Industry chamber Assocham has opposed the anti-tax evasion proposals suggested in the budget, including having retrospective laws and giving wide discretionary powers to tax officials. Assocham said issuing broad General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) — targeted at cases like the Vodafone-Hutch deal — without fine-print and safeguards is a recipe for disaster and may be used […]
TRAI’s decision to recommend steep auction reserve prices may have rattled the industry, but the telecom regulator had its own reasons for suggesting the relatively high price. It recommended a spectrum auction reserve price roughly double that of actual prices discovered in 3G auctions in 2010 for the 800-900 MHz band that has so far […]
Engineers prefer IBM, while non-engineers prefer Infosys, according to a new poll by a naukri.com group website. The poll, conducted among 2000 college students and recent graduates registered on one of its job portals, found that a whopping 43.7% of engineering students/graduates chose IBM as their most preferred employer, beating out competition from others like […]
New operators like Uninor (Telenor) and MTS (Sistema) will probably relook at whether they want to continue their India operations if TRAI’s latest recommendations on spectrum pricing are accepted, Kotak Institutional Equities has said. For traditional big operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, the impact of the new prices would start from the year […]
If the boom in the smartphone market has helped any company, it is the U.S.-based Qualcomm. The chip maker’s performance in 2011 lived up to its reputation as the most viable threat to the dominance of Intel in the worldwide semiconductor (chip) market. According to full-year numbers released by technology market research firm Gartner, Qualcomm […]
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) today announced that its @WalmartLabs operation is expanding in Bangalore with the hiring of 100 additional developers and a move into a new facility. Wal-Mart plans to hire an additional 100 people to create a next-generation e-commerce platform. The new platform is designed to connect Walmart’s digital and physical properties […]
India came one step closer to having a robust mobile banking infrastructure in place with the notification of the ‘Mobile Banking (Quality of Service) Regulations’ by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today. The regulations are meant primarily to prevent mobile operators from refusing to co-operate with, or providing poor cooperation to, banks that […]
If cable operators thought they would have a smooth transition from analog-digital services to digital-only services by June 30, satellite-based DTH operators seem to have other ideas. According to the rules, cable operators must switch off the analog signals on their lines in big cities by June 30. Once the analog service is switched off, […]
Piqued by delay in getting a response from the government on petrol prices, state-owned oil companies have issued a final warning to the Government to act, before raising petrol prices by Rs 8 per litre. “The current situation where oil companies have to import crude oil at a price of $121.29 per barrel (relevant for […]
Legenday investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet has a form of non life-threatening cancer, his company Berkshire Hathaway said today. Berkshire released a letter from Buffet, a hero to many not just for his money-making abilities but for his simple personal life and philanthropy, to the shareholders of Hathaway, in which the 81-year-old reassures his well-wishers […]
The Cellular Operators’ Association of India, representing the interests of the major telecom operators of India including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, has issued a clarification that it is not in favor of the Government trying to override Supreme Court decisions by making laws that would apply to periods before they were made. The clarification was […]
The euphoria of an expected release of the abducted officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the District Collector, of Malkangiri, R Vineel Krishna has died down with the underground groups putting up more conditions for the release of the prize catch. In the meanwhile the Maoists released the abducted engineer, Pabitra Majhi, who […]
Huawei Devices, known for its extremely cost-efficient Android devices, has launched the 4-inch smartphone Huawei Honor in India. The Huawei Honor is one of the very few 4-inch smartphones priced at less than Rs 20,000 in the Indian market, and will compete directly with the other 4-inch Android phone, the LG Optimus Black P970. The […]
US mobile operator Sprint has announced its first 4G LTE handset, the LG Viper — a 4 inch, dual-core mobile phone — priced at $99.99, with a new two-year service agreement and $50 mail-in rebate. The device will go on sale on April 22. Customers can preorder the Android 2.3 phone and get it as […]
India will export about 19 lakh bales in the March-April period, according to numbers from the ministry of commerce. The ministry said that by about 11 of this month, about 10 lakh (1 million) bales of cotton have been cleared for export, while another 9 lakh bales are expected to be cleared by 17 of […]
The world’s biggest mobile phone maker Nokia is likely to cut prices of its Windows phone or Lumia devices in the coming months as it tries to survive an army of cheap Android phones, most industry analysts believe. According to them, even the average selling price of Nokia Lumia devices of 220 euros (Rs 15,000) […]
The state-owned telecom operator MTNL has launched ultra-fast fibre-optic broadband plans at the same price as normal DSL broadband in Delhi. For those who book before May 7, the prices of MTNL’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband are about 50-70% cheaper than similar ultra-high-speed plans offered by Airtel and BSNL. For example, MTNL is offering a 10-Mbps […]
The Lava Xolo X900 marks the entry of the chip-giant Intel into the phone world and promises to shake up the mobile-phone world. On Thursday, Intel and Lava will launch the Xolo X900, the first phone Intel-based phone to enter India, possibly in tie-up with Aircel and Airtel. However, since Lava has a strong distribution […]
Information Technology today allows you to know virtually anything about anything in a few minutes, but not everyone knows how to use it to get what they want. The problem is particularly acute in professions like journalism, where many of the top investigative reporters of today cut their teeth before the age of the Internet. […]
Google’s surprisingly good results yesterday was partly the result of the tighter focus brought in by founder Larry Page after he took over as CEO. But the sharper focus also makes it tougher for Google to maintain its glamorous reputation in the tech world, analysts warned. Page had took over from long-time CEO Eric Schmidt […]
