India’s Information Technology Department today unveiled a new plan of action to combat fake news that would require foreign social media firms like Facebook, Twitter and Google to establish offices in India and actively help in flagging and tracking down people who post troublesome messages online. Ravi Shankar Prasad also said WhatsApp, in particular, has […]
Facebook has emerged as the social media platform that has the highest degree of compliance with Government of India’s blocking requests, while Twitter and Instagram have the least. In all, the government issued blocking requests for 2,205 posts in 2017 and 2018 (up to June), out of which 74% were taken down by the concerned […]
Trinamool Congress MP Prasun Banerjee today raised the issue of the recent ‘trolling’ of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in Parliament. Over the last several days, Swaraj has come under attack on social media after she took disciplinary action against an official of the Lucknow Regional Passport Office for allegedly denying passports to a Hindu-Muslim […]
Government of India has faced questions from members of parliament on reports that it has asked state-owned refiners to get ready to stop importing crude oil from Iran in the face of pressure from the United States. A question from Lok Sabha MPs Supriya Sule and Mullappally Ramachandran sought to know “whether the Government has […]
With only months to go before a make-or-break election for the president of Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi today made a speech that managed to get under the skin of BJP leaders, marking a departure from the past when the saffron party has largely been content to dismiss his allegations as non-serious. What agitated the […]
Former cabinet minister Anand Sharma today warned against what he called the misuse of tax and investigation agencies in the country, and warned BJP leaders that they may not always be in power. He said the BJP government has ‘spoiled the habits’ of agencies like Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax Vigilance and Central Bureau of Investigation, […]
HT Media, the publisher of Hindustan Times and Mint newspapers, reported disappointing advertisement sales for the Apr-Jun quarter, and said corporations were not spending on ads due to poor earnings growth. The company generated only Rs 221 cr during the three months from advertisement sales at its English newspapers Hindustan Times and Mint, a decline […]
Sun Direct, the No.1 direct-to-home service in South India, has threatened to remove all channels of India’s largest broadcasting company, Star India, from all its subscription packs from August 1. The channels will continue to be available on the platform, but users will have to purchase the channels individually at prices ranging from Rs 10 […]
Bharti Airtel said the Reserve Bank of India has lifted the restriction on signing up new customers imposed on its banking unit Airtel Payments Bank. The restriction was imposed in January after reports that the company was signing up its mobile customers on its payments bank platform without seeking their full consent. Payments Banks are […]
Market tracker CyberMedia Research has called Reliance Jio’s 4G and GigaFiber broadband subscriber targets unrealistic, and said it did not see the company meeting the year-end target of 300 mln for its 4G service or the 50 mln target for its fiber broadband service. “We at CMR feel Jio might slow down around 260-275 million […]
Social media users posting in one of Kerala’s biggest Facebook Groups are facing the prospect of being sent to jail for ‘encouraging alcoholism’ by glamorizing drinking. Given there’s no law against glamorizing drinking, Kerala Excise Department is reported to have directed the police to use other laws — such as those against child abuse and […]
India’s cable company stocks have fallen by about 15%-25% since Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom company by volumes, yesterday announced the commencement of its long-awaited fiber broadband and TV service from August 15. It is feared that the company’s entry can lead to widespread shutdowns and losses in the cable and broadband industry, similar to […]
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani today announced that Jio will start giving out connections of its much-awaited broadband service, Jio GigaFiber, starting on August 15. Surprisingly, Ambani said the service will be available in 1,100 cities of India from Day 1, and not 100 cities as was announced two years ago. This means that Jio […]
WhatsApp, India’s largest communication platform used by an estimated 65% of the country’s online population, has come under scrutiny for providing a conduit to distribute ‘fake news’ after multiple cases of lynchings came to light. While the company has urged ‘society and companies’ to help tackle the menace, the messaging application has some more to […]
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley again urged India to ‘respect’ all religions so as to avoid ‘divisions’ within the country. Soon after arriving in India on Tuesday, Haley had emphasized ‘freedom of religion’ in a comment to the media. She also urged India to relook at its relationships with Iran and Russia […]
Indian PC market continued to be in throes of a prolonged recession in the first three months of 2018, according to data from CMR, but could report its first yearly growth rate in 2018. CMR said there was a decline of 9.2% in the number of computers sold to consumers in India in Jan-Mar period […]
Wipro said it has completed the sale of its hosted data center services business for $399 mln as announced three months ago. The business, consisting of Wipro Data Centre and Cloud Services, Inc. (USA), a portion of data center business in Germany and UK and certain employees in India, was sold to to Ensono, a […]
The Supreme Court bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Sanjay Kaul has removed the ‘immunity’ enjoyed by Enforcement Directorate official Rajeshwar Singh and said the government can go ahead with any probe into his conduct, and remove him, if it wants to, from the investigation. Rajeshwar Singh, on his part, claimed that his life […]
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has expressed suspicions of an ‘internal sabotage’ of the investigations into the so-called Aircel-Maxis scam, in which the accused include former finance minister P Chidambaram and son Karthi. “BJP government at Centre, judging by today proceedings on Aircel Maxis in SC, is under internal sabotage. Have to find out who is […]
HCL said it was buying H&D International Group, a Germany-based provider of IT and engineering services to the automotive industry, for an undisclosed sum. It described H&D International as one of the largest IT service providers in the German automotive industry. “H&D has established a strong footprint in the German and Central European automotive markets […]
