The Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), the powerful lobby of traditional GSM operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, has expressed concern over the decreasing profitability of telecom operators in India. Over the last two years, due to the entry of new players, big traditional operators such as Bharti and Vodafone have either seen […]
Standard & Poor’s Ratings, which created a storm by downgrading the US government’s credit rating from the top position for the first time since the second world war, said there are no immediate prospects for such a move on Asian countries. It, however, warned that disruptions in financial markets may lead to the renewal of […]
Are you one of those people who look enviously at your neighbour’s iPad or tablet, but can never get yourself to spend Rs 35,000 on a ‘glorified surfing machine’? Do you find the prospect of carrying two computers, one for reading and another for writing, ludicrous? Fret not, the Asus Transformer is here in India. […]
India’s foreign investment continues to gather pace in the new financial year. After growing by 77% in the first two months (April & May), foreign investment has zoomed 310% (four times) in June. Total long term foreign investment (into companies and such like, excluding stock markets), was $5.656 billion in June, against $1.380 billion received […]
Southern states of Kerala and Karnataka are finding it difficult to get rid of the H1N1 virus, with 16 new deaths reported from the two states in June and July. According to central government figures, Kerala reported 174 cases of confirmed H1N1 infections in the two months, while Karnataka reported 34 infections. None of the […]
The Government of India has dismissed reports that India’s forests are declining at an alarming rate of 1% to 2.7% every year, pointing out that the definition of forests is quite broad in its dictionary. Responding to a question by an alarmed Rajya Sabha member today, the new environment minister Jayanti Natarajan said that any […]
Sprint, America’s biggest 4G operator, has launched HTC Detail, a tweaked version of the HTC Evo Shift that it launched for consumers earlier this year. HTC Detail will be part of its offering for ‘wholesale’ customers such as Mitel, which repackage Sprint’s services along with their own to sell to other customers, typically companies. The […]
Fans of Ubuntu can soon enjoy Gnome 3, the new radical overhaul of the look and feel of the Linux desktop, at a single click. The new interface can now be easily installed on the upcoming edition of Ubuntu, the Oneiric Ocelot, thanks to the migration of Ubuntu’s own user-interface ‘Unity’ from GTK-2 code to […]
US device maker Motorola has just announced that users of its Xoom tablets in Asia Pacific (including India) will be eligible for a free update of their operating system from Android 3 to Android 3.1 from tomorrow onwards. The update, the first major update to the tablet oriented Android Honeycomb edition, will resolve many pain […]
Google has reduced its call rates to Indian phones from 6 cents (Rs 2.70) per minute to 2 cents (90 paise) per minute and extended the service to customers outside the US, including those in India. Google phone-calls help customers call phones almost anywhere in the World at rates that are usually cheaper, sometimes much […]
A general trend by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, India’s big three GSM operators, to raise prepaid tariffs has got many customers irked. But a close look at the tariff numbers of the Indian mobile sector over the last two years reveals the reason for the move. It points out that hammered by competition, […]
Sprint has just announced the two most powerful Blackberry phones ever, including the Torch 9850 which has a 3.7 inch full touch screen — the biggest ever to adorn a Blackberry handset. The other phone, the Blackberry Bold 9930, is similar in specifications to the already announced Blackberry Bold 9900 and has a 2.8 inch […]
Huawei, World’s second largest mobile network equipment provider, has just launched a data-card product that may turn out to be crucial to the roll-out of wireless broadband in India by players like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. The data-card is the World’s first such device to support a host of technologies, including TD-LTE — seen as […]
Indian finance minister Pranab Mukherjee rebutted the argument that well-to-do owners of private cars are sucking up the tens of thousands of crores of rupees spent by the Government in the form of diesel subsidies. Quoting figures, he said only 15% of India’s total diesel consumption is consumed by diesel cars. “37% is used by […]
Google has retired its first public outreach program, the monthly email digest Google Friends, launched 13 years ago. The mailing list, aptly name ‘Google Friends’ as Google grew up more like a open source community than like a company, saw its final edition on Friday. “..the number of subscribers to this newsletter has remained flat, […]
India is famous for its World-beating wireless telecom expansion, but an analysis of the latest data reveals that its mobile subscriber base is increasingly getting filled up by junk, unused connections. Though showing signs of a slowdown of late, India’s wireless telecom market continues to add around 15 million telecom subscribers every month. The market […]
Mphasis, one of India’s biggest BPO companies (majority owned by HP), has acquired a US-based firm that makes insurance management software for an undisclosed sum. Mphasis, listed on the Indian bourses, said the acquisition is part of its strategy to focus more and more on specific verticals, one of which is insurance. The move is […]
India’s exports set a new high in June, while imports showed a welcome slippage from the high levels shown in May, according to the latest foreign trade data. The oil bill, which had cross the $10 billion mark in the previous month, remained stable at around $10.2 billion in June too. Proving critics wrong, the […]
Essar Energy has said that its $350 million acquisition of Shell’s oil refinery at Stanlow in the UK, will help it export the products of its India refinery to the UK market. The Stanlow refinery, whose acquisition was completed today, is the second largest refinery in the UK and supplies approximately one sixth of the […]
Indian e-retailer Letsbuy.com has brought to India the qwerty-enabled Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro priced at Rs 15,399 ($340) The phone, despite having decent specifications like a 1GHz processor, 5 Megapixel camera, WiFi and Android 2.3 Gingerbread, is not exactly the ‘latest and greatest’ in the league of smart-phones. The biggest factor that differentiates the […]
