A total of 579 Indians without valid visa were detected in and deported from the United States to India since 2014, according to the records of the ministry of external affairs. The number indicates a rise compared to previous years, when the such cases were much rarer. Many Indians choose to overstay their visas in […]
Indian Railways saw an increase of 3.91% in the total number of reserved bookings in the financial year ended March 2017, according to data from the ministry of railways. A total of 52.35 cr (523 mln) passengers were booked in the reserved category during the year, reflecting the continued demand for long-distance rail travel. In comparison, […]
A pioneering artificial intelligence program that started getting deployed around mid-2016 has helped Wipro Ltd reduce its employee numbers by 12,000 people, the company said in its recent quarterly update. “The HOLMES platform generated productivity worth over 12,000 people,” Saurabh Govil, head of human resources for the company, said. The statistic points to a stronger-than-expected […]
Vodafone India said it would like to be given the power to manage the size of videos watched by users on its mobile network and lower it automatically “for overall quality welfare”. Participating in the discussions related to Net Neutrality and the powers to be given to telecom operators in traffic management, the company said it did […]
If you thought the fight over net neutrality was over with the sending of 1 mln emails to the TRAI two years ago, think again. The telecom service providers, who lost out that in the first round, are back. This time, however, their demands are more subtle, and focused on getting specific services exempted from […]
Employees of Wipro Ltd are nervous as the information technology giant has kicked off its annual appraisal process this month. The first of the several reviews, known as L1 or level 1, has been completed, and at least some employees are feeling the pressure. “I’ve got to know that I have been marked as NI […]
The Bharatiya Janata Party has failed to make much headway in Kerala over the last two years, going by the results of a by-poll in the Muslim-dominated Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency. With nearly 95% of the eight lakh votes counted, the BJP has seen its vote share decline from about 7.5% in 2014 to 7.1%. The […]
Complaints against all telecom providers except Bharti Airtel dropped in 2016, possibly in reaction to the emergence of new operator Reliance Jio and the explosion of 4G data capacity. The total number of complaints lodged with the regulator TRAI against telecom firms dropped 15% in 2016 to 19,774 from 23,293 in 2015 and 20,386 in […]
Free services from Reliance Jio, the telecom services arm of Reliance Industries, brought down the amount of money paid by telecom subscribers in India by about Rs 4,400 cr in just the last three months of 2016, an analysis of the sector data revealed. The numbers indicate that the company’s free offers have helped Indians save a […]
Reliance Jio’s withdrawal of its Summer Surprise Offer is unlikely to make any difference to most of its customers, and the company may even come up with a new version of the plan to comply with the ban. “The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has advised Jio to withdraw the 3 months complimentary benefits of Summer […]
Even as states race to denotify state highways as ‘urban roads’, Maharashtra, home of roads and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, managed to get 65% of all sanctioned upgrades of state highways into national highways last year. According to year-end data prepared by the roads and highways ministry, 8,002 km of state highways in the state […]
India’s ministry of power has set up a committee to examine concerns around the participation of Chinese companies in the country’s fast-growing transmission sector. Since large Chinese firms typically have close ties to the Chinese government, concerns have been raised by both Indian companies as well as some security experts about letting them manage large […]
Government of India is overhauling its email system in an effort to encourage government officials to use only their official email accounts for official purposes, the IT department said. At present, many government officials use private email services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail, even for official and semi-official communications, putting government data at risk. […]
Sun Direct, the DTH service from Sun Network, has unveiled three new HD subscription plans that make it the cheapest provider of HD TV services in India. The plans are priced at Rs 51, 101 and 150, including taxes. The cheapest pack provides 23 HD channels — with the exact composition depending on the language […]
The Medical Council of India has forced a medical college based in Nellur, Tamil Nadu to discharge 36 students who were admitted to the college outside the NEET system. NEET or National Eligibility cum Entrance Test is the pan-India entrance examination for recruitment for all medical colleges in the country. According to the Medical Council […]
Indian Space Research Organization could soon help Indian e-bikes overcome their biggest drawbacks — low mileage per charge and limited speed. Costing between Rs 35,000-50,000, most of these bikes have a top speed of 25 km per hour and a range of 30 to 50 km per charge. That could change soon, thanks to the […]
Incidents related to smuggling of fertilizer and narcotics on the Indo-Bangladesh border fell sharply in 2016, but there was a compensatory increase in drug smuggling cases along India’s border with Bhutan and Nepal, according to data from the Union Home Ministry. Fertilizers — which cost less in India because of government subsidies — are smuggled out, […]
Over one-fifth of all food samples tested in India’s government labs in the last year were found to be fake or adulterated, according to numbers compiled from various state government food testing facilities by union government’s department of consumer affairs. Exempting Gujarat, which accounted for nearly 23% of the samples, the total percentage of fake and adulterated […]
With on four more days remaining before the start of paid services on Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecom operator by volume, the company has urged its sales agents to promote the idea of ‘queuing’ up recharges for a year. “We have been told to encourage users to do recharges for multiple months before the offer […]
The number of trademarks awarded by the India’s Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks has jumped threefold this financial year, according to data obtained from the Patent Office. A total of 2.11 lakh trademarks were registered in India in the first eleven months of the year beginning April 2016, compared to just 65,045 in […]
