India’s second largest industry association, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has lent its support to Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s proposal to allot mines only through bidding, but called it unsuitable for many cases. Under the current system, mines and similar natural resources (except oil blocks) are allotted in a non-transparent […]
Mageia Linux, the community fork-edition of Mandriva Linux, has announced the second beta edition of its first ever Linux operating system release. The release, available for download here is the last ‘test’ release before the split-away group releases its final Linux distribution. The development has come six months after most of the senior developers of […]
Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja, serving seven years in jail on sexual assault charges levied by his former housemaid, has received bail from the Bombay High Court. The Court granted bail after noting that Shiney has not tried to tamper with evidence even when he was not in jail as the case was going on. He […]
Wipro Limited reported March quarter IT Services Revenue at $1,400 million, a sequential increase of 4.2% and YoY increase of 20.1%. The growth is slower than the 5.6% posted in December quarter and the 5.7% growth posted in September quarter, but higher than the 3.2% growth of the June 2010 quarter. It has guided for […]
Defence Minister AK Antony, known for his clean image, has urged top defence officials not to fall into the trap of corruption in the “garb of aggressive marketing.” “At times, vested interests bring about unnecessary pressure and resort to corrupt practices that can wreak serious havoc upon our security in more ways than one. We […]
India Against Corruption (IAC), the umbrella body led by Anna Hazare spearheading the fight for the establishment of a Lokpal (corruption ombudsman) has announced plans to have a nationwide awareness program including mass rallies and meetings in the coming days. “The response is so overwhelming that all these dates have been pre-booked. Other dates are […]
Freedom on the Internet is coming under more and more threat from governments around the world, according to the second ‘Freedom on the Net’ (FOTN) report by the Freedom Institute for 2011. The study of 37 countries found former Soviet republic Estonia to have the freest Internet, with a restriction of just 10 points, followed […]
Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh has removed a clause requiring compensation-seekers from depositing 1% of their requested compensation upfront with the application. The move came after a media report that criticised the provision as the Government trying to “make the victim pay for justice.” Ramesh said the intention was to deter non-serious applicants and there […]
The Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s premier investigating agency, has filed the second charge-sheet in the $10 billion 2G spectrum case. However, the filing at the special CBI court in Delhi has been opposed on procedural grounds by A Raja’s lawyer. The Court is expected to allow or disallow the filing by 4:30 pm. While […]
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India’s biggest industry association, has warned of a ‘soft landing’ for the economy in the current year due to high inflation, oil prices and slowing capital investments. Addressing his first press conference after taking over as CII president, Tata Steel Vice Chairman B Muthuraman said CII expected Indian GDP […]
Reliance Infrastructure, the engineering, infrastructure and construction company from the Anil Ambani group has again started share buy-backs on a large scale. The company announced that it had bought back 1 lakh shares of the company today from the open market. At around Rs 695 per share, the company has spent Rs 7 crore in […]
The Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India’s Atomic Energy wing, has denied allegations that the Jaitapur Nuclear plant is situated in an earth-quake prone zone. It said the nearest tectonic fault — an area where one underground earth ‘plate’ meets another — is at least 30 km away. The plant has come under increasing […]
comScore, Inc., one of the top ‘web measurement’ companies, has found that the Netherlands led the world in penetration of mass messaging service twitter and the professional networking service LinkedIn. “The Netherlands is in many ways a nexus of global social networking behavior,” pointed out Mike Read, svp and managing director of comScore Europe. The […]
Despite the protest by a section of the populace the government has reiterated its determination to go head with the Jaitapur nuclear plant. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra,Prithviraj Chavan, after holding meeting with the Prime Minister, ruled out any rethink on the 9900 megawatt nuclear plant. He however said that the compensation package for the […]
The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) — the powerful industry lobby of India’s software and BPO industry — appointed Rajendra Pawar, chairman of NIIT group as its new chairman. Som Mittal will continue to be the President of the organization, arguably India’s most successful industry-lobby. N Chandrasekaran, the CEO and MD of […]
The prime minister Manmohan Singh put down his foot firmly in favor of the Jaitapur Nuclear Project today, four days after environment minister Jairam Ramesh called for a ‘pause’ on the project. After talks with Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chawan, V Narayanasamy, the junior minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s portfolio (which include Nuclear […]
In a judgement that will be welcomed by many air travellers in India, the Supreme Court has quashed the ‘Airport Development Fees’ or ADF charged by private airports like Delhi and Mumbai today. The judgement is likely to lower domestic air tickets prices by around Rs 200 or more. Besides ADF, air ticket prices are […]
India has managed to convert nearly 20% of its potential for non-solar renewable energy to installed capacity, but is likely to miss its yearly target this year. According to numbers, the total non-solar installed generation capacity at the end of January 2011 was 18,800 megawatt, almost 1,000 megawatt short of the target. The government had […]
EvoTV, the Android-based streaming TV box from Amkette, has added support for the Times Group’s BoxTV – an online movie and video service. With the addition of the BoxTV app, EvoTV users can now watch scores of movies available BoxTV, such as Aashiqui.in, in their EvoTV. EvoTV is arguably India’s most popular independent Internet TV […]
VentureNursery, India’s first angel-backed start-up accelerator has announced an investment in Mumbai-based consumer internet company Smursh Ecommerce, the owners of Klip.in. Klip.in helps users discover unique and interesting lifestyle products across the web by aggregating and curating them based on their social connections and interest graph. Klip.in covers over 5000 products curated from over 100 […]
