New Delhi,
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Wednesday hosted the worlds largest virtual shareholder meet with 3.2 lakh shareholders live on the newly-minted JioMeet platform from 550 cities across 48 countries.
Nita Ambani, Chairperson and Founder of Reliance Foundation, spoke at the AGM for the first time. She gave a detailed report of the activities of the Foundation and how it will continue to pull all stops in extending to assist during the Covid-19 crisis.
On the back of concluding the largest ever rights issue in India in digital-only mode, the 43rd AGM on Wednesday too was conducted through video conferencing for the first time ever.
Shareholders attended from over 550 cities across 48 countries in Asia, Europe and the US through a specially-created video conferencing interface, live graphics and ticker tapes on the newly-minted JioMeet platform. Some shareholders logged in through K Fintech, Registrar and Share Transfer Agent to RIL.
All RIL directors and company secretaries joined from their respective homes virtually. So did Jio Platforms directors Isha Ambani, Akash Ambani and Kiran Thomas, who gave a demo of the upcoming Jio narrative and products ranging from education, health and entertainment, including Jio Glass. Another global first in this AGM was the deployment of a Chatbot developed by Jio Haptik just to educate and onboard the shareholders by answering over 80 queries — from onboarding basics to dividend receivable and how to vote. The bot hosted three easy-to-understand videos too.
Mumbai, the headquarters of RIL, where the physical meeting has been held all these years, saw the largest attendees in the virtual meet. Mumbai was followed by Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune. ians
In a major development amid the chorus for an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ or self-reliant India, Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman announced that Reliance Jio has developed a complete 5G solution from scratch.
Speaking at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of RIL, Ambani said that the “Made-in-India” technology can be deployed and launched in a year’s time once spectrum is available.
He added that Jio can easily upgrade its 4G network to 5G , since it is all-IP network architecture.
“Once it is proven in India, Jio Platforms would be well positioned to be an exporter of 5G solutions to other telecom operators globally, as a complete managed service,” he said.
Technology major Google has joined the bandwagon of marquee investors betting on Reliance Industries’ (RIL) Jio Platforms as it comes in with an investment of Rs 33,737 crore.
A regulatory filing by RIL said that this investment by Google values Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.36 lakh crore. With this, the total investment from financial and strategic investors into Jio Platforms stands at Rs 1,52,056 crore.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said: “The pace and scale of digital transformation in India is hugely inspiring for us and reinforces our view that building products for India first helps us build better products for users everywhere. I am excited that our joint collaboration will focus on increasing access for hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t currently own a smartphone while improving the mobile experience for all.”
The transaction is subject to regulatory and other applicable customary approvals.
A Google India blog said that the proposed investment into Jio — $4.5 billion – is the first investment from the $10 billion Google For India Digitization Fund announced earlier this week, which aims to accelerate India’s digital economy over the next five to seven years through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments.
Further, to create an affordable yet powerful smartphone ecosystem for the masses in the country, Reliance Jio Platforms and Google on Wednesday announced to launch an entry-level Android smartphone soon.
Jio Platforms and Google have entered into a commercial agreement to jointly develop the entry-level affordable smartphone with optimisations to the Android operating system and the Play Store. “I am excited that our joint collaboration will focus on increasing access for hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t currently own a smartphone while improving the mobile experience for all,” said Pichai. ( IANS )
