The government has raised the minimum wages under its ambitious job guarantee scheme, the National Employment Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) 17-30%, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The increase has been based on the increase in the Consumer Price Index for the agricultural labour, it said, adding that the total spend on the project […]
Pakistan and India may be traditional rivals, but that has not stopped the smaller neighbor from considering the import of a controversial product from India — the electronic voting machine or EVM. The Indian Election Commission said its Pakistani counterpart has asked for a demonstration of the Indian machine and will soon send samples to […]
The government unveiled the much awaited mobile number portability on Thursday. “It is the open season now,” declared telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh unveiled the long-awaited nation-wide number portability regime in the capital. Chandrasekhar, a recent entrant to the telecom ministry, seemed to almost echo the feelings of millions of telecom […]
The Indian Oil Corporation, which accounts for 50% of India’s petrol and diesel sales, has justified its recent increase in petrol prices, blaming the ever-rising international crude prices. It said, despite increasing petrol prices, it is losing Rs 159 Crore per day on the sales of other fuels like Diesel, LPG and Kerosene. “With the […]
After hectic talks between ministers and departments, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally announced his response to the food price crisis — and it promises more of the same. The new measures — including a scheme to sell onions at Rs 35 per kg — are similar to those announced by the government to beat […]
After calling the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) report on the 2G scam “totally erroneous,” the government on Saturday moved to overhaul the existing telecom policy along the lines suggested by the auditor. Under the new policy, whose fine-print will be announced by the TRAI shortly, operators will no longer get spectrum free of charge […]
HCL Technologies said that the era of big bang outsourcing deals from the US has come to an end. Indian IT providers had seen a virtual disappearance of deals that generate $100 million or more per year when the recession started two years ago. Despite the recession ending, such deals are yet to make a […]
HP, the world’s number one PC brand that had lost its India crown to Dell early in 2010, came back on top during the fourth quarter, according to numbers released by IT tracker Gartner. Against Dell’s 13% marketshare, HP accounted for 15.8% share of all PCs sold in the quarter ended December 2010, according to […]
Incumbents mobile operators, who were widely expected to see an initial outflow of long-held subscribers, claimed that they were, on the contrary, winning the first round. “It looks like people who were the keenest for MNP to be implemented are also the ones who are losing the most,” said a senior Airtel official, an obvious […]
Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday announced that the government intends to create nearly 10 million hectares of forests in the next ten years under its ‘Green India’ program. India currently has 69 million hectares, or about a fifth of its total area, under forests and had a long term plan to increase it […]
India and Japan inked a “Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA),” short for a trade agreement that is just short of a free trade agreement. ” This Agreement is the most ambitious agreement signed by India so far and covers trade in goods, services and investment under its ambit,” the government of India said in a […]
Untitled document No MOU SIGNATORIES 1 Urea Manufacturing Ministry of Industry of the Republic of Indonesia H.E. Mr. Mohamad S. Hidayat, Minister of Industry VS. Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers India H.E. M.K. Azhagiri, Minister of Chemical & Fertilizers 2 Development of Industrial Complex Based on […]
As Western governments are cracking down on those who use unprotected computers to steal data and send spam emails, many of these ‘botnet’ networks have been successfully transplanted to countries such as India, according to Kaspersky Labs. While the US and Western Europe have fallen drastically as the areas from which spam and harmful viruses […]
India is likely to soon have one more auction for wireless broadband spectrum, according to sources in the Department of Telecom. The Department on Wednesday released details of how much spectrum is available in all circles across all the three categories of 2G, 3G and 4G or wireless broadband. Only wireless broadband has close to […]
India seems set of another bumper wheat crop in 2011 as the sown area has increased by 3.2% compared to the winter season a year ago. A total of 29.1 million hectares were sown with wheat for the current winter crop, according to statistics released by the agriculture ministry. The procurement of wheat by the […]
India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by around 8.6% during the year-ending March 2011, while per capital income — an indicator of how rich the citizens are — grew by 6.7% to Rs 3,000 per month per person, according to government’s quick estimates. GDP and per-capita income had grown by 8% and 6.1% during the […]
After sitting on the fence for three years, BBC Worldwide, one of the biggest English entertainment player in the world has decided to launch an India-specific channel. The $1 billion commercial arm of the non-profit British Broadcasting Corporation had added an India entertainment channel to the 41 global ones it already runs. An interview with […]
The year gone by was a gloomy year for the global outsourcing industry when value of new contracts slipped 30%, according to TPI, the largest sourcing data and advisory firm in the world. The biggest fall was witnessed in the BPO space which made up for around 22% of the total publicly disclosed deals tracked […]
Numbers released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India have shown that while many of the new operators have trouble maintaining their newly acquired customers, they have successfully eroded the shares of old operators. The data showed that the new operators faced considerable difficulty in holding on to their new customers. According to the data, […]
World’s biggest anti-virus firm Symantec has warned Indians not to be tricked by new ‘World Cup’ themed viruses. The firm, which routinely monitors trends of how viruses and other ‘malware’ spread, said trick emails urging cricket fans to sign up for free World Cup tickets are best ignored. “One scam that the Symantec Probe Network […]
