Full list of Chinese apps banned in India, with GoI statement

As the China’s People’s Liberation Army continues to amass weapons at the Indian border, Government of India has sought to secure the country’s IT infrastructure by banning all the major and popular Chinese apps available in India at present. The following is the full-text of the statement given by the government of India explaining the […]

10 cr people watch Hotstar on India-Pak match day

Hotstar, India’s largest premium streaming platform, said 15.6 million (1.6 cr) people used its video streaming app at the same time on June 16, when India played Pakistan in the ICC World Cup in England. In all, 10 cr people logged into the service some time during that day. This is a record for the […]

TV to remain content king, despite growth in mobile apps: Survey

The number of smartphone users in India is expected to almost double by 2022 from 47 cr registered at the end of 2017, a joint study by ASSOCHAM and PwC said. Fueled by cheap data and the explosion of ‘over the top’ services, the total number of smartphones will hit 86 cr by 2022, which […]

Airtel TV incorporates Editor Ji for election coverage

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel updated its TV app by adding a new section for election coverage and incorporating content from the ‘Editor Ji’ platform founded by former NDTV CEO Vikram Chandra. Airtel TV app users will now have access to exclusive election news bulletins from the video news app, Editor Ji, which is funded by […]

Delhi HC rejects plea to censor Game of Thrones, other web series

The Delhi High Court today dismissed a petition by a lawyer’s organization, Justice For Rights, seeking censoring of online content such as Game of Thrones, Spartacus, Vikings and Sacred Games. The petition, filed late last year, claimed that such videos constituted “unregulated, uncertified, sexually explicit, vulgar, profane, and legally restricted content”. The lawyers wanted the […]

Flipkart’s PhonePe eyes PayTM as it readies to sign up half a crore merchants in 2019

PhonePe, the payment app backed by Flipkart, announced that it has crossed the 1 mln merchants milestone and plans to add another five million this year. This is likely to help the company narrow the gap with market leader PayTM, which had an estimated 10 mln (1 cr) merchants in its network as of late […]

Can Netflix avoid going Apple’s way in India?

As Netflix inches closer to saturation point in its North American home market, it is desperately looking for growth abroad. India being the only billion plus market where it can operate with ease, it is no wonder that its push is aggressive here. However, as Netflix’s market share stagnates, does it risk meeting the same […]

Jio Music no more, gets replaced by JioSaavn

Reliance Jio has pulled its enormously popular Jio Music app and replaced it with JioSaavn, a new app based largely on Saavn, a competitor that the company had acquired in March. Users who have enabled auto-updating of their apps will be upgraded to the new application automatically. With over 100 mln (10 cr) downloads, Jio […]

Dish TV boxes to get support for Internet apps by December

Dish TV, India’s largest direct-to-home satellite television service, said it will send out software upgrades to over 4 mln (40 lakh) of its users that will enable them to install apps to watch Internet content on their TV by December. “There are almost 4 million boxes that we have which we can convert into connected […]

Airtel, Netflix sign content-sharing, billing agreement

Airtel and Netflix announced an expansion of their partnership in India through which the telecom operator will sell and promote Netflix content to its customers. Airtel TV, the video app from the operator, will have a dedicated row of Netflix content. It is not clear how much of the content will be made available on […]

India says WhatsApp giving ‘good response’ on monitoring proposal

Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s minister for law and information technology, said the government has got ‘good response’ from WhatsApp for its proposal to install a monitoring mechanism on the platform. The government has been pushing WhatsApp to put up a monitoring mechanism that would send out alerts when messages on any one subject starts going […]

FULL TEXT: Assocham calls move to block FB, WhatsApp “excessive, unnecessary”

Assocham, one of India’s prominent associations of industries, has expressed concern at the government’s proposal to put in place a mechanism to block apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. The government has, in a confidential letter sent to internet service providers, asked them to suggest ways in which such apps can be blocked at India’s […]

UIDAI Helpline: No, your phone has not been hacked!

Telecom operators and the Unique Identification Authority of India have denied having anything to do with the ‘mysterious’ addition of the UIDAI’s former helpline to the contact lists of Android phone users in India. That leaves only three candidates — Google, which makes Android, handset makers and any of the popular apps that has been […]

Bharti Airtel to be ‘careful’ about content investments, prefer tie-ups

Reliance Jio’s delays in ‘going pay’ with its content suite seems to be giving rivals like Bharti Airtel pause for thought as far as their content plans are concerned. Jio unveiled a large suite of content applications when it launched its telecom service two years ago, prompting rivals like Airtel and Idea Cellular to draw […]

How WhatsApp can easily fix the Fake News problem

WhatsApp, India’s largest communication platform used by an estimated 65% of the country’s online population, has come under scrutiny for providing a conduit to distribute ‘fake news’ after multiple cases of lynchings came to light. While the company has urged ‘society and companies’ to help tackle the menace, the messaging application has some more to […]

WhatsApp introduces version for desktop PC – Windows 10 & Mac OS

WhatsApp, the messaging application that is wildly popular in countries such as India, has introduced a client for PCs running Windows or Mac OS. This is the first time the company has gone beyond mobile applications. The messaging service, owned by Facebook, has almost completely replaced text messaging in India, the world’s second largest telecom […]