Google to block ads on ‘unapproved languages’ from Nov

Google has announced that starting from November, it will stop serving ads under its various networks and platforms for all web pages and apps that are not in the list of 49 approved languages. The list of 49 approved languages includes eight Indian languages — Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi. The […]

Reliance Jio reverses two-decade-long fall in wired phone users

Reliance Jio’s wired connectivity service, called Jio Fiber, has finally achieved what many thought was impossible — break the two-decade long declining trend in the number of wired phone connections in India. The number of wire-line connections in India started declining around two decades ago as mobile call tariffs fell sharply, spurring BSNL customers to […]

Rs 100/month: Jio Hathway has India’s cheapest cable TV plan

Hathway Cable and Datacom, part of the Reliance Jio network, has started offering India’s cheapest cable TV tariff plans for customers in some parts of Mumbai. At a price of Rs 100, Jio Hathway is giving practically all the popular channels in India in standard definition, and at 200 rupees per month, in HD. Jio […]

TikTok’s case against India ban dismissed – Govt

The case filed by TikTok against its ban in India has been dismissed by the High Court of Telangana, the central government informed the Rajya Sabha today. “Tiktok had approached Honorable High Court of Telangana on 20.07.2020 challenging the ban imposed by the Government of India. The court after detailed hearing disposed the matter in […]

No security audit done on Chinese smartphones- IT ministry

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, today clarified that it has not conducted any sort of study to check if Chinese-made smartphones used in India are sending sensitive data to their country of origin. “Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has not conducted any such study,” said Minister of State Sanjay […]

Jio need not pay RCom’s AGR dues under sharing rules:DoT

India’s communication ministry today said that there was no possibility of an operator being asked to pay the dues of another operator simply because it has entered into a spectrum sharing agreement with the other. This was clarified by Minister of State Sanjay Dhotre in reply to a question by MP K Subbarayan on whether […]

Work from home boosts TV viewership in India

Even as evening TV viewership has fallen back to its pre-COVID levels after the COVID-19 lockdown, overall TV viewership continues to remain elevated due to higher levels of daytime consumption in the era of work-from-home. According to numbers disclosed by Sunil Lulla, CEO of TV viewership measurement agency BARC, TV viewership in India has gone […]

Republic to enter regional languages this year – Arnab Goswami

News broadcaster Republic plans to expand its digital offering to six languages by March, and has also had discussions on taking over news channels in non-Hindi, non-English languages in India, founder Arnab Goswami said in an interview today. “I had thought that by the end of this financial year, we would do ten languages on […]

Does VODAFONE IDEA have a FUTURE?

As Vodafone Idea unveils a new brand identity, the financial troubles facing the company has as thrown into question the very future of the Indian telecom operator. There has been speculation that American telco Verizon or online retail giant Amazon may infuse money into the operator, but such rumors have been quashed by the Indian […]

COVID-19 lockdown proves a blessing for DTH providers

The Direct to Home (DTH) satellite broadcasting service has emerged as perhaps the only segment that has seen a clear benefit from the COVID-19 lock-down, with all three listed players seeing an increase in their customer revenue during the lock-down. The biggest jump in revenue was reported by Airtel Digital, which saw its revenue jump […]

Jio Fiber finally unveils its ‘real tariff’, starts at 399 pm

When Mukesh Ambani announced the tariff plans of Reliance Jio Fiber a year ago, most of the people who were eagerly waiting for the commercial services to launch were disappointed as there was nothing special about the company’s tariff card. However, its rivals were relieved, because their fears about a mega disruption in the market […]

Reliance speeds up Jio Fiber connection deployments

Reliance Jio, which started wired broadband operations in September last year, has started speeding up the roll-out of its Jio Fiber service after an initial slow-down. The company started the service with around 8 lakh connections as of October end, most of which were converts from its trial service. Over the next two months, it […]

D-Mart working on new cities, but COVID-19 impact to show

D-Mart, India’s most famous deep discount retail chain, said it is working on expanding its footprint beyond its current footprint of 214 locations, but the ongoing COVID-19 will impact the number of new stores that will be opened this year. The company, which started with just two stores in Mumbai in 2002-03, expanded to 214 […]

NRIs, Digital boost real estate sales for Godrej Properties’ in Q1

Godrej Properties, the fastest growing of India’s real estate majors, saw a surge of NRI (non-resident Indian) customers as well as a huge pick-up online sales during the COVID-19 lock-down. Despite a harsh lock-down in place in India during most of the Apr-Jun quarter, the company managed to sell a whopping 2,130 homes during the […]

TRAI Tariff Order matter listed for Wednesday morning

After getting postponed several times, an application by broadcasting companies such as Zee Entertainment Enterprises against the latest TRAI directive to implement the new tariff order has been listed for hearing tomorrow morning. The application was originally listed before the Bombay High Court for hearing on last Thursday, but there was no hearing on account […]

D-Mart warms up to e-commerce as JioMart expands

D-Mart, arguably India’s most successful low-cost retailer, may be looking at a multi-city e-commerce launch in coming days, after years of avoiding the sector citing the gruesome economics of online retail in India. Avenue Supermarkets, or D-Mart as most people would know it, is known for its fanatic focus on keeping costs down and its […]

Bharat Matrimony wants to lure customers from ‘all tiers’

Matrimony.com, one of the largest matchmaking companies in the world, said it continue to offer discounts and special pricing to attract new internet users who are coming online via the 4G wireless data revolution. The company, which operates the Bharat Matrimony website and others, has typically charged several thousand rupees for its paid membership. Only […]

Broadcasters fail to get a hearing on TRAI tariff order today

Major television channel broadcasters had a disappointing Friday as their application against TRAI’s move to impose the new tariff order could not be heard due to paucity of time, marking the second day the application has been listed and went unheard. Big broadcasters had approached the Bombay High Court earlier this week against TRAI’s Aug […]