Digital Experience (Portal and Content Manager), Notes Domino, and Unica," HCL said in a statement.

HCL also mentioned the introduction of HCL Software, a new division that will operate this enterprise software product business and meet customer demands.

"We are excited for the next phase of HCL Software business unit and are confident that these products will see good growth trajectory backed by our commitment to invest in product innovation coupled with our strong client focus and agile product development," said C Vijayakumar, president and CEO of HCL Technologies.

The products are AppScan, BigFix, Commerce, Connections, Digital Experience (Portal and Content Manager), Notes Domino, and Unica. These products are part of Mode 3 strategy that focuses on IP business.

"It has tremendous potential for creating compelling ‘as-a-service’ offerings by combining these products with traditional IT and next-generation services," Vijayakumar added.

IT industry body Nasscom on July 5 said the Budget remained silent on bringing in a conducive policy for special economic zones and termed it a 'missed opportunity' for the country.

"One key exclusion in the Budget was a conducive policy for special economic zones (SEZ), leaving it as a missed opportunity for India as other countries continue to provide benefits to enterprises. The SEZ benefits shall end in March 2020, but there is no clarity on the new SEZ policy or an indication of what is to come," Nasscom said in a statement.

It pointed out that a consistent ask from the industry has been a forward-looking SEZ policy to strengthen India's position as a global hub for IT services.

"This sector contributes 7.9 pc to the GDP and is one of its largest contributors, and creates around four million jobs, hence, a lack of incentives will impact India's image...," it added.

The software body had earlier urged the government to continue the tax incentives to units in SEZs beyond March 2020, saying that such a move will provide the industry with certainty and enable its players to invest in long-term strategy.

Tech Mahindra, a provider of digital transformation, consulting and business re-engineering services and solutions, and Prometeia, a company in risk management consulting and software solutions, announced their strategic partnership to provide Governance, Risk and Compliance services to banks in order to improve their overall performance, in line with Basel III framework.

Basel III is a set of international banking regulations developed to promote stability in the international financial system. Tech Mahindra’s capabilities in banking risk management & compliance, business intelligence, analytics, data management and system integration, combined with Prometeia’s ability to provide local industry specialists, will help in effectively responding to regulatory challenges impacting banks all over the world.

Gautam Bhasin, Banking & Financial Services, vertical head, Tech Mahindra, said, “Our partnership with Prometeia will help us expand our presence in the Banking Enterprise Risk Management space, especially in Europe with best of breed solutions on ALM, credit risk, IFRS 9 and regulatory compliance. We hope to leverage Prometeia’s proven expertise in developing niche solutions in the Risk, Wealth & Performance Management domain to better serve our customers globally.”

Social Alpha said it has partnered with BIRAC and Mphasis to scout for 10 startups working on assistive technology solutions aimed at differently-abled persons. The company will also offer them financial support of up to INR 2 million each.

"The aim of the ‘Quest for Assistive Technologies’ initiative is to provide selected startups with ‘lab-to-market’ support, including optimal product design, market access and customised assistance to each startup," said Manoj Kumar, Social Alpha chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder. Kumar is also the Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Tata Trusts.

The selected startups will undergo a three-month accelerator programme focussed on market access and investment readiness, he added.

Social Alpha - an initiative of Tata Trusts supported by the Department of Science and Technology - has already incubated four startups in this segment, including Bionic Yantra, Blee Technologies, Innaumation, and Tactopus.

Kumar said a corpus of about INR 50 million has been identified for investing in startups working on assistive technologies with a similar amount coming in through partners.

“There is a huge shortage of quality solutions that cater to persons-with-disabilities at an affordable price point. There are innovators who have built the right prototypes, but they struggle with the end-user acceptance, designing for manufacturing and market access,” Kumar explained.