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Cashless Bano India movement launched by NDTV & Mastercard
NEW DELHI: ‘Cashless Bano India’, a campaign aimed at accelerating the adoption of digital forms of payments through an on-ground and TV campaign, has been launched to educate the masses about digital payment solutions and encourage its usage for everyday spends.
This campaign launched by NDTV Mumbai and Mastercard will work with partners in driving behavioral change and spread awareness on the importance of digital payments to millions across the country.
The campaign was launched through a high decibel panel discussion focusing on the need for a robust digital payments ecosystem in the country.
Cashless Bano India would also extend to Tier-II and Tier-III cities through on-ground educative sessions aimed at reaching public-at-large as well as merchants with the support of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).
The panel discussion was attended by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, Mastercard Asia Pacific co-president Ari Sarker, CAIT general secretary Praveen Khandelwal, Sr. Fellow, Brookings & Former Government Chief Economic Adviser Dr. Arvind Virmani, former IMF Executive Director, IMF; Axis Bank executive director Rajeev Anand and Punjab National Bank MD and CEO Sunil Mehta and moderated by NDTV consulting editor Vikram Chandra
Kant said, “The Government has been aggressively driving the push to a less-cash society, bringing a number of policy reforms and initiatives. The vision is to make India lead the world in the evolution of payment systems with technology paving the way. Initiatives like Cashless Bano India will further propel the efforts in bringing a behavioral change towards digital payments and further help in the penetration of digital payments to the last mile.”
“With digitization becoming a part of our life in more ways than one, cashless payments are the future of our country. While the benefits of digital payments to the nation and to individuals are obvious, many roadblocks to speedy implementation still remain. This brain storming session with all stakeholders including the government, bankers, traders and the aam aadmi hopes to charter a blueprint for secure and simple cashless transactions to help build a better India”, said Chandra.
“The digital payments industry in India is at an inflection point. Enablers like Jan-Dhan, Aadhaar, mobile penetration, and more recently demonetization have created a strong foundation for large scale adoption of digital payment systems in India. This is a long term story, which will require a combination of infrastructure, sleek user experience with highest standards of safety and security, last mile distribution and reach, together with the right policy initiatives, and significant marketing and communications efforts to build awareness on the benefits of a digital economy”, said Sarker. “Through our collaboration with like-minded partners like NDTV, we want to do our bit to realize the vision of a cashless India.”
The panel discussion ended with Amitabh Kant, Vikram Chandra and Ari Sarker flagging off a bus, scheduled to travel across the five cities of Kanpur, Jaipur, Surat, Indore and Nagpur. This would be an extended on-ground activation of the campaign, whereby financial literacy and adoption camps would be conducted at the respective cities for traders and merchants.
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Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
