Kotak Jifi Indimeet: Socialising Over Social Bank Accounts

The latest edition of IndiBlogger's very popular Indimeets saw coming together of over 600 bloggers (yes!) for the exclusive launch of Kotak Jifi - Kotak Mahindra's fully integrated social bank account - a first of its kind bank account that goes beyond conventional banking by incorporating social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter alongside mainstream banking.

Over 600 bloggers attended the exclusive launch

While Indimeets are always super fun what with the great camaraderie amongst bloggers on display, this Meet scored brownie points for simultaneously and seamlessly bringing together bloggers from three cities together (Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore), all at the same time. While the chief guest launched Kotak Jifi in Mumbai - bloggers from Delhi and Bangalore were part of it all through web streaming.

Welcome!

In Delhi, the venue of the launch was the trendy B-Bar, a hip place to hang out and grab a drink or two (or more!) with friends. The nicely done up bar welcomed us with drinks on the house! That bought smiles and giggles galore on many a happy faces and in no time the bar was overflowing with drinks and fun banter among bloggers. 

While the attendance at the bar counter steadily increased, members from the indiblogger team too was coming into its own, checking on the first timers, guiding them with the registrations and initiating many a fun introductions and idle banter! Let me share this here that it's very heart-warming to see how team Indiblogger ensures that every one is comfortable and that no new member feels out of place in the fun riot that many indimeets turn into before and after the meet agenda.

Needless to say, in no time everyone was happy and high enough to participate in the selfie contest that had just been announced - click selfies with new and old friends and if  you win, you get rewarded with cool goodies and shopping vouchers!

The crowded bar! Drinks on the house!

While the drinks and banter flowed, it was time to discover who the secret chief guest was - invited to launch Kotak Jifi - and it was none other than the acclaimed writer Chetan Bhagat, who himself is well versed with the demands and more of social networking platforms, with an overwhelming twitter follower tally of 2.42 million! So who better to talk about a bank account that is based on social media platforms than Chetan Bhagat. The ever so witty and soft spoken Bhagat not just took the bloggers through the concept and idea behind Kotak Jifi, but along with Mr. K.V.S Manian, Kotak's Consumer Banking Head, also fielded questions about the nitty gritty involved in banking through social media platforms.

The stage's set in Delhi, ready for the launch

Mr. Chetan Bhagat with Kotak's Consumer Banking Head, Mr. KVS Manian

And here's what Kotak Jifi is all about - a bank account on the go!

• Kotak Jifi is a first-of-its-kind online social bank account integrated with Facebook and Twitter.
• Targeted at the young tech-savvy crowd, Jifi is a 0 minimum balance current account.
• Bank account updates, cheque book requests and other account activities are all a tweet/message away - account holders can receive account updates on Twitter as Direct Message by simply tweeting to the bank's twitter handle a pre-determined hashtag. 
• Account holders can earn transaction and social points online transactions and on referring friends to open accounts.
• Besides social media integration, Jifi account holders will also have access to all conventional bank offerings including branch and ATM network, a platinum debit card and internet & phone banking access.
• And here's some more finer details about Kotak Jifi -  

Quick pointers on going Jifi-y!

Jifi's detail introduction done, it was time for lunch, where quite a few people had a tad tough time dealing with the limited menu and the chaos to not to miss out on the desserts. Nevertheless, a not so exciting lunch break gave way to the very exciting Kotak Premier League. Hold your horses if you think the bloggers padded up for a quick 20-20 match on B-Bar's polished floors! Hahah! For KPL was in fact a tweet challenge amongst bloggers divided into 6 teams - with all posting creative tweets about Jifi. The team with the maximum tweets took home the much sought after shopping vouchers!

And then followed the photo-ops! Plus lots of bonding and networking! It's so much fun when all the indibloggers came together to fit into one big photo - and it looks like a huge Indi family! One can only be there to have an idea of the good energy that fills the place!  Looking forward to attending more of these happy and happening Indimeets in the future too!

And it's all wrapped up with a group photo

That's all about the Kotak Jifi Indimeet! Hope you enjoyed the post, and if you were there too, then would love to read about your experience! 
This post has been written under the #JifiIsHereExperiences blogging drive post the launch of Kotak Jifi organised by Kotak Mahindra Bank in association with IndiBlogger.

Come on India, Let's Dance It Out!

I cannot dance. Ill-equipped with the proverbial two left feet, dancing for me essentially is bashfully swaying for a few seconds with insistent friends at parties, and with very pushy relatives at sundry wedding functions. Nothing more, nothing less. No matter how hard I try, the music and my body are never in sync with each other. So much so that even my Punjabi blood doesn't spring in action at the briefest or faintest sound of a dhol or nagaada.

But the Dance India Dance Indiblogger Meet organised last week has somewhat changed my equation with dancing. We are not indifferent to each other anymore. (What a relief!)

But before I go into details about how this change of heart came about, let me share some tidbit about the awesome IndiMeet. The DID Indiblogger Meet was organised to give Delhi bloggers an opportunity to get jiggy with Zee TV's 'Dance, India Dance' judges! Yes! You read that right! An evening of fun, food and lots of dancing with the affable judges of Dance India Dance.

We are all aware about the huge popularity of Zee TV's show Dance India Dance! Considered India's number 1 dance reality show, it has set a standard for being a show where the judges do not just judge the contestants but also mentor them and guide them to be better dancers. In season 4 of this dance reality show, ZEE TV has roped in three new mentors to judge the contestants, and these awesome mentors are - Feroz Khan, Mudassar Khan and Shruti Merchant - three young and dynamic choreographers who have extensive experience in choreographing not just for Bollywood blockbusters, but also several prestigious non-filmy projects in India and abroad.

New mentors on the show

Besides the fresh faces in the judging panel, Season 4 of Dance India Dance is in news for another reason, and that is it's special theme - Dance It Out! Yes, with this new season, these judges are out with a mission - the mission to create a dance movement and inspire people to Dance It Out! Dance It Out is the slogan and theme of the show - and it aims at motivating people to vent out their feelings through dance. Happy? Dance! Sad? Dance! Depressed? Dance! Angry? Dance! The crux is - do not keep any feeling bottled up inside you, rather, express it through dance. And you do not have to be an accomplished dancer to that - go with the flow, dance it out.

Needless to say, this idea somewhere touched a chord with the non-dancer me. And the icing on this idea cake was the concept of Dance for a Cause, adopted for the DID IndiMeet. To put the concept into action, bloggers were asked to form groups and give a performance supporting a cause close to their heart. While there are many causes that are close to my heart and can any day push me to shake an non-synchronized leg for them, in this meet I got to be a part of the group championing the cause of female foeticide.

'Dance It Out' for a cause

Highlighting female foeticide

And this experience of being a part of a dance drama highlighting a social issue was indeed very liberating! It has given me the energy and enthusiasm to let go of my inhibitions, and dance despite my inadequacies. And if at all my dancing can make any difference, here are some of the top causes I will dance for.

COMMUNAL HARMONY

Time and again, the issue of communal harmony has been discussed as one of the major challenges to India's cohesiveness. Just when we think that we are well on the road of assimilation, a Muzaffarnagar happens and triggers fresh debates about communal-ism.  We fail to understand that with communal tension, we do not just harm each other, but also put our country's internal security as risk. There are so many urgent issues and causes we can devote our energies to, rather than throwing it all away in the name of Allah and Bhagwan. So, this would be the first cause that will prompt me to overcome my fear of two left feet. I will dance it out to spread communal harmony, to spread the message of love and peaceful co-existence.

SAFE STREETS & GENDER EQUALITY

We all know how India was in the spotlight the world over on account of the horrific bus rape incident that happened in New Delhi. The furor condemning it lasted a couple of months, there were all kinds of protests condemning the incident , the outrage was immense, following which the parliament passed a bill recommending harsher punishments for rapists. But this has hardly brought about any significant change at the ground level. Every single day, there are reports of molestation, kidnapping, harassment and the new menace, acid attacks. So I will dance it out to not just vent out my frustration against crime against women and gender equality, but to also raise awareness among those around me.

CLEAN AND GREEN ENVIRONMENT

How I wish to see our country spanking clean, its streets and roads litter-free and flanked by big beautiful trees, its many roundabouts dotted with fountains and its towns and cities boasting of lovely gardens. And like the other causes I have put here, this too is one where the efforts of every single citizen matters. Like charity, cleanliness too begins at home! Keep your house and its surroundings clean, keep your housing society clean, keep you town/city clean....and this chain can go and on. Let us all make more efforts towards recycling and reusing stuff, let us all plant more trees, let us contribute towards reducing our carbon footprint in whatever small or big way we can.

Dance reality shows are all about fun, entertainment and search for exceptional dancing talents. All three seasons of Dance India Dance have been high on quality entertainment and have sort of set a benchmark in promoting new dance forms. It's great to see that DID Season 4 is not just about dance, but also about causes.  So come on India, dance it out for the causes close to your heart! Vent it out, express it out - give way to all your happy, sad, funny, angry thoughts and opinions. Dance!

For updates about Dance India Dance Season 4 and Zee TV's other programmes, please check here.
Image Courtesy : Google Images.

Update : This post, judged by Dance India Dance team won a Logitech Boombox on IndiBlogger.