Nearly 1 in 20 drugs sold in India is of subs-standard quality or downright spurious, according to the latest numbers from the health ministry. According to them, the out of the 49,682 samples of drugs tested during the just concluded financial year (2010-11), 2,372 turned out to be below the required quality. Another 95 samples […]
Reliance Communications has announced a 7-inch Android tablet priced at around Rs 13,000 with discounted 3G data options, making it perhaps the cheapest 3G-enabled tablet in India. UPDATE: Since this model was launched, the Ubislate tab was launched for Rs 4,000 which makes the Ubislate the cheapest and most value for money tablet in the […]
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme, popularly known as the NREGA scheme, seems to have slowing down as allegations over corruption have increased. According to the latest numbers, the last financial year (2010-11) saw a 9.4% dip in the total employment generated through the scheme. However, thanks to an overall rise in costs — […]
ITES, Construction and IT sectors saw sharp declines in recruitment activity in July compared to June as employers seemed to take a ‘wait and watch’ approach, India’s biggest jobs portal Naukri.com said. The biggest slump was seen in BPO (ITES) sector, where hiring dropped 24% in July compared to June. In IT, it was down […]
Mamata Bannerjee may have big plans for her home state West Bengal, but if her record at the Rail Bhawan is anything to go by, a rise in crime levels should come as no surprise. The crime rate on Indian Railways has increased steadily and substantially over the last 2.5 years, when Mamata Bannerjee was […]
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 […]
The Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, the second largest equipment firm in the World, has appointed John Suffolk, former Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the British Government as its chief cyber-security officer. The firm said the move is aimed at developing a state of the art security system for the company which can be deployed to […]
Bharti Airtel clarified that media reports on its Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal’s salary being raised to Rs 70 crore per year this year are inaccurate. Media reports had reported that his salary may go up from the current Rs 27.5 crore per year, giving the impression of an immediate hike. Bharti said the there will […]
The news has been confirmed — Apple has indeed emerged as the World’s single biggest smartphone vendor displacing Nokia, according to market research firm Canalys. Not only did Nokia surrender the first place, but it also lost the second place to Samsung during the quarter ended June, Canalys said. In all, nearly 107.7 million smartphones […]
