Latest news with #Ola
Time of India
15 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
App-based cab drivers go on strike in city, leave hapless citizens in lurch
App-based cab services in Jaipur came to a standstill on Monday as owners' and drivers' associations started an indefinite strike. With over 23,000 app cabs keeping away from city roads, commuters, particularly those at the airport, railway stations, and bus stands, struggled to find transport. Offline autorickshaws were the only available option, with drivers making hay, overcharging passengers. The strike saw the participation of approximately 25,000 app-based cab drivers, 20,000 auto drivers, and 10,000 commercial bike and taxi operators. Their demands included implementation of the gig workers' welfare legislation, fare regulation, and adherence to the Motor Vehicles Act. The state is awaiting the implementation of the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, passed by the Gehlot govt. Protesters who work for Ola, Uber, Rapido, and inDrive platforms urged the state govt to enforce prescribed fares, remove non-compliant private bikes, and ensure aggregators follow the Motor Vehicles Act. They also called for a city taxi policy to maintain a supply-demand equilibrium. While the services are expected to resume on Tuesday, the protests will continue. "The main reasons for this strike are the increasing exploitation of operators by these companies, unfair fare policies, violations of the Motor Vehicles Act, and non-compliance with motor vehicle aggregator guidelines," said Ashish Arora, president of the Rajasthan Gig and App-Based Workers' Union. "Drivers claim that due to intense competition among these companies, fares are being reduced unfairly, threatening their livelihoods. Additionally, these companies have engaged thousands of private bike riders, which is illegal under the MV Act," he added, saying while the strike was scheduled only for Monday, the protest would continue. Devendra Jain, a businessman, who was affected by the strike said, "Generally, from airport to my Malviya Nagar home, app cabs charge around Rs 150 to 170. On Monday, I was surprised to find that no cabs were accepting bookings on any of the apps. When I found out there was a strike, I headed for the auto stand at the airport. The driver straightaway asked for Rs 400." Some drivers continued operations despite the strike, taking advantage of increased fares. Union representatives intercepted operating vehicles, warning drivers without troubling passengers. In certain instances, they removed booking applications from the mobile devices of drivers. The associations presented two primary demands: Revision of fares according to govt-prescribed rates and enhanced safety measures for both drivers and passengers. "For car rental services, the govt has set a fare of Rs 25 per km and a minimum fare of Rs 150 within city limits. For outstation, it is fixed at Rs 12 per km. We want app cabs to charge fares based on this rate. From Tuesday, we are going to demonstrate in front of the commissionerate and on VT Road in Mansarovar," stated Sanjay Ratnu, president of Krantikar Taxi Drivers' Association, Jaipur.
Time of India
17 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Krutrim finds few takers for its LLMs and cloud products
Krutrim , the artificial intelligence (AI) arm of the Ola group , has received tepid response for its large language models (LLMs) and cloud products, according to some founders and developers who have evaluated these offerings. This is in large part due to the poor documentation of Krutrim's products, as well as a lack of adequate technical maturity, they said, with startups preferring hypescalers such as Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services over Krutrim's cloud service. Bengaluru-based Krutrim became India's first AI startup to reach unicorn status after it secured $50 million in funding in 2024 at a $1 billion valuation. The people cited earlier also said that the leadership churn at Krutrim since 2024, which saw the exit of more than 20 people, including key executives and those at the junior and mid-management levels, has not helped either. Two early-stage founders told ET that they had signed up for Krutrim Cloud but have now moved to hyperscalers Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. Mehul Mohan, chief executive officer of Codedamn, an AI tutoring platform, in a YouTube video aired on February 1, said that while Krutrim offers several models on its cloud, there is not enough documentation available and lacks transparency compared with global players such as Amazon, for similar pricing. In response to ET's query about lack of takers for its products, Krutrim's spokesperson issued a statement saying they are building the AI stack for India, including frontier AI model development, AI Cloud and silicon design, which require continuous innovation and investment in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. 'We highly value user feedback and regularly benchmark our performance against industry standards,' the statement said. 'All Krutrim offerings are under active development and will see significant enhancements in the coming quarters.' Lack of technical maturity Ola founder Aggarwal first announced Krutrim in December 2023, launching an LLM that could support 10 Indian languages, starting with Krutrim chatbot in February 2024, and cloud offering shortly after. Two founders told ET recently that repeated sign-in attempts were blocked by a persistent 'logged out of session' error, making sign-up via mobile or Gmail difficult. Similar issues were found with Krutrim cloud, where messages such as 'invalid credentials' and 'invalid captcha' create problems for signing up, the founders said, adding that login issues persist with Krutrim's products. ET has independently verified the issues. Rajiv Ranjan, lead analyst, India cloud and data center services, International Data Corporation (IDC), said one of the challenges a new player like Krutrim cloud might face is that enterprises already have existing contracts with hyperscalers. So, moving to a new platform can be risky due to lack of familiarity, potential integration challenges with existing cloud platforms, and the need to train internal staff with a new set of tools. Newer firms like Krutrim will have to offer higher performance, and cost-effective products to attract customers to try the new platform for specific use cases, Ranjan said. High latency Krutrim's AI model, marked by high latency, which refers to response time, has trouble attracting users as well. A former Krutrim employee ET spoke with said, "Less than 10,000 people use their chat version, and more than 60% of it are random testers.' While chat and web search are fast, Shashank Agarwal, founder, Noveum, said the app failed on other accounts such as academic, audio and image search. ET reviewed and found that Krutrim's AI chatbot took 41 seconds to generate a response for a prompt. In contrast, ChatGPT-4o and DeepSeek took less than 10 seconds. The number of downloads for Krutrim's two AI models--Krutrim 1 and Krutrim 2--have not seen much traction. According to data from HuggingFace, in the past month, the former has seen 76 downloads and the latter, 1,445. In contrast, India-based rival Sarvam's 2B parameter model has seen 3,405 downloads. However, both the Indian platforms lag global models such as Mistral (7B model) and DeepSeek-R1, which have been downloaded 1 million and 680,000 times, respectively, in the past month. Naresh Singh, senior director, analyst, at Gartner did not directly respond to a query on Krutrim's performance, but said the initial performance of the Indian AI models does not stand up in comparison to global models. 'They should be open to scrutiny and give their models up for people to study. But that has not happened yet,' Singh said. With inputs from Suraksha P.
Irish Independent
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Wexford community celebrates Irish and Polish cultures as part of vibrant and fun festival
Polska Éire is a nationwide event which celebrates the cultural exchange and integration between the Irish and Polish communities in Ireland. Polska Éire started in north Wexford 10 years ago, when Gorey library was contacted by the Polish Embassy to organise an event. After this first gathering, a group who were in attendance connected and decided to continue with the celebrations. Speaking after the festival in Gorey, organiser Ola Riquet said, "What started as an afternoon in the library turned into this huge thing, which we are very proud of. It's something that was inspired by that afternoon but also by our children. "Back then, our children were very small and some of us were only pregnant but we had a strong feeling that we have this amazing knowledge and heritage in us and we want to pass it on to our children. At the same time, we want our children to grow up as Irish citizens and be just a little bit richer because they have the knowledge from their parents'. In the years since then, the group have held many more events, taking part in the Polska Éire festival and creating other events for Irish and Polish people to get involved with. For the last two years, the group has gathered at Gorey Library every two weeks to introduce Polish legends to children. 'English speaking children are invited alongside Polish speaking children to listen to the legends of Poland. It's very interactive and we do arts and crafts to do with the legends. We dress up sometimes and make puppets. We have beautiful decorations that we painted,' said Ola. The group have also brought Polish music to Gorey, combining Polish music with traditional Irish music from the area. Among the events, are art exhibitions and screenings of Polish films at Gorey Cinema. On another special occasion, a delegation from Gorey travelled to Poland.
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Krutrim finds few takers for its LLMs and cloud products
Krutrim , the artificial intelligence (AI) arm of the Ola group , has received tepid response for its large language models (LLMs) and cloud products, according to some founders and developers who have evaluated these offerings. This is in large part due to the poor documentation of Krutrim's products, as well as a lack of adequate technical maturity, they said, with startups preferring hypescalers such as Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services over Krutrim's cloud service. Bengaluru-based Krutrim became India's first AI startup to reach unicorn status after it secured $50 million in funding in 2024 at a $1 billion valuation. The people cited earlier also said that the leadership churn at Krutrim since 2024, which saw the exit of more than 20 people, including key executives and those at the junior and mid-management levels, has not helped either. Two early-stage founders told ET that they had signed up for Krutrim Cloud but have now moved to hyperscalers Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. Live Events ETtech Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories Mehul Mohan, chief executive officer of Codedamn, an AI tutoring platform, in a YouTube video aired on February 1, said that while Krutrim offers several models on its cloud, there is not enough documentation available and lacks transparency compared with global players such as Amazon, for similar pricing. In response to ET's query about lack of takers for its products, Krutrim's spokesperson issued a statement saying they are building the AI stack for India, including frontier AI model development, AI Cloud and silicon design, which require continuous innovation and investment in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. 'We highly value user feedback and regularly benchmark our performance against industry standards,' the statement said. 'All Krutrim offerings are under active development and will see significant enhancements in the coming quarters.' Lack of technical maturity Ola founder Aggarwal first announced Krutrim in December 2023, launching an LLM that could support 10 Indian languages, starting with Krutrim chatbot in February 2024, and cloud offering shortly after. Two founders told ET recently that repeated sign-in attempts were blocked by a persistent 'logged out of session' error, making sign-up via mobile or Gmail difficult. Similar issues were found with Krutrim cloud, where messages such as 'invalid credentials' and 'invalid captcha' create problems for signing up, the founders said, adding that login issues persist with Krutrim's products. ET has independently verified the issues. Rajiv Ranjan, lead analyst, India cloud and data center services, International Data Corporation (IDC), said one of the challenges a new player like Krutrim cloud might face is that enterprises already have existing contracts with hyperscalers. So, moving to a new platform can be risky due to lack of familiarity, potential integration challenges with existing cloud platforms, and the need to train internal staff with a new set of tools. Newer firms like Krutrim will have to offer higher performance, and cost-effective products to attract customers to try the new platform for specific use cases, Ranjan said. High latency Krutrim's AI model, marked by high latency, which refers to response time, has trouble attracting users as well. A former Krutrim employee ET spoke with said, "Less than 10,000 people use their chat version, and more than 60% of it are random testers.' While chat and web search are fast, Shashank Agarwal, founder, Noveum, said the app failed on other accounts such as academic, audio and image search. ET reviewed and found that Krutrim's AI chatbot took 41 seconds to generate a response for a prompt. In contrast, ChatGPT-4o and DeepSeek took less than 10 seconds. The number of downloads for Krutrim's two AI models--Krutrim 1 and Krutrim 2--have not seen much traction. According to data from HuggingFace, in the past month, the former has seen 76 downloads and the latter, 1,445. In contrast, India-based rival Sarvam's 2B parameter model has seen 3,405 downloads . However, both the Indian platforms lag global models such as Mistral (7B model) and DeepSeek-R1, which have been downloaded 1 million and 680,000 times, respectively, in the past month. Naresh Singh, senior director, analyst, at Gartner did not directly respond to a query on Krutrim's performance, but said the initial performance of the Indian AI models does not stand up in comparison to global models. 'They should be open to scrutiny and give their models up for people to study. But that has not happened yet,' Singh said. With inputs from Suraksha P
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
App-based cab drivers go on strike in city, leave hapless citizens in lurch
Jaipur: App-based cab services in Jaipur came to a standstill on Monday as owners' and drivers' associations started an indefinite strike. With over 23,000 app cabs keeping away from city roads, commuters, particularly those at the airport, railway stations, and bus stands, struggled to find transport. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Offline autorickshaws were the only available option, with drivers making hay, overcharging passengers. The strike saw the participation of approximately 25,000 app-based cab drivers, 20,000 auto drivers, and 10,000 commercial bike and taxi operators. Their demands included implementation of the gig workers' welfare legislation, fare regulation, and adherence to the Motor Vehicles Act. The state is awaiting the implementation of the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, passed by the Gehlot govt. Protesters who work for Ola, Uber, Rapido, and inDrive platforms urged the state govt to enforce prescribed fares, remove non-compliant private bikes, and ensure aggregators follow the Motor Vehicles Act. They also called for a city taxi policy to maintain a supply-demand equilibrium. While the services are expected to resume on Tuesday, the protests will continue. "The main reasons for this strike are the increasing exploitation of operators by these companies, unfair fare policies, violations of the Motor Vehicles Act, and non-compliance with motor vehicle aggregator guidelines," said Ashish Arora, president of the Rajasthan Gig and App-Based Workers' Union. "Drivers claim that due to intense competition among these companies, fares are being reduced unfairly, threatening their livelihoods. Additionally, these companies have engaged thousands of private bike riders, which is illegal under the MV Act," he added, saying while the strike was scheduled only for Monday, the protest would continue. Devendra Jain, a businessman, who was affected by the strike said, "Generally, from airport to my Malviya Nagar home, app cabs charge around Rs 150 to 170. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now On Monday, I was surprised to find that no cabs were accepting bookings on any of the apps. When I found out there was a strike, I headed for the auto stand at the airport. The driver straightaway asked for Rs 400." Some drivers continued operations despite the strike, taking advantage of increased fares. Union representatives intercepted operating vehicles, warning drivers without troubling passengers. In certain instances, they removed booking applications from the mobile devices of drivers. The associations presented two primary demands: Revision of fares according to govt-prescribed rates and enhanced safety measures for both drivers and passengers. "For car rental services, the govt has set a fare of Rs 25 per km and a minimum fare of Rs 150 within city limits. For outstation, it is fixed at Rs 12 per km. We want app cabs to charge fares based on this rate. From Tuesday, we are going to demonstrate in front of the commissionerate and on VT Road in Mansarovar," stated Sanjay Ratnu, president of Krantikar Taxi Drivers' Association, Jaipur.
