Even as businesses are seeing lower demand and spare capacity during the corona lockdown, some are trying to find opportunities where their services might be useful. Swiggy has said that it can start grocery deliveries in 150 Indian cities if the grocery supply chains open up. Swiggy has seen its business dwindle as India has shut down — its services have been stopped in several states, and 80-85 percent of its fleet is currently idle….

The reality is slowly setting in, and India’s business community is slowly finding its feet amidst the nationwide coronavirus lockdown. Even as most businesses are shut, they’re either trying to keep the lights on by working from home, negotiating with the government to get their services back up, and helping out their customers and employees. Here are the updates of how India’s businesses and startups dealt with on the second day of the coronavirus lockdown….

People had been known it was on the horizon, but it’s finally here — India is now under a 21-day lockdown to help deal with the coronavirus. Everything other than essential businesses is shut in the country, and people are quarantining at home to help prevent the spread of the virus. This, of course, has impacted businesses across the country. Here’s how startups and businesses are coping with the national lockdown. 1. Flipkart pauses, all…

Even as the coronavirus has helped catapult grocery delivery startups into the limelight, there’s consolidation already afoot in the space. BigBasket has said it has acquired micro-delivery startup DailyNinja to consolidate its subscription delivery business. The deal is estimated to value Bangalore-based DailyNinja at around Rs 48 crore in stock, people aware of the matter told ET. “Business with small traders is a key and growing part of Bigbasket’s business,” said Big Basket CEO Hari Menon. “DailyNinja currently has a large…

As India fights the spread of deadly coronavirus, a startup in Bengaluru is developing an app and creating technological solutions to help the government track and monitor people in home quarantine, reports Livemint.  The app, called ‘Q-app’ (quarantine app) is expected to go live this week. It aims to live-track those in home quarantine as well as provide colour-coded information to identify areas with large number of positive cases. There is an urgent need for…

Even as PM Modi had made an impassioned appeal to citizens to stay indoors on Sunday to implement a self-enforced Janta curfew, India’s startups and companies have risen to the challenge. Several Indian startups and companies have thrown their weight behind the Janta Curfew, and said that they’d suspend their services from 7 am to 9 pm on 22nd March.  1.Ola: Ola said that it would encourage users to avoid all non-essential travel between 7am…

India’s delivery firms are in the thick of the action at the moment, with people relying on them to make deliveries during the coronavirus outbreak, but they might soon get a whole new weapon in their arsenals — drones. Dunzo and Bangalore-based drone maker Throttle Aerospace Systems have got approval from India’s civil aviation authority to test their drone deliveries. The two firms could begin testing their long-range delivery solutions by as early as late…

The coronavirus is now a full-blown global pandemic, and has also upturned life in India — schools and colleges are closed, malls are shutting down, and even the IPL has been postponed. Startups and companies are impacted too — many companies are now working fully from home, while others, like cinema theatres, have shut down operations. But even amidst the upheaval, some startups and companies have tried to do their best for their customers and their…

Even as the coronavirus is disrupting industries across the world, companies are quickly innovating to mitigate its impact on their businesses. Zomato has said that it has introduced “contactless” delivery on its food delivery app. Through the option, the delivery partner will place the food package on a clean surface outside the customer’s door. He will then click a picture of the package, and the picture will be available to the customer on the app. Once…

As the coronavirus spreads in India, it’s slowly forcing more and more companies to work from home.  An employee at Google Bangalore, who worked out of the company’s RMZ Infinity office, has tested positive for coronavirus. He becomes the fifth positive case in Karnataka. “We can confirm that an employee from our Bangalore office has been diagnosed with COVID-19. They were in one of our Bangalore offices for a few hours before developing any symptoms,” Google’s…