China leads the World in software piracy, according to the software industry ‘advocacy’ group, the Business Software Alliance (BSA). According the results of a study of 15,000 users in 32 countries, the Chinese had a software ‘pirate rate’ of 86%, followed by Nigeria with 81% and Vietnam with 76%. Interestingly, India, which too is suspected […]
After getting the outlay for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) from Rs 30,000 crore to 40,000 crore last year, the rural development ministry is seeking a further increase to Rs 64,000 crore for the next year. The government will also start kick off a Rs 2,500 crore programme to check fraud accounts by […]
Despite the pretensions of being a global engineering talent pool, India is increasingly falling behind even countries like China in innovation, according to a white paper released by Delhi-based Zinnov Consulting. According to the paper, the number of patents filed in India is just one-eighth that of China. This is despite the fact a large […]
Devas Multimedia, at the centre of a controversy over satellite transponder deals with the government, has hit out at the Prime Minister’s statement that the government was determined to end the contract. The PM Manmohan Singh, speaking to editors in the capital, had said that there was no question of going ahead with the 2005 […]
Taiwanese PC brand Acer has unveiled the cheapest netbook by any major brand in India – the eM350, which will cost just Rs 10,999 including a free MTS data-card. The current starting price for branded netbooks is around Rs 14,000. The new netbook will have similar features to most netbooks in the market — at […]
Embattled satellite music firm Devas Multimedia today came out strongly against allegations of misappropriation of spectrum levelled by some media outlets. In media briefings in the capital, Devas’ founder and president, Ramachandran Viswanathan blamed corporate rivals and other vested interests for the controversy. He also denied that his firm had got a ‘sweetheart’ deal from […]
After nealry 2 months of deliberations, the environment ministry under Jairam Ramesh order the 31-storey Adarsh Co-operative Society building to be demolished. The final order, issued on Sunday, found the Society guilty of “negligence or an act of gross and deliberate misrepresentation” in failing to secure environmental clearance for their building. The order also found […]
The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) of government of India has asked state level agencies to report all violations of the coastal buffer zone rules within four months and initiate action in another four. The directive has been issued soon after the coastal management authorities got new powers under the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) […]
Airtel, which announced its first 3g launch on Monday, will charge Rs 675 per month for a decent 1.25 GB of data usage and around Rs 2,000 for 14 GB, according to details released during the Bangalore launch. The rates are slightly lower than those of Reliance Communications for low volume users, but costlier for […]
Sony has become the first computer firm to launch AMD’s Fusion brand in India. The firm, which has been targeting the mass market in India recently, announced a new laptop with the highest powered Fusion chip yet — the E-350 dual core 1.6 GHz processor. The AMD Fusion is a revolutionary design from AMD that […]
The Government may allow FM radios to air news bulletins after the setting up of a sector regulator, according to Arvind Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Kumar, addressing IACC’s 7th Indo-US Economic Summit, said that the government was afraid that irresponsible reporting can have deleterious impact on the social and cultural fabric […]
Bringing slight respite to the government, the whole-sale food price inflation has slipped to 16.9% for the week ended 1 January, 2011. The indicator, which shows the price rise in food articles at the wholesale market level, was at 18.3% in the preceding week. However wholesale vegetable prices were up a whopping 71% in the […]
Fresh from its introduction of the ‘fusion’ series of CPU-GPU combination chips, AMD has put the technology on embedded systems creating what it called the most power embedded system ever. “This new class of accelerated processor combines more compute capabilities on a single die than any processor in the history of computing and represents opportunity […]
Global IT purchases will grow by around 7.1% in 2011 — slightly lower than 7.2% in 2010 — according to IT market research firm Forrester Research. The forecast is a more subdued one than that of July last year, when the agency had predicted an 8.4% growth. In July, it had also foreseen a growth […]
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 […]
