World’s top ‘track 2 diplomacy’ institution and New York-based think-tank, the East West Institute has warned of a ‘9/11 type’ of attack on the undersea cables that connect India to the rest of the world. Addressing telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar and officials of the home ministry, the founder of the 30-year-old think-tank, John Edwin Mroz, […]
After waiting in vain for state governments to get their act together on bringing government services to the Internet, the Central government has cracked the whip and brought out a draft bill to force state governments to implement e-governance programs in five years. While the original plan was to have nearly all government services available […]
India is heading towards an unprecedented oil-shock, with under-recovering quadrupling over last year — according to early numbers from the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. With crude oil prices almost regaining their all time high of 3 years ago, India’s state-owned oil companies are heading towards a record breaking ‘oil shock’ year. “The Oil […]
Indian mobile operators continued to see average bill sizes shrink in the last quarter of 2010, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revealed in its latest ‘performance report.’ Year-on-year, GSM saw higher falls than CDMA. According to the report, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) — a measure of how big a bill […]
Two days after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India re-opened the vexed issue of ‘termination charges,’ new operator Uninor (a joint venture of Unitech and Telenor) has struck back at bigger operators accusing them of “restrictive trade practice” against newer ones. TRAI had, two days ago, asked for suggestions on whether to increase or decrease […]
The Prime Minister’s Trade and Economic Relations Committee has stepped in after complaints by the Indian pharma industry over India’s planned trade agreement with the European Union. The commerce ministry led by Anand Sharma has been negotiating a trade agreement — aimed at reducing import duties and facilitating better access for companies on both sides […]
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 […]
India’s exports cgrew 44% in March, the final month of the last financial year. For the full year, the growth was 37.5%, as announced by the government earlier. Export growth was slightly lower than the 50% growth seen during the early part of 2010, but substantially higher than the rates prevalent a year ago. India’s […]
Microsoft, the maker of the Windows Operating system, increased its already high market-share by 0.7 percentage points to 78.6% of the total worldwide operating system market, Gartner said. Total operating system (OS) revenues for Microsoft jumped to $23.85 billion dollars in 2010, higher than the total turnover of most big corporations in the world, according […]
India has fired a salvo at Pakistan after US President Barack Obama confirmed that Osama bin Laden has indeed been shot and killed ‘deep inside Pakistan.’ India’s home minister P Chidambaram (in charge of homeland security) said the development “underlined” India’s position that Pakistan “shelters” terrorists. “We take note with grave concern that part of […]
Reports emerging from Kabul says that a spat between the officers of Afghan National Army (ANA) and soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) resulted in firing that has claimed some lives and wounded few. In a telephonic interview with the RTN the spokesperson of the ANA,General Mohammad Zahir Azimi confirms the death of […]
After giving hope to anti-POSCO protesters by putting the project clearance on hold, environment minister Jairam Ramesh has abandoned them again, pointing out that the protestors’ resolutions did not have the requisite number of signatures. On April 15, Jairam Ramesh had announced that he intended to put the forest clearance to India’s biggest foreign investment […]
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 […]
India has more than the usual quantity of water in its mega dams at the end of April, according to statistics released by the Water Resources ministry. The numbers crunched by the ministry shows that at the end of April, the average water level of 81 of India’s biggest dams is around 60% higher than […]
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 […]
Kaspersky Lab, the Russia-based anti-virus provider with a substantial marketshare in India, has announced a ‘privacy guard’ cum anti-virus software for smartphones. The software will not only protect phones from viruses, but also enable users to create white lists and black lists of contacts. No call records or contact details will be visible if persons […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
