The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) should tread carefully while formulating the rules for auctioning spectrum for satellite-based communication services. While an auction mechanism brings in transparency into the spectrum allocation process, no other country has attempted to sell airwaves for satellite services.  Editorial in Hindu Businessline January 5 2023

..The real threat in much of the world is not the policies of social media companies, but of governments. Nowhere is that clearer than in India, where before Musk’s acquisition, Twitter had been fighting a legal battle to protect its users from government censorship.. New York Times, reprodiced in Deccan Herald November 14 2022


 

India is pushing tech giants to make smartphones compatible with its home-grown navigation system within months, worrying the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi and Apple who fear elevated costs and disruptions as the move requires hardware changes, according to two industry sources and government documents seen by Reuters...The Indian government wants to reduce dependence on foreign systems, including the widely used U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), and says NavIC provides more accurate domestic navigation and that its use would benefit the economy. Reuters  report in Business Standard  Sptember 27 2022

Micro-blogging site Twitter informed the Karnataka High Court on Monday that the Union government was asking it to block entire accounts of holders rather than just their tweets because of their political content...Besides, about 50-60 per cent of the tweets that the Union government had asked Twitter to block under the orders, were “innocuous” (not harmful or offensive), he said. He argued that there was no justification in blocking such tweets and that because of such orders, Twitter’s business would be affected. New Indian Express September 27 2022

All constitution bench hearings in the Supreme Court will be live-streamed from September 27. A full court, comprising all the judges of the top court, deliberated upon the matter on Tuesday and took the decision on the live streaming, according to media reports......  Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Patna, and Madhya Pradesh high courts live-stream their proceedings through their YouTube channels. The Telegraph  September 21 20223

There has been much froth and foam across rooms and boardrooms regarding the ethics, legality and appropriateness of 'moonlighting' - the practice of working for one organisation while also taking up extra responsibilities and jobs with another. As a trend, it is becoming commonplace in the IT and ITeS space.This is welcome...  Editorial in Economic Times  September 3 2022
 

Another Indian has made it to the corner room of an American multinational corporation. Laxman Narasimhan has been named the next chief executive officer (CEO) of US-based coffee chain Starbucks. The 55-year-old, who stepped down as the CEO at Reckitt Benckiser, will join the US-based multinational coffee houses chain on October 1.
Narasimhan joins a long list of Indians who are leading global corporations including Sundar Pichai at Alphabet, Satya Nadella at Microsoft, Shantanu Narayen at Adobe, Parag Agarwal at Twitter, Lal Karsanbhai at Emerson, CS Venkatakrishnan at Barclays and Sanjeev Lamba at Linde. Ahead of these appointments, Indra Nooyi was selected to be CEO of PepsiCo in 2006, Vikram Pandit became CEO of Citigroup in 2007, while Ajay Banga was named President and CEO of Mastercard in 2010.  Financial Express September 3 2022

Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party government rose to power in Delhi on the promise to improve basic services: health, electricity, water and education. Here's how they have changed Delhi's public schools.  New York Times  August 19 2022

Neither the government nor the telcos win. The high reserve price has resulted in a huge amount of spectrum remaining unsold. Hindu Businessline August 1 2022

By moving the Karnataka High Court challenging several blocking orders from the Union government on content posted on its website, Twitter, Inc. has finally decided to take the bull by the horns on the issue of freedom of expression on the online platform. A substantive look at the challenge in the court by the company , suggests that Twitter is right to take up the gauntlet. Editorial in The Hindu, July 13 2022

Twitter has sued the Indian government to challenge some of the block orders on tweets and accounts, further escalating the tension in the key overseas market. In its lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Karnataka High Court in Bengaluru, Twitter alleges that New Delhi had abused its power by ordering it to arbitrarily and disproportionately remove several tweets from its platform. Additionally, some block orders “pertain to political content that is posted by official handles of political parties,” Twitter said in the lawsuit. TechCrunch  July 5 2022

When Google told some small businesses in January that they would no longer be able to use a customised email service and other workplace apps for free, it felt like a broken promise....They’re basically strong-arming us to switch to something paid after they got us hooked on this free service....Indian Express, from a New York Times feed. June 21 2022

The Government’s plan to set up a panel that can overturn content moderation decisions made by social media platforms is problematic in many ways....With billions of users, social media is well and truly an influencing machine, and filled with influencers of all hues and shades. It is, therefore, important for democracy’s sake that it is not taken over by any one influential player, even if it is the Government, with an agenda. Editorial in The Hindu,June 4 2022

The confusing communications from the Union government on Aadhaar or the unique identification number, and the angst and disquiet these caused to the people, are the result of the ad hoc approach it has taken to the implementation of the whole project since its very inception.... Editorial in Deccan Chronicle  June 2 2022

By saying Twitter is not living up to its potential to be a  "platform for free speech," he seems to be saying he would scale back content moderation... Associated Press in Times of India April 16 2022

 It clubs serious offences with trivial ones and lacks enough safeguards on access to sensitive data.Times of India, March 30 2022

It might be a smart idea to buy a dumbphone — devices that allow users to make calls or shoot off texts only — which is making a comeback... Google searches for dumbphones jumped by 89 per cent between 2018 and 2021 and global purchases hit one billion units last year, compared to worldwide sales of 1.4 billion smartphones. The Telegraph, March 27 2022

From booking of hotel rooms, rewarding customer points and supply chain management travel blockchains have enormous scope.The need of the hour is to promote start-ups on blockchain based travel portals, customer reviews, business model disintermediation, supply chain management etc. Hindu Businessline, March 24 2022

The latest news coming out of New Delhi is that the current 5G spectrum auction will be completed by August, CNBC reports. This is later than previous estimates which suggested that the auction would be held in by April or May this year.   Verdict (UK) a part of GlobalData, February 8 2022 

Telecom companies have warned that consumers may see a sharp slowdown in the availability of latest 5G mobile phones with the government calling for mandatory local testing and certification of such devices from January 1, 2023, before they are sold in the country. Economic Times March 21 2022

The Rs 819-crore water metro project will connect islands off the mainland, offering public transport through electric boats on 76-km-long routes....Financial Express March 15 2022

There is little reason to believe that this attempt ( at starting semiconductor manufacturing) will be any more successful than the last several times India tried to get into this market. Any attempt at semiconductor chip manufacturing by any new entrant is a fool’s errand.Fortune Feb 23 2022

The Ministry of Home Affairs has recommended a ban on 54 Chinese mobile applications, including the popular game Garena Free Fire. Interestingly Garena Free Fire is Singapore-based and the developer is not from China. The game was one of the most downloaded games in India last year, and had taken up the space created by PUBG Mobile after it was banned in September 2020. Indian Express February 17 2022

The government is expecting technology to fuel the next phase of India's development. To this effect, privacy protection that does not inhibit the digital economy is key. It is up to the government to find the shortest course to achieve this balance. It has already lost five years after the Supreme Court upheld privacy as a fundamental right and sought a legislative framework to protect it.  Economic Times  February 20 2022

The Kerala High Court has made a major technological leap by implementing a state of the art application that enables not just paperless court proceedings but also has artificial intelligence-based features for roster analysis and distribution of cases to reduce pendency. However, the shift to paperless procedures right from filing of petitions to the judgement has triggered fear among thousands of advocate clerks of going jobless.Deccan Herald January 5 2022

 

Maybe you recall pop-ups warning you, in early 2021, to update WhatsApp. While that didn’t cut off users completely, the app degraded over time, unless you accepted it – but this time around, their update of your terms and conditions with them is automatic...Will Ellis in Privacy Australia December 1 2021 

The commission cannot redeem itself by blaming Amazon for ‘suppression of facts’ as it was its role to see through all the details of the deal before giving it a go-ahead. Editorial in New Indian Express December 22 2021

Saying it is the “duty of the citizens to respect the Prime Minister of India”, the Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea challenging the use of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photograph on  the Covid-19 vaccination certificates and imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the litigant. Indian Express  December 21 2021

New technologies are reshaping the financing landscape. From nothing five years ago, Indians now pay and receive 7.7 trillion rupees ($102 billion) a month via apps running over a shared public utility. Soon 440 million owners of cheaper feature phones will be able to conduct cashless transactions..... Andy Mukherjee in Bloomberg December 14 2021

 

Satellite broadband is making available high-speed internet services in remote areas. If things go as planned and the players get necessary regulatory clearance, these services could become operational in India as soon as next year. Hindu Businessline December 14 2021

India is estimated to touch 657 million gaming users by FY25. Sectoral revenues are projected to increase to Rs 29,000 crore by FY25 from Rs 13,600 crore in FY21 led by casual gaming.... India is the second-largest base for gamers after China.  Financial Express November 28 2021

Tata is talking to the States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana and scouting for land for the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) plant... While Tata has previously said it would likely enter the semiconductor business, this is the first time news about the group’s foray into the sector and its scale has been reported. Reuters report sourced from The Hindu, November 27 2021

Companies, especially in the IT sector, are more eager to bring back employees to the for three a week, rather than five days a week, according to a report by Nasscom. As per the report, employees above the age of 25 will be back in their offices by November itself, while the next lot based on age will come in a similar graded manner.As per the ‘NASSCOM Return to Workplace Survey’ , about 70 per cent of workplaces in India are exploring the hybrid model of work, whereby employees can work from home on  certain days and  from office on the others. TV News 18,November 9 2021

A recent survey revealed that nearly 1 in 3 (32 per cent) Indian workers have no intention of returning to the office post Covid-19 pandemic. Only 12 per cent of Indian workers are looking forward to stopping working from home and returning to the workplace.  ANI report in Times of India November 17 2021

A strong base is the key to support any edifice. Unfortunately, the building blocks of the judiciary, as the Chief Justice of India, N.V. Ramana, pointed out, need urgent repair. .... Editorial in The Telegraph, October 27 2021

WhatsApp assures users that no one can see their messages — but the company has an extensive monitoring operation and regularly shares personal information with prosecutors.  Pro Publica September 7 2021

India’s government has finally taken a decisive step toward ending “tax terror,” fulfilling a pledge it had made during the 2014 campaign that first brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power. Is this a fresh start, the beginning of an open, predictable, and fair relationship between New Delhi and global capital? Blooomberg August 6 2021

In making up for months of lost formal learning, there needs to be action on the education, health and livelihood fronts....The Hindu oped by  Sajith Bashir and Anvar Sadath, August 13 2021

Having already missed multiple deadlines, on June 30, the Union government approved a “revised implementation strategy” for the BharatNet project, a nationwide initiative with an approved expenditure of Rs 42,068 crore......In the decade since the BharatNet began, persistent delays and the unreliability of the Phase-I infrastructure, which is prone to faults and has poor maintenance, meant there were few private takers to lease the network and provide internet services. Deccan Herald  August 1 2021


 

Last week marked a watershed for technology startups in India, as a record bout of fundraising shifted attention to the world’s second-most populous market, just as investors were becoming spooked by a crackdown on internet companies in China.Food-delivery app Zomato Ltd. became the nation’s first unicorn to make its stock-market debut, raising $1.3 billion with backing from Morgan Stanley, Tiger Global and Fidelity Investments. The parent of digital payments startup Paytm filed a draft prospectus for what could be India’s biggest IPO at $2.2 billion, while retailer Flipkart Online Services Pvt raised $3.6 billion at a $38 billion valuation, a record funding round for an Indian startup.  Saritha Rai in  BloombergJuly 18 2021

It is...unfortunate that India, which has contributed one of the biggest pools of talent to the digital world, is now seeking to roll back Internet freedom.  New Indian Express editorial, July 14 2021

Kerala uses tracking of patients and supplies, a network of health care workers and coronavirus “war rooms” to succeed where the national government has fallen short.  Shalini Venugopal Bhagat in New York Times May 23  2021

Banks are choking off access to crypto currency exchanges again. Crypto aficionados have started complaining that they are unable to shovel their money into digital crypto wallets, re-erecting a fresh hurdle for investors who have found an appetite for the mercurial asset that carries speculative risks but promises blowout returns.   The Telegraph  May 12 2021

The Indian Government has once again nudged social media giants to curb fake news and misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic.... the GOI sent an advisory to all the bigwigs such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram in the social media space and urged them to initiate ‘awareness campaigns’ among Indian audiences... DazeInfo May 10 2021

India’s beleaguered blockchain industry has finally got some solid support to ensure its survival, with an influential industry evangelist evoking the vision of a billion smartphones acting as gateways to the brave new world of decentralized finance. Andy Mukherjee in   BloombergQuint  April 13 2021


 

While a few years ago, companies were talking about a slowdown in hiring from campuses, things have reversed now as a healthy deal pipeline has raised the need for people to work on numerous digital projects. Infosys, TCS and Wipro are expected to hire as robustly this fiscal as they did in the last. Times of India April 19 2021

In this modern technological environment, the State has been empowered to use cyber tools in surveillance as technology in this field has improved by giga leaps and bounds. Editorial in Deccan Chronicle  March 4 2021

Indian traders, both brick-and-mortar and smaller online sellers, have long alleged that Amazon’s platform largely benefits a tiny number of big sellers and that the American giant engages in predatory pricing that has crushed legions of retailers.  Reuters  story February 17 2021

The govt. must view freedom of speech as an aid, not impediment, to national security. Editorial in The Hindu, February 17 2021

The government is now using blunt instruments like an internet ban and obstructionist tactics that curb the movement of people to counter the agitation by farmers who are rejoining and regrouping after the incidents on Republic Day..... editorial in Deccan Herald February 4 2021

 

WhatsApp is battling mistrust globally after it updated its privacy policy to let it share some user data with parent Facebook and other group firms, and the backlash risks thwarting its ambitions in its biggest market, India...The reaction in India - where 400 million users exchange more messages on WhatsApp than anywhere in the world - has forced the messaging app to unleash an advertising blitz costing tens of millions of rupees this week in at least 10 English and Hindi newspapers.  Reuters  report January 14 2021

 A.senior police official has recently said in a letter circulated among government officials that offensive or misleading comments made by individuals and organisations online will be considered cybercrimes and punished. Editorial in Deccan Herald January 27 2021

 

Tight integration with Facebook is a way of selling your data to advertisers and others.. op-ed in Times of India January 19 2021

WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy essentially takes away users’ choice of not sharing their data with other Facebook-owned and third-party apps. If users do not agree with the updated privacy policy of the messaging platform, they will have to quit WhatsApp by February 8 — when the new terms of service are set to come into effect. The 400 million WhatsApp users in India are faced with an unenviable choice: to either put their data at risk by agreeing to the new norms or opt out of WhatsApp and suffer social and economic exclusion, given the network hegemony and market dominance of the social media behemoth. Editorial in HINDU BUSINESSLINE, January 12 2021

A 45-year-old immigrant from India and Twitter's top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, spearheaded the decision to permanently suspend US President Donald Trump's Twitter accounts. On Friday, the tech giant blocked Donald Trump's Twitter handles for the first time, finally escalating its crackdown on the president's social media posts that they believe encouraged and supported rioters at the US Capitol. Asian News International/NDTV News  January 11 2021

The Centre’s move to bring digital platforms and online media under its control raises more questions than it answers. Editorial in The Telegraph, November 15 2020

The Supreme Court did well to stay the summons issued by the West Bengal police to a Delhi resident over criticism of the Bengal government on social media. It has not only upheld citizens’ right to freedom of expression (subject, of course, to Constitutional constraints) but also has come out against the state’s use of the law to intimidate critics....Editorial in Financial Express October 30 2020

Granting relief to a Delhi-based woman summoned for questioning by Kolkata police over a social media post that attracted an FIR, the SC underscored that it exists to protect ordinary citizens from harassment by the state. The court, rightly, strictured the “chilling message” sent when police in various cities resort to similar summoning of people from across the country...  Editorial in the Times of India, October 30 2020

Over a quarter, 27 per cent, of Business Processing outsourcing (BPO) companies will switch to work-from-home models permanently in the post pandemic environment, indicates a survey conducted by Ozonetel, an on-demand cloud communications firm.The survey, which highlighted the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the call centre industry, reported that 53 per cent of such businesses witnessed a drop in productivity of call center agents during the pandemic. New Indian Express  October 20 2020

The US House report conflates abuse of social media with monopoly issues, ignores consumer welfare & tech progress... Sunil Jain in Financial Express, October 12 2020

The Guardian had tasked GPT- 3 — a cutting-edge language programme that uses machine learning to produce human-like text — with writing a short op-ed to convince humans that their worries about the riseof machines are base less.The result was chilling... The Telegraph  September 20 2020

India cannot allow a nexus between influential tech giants and powerful politicians....The nature of the relationship between Facebook and the Government, and the rules governing it, are now under a cloud. There is a need to dispel misgivings about Facebook lobbying in the corridors of power. The  Hindu August 20 2020

....A staunching of the gateways to the web invariably strikes at the dignity of individuals.Yet, the government feels no compunction in doing precisely just this in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Since August 4 last year, people in the region have not had access to 4G Internet. The authorities see the restriction, which was placed in the lead-up to the dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution, as unassailable. But.... even by the Supreme Court’s own concession — a complete ban of this kind is disproportionate. It impinges on the liberty of an entire populace. .....oped in The Hindu July 23 2020

On July 9, a technical working group of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approved an application for recognition of the 5G Radio Interface Technology (RIT) submitted by Telecom Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) as a candidate 5G standard, along with the RIT submitted by 3GPP. TSDSI is an autonomous Indian standards setting body, comprising industry and academia recognised by the DoT. The highlight of the TSDSI RIT is that it improves upon the 3GPP RIT to bridge the digital divide, by providing enhanced performance for ITU’s Low Mobility Large Cell (LMLC) rural use case.....Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director IIT Madras in Times of India July 23 2020

Three electronics majors, which make up almost half the smartphone market in the country, opened up their factories after the longest shutdown so far lasting 48 days.... Business Standard  May 10 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi specifically recommended the use of the contact-tracing app Aarogya Setu in his address to the nation on Tuesday as an item in his to-do list for citizens in the fight against the COVID-19 virus.....Critics have maintained that the collection of a lot of personal data using the app is a violation of the Supreme Court judgement on the right to privacy.  Editorial in Deccan Herald April 17 2020
 

Savings in travel time and reduction in traffic congestion, pollution and fuel consumption are immediate benefits.... Hindu Businessline March 25 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has asked people to stay at home to save themselves and their loved ones from Covid-19, is emulating the same by staying put at his 7 Lok Kalyan Marg (LKM) residence for the past few days.Modi is not even going to the PMO at South Block. Instead, a series of videoconferences have been lined up by the PM from his residence to monitor the situation. Both his addresses to the nation — on March 20 and on Tuesday — were delivered from 7 LKM. Economic Times  March 25 2020
 

This is also the highest ever number of patents filed by Indian engineers in the last 27 continuous years that IBM has been leading the patents game in the US. India is the second largest contributor to Big Blue’s 2019 list of 9262 patents. Financial Express January 20 2020

Between January and July 2019, Access Now reports that India had 80 instances of Internet shutdowns.....Asian Age January 19 2020

As pan-India protests against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens intensified on Thursday, Internet, voice and messaging services by telecom service providers, including Airtel, Vodafone, Idea ansd Jio were suspended in many parts of the country. Here are some messaging and chat apps and other handy services that can work without the Internet. Deccan Herald, December 21 2019
 

Millions of users across the world who trusted WhatsApp’s claim of being a secure, end-to-end encrypted communication platform are in shock after revelations that it is susceptible to compromise and has, in fact, been used by third parties to snoop on people in many countries through spyware......Ravi Shankar Prasad’s response to the revelations has been far from convincing, which only strengthens doubts that the government was always in the know of things. Deccan Herald November2 2019

The Kerala High Court’s ruling that the right to access the Internet is a fundamental right has expanded the scope of citizens’ freedom as defined in the Constitution and recognised the role of Internet as an enabler and an important tool of empowerment...  Deccan Herald editorial   October 9 2019

 

 Several eminent scientists in the country have begun a crusade to caution the Government against rushing into auctioning of spectrum for the industry to roll-out 5G technology based services in the country.These scientists are campaigning, writing letters to Government and Parliamentarians and other opinion makers. Hindu Businessline July 30 2019

The Indian imprint on Hollywood is acquiring, quite literally, new dimensions and the dazzle of special effects in films ranging from extravaganzas like Thor: The Dark World and Avengers to more intimate cinema like The Shape of Water and The Handsmaid’s Tale..... The Hindu ( PTI wire)  July 22 2019

While user base is exploding, finding a critical mass of big-spending, sticky users remains a challenge. ECONOMIC TIMES  April 16 2019

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s proposed e-commerce policy has drawn flak from industry as well as civil society for being vague and heightening the uncertainty for the sector. Also, the draft policy has skirted many existing legal provisions, stakeholders have argued..... BUSINESS STANDARD  April 3 2019

Google has introduced its YouTube music app in India, offering local and global songs to a booming market that saw the entry of Spotify just a few days ago....Bloomberg  March 13 2019

Indian telecommunication companies have got new material to fight - 5G. But what about the leading telecom service providers in India? What is the status of 5G network in India? Zee Business  March 17 2019

India is seeing a boom in sales of affordable HD LED TVs. Here’s all you need to know: Hindu Businessline December 6 2018

As corporate India opens to the new technology, prospects for 3D printing are growing quite fast in the country .... live MINT October 1 2018

The National Digital Communications Policy 2018 approved by the Union Cabinet does not have any fresh ideas in terms of addressing the issues being faced by the telecom sector. While restating the Centre’s intent to address the problems, it neither spells out how it plans to achieve the stated objectives nor gives a specific timeframe to implement the various proposals....BUSINESSLINE   editorial, October  1 2018

The offline chemists are trying to fight back by extending 10 per cent discounts to customers, which only bigger chemists near hospitals used to offer...BUSINESS STANDARD  September 24 2018

The Millennium City on the outskirts of Delhi has moved beyond its BPO and MNC tags to become one of India’s hottest start-up hubs.... MINT July 17 2018

The mess in India's telecommunications sector has been highlighted by the report that Tata Teleservices has announced a Rs 275 billion loss in 2017-18. This loss was partly thanks to a write-down following the transfer of its wireless business to Bharti Airtel. Even so, this sets a new record for corporate India.The second-highest such loss was also in telecommunications and also in 2017-18 — Reliance Communications lost Rs 239 billion in the financial year that ended in March. These two results underline the troubled state of the sector. Of course, the companies themselves ...BUSINESS STANDARD  JULY 17 2018

WhatsApp cannot and should not perform the duties of a democratically elected government... THE HINDU opedJuly 9 2018

For the first time in the world, a box is being developed   -- at the Indian Institute  of Science  Bangalore --that can transport organs using unmanned aerial vehicles.... Business Standard , June 14 2018

Well-meaning activists opposing private Aadhaar use are trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Inflammatory articles notwithstanding, there are genuine concerns with privacy which should be constraints on the use of Aadhaar and other data services, but not by banning private companies from innovating on the Aadhaar platform.  VINOD KHOSLA, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems,  in a Times of India oped  May 1 2018

SRIHARIKOTA: India’s long cherished dream of owning an indigenous navigation satellite system, officially known as NavIC (navigation with Indian constellation), has been accomplished as ‘workhorse’ Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C41) successfully launched IRNSS-1I, eighth and the last satellite of the IRNSS constellation into the targeted Sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit on Thursday. Within a month from now, the space agency will start rolling out a slew of navigation applications.  NEW INDIAN EXPRESS APRIL 13 2018

Over the past several days, lawmakers and pundits have professed shock and anger over the actions of Trump campaign contractor Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, in scraping loads of personal data from Facebook. Many of these criticisms and attacks assume that the issue is unique and aberrant. But in reality, the exploitation and commercialization of personal data may well be the point of social media platforms. Facebook needs to face tough questions...... THE WEEK (USA)  March 21 2018

Why India must embrace the new era of artificial intelligence, blockchain and robots...A McKinsey report estimates that 400-800 million people around the globe could be displaced by automation and will need to find new jobs by 2030, for which they will require new skills. There will be considerable need for re-skilling and training. ​OpEd by Amitabh Kant  in Times of India February 22 2018 Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, 

The adoption of blockchain by India’s banks could help avert frauds such as the one at Punjab National Bank as the disaggregated and transparent nature of the technology, which updates information across all users simultaneously, would have ensured that various officials would have instantly been alerted to the creation of the letters of undertaking (LoUs), according to bankers and blockchain specialists.  THE HINDU  February 22 2018

The US whistleblower made the comment on the UIDAI’s complaint against a reporter of ‘The Tribune’.The journalist who exposed a possible breach of data in India’s biometric identification system Aadhaar deserves “an award, not an investigation”, American whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Scroll.in January 11 2018

The US’s stance on net neutrality can translate into trade policies that determine who gets what access, depending on where an IT firm is based or where it creates the most jobs....Siddharth Pai in Live MINT,  Dec 5 2017

A novel financial revolution -- cryptocurrency -- is providing a new dimension to the way we think of money and savings.......NEW INDIAN EXPRESS November 26 2017

Smartphones are transforming the lives of the elderly in Kerala, enabling them to do things that people of their age couldn’t even dream of barely a decade ago..... Jinoy Jose P in BLink, The Hindu Businessline, November 25 2017

Virtual reality helps in giving consumers a better picture to their rough ideas, helping them decide what they want.  Entrepreneur.com, October 23 2017

The Saudi Arabian developer who created the app, Zain al-Abdin Tawfiq, says he was actually set on his way by Indian programmers.  INDIA TODAY August 16 2017

To ensure the safety of people on the internet, especially of children, the Indian government has asked social media and internet giants like Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, Instagram among others to get rid of the links to the 'Blue Whale' suicide game. FINANCIAL EXPRESS August 16 2017

As Indian IT services companies gear up to embrace new technologies like automation, artificial intelligence, big data and cloud to meet client demands, the need for reskilling and upskilling is growing. Over the years, the IT industry has faced the challenge of finding right talent as the technology landscape is undergoing rapid changes.Betting big on this opportunity, a group of online learning and education start-ups are providing digital courses to individual employees and corporates to help them get skilled and become future-ready employees. These companies provide both offline and online curricula that enable working professionals pursue various courses....THE HINDU  June 18 2017

Emerging from the realms of science fiction anad academia, innovations in AI, VR and other technologies are advancing healthcare in India to new frontiers... ECONOMIC TIMES June 9 2017

As its market crosses $540 million in India,  gaming is the most powerful entity in entertainment, invading familiar pop culture and throwing up amazing careers.... New Sunday Express, Jun 11 2017

 Indian information technology workers might do better without the companies that held them back.....BUSINESS STANDARD April 10 2017

Ameerpet, a squeezed neighbourhood of Hyderabad has become India’s unofficial cramming-college capital. By 7.30am the place is already buzzing as 500-odd training institutes cater to over 100,000 students looking to improve their IT skills....THE ECONOMIST  March 30 2017

Much of the painstakingly detailed animation for the live-action/ CGI Disney film The Jungle Book was done in the Bengaluru offices of the Soho-headquartered Moving Picture Company. The film won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects this year. A lot of the advanced computer graphics technology used to shoot the tiger scenes in Life of Pi was done in the Mumbai and Hyderabad offices of Los Angeles-based SFX company Rhythm & Hues. Life of Pi won the Best Visual Effects Oscar in 2013......Why is there such a dearth of good quality content at home when there’s so much Oscar-winning talent? THE HINDU  March 26 2017

The Philips Innovation Campus in Bangalore,  is using technologies such as machine and deep learning, artificial intelligence technologies to help in the early detection of diseases.... LiveMint, Feb. 16 2017

Silicon Valley exports technology and imports the world’s best talent. That is how it has helped grow the nation’s economy and boosted its competitive advantage. President Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from some Muslim countries sent shock waves through the tech industry over the weekend because it was a loud and clear message to the world that the United States’ doors are now closed..... Vivek Wadhwa in The Washington Post January 30 2017

India may have leapfrogged the U.S. technology industry with simple and practical innovations and massive grunt work. It has built a digital infrastructure that will soon process billions more transactions than bitcoin ever has. With this, India will skip two generations of financial technologies and build something as monumental as China’s Great Wall and America’s interstate highways......Vivek Wadhwa in the  Washington Post  January 23 2017

Bharat Ratna and Nobel laureate, Professor Amartya Sen, who is currently Thomas W Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University spoke to The Indian Express on demonetisation and said, that both, the idea and the way it was implemented, was akin to a “despotic action” and betrayed the “authoritarian nature of the government”.  INDIAN  EXPRESS  Nov. 26 21016

Technology, promoted as a social equalizer, is having the opposite effect in one of the world’s largest markets......Air conditioners, washing machines, cable television. Balbir, a retired cook, has embraced them all. But there is one innovation that isn’t welcome in his home: the smartphone.Mr. Balbir, who goes by one name, can afford one. They sell for less than $50 in India these days. But he fears the freedom that comes with them could lead his daughters astray.  Wall St. Journal October 13 2016

Results of the recenty-conclude spectrum auction show that telecom firms like Vodafone, Idea, Airtel, and now Reliance Jio, continue to spend vast resources in buying spectrum. ...India’s wireless services industry has acquired quite a reputation for unrestrained bidding in spectrum auctions. Even though spectrum in the 700 (megahertz) MHz band was ridiculously priced, there were fears that someone might take the government’s bait. The fact that 700MHz spectrum was left untouched has understandably led to a sigh of relief.....Live MINT October 10 2016

The jolt from the Brexit verdict to global financial markets has been near catastrophic, with stocks and currencies bleeding and bonds going into a tailspin. But believe it or not, if you can afford to survive this knee-jerk response of the market with a little bit of patience, still better if you can use these hours of fear and anxiety to position yourself, better things are in store. ECONOMIC TIMES June 25 2016
 

Twitter hashtag #SaalEkShuruaatAnek marked the first anniversary of the Modi government, and #TransformingIndia is marking its second.In the journey between these two hashtags, some efforts have been made to ‘transform’ governance through Twitter by Ministers such as Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman and Suresh Prabhu. This is even as many other Ministers use it to announce new programmes and highlight the achievements of the government... Hindu Businessline  May  26 2016

Seattle-based  e-commerce giant Amazon should be happy that even before it turns three in India on June 5, the company has emerged a leader in this market....Flipkart and Snapdeal take a cue from Amazon even as they differ on who is ahead in the race. Mint May 27 2016

A year after shutting down its website in favour of an app-based model, the e-retailer has taken a U-turn, highlighting the flaws of the smartphone ecosystem...When fashion discovery portal Myntra shut down its website in favour of its mobile app in May last year, it essentially went in blind. Fast forward to a year later and Myntra is bringing back its website, and just as the Flipkart-owned company did last year, it's kicked off a raging debate about the viability of app-only business models.  Business Standard  May 10 2016

The Facebook page of a young District Collector who captured the imagination of an entire State with an innovative idea to help the hungry, has drawn over 2 lakh respondents and followers in just under a year. Kozhikode District Collector, N. Prasanth, who assumed office in February 2015, uses the page to bounce out-of-the box ideas off the public..... The architect of the Kozhikode food coupons programme now has 2 lakh followers.  THE HINDU, May 9 2016

India has rejected Apple Inc.’s request to import and sell refurbished iPhones to the world’s second largest mobile population, an (Indian) telecommunications ministry official said ... Apple’s rivals have mounted a public campaign against the effort, arguing that such a move would trigger a flood of used electronics while defeating the government’s Make-in-India programme to encourage local manufacturing. Bloomberg  May 3 2016

Cook said in emerging markets like India, LTE (wireless) penetration is currently "zero" but as LTE begins to roll, the dynamics will change.  Press Trust of India report in  ET Telecom May 3 2016

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. That, of course, is a simplistic understanding of the working of divinity, but seems to fit the bill when it comes to telecom in India. On the one hand, a real revolution is sweeping through the universe of consumer handsets, with prices for features that were once the preserve of expensive flagship units dropping by as much as 80%, offering consumers amazing computing power in the palm of their hand, with which to perform wonders. On the other, perverse policy is driving up the cost of telecom services, aborting those wonders that are waiting to happen in education, healthcare, new businesses and other life-transforming transactions....EDITORIAL  in the ECONOMIC TIMES  March 17 2016

The obituaries all cited Raymond Tomlinson, who died over the weekend, as the "inventor" of email, but out in the cold in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Shiva Ayyadurai bristled..... Chidananda Rajghatta  is alone among Indian correspondents in remembering the Indian inventor of email on a day when  Tomlinson  who only contributed the @ symbol,   is hailed as he dies...... Times of India, March 8 2016

For years, Mark Zuckerberg has had a grander vision than just connecting the more than one billion people who already useFacebook: He wants to connect the entire world.That effort hit a major roadblock on Monday, when Indian regulators banned free mobile data programs that favor some Internet services over others....New York Times February 9 2016

It is surprising and unfortunate that the Karnataka government is still refusing to face the reality that the state, and its showpiece, Bengaluru, do not offer the right environment for starting and running a business. The government is not ready even to accept its responsibility for creating the right conditions for business and industry to thrive..... DECCAN HERALD  Leader  January 23 2016

How Jeff Bezos aims to conquer the next “trillion-dollar market. The inside story.   Fortune magazine January 2016

To connect a billion people, India must choose facts over fiction,says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg  in an op ed article in the Times of India, December 28 2015

While Facebook has been getting more than its fair share of criticism from the online media for its Free Basics program, the company has been trying its level best, spending more money to promote and gain acceptance from users. On the other hand we have those who are a part of the industry dissing the whole program and today there’s some more news on that front.  First Post  December 31 2015

India may be the next great frontier for American technology companies.Facebook has embarked on an ambitious — and controversial — effort to expand access to the Internet among India’s population. Google, Microsoft and others are also eying expansion on the subcontinent. And the world’s largest democracy is also courting Silicon Valley.... New York Times  December 28 2015

Obama administration officials say the Islamic State has used a range of encryption technologies over the past year and a half, many of which defy cracking by the National Security Agency. Other encryption technologies, the officials hint, are less secure than terrorist and criminal groups may believe, and clearly they want to keep those adversaries guessing which ones the N.S.A. has pierced......  New York Times   November 16 2015

Prof Mayank Shrivastava of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has become the first Indian to win the prestigious IEEE Electron Devices Society Early Career Award. He is assistant professor at the Department of Electronics Systems Engineering and working on developing nanoelectronics and nanotechnological solutions for ‘System on Chip’ applications.  New Indian Express, October  29 2015

Facebook's rocky experience since it brought stripped-down Internet access to India shows that good intentions and technological savvy are not enough.....New York Times  October 25 2015

...companies are setting up production plants only to assemble and not actually produce phones. Meaning, cellphone makers are importing all of the 25-30 components that go inside and outside the handset including your screen, chipset, camera, battery and even charger from outside India (read mostly China)..... New Indian Express  October 25 2015

 ICICI Bank has become the first institution worldwide to launch mVisa - a card-less and device-less solution the payments company is betting on in the mobile space. ICICI Bank has incorporated the mVisa application in its Pockets app, which allows payments to be made by scanning a static QR code and entering the amount. ECONOMIC TIMES  October 2 2015

The Modi government will have its work cut out on skill development; just over one in 10 adults reported having received any vocational training, according to new official data, and the bulk of it was informal. The Hindu  September 24 2015

The National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), a mission to have supercomputers at IITs, the Centres for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DACs) and the Indian Institutes of Scientific Education and Research (IISER’s) has decided to place supercomputers in 73 locations across the country including several in Bengaluru.   Deccan Herald September 25 2015

Michael Dell, founder of the privately owned American computer technology firm that carries his name, indicated  that initiatives such as Make in India and those in the Digital India space had the potential to write a new chapter in the firm’s India investment diary. “The Smart Cities project is a tremendous opportunity for us,” Dell observed at an interaction with the media. The Dell chief also signalled he was watching the Indian start-up ecosystem closely.....Financial Express  September 8 2015

Taiwanese electronics maker Foxconn will invest about $5bn over the next 5 years to build a manufacturing facility in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, marking one of the largest foreign direct investment deals in Indian corporate history. Financial Times August 8 2015

.....We failed to resolve the issues at our level. So we persuaded Kalam to accompany us to try and push the schedules. How he accomplished that was a lesson in management we would never forget..... Anand Parthasarathy in THE WEEK  August 9 2015

Indian product software firm Vizury claims to have a secret sauce to help companies make up their minds on where to spend their digital marketing dollars..  Deccan Herald  July 20 2015

Banks are analysing customer-specific data to offer a range of banking products, from loans to bill payments, over the mobile ... Financial Express June 22 2015

Tech firms are investing in artificial intelligence platforms to help clients cut operational costs, avoid human intervention in repetitive tasks...  some within  TCS  bill   ( their recent work) as one of the most significant technological innovations to come out of the $15 billion company: An artificial intelligence (AI) technology platform. Live MINT, June 8 2015

There is a possibility of community Internets arising in India —made, run and maintained by local communities by and for themselves ... Live Mint  June 1 2015

It is not a great idea to build a supercomputing grid fully based on imported systems and develop a community of users around it....  Dinesh Sharma in Deccan Herald

The Indian market, dominated by analog surveillance cameras, is witnessing a shift towards IP surveillance cameras.... Cameras, with wide dynamic range capability, capture images in varying light conditions......B Pradeep Nair in The Hindu, May 8 2015

Jana, a Boston-based start-up, says it has figured out a way to offer billions of people in the emerging world free access to the Internet without violating the Web’s open nature. A few days back, it launched Jana Loyalty, a product that seeks to reward its smart phone users in two ways. One, it reimburses users the cost of downloading and using an app of Jana’s clients. Two, it gives free additional data with which the user can access any content online.  THE HINDU May 8 2015

Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka has poached yet another SAP executive Jason Wolf and put him in charge of "experience design", marking at least the 14th top-level hire from the German business software maker since he joined in August last year.  Economic Times April 30 2015

India plans to elbow its way into the top club of nations that flaunt superior supercomputing prowess. The newly sanctioned Rs 4,500-crore supercomputing mission is also expected to give a leg up to scientific research in the country."It will completely change the way we do research. The mission will definitely bring non linear transformation for Indian science," said prof N Balakrishnan, head of Supercomputer Education & Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science....Economic Times April 6 2015

Some of its biggest products — Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign — are now entirely developed and managed out of India. And Adobe is strengthening its capacity in the country by buying office buildings in Bengaluru and Noida....quoting CEO Shantanu Narayen.  Times of India, March 27 2015

While the short-term impact of the just-concluded telecom auctions will be negative for all telcos given the additional debt burden for purchasing spectrum —most of the(  money) paid has been for re-purchasing spectrum the telcos already owned—the important thing to keep in mind is that there has been a fundamental change in India’s telecom compact over the years. Editorial in Financial Express  March 27 2015

Telecommunications provide India a unique opportunity to leapfrog technologies and empower people with information...  India’s telecom infrastructure is critical to its prosperity. But for this to happen government needs to get its policies right, which means telecom companies must have access to plentiful and affordable spectrum.... Editorial in Times of India, March 9 2015

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during his Budget 2015 speech acknowledged the concerns of the $150 billion Indian IT industry. Even though he did not announce any big bang measures for the industry, experts said that the fine print of the budget has a few positive measures for the industry.  Business Standard, March 2 2015

Cisco, the global networking products giant, has been closely engaged with the creation of smart cities in the country. Today, with the government’s Digital India programme to create 100 smart cities, the company is further enthused about its plans for the market with all signs pointing in the right direction, says Padmasree Warrior, chief technology & strategy officer, Cisco, in an interview with PP Thimmaya..... Financial Express, March 2 2015

Padma Bhushan Faqir Chand Kohli, father of the Indian software sector, turned 90 on February 28, 2014. Millions who join the Indian information technology (IT) sector every year should celebrate this day, because had it not been for him, the sector would not have reached where it is today. Kohli is best known as the first chief executive of India's largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services.....BUSINESS STANDARD  FEBRUARY 4 2015

 Dell is looking towards India to transform its research and development capabilities that have lagged rivals for years.The US technology company is strengthening its engineering team here and increasing the number of patent applications filed from India - which, a senior executive said, has already become the largest contributor to software patents for Dell...ECONOMIC TIMES, FEBRUARY 6 2015

Picnickers visiting Chennai’s Vandalur zoological park during the year-end were peeved those carrying smartphones were each charged an extra `25 over and above the entry ticket. The zoo management argued that since a fee of `25 was traditionally collected for taking in a still camera, those carrying smartphone, too, should cough up the same amount as the mobiles have an in-built camera....NEW INDIAN EXPRESS January 3 2015

...the Centre only recently decided to cut back on healthcare by 20 per cent. Public spending on health in India is already one of the lowest in the world; now the budget faces trimming by about Rs 6,000 crore to keep expenditure down to about Rs 30,000 crore this fiscal.... Editorial in Deccan Chronicle, January 2 2015

Aruna Sundararajan, former Kerala IT Secretary, who left her footprints on the State’s e-governance and e-literacy, is now part of the Digital India vision.She heads Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), which is tasked with building the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) that aims to take high-speed broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats.... HinduBusinessline  January 1 2015

It’s just not actors who have to be comfortable in front of the camera these days.Employers across industries — such as hotels, travel agencies, marketing firms and modelling agencies among others — have begun seeking ‘selfie resumes’, pushing many job-seekers to shoot videos to market their talents. Hindu Businessline December 23 2014

The mothballed Sriperumbudur plant of Nokia, once the world's single largest mobile phone-making unit, may be sold in parts. The Finnish company has appointed Hilco, a global leader in handling distressed investment and assets, to take over the machinery and hard utilities.  Economic Times  December 16 2014

The Modi government should take a stand on the draconian provisions of the Information Technology Act. The slew of petitions before the Supreme Court is a measure of the concern Section 66 and its sub-sections have caused among all IT users. They are so sweeping in nature that anybody who sends or forwards an email, which may be “offensive”, can be given three years’ imprisonment. Editorial in New Indian Express December 12 2014

Many of the world's most exciting new companies - Twitter, Dropbox, Tesla — are being driven by Indians in top management roles. Contrary to popular perception, they are no longer limited to just technology, which Indians are traditionally known for. Economic Times November 18 2014

 

The 800-plus remaining employees at Nokia’s Sriperumbdur plant now have no choice but to opt for a voluntary retirement scheme as operations are to be suspended from November 1.  Hindu Businessline November 1 2014

Connovate Technologies, the maker of multifunctional piece Gecko, has been acquired by Hong Kong-based consumer electronics company Binatone for an undisclosed amount, heralding a breakthrough for Indian startups in the internet-of-things (IoT) space. Economic Times October 13 2014 

With the last of the founding team of Indian IT bellwether Infosys Ltd, Kris Gopalakrishnan, set to retire from the company on October 10, a formal farewell was given by Infosys to all its founders here on Wednesday. ‘I was fortunate that my passion for computing became my profession, and that I was able to make an impact in this industry through Infosys, through the innovations we pioneered and the jobs we created,” the Infosys co-founder Gopalakrishnan said at the farewell.... INDIAN EXPRESS October 11 2014

We have a long-standing practice at Amazon that instead of focusing on other companies we try and stay focused on our customers.... CEO Jeff Bezos in Bangalore this week... THE HINDU, September 29 2014

Apple iPhone 6 ran its sales on 19th September and saw a huge crowd storming the stores. With fans and customers queuing up overnight and camping outside the store days earlier, the result shows that Apple has a huge fan following.However, this does not seem to the actual case.....Francis D'Sa, Deccan Chronicle.com, September 22 2014

 Thousands of rare and original palm-leaf and paper manuscripts at the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library here will soon be available to the public at the click of a mouse.The 72,300 manuscripts, providing a deep insight into subjects as varied as the Vedas, the Agama Sastra, architecture and mathematics, are being digitised as part of a Tamil Nadu government initiative to preserve the intellectual heritage of the State.  THE HINDU September 11 2014

Pune, known as a BPO hub for information technology majors, is now a hot destination for back offices of global banks, which are set to witness a hiring boom in the next 18-24 months.  ECONOMIC TIMES  September 12 2014

A report launched by the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) titled ‘India’s Surveillance State’at the Internet Governance Forum, currently underway in Istanbul, said the Indian state is violating the privacy of its citizens through use of internet monitoring systems.An application filed under the Right to Information Act by SFLC revealed a list of 26 companies that had expressed interest in a tender floated by the Director General for Police, Logistics and Provisioning for Internet monitoring systems, underlining the large number of firms active in selling surveillance equipment in India...  Vidya Venkat in THE HINDU, September 5 2014

 A report, India's Surveillance State, released in connection with the Internet Governance Forum at Istanbul recently, avers that the Indian government issues orders to intercept around 7,000-9,000 phones every month.This reveals that Indian citizens continue to be subject to surveillance by their government on an astonishing scale... ECONOMIC TIMES editorial September 5 2014 ( see  next story in this section for details of the report from The Hindu)

The Times Group has  entered into a partnership with leading US-based news and opinion website Huffington Post,  to launch the website's Indian edition. The website is expected to be launched later this year.The combined strength of Huffington Post, which has 86 million monthly global unique visitors (desktops, comScore June 2014) and the Times Group, which has deep local knowledge and extensive reach, would compete with Indian news brands such as Firstpost and Scroll.  Times of India Aug 22 2014

Four Indians are among Fortune magazine’s list of 20 “extraordinary” technology czars and young entrepreneurs analysing and processing big numbers to discover information that will “transform the way businesses operate.” Fortune’s maiden ‘Big Data All-Stars’ lists the 20 extraordinary people who are “the best at connecting the dots and digging deep.”  PTI report in  Asian Age August 6 2014

Microsoft is looking at establishing a data centre in India that would allow it to offer its cloud solutions more seamlessly to Indian businesses, and especially to the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector.  Times of India August 5 2014

Hot, fresh meals from restaurants being delivered at railway stations, writes Namrata Rao in Financial Express July 28 2014

If you are weary of bad pantry food - the rubbery parathas and watery dal - you can now order interesting fare online, and have it delivered piping hot at railway  stations.  Times of India's Priya Menon checks out some online catering options ( July 21 2014)

 

Srinivasan Ramani calls himself the "internet plumber" of the 1970s. As the former head of National Centre for Software Technology (now, C-DAC Mumbai), he and his colleagues nurtured the internet in India and watched it transform the country. Recently, Ramani, 75, became the first Indian to be inducted into the Internet Society's prestigious Hall of Fame..... Times of India July 20 2014

The fast-growing online retail industry is set to take a larger chunk of the overall e-commerce market growing from the current 16% to 28% in the next two years, finds a study by advisory firm eTailing India. Growth of mobile shoppers is one of the main reasons behind this expected growth. Mobile shoppers will more than double to reach 220 million by 2016. Economic Times July 14 2014

Consider this: at $360 billion (Rs 21,60,000 crore), India is the sixth largest grocery market in the world. Within this, modern retail (led by the top eight cities) accounts for around 20 per cent. If one slices the pie further, you will find that a new kid on the block - online grocery retail - is slowly wedging itself in, and is expected to reach around 2 per cent of the expanding grocery market by 2020, creating a potential market size of around $10 billion (Rs 60,000 crore). Business Standard July 14 2014

"We are very pleased with the talent in India. Going from 1,700 people to 11,000 people, seven-fold in seven years -that's a big number. We are approaching half of our engineering talent here....." John Chambers, Cisco CEO, in an interview  with Sujit John, The Times of India, July 1 2014

Ten years ago, the Indian-born  Sundar Pichai, 42, was a product manager at Google, and his domain consisted of the search bar in the upper right corner of Web browsers..... In 2013, CEO Larry Page put him in charge of Android, making him one of the most powerful technology executives in the world.  BusinssWeek June 24 2014

Google has announced it was working on a low-cost smartphone aimed at emerging markets as part of an initiative called Android One."We are going to be launching it around the world, but will launch in India first in the fall of this year," Sr, VP Sundar  Pichai said at the Google Developers Conference last week. Times of India, June 27 2014.

A project at Gujarat Forensic Sciences University (GFSU)'s Institute of Research and Development may have found the answerto spurious drug detection. The now complete project has employed nanotechnology to come up with cheaper, faster and more reliable detectors which can tell the difference between a standard drug and the sample provided. Times of India, June 21 2014 

If Amazon launches the device in India, the phone should not cost a bomb... INDIA TODAY June 19 2014

Google's mea culpa last week about so many of its staff being white and male, left some demographics unstated -- till The Times of India's Chidanand Rajghatta unearthed them....He writes: .... Here's something the internal diversity report threw up that didn't get all that much attention: Google is also 30 per cent Asian in the US, a significant uptick of an ethnic group whose overall population in the country is only 4.8 per cent.  

Chidanand then goes on to point at the predominant part that Indians play in Google's higher echelons....TIMES OF INDIA May 31 204

Kumud Srinivasan , president of Intel India Pvt. Ltd and general manager of Intel Architecture group in the country, has been with the company for nearly 27 years. She underscore's the India contribution to Intel's global R&D.... Live MINT, May 31 2014

U.S. social networking company Twitter is planning to replicate parts of its India election strategy across countries that go to polls this year, after it emerged as a key tool for politicians and media companies during the world's largest democratic exercise..... Now, with polling due in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the United States later this year, the San Francisco-based company plans to take its India lessons abroad to expand its foothold in the political arena and increase its user base REUTERS  (India) May 24 2014

Here is what prominent industry representatives and analysts say on the BJP's historic victory: IANS report in Hindustan Times May 16 2014

While there's been a lot of attention on online retail and customers shopping increasingly through mobile phones, the unassuming retailers of the other screen--television--have been performing strongly with a targetted approach. ECONOMIC TIMES May  16 2014

“Consumer expectation for rich graphics is rising amid a massive proliferation of mobile devices and displays,” says Nvidia’s managing director for South Asia, Vishal Dhupar. In a recent interaction, he shares with Sudhir Chowdhary key insights on how his company is addressing this opportunity, both worldwide and here in India.... Financial Express  April 21 2014

"We develop economically relevant products for this economically challenging application—healthcare in India. I find this everywhere", says GE Healthcare President John Dineen, in an interview  published in  Financial Express, April 14 2014

The startup community has just found a new patron in none other than institutional investment firm Xander Group.Virtuous Retail, a mall developer-cum-operator backed by Xander with a committed equity of $600 million, is creating an incubation centre for entrepreneurs at its upcoming mall in Whitefield, Bangalore, a first among mall developers in the country. Times of India,  April 15 2014

The exodus in IT major Infosys is not limited to top level management but also with the other staff as the company reported an attrition rate of 18.7% in the fourth quarter of FY14 against  16.3% in the same period last year. Attrition levels were 18.1% in the third quarter of FY14. Recent exits, which include former head of Americas Ashok Vemuri and former CFO V Balakrishnan, had raised concerns among investors.... New Indian Express  April 16 3014

E-commerce companies are gaining traction fast as after Flipkart, Myntra and Snapdeal set to hit the billion dollar sales mark soon.Ganesh Subramanian, COO, Myntra.com, said the Bangalore-based firm hopes to attain $1 billion in sales by 2016.  SIFY Samachar

Ramesh Gopinath, a Bangalorebased software engineer, has written code for artificial intelligence that he believes is ahead of its time. Gopinath, 40, wants to make sure the code is used even after his lifetime and has willed it to his son, who wants to follow in his dad's footsteps. Gopinath opted for a digital will, detailing his assets, including the code.... ECONOMIC TIMES, March 29 2014

Bharti Airtel recently got relief from the Delhi Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in a dispute. In itself, this would not be remarkable, but for the strong language used by the ITAT to castigate the assessing officer: frivolous, unreasonable, wholly indefensible and worthy of further scrutiny... ECONOMIC TIMES editorial, March 14 2014

In an exclusive interview with TOI — the first with an Indian newspaper or TV channel since his ascension to the post of CEO in February — Satya  Nadella insisted that software is "one of the most valuable, malleable resources" of the organization and that his primary objective as Microsoft chief would be to deliver software-driven advanced innovations that would help enrich customer experience.  Times of India, March 10 2014

India is poised to lead the world in connecting the poor to bank accounts through mobile phones. This is an ambitious goal. According to the World Bank, only 35% of Indians use formal financial services right now. But India can get to 100%, and if it does hundreds of millions of Indians will be able to create better opportunities for themselves and their families.... BILL GATES in Live MINT, March 10 2014

An ability to think big and act has pitchforked InMobi,  onto a global arena where it competes with Google, Facebook and Apple for top honours in the market for data-driven mobile advertising. ECONOMIC TIMES, March 7 2014
 

It faces problems aplenty, but the Rs 20,000-crore National Optical FibreNetwork can bridge the gap between rural and urban India if implemented well....checking out the pilot projects in three Indian states. Hindu Businessline, March 5 2014

One of the world's largest digital marketplaces eBay Inc is leading a $134 million (Rs 830 crore) investment inSnapdeal in a deal that suggests investor appetite for the potential winners in Indian e-commerce remains intact.  ECONOMIC TIMES  February 28 2014

Neeraj Arora, 35, is vice-president at WhatsApp, the company that Facebook acquired for $19 billion. But " Business Guy" is what he calls himself on his LinkedIn profile. He was the first business person in WhatsApp, joining the company in 2011 to help the founders, who were primarily engineers, set up the business...  TIMES OF INDIA, February 22 2014.

Internet giants Facebook and Google have recently acquired two India-based technology start-up companies. This is expected to give a boost to entrepreneurship in India, home to tens of thousands of software engineers and a thriving information. VOICE of AMERICA  January 31 2014

Father of Indian Animation and Founder of Graphiti, Ram Mohan, who has kept inspiring the Animation Industry for decades, has been selected for the prestigious Padma Shri Award, India’s 4th highest Civilian award this week. ANIMATION XPRESS Januar7 27 2014

A TV set top box (STB) made in India is dearer by about the cost of a small Domino's margherita pizza compared to an imported box from China. In a market that is fast shifting from cable TV to direct-tohome satellite TV, the number of STBs needed is huge - about 75 million of the boxes that help decode satellite signals and display content on TV screens would be needed over the next few years.That's a large enough market to manufacture them locally ....Shelley Singh in the ECONOMIC TIMES January 19 2014

In his last quarter as the co-CEO of $22-billion SAP, the world's largest business management software maker, Jim Hagemann Snabe, outlines the achievements of his four-year tenure .. and shares his view on the achievements of SAP in India... ECONOMIC TIMES January 23 2014

Just when local IT services companies are already on the edge with rising protectionism and tightening visa norms in their biggest market, the US, India’s second-largest player is bogged down by governance challenges.   ECONOMIC TIMES Feb 14 12017

Shahid Ahmad of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) has devised a Jacquard card punching machine that eliminates two weeks of manually punching a card with the binary sequence to an hour's work. for the weavers of Chanderi village in Madhya Pradesh... BANGALORE MIRROR, January 22 2014

Bangalore-based InMobi has fast emerged as one of the largest mobile advertising networks in the world. As early starters, InMobi is giving internet advertising giant Google a run for its money with its revenue expected to touch a billion dollar by the end of this year.... FINANCIAL EXPRESS  January  20 2014

Dr Na D’Souza, president of the 80th All India Kannada Sahitya Sammelan, slammed the software and biotech sectors for not contributing to Kannada language and culture.“The growth of the IT and BT industries here looks like a threat to Kannada", he added. New Indian Express, January 7 2014

Bangalore is the supercomputer capital of India. The new list released in December 2013 by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) revealed that Bangalore has seven supercomputers, pipping Pune that has six. Deccan Herald  January  13 2014

Some American technology entrepreneurs are seeking to pursue untapped opportunities in India, even without the clout of a multinational corporation backing them... BUSINESS STANDARD/ New York Times January 2 2014

Indian player Zoho’s relatively cheaper customer relationship management software is making its competitors sit up and take notice. Live Mint, December 12 2013

By June 2014, its user numbers will be staggering - ahead of the US and only a little behind China - but there are gaping holes in this growth story.... Business Standard, December 11 2013

Wipro is ramping down production at its PC manufacturing and assembly factories in Uttarakhandand Puducherry. The company is also shifting some of the employees in manufacturing division to other roles, said people familiar with the matter  ECONOMIC TIMES December 5 2013

A social media analytics firm, co-founded by two Indian-American entrepreneurs, has been acquired by Apple for over $200 million. A San Francisco-based start-up, Topsy Labs, was co-founded by Vipul Ved Prakash and Rishab Aiyer Ghosh.  The Hindu, December 3 2013

The domestic information technology (IT) sector will grow by 12-14 per cent, while IT exports are likely to reach $86 billion in the current fiscal on the back of adoption of new technologies and tapping new geographies by corporates, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) said. The Hindu November 21 2013

India is fast becoming a test bed for technology companies to perfect software solutions that they sell to healthcare providers in the United States, where a new health law has spurred demand for such services. Economic Times November 22 2013

IT firms have been crying themselves hoarse about a worsening economy  to defend lower pay packages  for freshers...  but CEO remuneration has leapfrogged in the same period. DNA November 23 2013

PayPal’s Chennai development centre will soon be home to more than just its staff as it plays host to one-of-a-kind start-up incubator to promote a culture of entrepreneurship and help boost the growing technology start-up ecosystem in the country.Under a partnership with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chennai, PayPal is all set to provide office space, mentoring, technical training, and networking opportunities to start-ups. The Hindu November 12 2013

Government agencies and departments, regarded as bywords for inefficiency and red tape, have recorded over a billion e-governance transactions so far this year, watershed for the world's largest democracy that is betting on technology to cure its ills. Economic Times October 29 2013

The services-led growth, by generating high-wage non-manual jobs for the educated, has been of immense benefit to the middle classes. The end of this pattern of growth naturally appears as a dreadful prospect to them... Ajit Ghose in Sunday Business Standard October 27 2013

In their haste to propagate the populist measure of distributing laptops to school students, State governments are overlooking the basic issues that can make this scheme a success. The Hindu October 15 2013

With over 20 million users, India is now the second largest market for professional networking site LinkedIn. The company says sign-ups for the professional social network have risen by more than 500 per cent since it opened an office in the country in November 2009.... says Nishant K. Rao, Country Head, LinkedIn India.  BusinessLine October 3 2013

Direct-to-home television, which completes 10 years in India, has a lot to gain from the government's push to digitise television feed... BUSINESS STANDARD October 2 2013

Chinese software outsourcing firms are unlikely to catch up with Indian and other global software services firms anytime in the near future, despite a major policy push towards outsourcing from China’s central government in recent years, according to a new study by a top US-based business school.In a study, titled Providers in China and USA: Preliminary Comparison, Arie Y. Lewin a professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, says Chinese firms are struggling to make an impact in the global IT services market at a time when the industry is fast reaching saturation point amid severe competition among global and Indian firms. Live MINT October 2 2013

Calling the US shutdown unfortunate, Som Mittal, President of NASSCOM told ET Now that since Indian firms do not do much work for the Federal government; the failure of US to meet the funding deadline will not impact IT. The shutdown may cause a delay in visa processing which will in turn have an impact on the mobility of employees to US for work, Mittal said. "However, this impact will be marginal....  Times of India, October 1 2013 

Indian exports to America face the demurrage threat due to  US shutdown,  in the world's largest economy, engineering exporters' body EEPC India said today. "Commercial ports do not come under emergency service category, so there will be a delay in port services like clearing of goods from ports due to staff shortage. This may result in huge demurrage for exporters. PTI report in Indian Express October 1 2013

Indian e-commerce, pegged at $9.5 billion (Rs 47,349 crore) last year (including online travel bookings) according to a study by the Internet & Mobile Association of India and KPMG, would be a force that would take on physical retail  head on, possibly forcing the closure of many brick-and-mortar stores. Business Standard  September 17 2013

Nine out of ten mobile internet users in India are men and 60.% tech-savvy youngsters (Under- -24) constituting a large chunk of these users, according to a study conducted by Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Telecom Tiger,  September 6 2013

The key thing missing in India is that there aren't enough successful role models. In the US, once a Harvard dropout does a very successful venture, there are thousands of others who will want to follow that path, parents will be less resistant to it. Once you have a Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg here, things will change. It will happen in the next five-six years, and that will take care of even other issues like regulation and funding.TIMES OF INDIA September 6 2013

Global software search engines  firms  pay big bucks to Indian ethical hackers to spot glitches in their products. DNA, September 1 2013

It is amazing, in this racially enlightened century, that we still see members of the US Congress  demonizing an ethnic group. Yet that is what happened when the Senate adopted a provision in the immigration bill singling out Indian and Indian-American information-technology companies that have operations in the U.S. with punitive restrictions on H-1B work visas. By contrast, the legislation expanded access to the visa to others in the technology industry. Bloomberg view, Aug. 27 2013

Research in printing technology is making it possible to custom-build bones, tissues, teeth and pre-operative models of complex body parts.... Dr Narinder Mehra, head of the department of Transplant Immunology & Immunogenetics at AIIMS, New Delhi, says the technology has a long way to go in India but the potential is vast. DNA, August 18 2013

Mixed signals emanating from the Supreme Court have done little to strengthen efforts to protect free speech online. Last week, the court rightly hauled up the Uttar Pradesh government over its arrest of scholar and writer Kanwal Bharti for his Facebook post criticising the suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal. The same day, however, the SC refused to stay the implementation of the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, which require websites to take down objectionable material posted by third-party users within 36 hours of being notified of the need to do so. Editorial in The Hindu, August 19 2013

What 7 Facebook engineers did in India... Did they crack 3 big questions?  Facebook has started to analyze the market of India, a  7-person  engineers team has visited Agra, Mathura, Hyderabad to know the trends in India. Economic Times July 30 2013

Google India managing director Rajan Anandan says the next phase of growth for the Internet in India will be driven by local-language content. He also spoke to us recently about the company’s role in India, and how he sees technologies like driverless cars or augmented reality (Google Glass) gaining widespread adoption over time. Live Mint August 5 2013

Winners of mBillionth Award South Asia 2013, which seeks to promote innovations in mobile technologies for better governance, rural development and inclusive growth, were announced  last week. The award honours innovations in mobile applications and service delivery. As many as 33 winners were announced in various categories which include business and commerce and banking, education and learning, entertainment, health and governance.  Live MINT July 22 2013

With the growing adoption of smartphones in India, Google India released a study conducted by IPSOS titled 'Multi-Screen traveller'. The study was conducted to understand the behavior of smartphone users in India and its impact on the travel vertical, focusing on a target group which uses multiple devices to get online for their travel related needs. The study revealed that 76% users use both computer and mobile across the travel stages (dreaming, researching, booking, experience, sharing) while 60% users move from one device to another when they switch from researching to booking.   DataQuest Channels  July 18 2013

Flipkart's successful raising of $200 million (about Rs 1,200 crore) in its fifth round of funding could well mark the launch of version 3.0 for India's still fledgling but rapidly maturing e-commerce activity.  Business Standard  July 16 2013

Dabur India and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) have both highlighted why the rural markets are so critical and what they are doing to better their rural sales.HUL’s decade-old Project Shakti received a technology boost in 2012.....Dabur’s rural sales force used mobile phones to report sales  Businessline July  14 2013

Two powerful trends are shaping the future of India’s economic growth and cultural fabric—increased demand for quality education and the rise of mobile technology. Financial Express July 15 2013

Top tech company execs are quite famous for their fat pay checks. But think again, it’s not the big pay checks but the free perks which can really stun you. The kind of ”luxuries” offered by companies include hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of time on the corporate jet to odd things like "personal" use of a company administrative assistant.... SILICON India June 6 2013

With four businesses to boot, why GSK Velu is placing his highest bet on medical technology?  Forbes India June 28 2013

The ( Indian)  Army  has  launched a website "suryahopes.in" to provide minute-by-minute updates on rescue operations in Uttarakhand following the flash floods of June 16. Times of India, June 27 2013

Kukucrate.com, an online platform run by Bangalore-based Kukucrate and offering theme-based and hands-on learning projects for kids in the age group of 4-8 years, claims its customer count has crossed the triple digit mark since its launch in January this year. TechCircle.in, May 6 2013

A recent study by Kauffman Foundation says 33% of the co-founders of engineering and technology startups in the US since 2006 are Indians, leaving other immigrant communities far behind. The past 18 months have seen a slew of startups — with at least one Indian co-founder — being acquired by the biggies. Others have tapped the US capital markets with successful listings.Times of India, May 22 2013

Hasty expansion, faculty shortage and falling student standards are taking the sheen off India's best engineering brand....Goutam Das in the May 12 issue of Business Today

The television advertisement that hit the airwaves in Florida last month featured the Republican Party’s rising star, Senator Marco Rubio, boasting about his get-tough plan for border security.
But most who watched the commercial, may be surprised to learn who bankrolled it: senior executives from Silicon Valley, like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn...The advertising blitz reflects the sophisticated lobbying campaign being waged by technology companies and their executives.  NEW YORK TIMES May 4 2013

Slightly more than a decade after India officially embarked on a concerted Rs.1,000 crore effort to accelerate nanoscience and build an industrial base reliant on nanotechnology applications, it has doubled its share of research publications in the sector in that period. On the other hand, it has barely made a dent in being able to translate this research into usable products, says a just published report on nanotechnology in India. Live MINT, April 23 2013

An Indian has developed a unique smart-phone that can aid the blind and help them perform functions other than answering calls. Times of India  April 21 2013

New Delhi: The government of India, home to many of the world’s leading software outsourcing companies, wants to replicate that success by creating a homegrown industry for computer hardware. But unlike software, which requires little infrastructure, building electronics is a far more demanding business.... NEW YORK TIMES  April 15 2013

Local smartphone makers in India with aggressively low prices are outselling worldwide market leaders Apple and Samsung, according to new data. The sales are being driven by first-time smartphone buyers in India, according to a report published Friday by Bloomberg. The big winners have been Karbonn Mobiles India Pvt. and Micromax Informatics Ltd., which have priced their handsets below 4,000 rupees, or about $73 U.S. APPLE INSIDER  April 12 2013

Infosys' fourth-quarter numbers are far below expectations. The stock tanked more than 21%, dragging benchmark indices down with it. It added a mere $28 million in revenue for the quarter, almost all from Lodestone, the Swiss consultancy firm it bought in 2012 for $350 million.... Economic Times, April 12 2013

D Shivakumar , Nokia's operations head for India, West Asia and Africa, has decided to quit the Finnish mobile phone maker after an eventful eight years. During his tenure, Nokia first dominated the handset market in the country, but then saw its market share fall precipitously as it got squeezed between lowcost competitors on the one end and high-end smartphone manufacturers on the other. Economic Times  March 29 2013

Indian telecom minister, Kabil Sibal, responded at an event organized by Google, that India remains committed to free expression on the web.
“We are wedded to the freedom of expression,” Mr. Sibal said. “We shall do nothing to diminish that freedom.” Wall St Journal March 22 2013

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt asked the Indian government to change its laws governing the Internet and to create a favorable ecosystem for entrepreneurs and startups in the country. “There are a set of things to be fixed by the Indian government,” Mr. Schmidt said at an event in New Delhi. Wall St Journal March 20 2013

Hotmail creator Sabeer Bhatia and the  Yogesh Patel led Jaxtr Inc has launched a global sim card 'Jaxtr SIM' for international travellers. The pre-paid sim card works on phones ranging from Android, iPhone, Windows and BlackBerry devices. Times of India March 21, 2013

India plans to launch its first navigational satellite in June, a top official of the Department of Space (DoS) (has) said
The first Satellite of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) constellation, IRNSS-1 will be launched by PSLV-C22, said DoS Secretary and Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Radhakrishnan. According to ISRO officials, IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system, designed to provide position accuracy of better than 10 metres over India and the region extending about 1500 km around the country  Indian Express March 16 2013

In signs of growing Internet snooping by the enforcement authorities, India made an average of 13 requests a day to Google for access to personal web details of web users during 2012. In terms of the number of requests for web user details during 2012, India is next to only the US, which made 45 requests a day on an average the highest for any country. The Times of India  March 11 2013

In the world of technology, it is possible to have centers of innovation outside of Silicon Valley. Shocking, right? We’re not talking about just Boulder, Austin, Los Angeles, or even New York City. Think more globally like Tel Aviv, London, Berlin, Toronto, and Sao Paulo. Another country that is emerging on the world stage as a place investors, entrepreneurs, and technologists should pay attention to is India.In a country of approximately 1.2 billion people, there are at least two notable places where startups seem to be emerging: Delhi and Bangalore. It is the latter city that made it onto the Startup Genome’s Global Startup Index in 2012. TheNextWeb.com March 4 2013

How exactly this (telecom) revolution, positive and negative, has come about is the subject of a new book, The Great Indian Phone Book: How the Cheap Cell Phone Changes Business, Politics and Daily Life. The title is a bit of a mouthful but it does tell us, upfront, the trigger for India's mobile madness—cost.   Dilip Bobb in Financial Express March 3 3013

The watch with a 2-inch screen comes with a 2-megapixel camera and runs on an older version of the Android operating system.
The four young guns behind this are three 24-year-olds - software developer Ankit Pradhan, communications professional Pavneet Singh Puri and lawyer Apurva Sukant, and the barely-out-of-school Siddhant Vats who at 17, is their youngest member. TIMES of INDIA February 25 2013

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking site, sees potential in the 80 million professional Indian workforce, which it hopes to tap to grow from its present 18 million membership in India at present, with more professionals and companies turning to social media for job searches. DNA  February 20 2013

Azim Premji has become the first Indian to sign up for the Giving Pledge, an undertaking by large-hearted billionaires to dedicate a majority of their wealth to philanthropy. The Wipro founder and chairman, who has already committed nearly 9,000 crore to the cause of education, will direct more of his charitable giving towards the endowment supporting his philanthropic foundation. ECONOMICTIMES February 20 2013

Samsung Electronics is to market a phone designed in India for sale in China and other leading emerging nations in a sign of the growing interplay between the two countries with the most mobile users. FINANCIAL TIMES ( LONDON) February 15 2013

Relegated to the back shelves of bookstores, Hindi and vernacular books are now finding a new friend in online portals. E-commerce has done for them what brick and mortar stores failed to do—provide access, publicity and discounts that have helped push sales phenomenally. The availability of e-books and the presence of numerous online selling portals, such as Flipkart, Dial-a-Book and Indiaplaza.com, among others, have become another medium through which Hindi and regional publishers can reach readers. Financial Express, February 10 2013

Thirty Indian software product companies have come together to form a new association, marking the first break from the omnibus IT industry body Nasscom and reflecting the growing confidence and maturity of the software product community.
The founding members, led by Bharat Goenka, co-founder of Tally Solutions, Sharad Sharma, former head of Yahoo India R&D, startup mentor and founder of Brand Sigma, Naveen Tewari, founder of InMobi, and Vishnu Dusad, founder of Nucleus Software, will have their first meeting in Bangalore on Monday ( Feb 4)  to formalize the association and develop action plans.TIMES OF INDIA February 3 2013

BlackBerry, whose smart phones have for long been used by the professional class, is adding a dash of spice to attract younger users. Its latest phones, will feature applications developed by 57 companies housed within Kochi's Startup Village, an incubation centre backed by the Kerala government

. ECONOMIC TIMES January 28 2013

The man who launched India's outsourcing industry was F C Kohli of TCS.. he turns 89 next month. Hindu Businessline Jan 25 2013 ( from MIT Technology Review)

For Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail, one of the first free e-mail services in the world, Chennai is special. He was in the city again late last month to open a 250-seat facility for his company, AMP Technologies, a cloud-based real-estate asset management platform.

CA Media, the Asian investment arm of The Chernin Group, has acquired an undisclosed large minority stake in Graphic India, a comic book and animation company focused on creating mythological and superhero characters, comics and stories for the Indian youth market, published across mobile and online platforms.

The government on Monday allowed the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to increase course fees by 80% in a move aimed at giving the premier engineering schools greater financial autonomy. The fees for undergraduates, who form the majority of the student population in the engineering colleges, will rise to Rs.90,000 a year from Rs.50,000 from the next academic session. The annual fee was last revised to Rs.50,000 from Rs.25,000 in the 2008-09 academic year. MINT January 8 2013

…The Tomar episode, when social media set the agenda and put the government on the back foot, is one more example of rise of people's power online. The political class in India has been shaken by the speed and efficiency with which the recent protests were coordinated… Economic Times, December 29 2012. 

MindHelix Technosol, a company at the incubator Startup Village( in Kochi, Kerala, has been selected by US-based Alchemist Accelerator Programme for its enterprise product start-ups.The company which had created the TukTuk meter, a GPS-based auto fare calculator, has been selected for its cloud computing-based customer interaction application. DECCAN CHRONICLE December 31 2012

India has doubled its supercomputing capabilities over the past year by adding at least 12 new machines that have put cities such as Bhopal, Indore and Ludhiana on the country’s supercomputing map. The combined capability of the country’s top systems has crossed 1 petaflops (1,000 trillion calculations a second) for the first time, according to ‘Top Supercomputers-India’, the latest list compiled by the Indian Institute of Science. INDIAN EXPRESS DECEMBER 31 2012.

For years, Karnataka's land records were a quagmire of disputed, forged documents maintained by thousands of tyrannical bureaucrats who demanded bribes to do their jobs. In 2002, hopes emerged that this was about to change. The southern state, home to India's technology hub in Bangalore, unveiled Bhoomi, a program that digitized Karnataka's 20 million handwritten land records.
But a decade later, Karnataka remains plagued by land disputes that merely migrated from paper to the database, and even the programme's creator says it could take 30 more years to sort it all out. Times of India December 25 2012 ( Associated Press report)

From the "first look" of forthcoming Hindi films such as Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag to music videos of rapper Honey Singh, reality shows and breaking stories, India is increasingly going online for news and entertainment.

Technology is bringing about a fundamental change in the way healthcare is delivered. For evidence, look at Max Super Specialty Hospital in south Delhi where a significant portion of patient records are now electronic with minimal usage of paper charts. Financial Express  December 3 2012

Total R&D spend in India doubled since 2007 and is now estimated at $40 billion, says a recent study by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. Besides, the number of patents filed in the US and Europe by Indian companies has also registered a significant jump. Until very recently, innovation was almost exclusively the preserve of advanced economies. That's no longer the case. ECONOMIC TIMES  December 5 2012

At $100 billion-plus, India's IT-BPO industry is large. However, largely focussed on the low-end services delivery, it neither has the heft nor the glamour that Silicon Valley in the US enjoys. That may be changing slowly. A just-released report by IT consultancy firm Zinnov reveals that IT product start-ups in India have been growing steadily over the years. Since 1990, it is estimated that more than 3,400 product start-ups were seeded in India. ECONOMIC TIMES  November 18 2012

India's largest online retailer Flipkart.com is setting up the country's largest e-commerce warehouse in Whitefield. It will be spread over 200,000 sq ft. . Sources involved in the project told Bangalore Mirror that Flipkart ships around 45,000 items a day, but expects the new warehouse to handle up to 100,000 items a day. BANGALORE MIRROR  November 16 2012

A second wave of foreigners are setting up India-focused firms,drawn by the countrys growing market.Entering areas like training,gaming and technology,they are also attracted by the opportunities,writes Radhika P Nair in the ECONOMIC TIMES, November 16 2012

India ranks second globally in accessing private details of its citizens, next only to the US, if the latest data from Google is to be believed.In the first six months of 2012, India made 2,319 requests involving 3,467 users. In comparison, the US made 7,969 requests in the same period and Brazil, which comes third, sent 1,566 requests. Times of India  November 15, 2012

A lot is riding on Aakash-II. There's redemption: a year ago, Aakash-I, delivered by Tuli's company DataWind, was universally panned for being a showpiece and little else, and Aakash-II comes with significant upgrades. ECONOMIC TIMES  nOVEMBER 2 2012

Is freedom of expression more restricted on the Internet than in the real world? The 2011 amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, mean just that. There are two levels of restriction on free speech on the Internet, one decided by the Constitution, and the other by the IT Act. Live MINT  November 3 2012

Nokia on Tuesday launched Lumia 510 in India, the first country where this phone is being introduced. It will be launched in other countries including China and Finland soon. Hindu businessline October 24 2011

Gururaj ‘Desh’ Deshpande, one of the top tech entrepreneurs from India in the Silicon Valley, is shutting his company Sycamore Networks. The Nasdaq-listed company, which develops and markets bandwidth management solutions for fixed line and mobile network operators worldwide, shot into fame during the earlier technology bubble with market capitalisation at one point of time touching as high as $18 billion. BUSINESS STANDARD OCTOBER 28 2012

(Ashok) Soota’s fledgling Happiest Minds, founded last August, is his second entrepreneurial venture and is well on track to achieve $100 million in revenues in the shortest time for an IT services company... DECCAN Chronicle  October 22 2012

...A report prepared by Google and research firm IPSOS reveals that hotels were the most searched for destinations in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. The Imperial emerged as the most searched for hotel in Delhi; Mumbaikers were busy keying in The Trident, making it the most popular hotel on Google Maps, and The Leela Kempinski was the most searched five star property in Bangalore...INDIAN EXPRESS October 22 2012

The number of active Facebook users in India has swelled to 65 million, according to Kirthiga Reddy, director (online operations) at Facebook India. This is an eight-fold jump in a span of two years. BUSINESS STANDARD October 19 2012

A lot of newsprint is being utilised these days to state that Kerala is now engulfed in an emerging wave of young technology entrepreneurs and how the state government is hand holding college students to earn their millions while still in their mid-20s. This for me is a very simplified analysis of Kerala’s technology landscape and points towards a certain ignorance of how things work in the tourist state.DARLINGTON JOSE HECTOR  in Financial Express October 1 2012

(The India )Government portal data.gov.in, which will be used to share official data with the public, is set to be fully functional soon.
Now in beta or testing phase, the site has technically gone “beyond it,” and full-fledged data uploading could begin a couple of weeks after an official workshop scheduled for next month, CEO of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure R. Siva Kumar told The Hindu. With this, India joins the rank of a growing number of nations that plan to use open data as a tool to promote transparency and efficiency in government. THE HINDU, October 1 2012

Telecom firms, which have neglected rural areas so far, may finally have to turn to them for adding new users as growth in the lucrative urban areas slows. Monthly subscriber additions in the bigger cities have halved over the past year. On the other hand, Tier III cities, which make up Circle C, have logged the highest minutes of usage (MoU) among all telecom circles at 401, much above the national average of 346.  DNASeptember 26 2012

... Kris Gopalakrishnan is a mentor of Startup Village, a technology incubator promoted by India’s department of science and technology and Technopark Trivandrum that follows Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator model...  Live MINT, September 21 2012

According to the annual PC sales data by hardware industry body Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT), only 0.28 million units of netbooks were sold in 2011-2012. However, as per industry estimates, about 0.35 million tablets were sold in India during the same period.BUSINESS STANDARD, SEPTEMBER 20 2012

Washington Post column by Vivek Wadhwa on the Second Coming of India's $ 30 tablet  September 21 2012

Infosys has overhauled its client engagement strategy by dedicating senior executives to watch over each of its top customers, its latest adjustment in the face of complaints that the company may be losing its mojo. The top 50 clients, who together account for half of Infosys' $7-billion ( Rs 38,000 crore) revenue, will be waited on hand and foot by two executives, with one of them permanently based at the same location as the customer. ECONOMIC TIMES September 21,2012

Telecom equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks, which plans to reduce workforce by 17,000 globally, said its net headcount in India will rise. ECONOMIC TIMES  September 12 2012

Google launched real-time traffic information and turn-by-turn voice-guided driving directions for Google Maps in India . With live-traffic information, Google will provide a colour-coded overlay of traffic information on Google Maps in six cities across the country: Bangalore, New Delhi, Bombay, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Pune. MINT September 5 2012

Indian Information Technology companies are among the world’s 10 lowest-paying employers in the segment, with their mid-to-senior level staff getting an average salary of $38,767 (about Rs 21.5 lakh) per annum — less than one-fourth of the IT pay package at globally top-paying Swiss firms, says a study titled 'World wide IT Salary 2012'. Press Trust of India story in  BUSINESS STANDARD September 10 2012

India's telecoms regulator, the Department of Telecom (DoT), will try to put a crimp on mobile cybercrime by keeping a tight leash on visiting foreigners and their SIM cards. The Department has issued a ruling that stops service providers from providing a mobile connection for more than three months to any foreign tourist visiting India.  THE REGISTER (UK) SEPTEMBER 3 2012

Michael Dell is hoping Microsoft’s new OS will kick-start a new category of devices that will be part-tablet, part-notebook... Pankaj Mishra interview in BUSINESS STANDARD SEPTEMBER 4 2012

On Thursday  last,  most of the 500-odd employees of Happiest Minds Technologies had converged in the courtyard of their newly-set-up office in Electronics City on the outskirts of Bangalore.
Dressed in every possible ethnicwear, including the salwar pajama with the Mysore petta (a head gear of Mysore royals), dhoti-kurti, saree; the senior management, including founder Chairman Ashok Soota, and the employees were cutting cakes. The celebration was doubly important as the company had advanced the usual birthday celebrations which it does at the end of every month for employees whose birthday falls in a month... BUSINESS STANDARD  September 3 2012

Making innovative use of technology, Amidray Technologies Private Ltd, a Kochi based Startup company, has launched a Smart Phone application for payasam lovers of Kerala during 'Onam'. 'It is first time in India that a company has launched an application that helps order food through a smart phone having android application," according to Pratheeksha A K, CEO of Amidray Technologies Pvt Ltd.  A Press Trust of India story in TIMES OF INDIA August 28 2012,

Pitching in on the current debate on the possible danger of cellphone radiation, the Environment Ministry says a review of available scientific information by its panel of experts shows that “electromagnetic radiations interfere with the biological systems.” Accordingly, it has asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) not to allow new mobile towers to be constructed within a one-kilometre radius of the existing towers. THE HINDU, August 11 2012

At a time, when private enterprises are only testing the waters around cloud computing, India's central government has made a bold decision to migrate critical information infrastructure on the cloud. The Department of information technology is planning to set up a national cloud based network that connects all state data centers which would make that the backbone of national e-governance plan, which when completed would deliver many government to citizen and government business services via the internet. In effect, each of the 28 states and 7 union territories will now have a private cloud of their own. ECONOMIC TIMES August 11 2012

Carlos Ghosn wants to take back more than just entry-level cars from India. What he really wants in his bag is a peculiar Indian way of life, a mindset he believes is the code to crack emerging markets. He’s mentioned it more than a few times now and even sent a senior executive to India to imbibe the idea of jugaad—essentially grassroots improvization but now an Indian management concept that’s come to mean an innovative fix for just about anything. MINT August 3 2012

TheIndian  Cabinet on Friday confirmed a reserve price of Rs14,000 crore ( Rs 140 billion) to buy 5 mega hertz of pan-India 2G spectrum in the 1800 Mhz band, while for CDMA technology operators, the 800 Mhz spectrum base price would be even more – Rs18,000 crore ( Rs 180 billion)  – or 1.3 times the 1800 Mhz price. The frozen price is about 7.5 times the price paid in 2008 for spectrum. DNA Aug 4 2012

Anand Shimpi is one of the most influential tech industry figures you've never heard of. From his start as a teenager building PCs for students and faculty at a college in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, he's become one of the semiconductor industry's most closely watched reviewers. His website, AnandTech.com, is all about product performance, plain and simple.  Noel Randewich, REUTERS, RALEIGH, North Carolina(US) July 27 2012

The newly appointed member of Rajya Sabha, cricketer Sachin Tendular, has been appointed a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology. Among scores of brands Sachin endorses for commercial gain is Kaspersky, a Russian security software firm. This is could give rise to conflict of interest as the parliamentary panel often deals with issues relating to security software. DINESH SHARMA, MAIL TODAY's Science Editor  in his blog, July 25 2012

The software industry in India's technology capital, which has been a beneficiary of benign government neglect, is concerned that the malevolent gaze of arcane rules and regulations may be falling upon it.
Employers in Bangalore, home to some of the world's most prominent software companies, are worried that a law made applicable to IT companies starting this year has the potential to cause them severe headaches at a time the young industry is going through its worst phase. TIMES OF INDIA  July 23 2012

MUMBAI: India is expected to overtake the US in 2017 in terms of digital TV penetration while China will have the mostpay TV subs at 315 million by end-2017, according to a study by Digital TV Research. India will follow behind China with pay TV subscriberstouching 145 million, the study said. IndiaTelevision.com, July 9 2012 

Kapil Sibal has  just announced that Aakash 2, an ultra-cheap tablet, will be launched in July. Why is there no applause? Because Aakash has already proved a fiasco once before..  Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar in the ECONOMIC TIMES June 29 2012.

e-Retail buyers have always been a fix on how the product looks when worn. Zovi.com comes up with a solution as it launches the first ever virtual trial room in India, to enables its customers to check out instantly how they look, with select Zovi merchandise. Dubbed as ”Zovi Eye”, it  will be featured on the website which will help buyers make a purchase decision as they view themselves in their desired apparel via an interactive web-cam application. Indian Retailer.com

Over 35 per cent of companies operating in various sectors across India are engaged in corporate espionage to gain advantage over their competitors and are even spying on their employees via social networking Web sites, according to a just-concluded survey undertaken by apex industry body Assocham.  Hindu Businessline, June 19 2012

India, the world's third largest internet market, is working against a ticking clock to adopt IPv6, the new web addressing system, as the present addressing system has run out of internet addresses. Asia Pacific Network Information Centre ( APNIC), the internet registry for India, has run out of IPv4 addresses with barely a few left for transition to IPv6. The department of information & technology had directed all states and the central government to switch to IPv6 by March 2012. That plan is still running behind schedule. ECONOMIC TIMES June 14 2012

India's e-commerce pioneer aims to hit 1.5 million shipments this year  DNA June 4 2012

ET profiles five top technology companies that are on the path to firmly establish India as the product hub of the world:Druva, ITTIAM, Serial Innovations, Mistral, Inttelix Security are  bagging global customers. Economic Times, Times of India June 8 2012

Linked In's user base has crossed the 15 million mark in India, according to country manager Hari V. Krishnan. India is LinkedIn Corp.’s largest market outside the US in terms of membership, currently accounting for 9.3% of the site’s overall user base of 161 million.  MINT May 29 2012

In September last year, among the most downloaded gaming apps on the Research in Motion-controlled BlackBerry global network, was the game 'Pong Shot Reloaded'. There was nothing remarkable about what would have been just another popular game, except that it was developed in a tiny laboratory in Nagpur by an Indian gaming developer, Manthan Studios, not even two years into business at that time. The story is part of the development strategy for mobile developers, who now see India, the outsourcing destination till now as a haven for development as well. BUSINESS STANDARD May 28 2012

Former Science Adviser to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and secretary of several major scientific departments, Ashok Parthasarathi,  discusses  "Many  inconsistencies and contradictions" surrounding the Aakash educational tablet project. The Hindu May 21 2012

It was a fitting tribute to legendary filmmaker B Ramakrishna Panthulu when, as part of his birth centenary celebrations, the classic 1964 Tamil movie 'Karnan', starring the demigods of Tamil and Telugu cinema — Sivaji Ganesan and N T Rama Rao respectively — was re-released this year with top quality output.
Technology, or digital technology to be precise, proved once again the saviour. Tamil cinema, which has always greeted technology with open arms, has in the last few years surrendered to digital technology, in its various avatars.  New  Indian Express May 20 2012

Splashgain Technologies (ST), a software firm has introduced an Android application, called ePravesh to help institutions and students to facilitate the admission process better. Free for those who've registered themselves with www.epravesh.com , the application provides students with admission details, like relevant information on brochures, course details and access to the respective school or college website among others. The application is available across all Android-enabled smartphones. TECH2.in

The Blackberry is Corporate India's new blackboard. Since it is difficult to pin down busy employees and bring them to training sessions, companies are guiding them through their mobile phones -the only device accessed round the clock.
At Wipro Technologies, groups of employees will receive training modules in audio and video clips on their phones, which they can access anytime... ECONOMIC TIMES

Technology giant Adobe on Tuesday launched the latest version of its Creative Suite of products with enhanced functionalities and support for 10 Indian languages in its InDesign software in the country. Creative Suite is a collection of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications like Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign and Illustrator.
Aimed specially at the professionals in designing, media and entertainment industries, the new software ‘Creative Suite 6’ (CS6) would be available in four suites -- Master Collection (Rs 1.56,000), Design and Web Premium, and Production Premium (Rs 1,14,000) each and Design Standard (Rs 78,288). PTI  agency report  in The Hindu  April 25 2012

THE Montreal and London-based creator of the UbiSlate 7 (Aakash) tablet, announced the launch of two new seven inch low-cost tablets — the Ubislate 7+ and Ubislate 7C on April 26. 
DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said, “We have now created a product that removes the barriers and levels the playing field (with other nations). TEHELKA

Sitting in a modest office, amongst a maze of rooms, dressed in grey trousers and white shirt, the CEO of online Business to Business (B2B) website, Indiamart, passionately talks only about the problems of his small and medium enterprise (SME) customers - handicrafts manufacturers, travel agents, apparel suppliers - and what the internet can do to facilitate trade for them. ECONOMIC TIMES  April 26 2012

Infosys has always been accused of being conservative in its approach, though the company’s leadership has been in denial mode. That seems to be changing, with chief financial officer V Balakrishnan agreeing some amount of conservatism has indeed crept into the company in the recent past.
Speaking after the company’s comparatively dismal performance and weak revenue guidance last week, Balakrishnan, also a member of the Infosys board, however, defended the guidance as being ‘very realistic’.  BUSINESS STANDARD

In an interview with ET NOW, V Balakrishnan - Member of the Board and Chief Financial Officer of Infosys, talks about why the company misses Q4 guidance and it's cautious outlook.  TIMES OF INDIA

There really is nothing quite like the rush of picking up those brightly packaged products off the supermarket shelves and filling your cart with the month’s groceries—until you get to the half-hour-long weekend queue at the checkout counter.

But the sheen of the aisles is lost on Bangalore-based college lecturer Amrita Paul-Chakrabarty, who chanced upon online shopping a few months ago. “My weekends are now suddenly free,” she gushes. She switched to shopping at BigBasket.com four months ago and now orders from there at least once a week. MINT April 14 2012

Both HCL MeTab U1 and Micromax Funbook were launched within a span of a few days and both of them are focused on education. Here we've compared the two... IBNLive

Going for a tablet purchase? Don't let price points persuade you. Frugal innovation in tech may be grabbing headlines these days, but the bottom line remains very much the same — 'cheap ain't better'. The 'affordable' breed of tablet PCs are in stores, but their ilk may not be relied upon. BUSINESS STANDARD APRIL 9 2012

Rajesh Rao is among a handful of Indian entrepreneurs who may prevent the country's software industry from getting "Bangalored".
The 41-year-old self-confessed geek runs Dhruva, a firm that sells content and services to global online game companies from a bungalow in a crowded suburb of a city that has come to embody outsourcing and the transfer of jobs from the West.

But plain vanilla outsourcing - help desks and back office operations - is finding cheaper locations abroad. India's software industry has discovered it needs to move up the value chain or enter niche areas like gaming to continue growing....Raju Gopalakrishnan for  REUTERS  April 5 2012

Old king cash may have to take a bow. Plastic credit may find itself redundant. And 40 per cent of people who do not have bank accounts could leapfrog into the banking space. With mobile wallets, that's the change they are gunning for... BUSINESS STANDARD

Nokia Money has shut down, but new players are stepping into the mobile money space in India.  Sujit John in The Times of India

Online retail in India could be a $84-billion industry by 2016 -- more than ten times its worth in 2010 -- and will account for 4.5 per cent of total retail. E-commerce entrepreneurs and experts say small-town India will play a big role in the online bonanza.  Reuters report in Deccan Chroncle

MUMBAI: National Payment Corporation of India ( NCPI) today formally launched RuPay, the country's own payement gateway, finally.

RuPay is the brand name of domestic card scheme floated by the NPCI and it is the Indian equivalent of Visa or MasterCard payment systems. THE ECONOMIC TIMES

An historic hundredth century by heroic cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, overshadowed the finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee's, less memorable fifth budget. But buried in the budget's text was an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court's judgment in the Vodafone  tax case. That just isn't cricket.....The government could have licked its wounds and merely changed the law on future deals. Instead, reeling from the court's decision, it wants to retrospectively change the rules. REUTERS  analysis, March 19 2012

One-sixth of the country, or 200 million Indians, don't possess any of the most basic assets like a transistor or TV, phone, vehicle of any kind or a computer. In three states - Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and MP- close to a third of the households own none of these assets. The Registrar General of India released the final figures for the first phase of Census 2011, known as the Houselisting and Housing Census. The data shows how India lives - how many people to a house, how they light their houses and where they get their water from, and some of the things they own. TIMES OF INDIA March 14 2012

Though half of all Indians do not have a toilet at home, well over half own a telephone, new census data released this week show.

These and many other contrasting facts of life have come out in Census 2011. The data on housing, household amenities and assets cast new light on a country in the throes of a complex transition, where millions have access to state-of-the-art technologies and consumer goods — but a larger number lacks access to the most rudimentary facilities. THE HINDU MARCH 14 2012

Cable operators are fighting, multi-system operators (MSOs) are lobbying, broadcasters are worrying and direct-to-home (DTH) operators are rubbing their hands in glee. So far the whole mandatory digitisation story in India is playing to script. With just under 90 days to go, how ready are we? BUSINESS STANDARD MARCH 13 2012

Lufthansa's LH 455, (is)  a flght so legendary it has earned its own nickname: “The Bangalore Express.” The beginning of a day-long marathon between Silicon Valley and its counterpart in India, LH 455 (which connects in Frankfurt with LH 754 to Bangalore) turns into a tech convention even before it takes off. BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK March 8 2012

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg said the wireless gear and solutions maker will be investing more in Indian mobile market for expanding facilities and resources.
The announcement is significant as the Indian telecom market is going through a tough phase due to delay in 3G expansion and 2G spectrum issues. Ericsson was one of the main telecom equipment makers in India that has added manpower significantly in 2011. TELECOM LEAD February 27 2012

NEW DELHI: India has the world's youngest internet population with 75 per cent of all users under the age of 35 years, said research firm comScore. In comparison to India, the world's average of under 35-year users stood at 52 per cent and 55 per cent in Asia Pacific region.
Further, a third of India's total online population is between 15 to 24 years... ECONOMIC TIMES  February 24 2012

Philippines might have emerged as the new capital for call centre works, but the country still has a long way to go to match India in the overall business process outsourcing (BPO) segment not just in terms of size of the industry, but also in terms of range of services. According to various industry and analysts’ reports, Philippines has overtaken India in the voice-based BPO services delivery, but in the overall BPO category India still leads the pack with BPO exports of close to $15 billion. BUSINESS STANDARD Feb 24 2012

Pranav Mistry is easily among the hottest names in the technology space today. With a host of futuristic inventions to his credit, including the SixthSense technology.,..The 30-year-old MIT graduate demonstrated his SPARSH project at the Nasscom summit, demonstrating how it would be possible to copy data from a device by just a touch and then transfer it by simply touching another device, among other things. DNA   Feb 16 2012

Seattle-based online retailer Amazon, which is considered to be the largest online retailer globally, seems to be making deeper inroads into India and wants to hire atleast 5,000 people at its facility in Hyderabad.
At the moment, there are almost 4,000 employees working for the company’s R&D and tech support division from the city. Amazon is also looking at setting its logistics centre in Hyderabad and had chosen it over Bangalore. This could be the next step after it establishes base in its own premise.  Financial Chronicle  Feb 15 2012

Days after the big bang launch of the Aakash tablet by the government, doubts were raised over its efficiency and durability. If experts of the industry are to be believed, technical flaws, no hands-on experience, and the total cost of procuring it make the much-hyped gadget a disappointment for the buyers. FINANCIAL CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 14 2012

Hackers, allegedly belonging to a Chinese group called Evil Shadow Team, struck at www.microsoftstore.co.in on Sunday night, stealing login ids and passwords of people who had used the website for shopping Microsoft products. TIMES OF INDIA  Feb. 13 2012

NEW DELHI: For a generation that has learnt to articulate thoughts in 140 characters and knows its smartphones and tabs, e-textbooks are only the next step. But some infrastructure bottlenecks need to be taken care of before that education revolution takes place in India, experts say.   IANS wire story in Times of India, February 8 2012

Taken together, these (recent) decisions not just redefine the role of citizens in prosecution, but also potentially redefine the legal environment for the corporate sector and economic regulators.

The impact on India Inc also comes from a raft of court rulings given in recent times. TIMES OF INDIA Feb 5 2012

Mobile phones seem to be ringing incessantly in rural India. Of the total 884 million mobile connections in the country, 303 million are in the rural space. The segment contributes, on an average, 40 per cent of the total 2 million connections added each month in the country. NEW INDIAN EXPRESS January 29 2012

Sam Pitroda, the advisor to the Indian Prime Minister on public information, infrastructure and innovation, in an interview, says:
"Nobody can control the internet. It is impossible. We cannot go the China way. Even China is not going the 'China way'". ECONOMIC TIMES, JanuARY 24, 2012

There is no way we can screen content before it is posted online, argued Internet behemoths Google and Facebook in the Delhi High Court on Monday (16 January), reported NDTV.

Both these Internet companies are among 21 whose executives have been summoned to appear in person in a lower court on March 13 for allegedly hosting obscene and objectionable content. Last week, 12 of the companies involved in this case said they are headquartered internationally. PCWorld India Jan 19 2012

Aakash, the $45 tablet PC promoted by the ministry of human resource development (HRD), is mired in controversy three months after it was launched as a tool that would enable India to bridge the digital divide.  Suneet Singh Tuli, chief executive of DataWind, spoke about the project in an interview. MINT  January 17 2012

Not many days back, DataWind was flying high on the success of Aakash but things changed overnight. The company is facing a tough time as it seems to have lost 'support' from the Government. DataWind now not only has the challenge to complete the order of 100,000 pieces of Aakash but has to supply the upgraded devices as well. EFY Times January 18 2012

India is emerging as global hub on animation and visual effects with experts from all over the world working in Indian post production companies, says  Mr Rob Hoffman, Senior Product Marketing Manager (3D, Media & Entertainment) at Autodesk Inc, a US-based company, which provides 3D design, engineering and entertainment software that are used by the experts.  Hindu Businessline  January 12 2012

In the first trials, which started before the launch and were spread over a six-month period, Aakash was found to be wanting in processor speed, the quality of its touch screen and battery life, among other issues  MINT  Jan 14 2012

Robots plays a major role in treating cancer of the kidney, bladder and prostate and doing reconstructive procedures in a minimally invasive manner. Hospitals can use robots for valve replacements and for extended bypass surgery of the heart. Robotic surgery can also be used in urology, gastrointestinal surgery and gynaecological procedures....DNA  December 30 2011

The National Film Archives has managed to restore and digitise films of Dadasaheb Phalke, Satyajit Ray, Mehboob Khan, and V. Shantaram, among others. Many other filmmakers, however, have not been so lucky....The digital restoration and preservation has just started in most laboratories in India.  THE HINDU  December 26 2011

Within days of Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi throwing his might behind the unique identification number project, the parliamentary standing committee on finance axed it, calling it “a scheme conceptualised with no clarity of purpose”. It will be difficult for the UPA government to recover from this outright rejection.  DNA  December 14 2011

The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2011, was passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, putting the Rs.20,000 crore cable TV industry one step closer to going digital and promising better picture and sound quality to consumers. MINT December 14 2011

For the US-based NComputing, a desktop virtualisation company with 30 lakh ( 3 million) NComputing access devices deployed in 140 countries, India is the highest growth market and is second only to the US in terms of revenue.
“In three years of our operation in India, we have recorded 150 per cent growth year-over-year. So far we have a total of 500,000 devices installed across educational institutions, small and medium businesses and among enterprises,” said Will Poole, co-chairman and president of NComputing. FINANCIAL CHRONICLE DEC 13 2011.

Global investors have placed a billion dollar bet on India's Internet and mobile start-ups during 2011, reposing confidence in the fast-growing base of digital consumers in the country. Marquee venture capital and private equity investors made aggressive investments in start-ups - most of which are less than five-year old - as they backed the story of rising disposable income and Internet penetration.TIMES OF INDIA DEC 13 2011

Founded in 2008, Rural Shores Business Services is one of the largest providers of BPO services out of rural areas, offering jobs to 1,000 educated youth.

Brainchild of former Ernst & Young partner VV Ranganathan, Mastek MD Sudhakar Ram, former MD of Xansa India Murali Vullaganti and CN Ram, president and group CIO of Essar Group, Rural Shores today serves over 20 clients including HDFC, Infosys, Wipro Technologies and Genpact. It aims to employ over 10,000 youth by 2014. ECONOMIC TIMES DEC 13 2011

Ever since 26/11, India has made massive purchases of communications intelligence equipment from secretive companies from India and abroad. In the absence of effective legal oversight, it threatens the democracy it was bought to defend. THE Hindu  Dec 2 2011

Americans calling the customer service lines of their airlines, phone companies and banks are now more likely to speak to Mark in Manila than Bharat in Bangalore.
Over the last several years, a quiet revolution has been reshaping the call center business: the rise of the Philippines, a former United States colony that has a large population of young people who speak lightly accented English and, unlike many Indians, are steeped in American culture.  NEW YORK TIMES Nov 25 2011

Canadian firm Research In Motion (RIM)  has  announced the launch of three new handsets based on its BlackBerry 7 operating system in the country.

With this, RIM now has seven handsets in India based on the latest operating system, which it claims has faster performance, enhanced browsing and richer multimedia compared to its predecessor. ECONOMIC TIMES  November 24 2011

Jimmy Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001 as a free, open-content online encyclopediaarrived in Mumbai on  Nov 17  to inaugurate the three-day WikiConference India. Speaking to the large audience of delegates who filled every corner of the grand convocation hall of the University of Mumbai, Wales said this was probably the largest WikiConference ever held. He added, that he was ‘incredibly lucky’ to be in India, not just because he almost could not make it, but also because Wikipedia is looking at great opportunities in Indian languages.   DNS Nov 19 2011

Fierce competition, ambitious parents, a dearth of  teachers are driving private schools to pay for a slew of products and services offered by firms.. a trend that may widen the inequalities of the education system. For example,  software developed by US-based Waterford Early Learning that teaches four-year-olds how to spell and pronounce words; online tutorials in mathematics developed by Ahmedabad-based Math Buddy; and testing services from Educational Initiatives, also based in Ahmedabad..   Radhika Raj investigates...The Hindustan Times Nov 20 2011

LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, on Tuesday opened a research and development centre in Bangalore, the first such facility outside of the US.
Located at the Bagmane Tech Park, the LinkedIn Technology Centre will be the company's fourth office in the country after its India headquarters in Mumbai and sales offices in Gurgaon and Bangalore. Out of over 135 million subscribers of LinkedIn, over 12 million are from India. Times of India Nov 15 2011

Internet giant Google's Chromebook, the much-celebrated mobile device tailor-made for Web browsing and running on its Chrome Operating System, is likely to be shipped in India by early 2012.
Speaking to presspersons at an interaction here, Sundar Pichai, senior vice-president, Chrome and Apps, Google, said: “I would be very surprised if Chromebooks are not shipped in India by early 2012. We see India as a huge potential market for us.  The Hindu Nov 16 2011

Hyderabad as an investment destination appears to be rapidly going the canine way and it's no wonder that it is perhaps the only mega city in the world where a majority, if not all, buildings have meshes around them to prevent damage to assets. The permanent asset, namely Brand Cyberabad, is rapidly fading away from the global investment map. TIMES OF INDIA Nov 6 2011

A simple cellphone text-messaging programme is providing a more direct line of communication between villagers and the government- WASHINGTON POST Oct 28 2011

In Silicon Valley, the heart of the US technology industry, immigrants had founded more than half of the companies started in the previous 10 years .... says  Eric Schurenberg. He quotes Harvard and Duke University professor  Vivek Wadhwa: “The US is giving an unintentional gift to China and India by causing highly educated and skilled workers, frustrated by long waits for visas, to return home...." MINT Oct 28 2011

With Indian theatres quickly making the transition to digital film projection, is the cinema as we knew it coming to an end? Economic Times Oct 22 2011

Information technology industry seems to have learned to live with confusion and uncertainty prevailing in the State Capital over the Telangana statehood issue . It doesn't mean that there are no worries and that it is business as usual here.

They continue to worry over embarrassing queries from clients as they deliberate on deals for the next financial year. Absenteeism because of lack of public transport, too, has become a pain in the neck. Hindu Businessline Oct15 2011

A paradigm shift is nigh for India’s television distribution industry, where for years unscrupulous local cable operators have under-declared subscriptions, causing huge revenue losses to broadcasters and platforms. DNA Oct 14 2011

No Indian university made it in an annual list of the world’s top 200 universities. High up in the survey, put together by the Times Higher Education magazine, were many of the much-lauded institutions– including Harvard, Stanford and Oxford.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, widely regarded as India’s most prestigious engineering and technology school, does appear in the ranking—but not in the top 200 WALL ST JOURNAL OCT 9 2011

For most Indians living in poverty, their interaction with technology is minimal. But now, every Indian has the opportunity to have their irises and fingerprints scanned using cutting-edge technology.
This is part of the government’s massive effort to give every Indian citizen a biometric, 12 digit identity card. If successful, India will become the only country in the world with a universal biometric identity system. CNN Oct 4 2011

Indian entrepreneurs have ridden on the back of Google -- to web-driven success. The (Sunday) Economic Times Sep 18 2011

Avnet Technology Solutions, the technology solutions distribution company and an operating group of Avnet introduced CloudReady Program, an initiative designed to prepare and enable channel partners to capitalize on emerging cloud computing growth opportunities in India.

CloudReady covers all the three facets of cloud computing namely private, public and hybrid, and offers partners tools and resources to enter the cloud computing market quickly, implement cloud-based solutions and profitably grow their business. COMPUTER RESELLER NEWS (CRN.in) September 19 2011

The Board of Control for Cricket in India have reverted to their firm stance against the use of the Decision Review System, with the new board president N Srinivasan saying they did not wish to use the DRS in its present form. While most countries have been quick to embrace the umpire referrals - and the technology that underpins them - the game's political heavyweights India have been vocal in their lack of enthusiasm. DAILY MAIL (UK)   Sep 19 2011

Several months ago, when Prabhu Kumar could not find a book he wanted in bookstores here, he found it online at Amazon.com for $10. But he had to pay more than $9 in fees to have Amazon ship it to him. Mr. Kumar, a software programmer, said he would not be doing that again. He now shops on India’s answer to Amazon — FlipKart.com — which delivers books, phones and other items in as little as 24 hours at no extra cost. Mr. Kumar doesn’t have to pay FlipKart a single rupee until a courier bearing his books arrives at his door. He can then hand over cash or a credit card. NEW YORK TIMES Sep 14 2011

French information technology services company Capgemini and US-based consulting, technology and outsourcing service provider Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) are in the fray to acquire independent software testing company AppLabs.

Based out of Philadelphia, AppLabs has close to 1,800 employees at its global delivery centre in Hyderabad. Business Standard.   Sep 10 2011

Users of the Indian social network SMS GupShup send four billion messages per month, accounting for about 10 percent of India’s texting traffic.
That volume is impressive, but it’s also expensive. Four-year-old SMS GupShup was forced to figure out a business model for mobile social networking before its global peers — like Twitter, and more recently, GroupMe — because it had to pay its ever-growing bills.....Wall St Journal ;Mossberg Review blogs  Aug  30

An average Indian smartphone user spends about two-and-half hours a day on the handset, dedicating more time to entertainment and internet activities than to voice calls and text messages, says a survey.

According to a Nielsen-Informate Mobile Intelligence survey, Indian smartphone user spends 72 per cent of the time on activities such as gaming, entertainment, applications (apps) and internet related content The Hindu Aug 6 2011

Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare ruled Indian cyberspace during his fast demanding introduction of Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament.
Search engine Google produces 29 million results when a query is made by entering Anna Hazare’s name, while Sonia Gandhi’s name yields a little below 9 million results.

A page created in the Facebook on Anna Hazare has been liked by 3.64 lakh users against UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s page which has 57, 291 likes.  Press Trust of India  sourced from  The Hindu Aug 29 2011

Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corporation on Thursday announced it has established India as the company's global experts resource hub.
As the global resource hub, ZTE India, a wholly owned subsidiary of ZTE Corporation, will serve as a key technical resource provider for ZTE's operations and subsidiaries in other countries as the company continues to scale up its global growth. Hindu Businessline Aug 18 2011

MoFirst is tapping India’s next wave in outsourcing, with thousands of programmers that charge a fraction of Silicon Valley prices to capitalise on demand for programmes for Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices running Google Inc’s Android software. Developers-for-hire for mobile applications may generate $5.6 billion in revenue by 2015, a 14-fold jump from this year, Forrester Research Inc estimates..... Mint/BLOOMBERG Aug 25 2011

In branded clothes, their ID cards hanging out of pockets, the typical techies of Electronic City (Bangalore), were not sitting in office, pounding on their laptops on Tuesday afternoon. They were out on the roads, shouting slogans and holding placards in support of the nationwide movement against corruption.

This act made Justice Santosh Hegde remark to the gathering at Electronic City: "I was under the impression that you are people who lived only for yourself. For once I am glad that I am proved wrong." TIMES OF INDIA AUG 17 2011

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), New Delhi, has tied up with Akmin Technologies Pvt Ltd to launch mobile website builder service.
MTNL's mobile website builder is a unique service that allows a non-technical user to create and publish a customized website within minutes using his mobile phone or PC. TIMES OF INDIA Aug 8 2011

India's technology sector is bracing for a potential slowdown in growth after the historic U.S. credit downgrade over the weekend, which heightened fears of a double-dip recession in the largest outsourcing market and sparked a sell-off in IT stocks.
Indian technology companies earn more than 80% of their revenue from the U.S. and Europe. WALL ST JOURNAL AUG 9 2011

For  two e-commerce pioneers,creating and selling off has been the dominant pattern of their entrepreneurial journey.Anand Rajaraman (38) and Venky Harinarayan (44) had started Kosmix about six years back,only to be snapped up by the worlds biggest retail firm last April.Walmart acquired Kosmix because the firm had a social media platform for filtering and organising social network content,called the Social Genome. ECONOMIC TIMES Aug 2 2011.

In 2007, Bansal buddies Sachin (29) and Binny (28) dug into their personal savings and put together Rs 400,000 to start an online bookstore, which they called flipkart.com. They knew it was not a new idea and if they were not going to have a big differentiator, the venture carried a high risk of joining the ranks with failed dot.com start-ups that promised so much but delivered so little.
Today the buzz is that the four year old company, a deep discount online market place for books and digital accessories, is close to selling a portion of its equity to a leading US-based private equity player that has valued the company at $1 billion... HINDUSTAN TIMES  July 31 2011

Preventing animals in forests from crossing over into human habitations, creating an alert when poaching takes place and detecting unwarranted cutting of trees in forests — these are some of the features of a complex but ambitious wireless sensor-based system that scientists from Indian Institute of Information Technology (Allahabad), Indian Institute of Sciences (Bangalore) and a couple of universities from the US are working on to protect wildlife and forests. A team comprising scientists from IIITA, IISc and Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun, had visited Panna National Park in Madhya Pradesh in May to assess the feasibility of such a project on the ground. INDIAN EXPRESS  Aug 1 2011

BOSTON – Two Indian-origin girls have emerged winners at Google’s inaugural Science Fair, impressing thousands at the internet giant’s California headquarters with their projects on ways to improve ovarian cancer treatment and bettering air quality for the benefit of asthma patients.  July 22 2011

India is the next big frontier for multinational media firms, and although the country’s laws prevent them from taking a significant stake in mainstream news publications and channels, there’s no bar on launching India-specific websites, even if they are fully owned by the company. Following the entry of The Wall Street Journal’s digital imprint into India two years ago, at least two key media organizations may be getting ready to follow suit soon.
The New York Times plans to launch an India-specific online edition..... MINT July 21 2011

What documents do we submit to apply for a PAN card? How does one get an educational loan? How does one apply for a passport? Log on to www.wikifyindia.com. and help is at hand. This website, a non-profit initiative, is an aspiring encyclopaedia of government procedures in India. The Hindu Metroplus  July 6 2011

The Indian PC market is bursting at the seams with startups coming out with new launches and companies like Spice Telecom, Bharti Teletech and Micromax planning to introduce their own tablet PC versions. Another new launch to grace the Indian market is the ‘Marathon’ tablet PC by EAFT (Everything At Finger Tips) Technologies, which headquartered in Bangalore. Marathon, their latest product offering promises to give you the best web and multimedia experience through first of its kind 3D User Interface!   MY BANGALORE  July 13 2011

It’s official. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the new information technology bellwether, not Infosys Technologies.
It took the Tata firm five straight quarters of outperforming Infosys on volume, or the number of hours billed to clients, and six straight quarters of better employee retention (see chart) to get here.  DNA July 15 2011

Don't look for an Indian "Avatar" anytime soon, but Bollywood, inspired by the success of blockbusters such as "Transformers," is starting to take special effects seriously. Up until five years ago, producers were unwilling to embrace technology, preferring instead to spend millions on expensive outdoor shoots and sets. That changed when India became a viable back-end destination for Hollywood films like "Tron" and "Avatar" amid a growing wave of outsourcing post-production special effects due to cost. The number of studios handling VFX -- visual effects that include mixes of live-action footage and computer-generated images -- mushroomed.  Reuters story from IBN Live  July 7 2011

Compared with 15-20 megahertz (MHz) per operator in the US and Europe, Indian operators have just 5 MHz of spectrum. And, no Indian telecom operator has 3G spectrum in all the 22 telecom circles. In the best case scenario, operators such as Airtel and Reliance Communications own spectrum in 13 circles, but for the rest, like other operators, they are also forced to enter into agreements with peers/ competitors.   DNA July 8 2011

A three-woman team from the Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) here has developed an application for Windows Phone 7, named the 'Immunisation Tracker'.
Also referred to as a 'Code for Her', it's a Windows Phone 7 application aimed at making a mother's life easier on vaccinations for a child; it, clearly, can be used for other reminder-applications on what a child needs.  BUSINESS STANDARD  June 29 2011

To enable easy access to cost effective business productivity solutions on the cloud, Microsoft Corporation on Wednesday announced commercial availability of Microsoft Office 365 in India.
This cloud based office suite could be availed at price $2 per user per month, (excluding applicable taxes), which would allow SMBs and enterprise customers to access Microsoft’s popular e-mail, collaboration, conferencing and productivity capabilities online.
GOVERNANCE NOW  June 29 2011

What you need: A unique idea. Little or no investment. A few hours. What you get: A global market of over 250 million smart phone and tablet users. A time share in 33,675 downloads a minute, or 17.7 billion a year.  ET on Sunday spoke to the Indian app-preneurs with global hits in their kitty. They share some everyday challenges: lack of adequate talent. Some unique ones: making money from freeware. But collectively, they can't stop gushing about the hottest new business. And explaining why the next Angry Birds may come from their research labs. ECONOMIC TIMES on Sunday  June 26 2011

Behtar Zindagi (Better Life) has a subscriber base of around one million...Subscribers have to call a toll-free number to sign up as well as to access the service.

It provides farmers real-time information on crop cultivation practices, weather, fisheries, livestock management, market prices, education, rural finance and health. MINT June 27 2011

Very few companies manage such longevity, less so now when changes in market and technology environments are so rapid. Anticipating and managing those changes is complex. And yet, that’s what the $100-billion computing giant, IBM  done. And it’s been visible in India too over the past decade, in its phenomenal success in turning the country into its primary global delivery services centre, replicating the model pioneered by Indian software companies, and its equally extraordinary accomplishment in winning by far the largest share of the Indian IT services market.
TOI reported last year that IBM is one of India’s biggest employers, perhaps bigger than even Infosys, though lower than TCS.... Sujit John in The Times of India  June 16 2011

Putting the onus of re-cycling of electronic wastes (e-waste) on the producers, the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) has for the first time notified e-waste management rules.

The e-waste (management and handling) Rules, 2011 would recognise the producers’ liability for recycling and reducing e-waste in the country. The rules will come into effect from May 1, 2012. BUSINESS STANDARD JUNE 9 2011

With its vast workforce, thriving chip design sector and burgeoning demand of electronics, India should be an attractive base for semiconductor makers, but its efforts to establish an international manufacturing hub have so far been a flop.

"Fab City", an industrial park on the outskirts of Hyderabad, was launched amid much hype in 2007, with the government offering tax breaks and capital subsidies to chip makers to set up operations there.

Since then, the proposed investment has dwindled from $9.5 billion for planned semiconductor and solar cell plants to less than $3 billion, with no semiconductor makers left on board. REUTERS  June 9 2011

Lenovo, the personal computer (PC) maker with its business strategy of 'protect & attack', is slowly but firmly making inroads into the Indian market. The company launched here on June 6 the ThinkPad X1, which it claimed is the slimmest notebook in the enterprise or business segment.( It costs around Rs 85,000 - ed) CIOL News June 6 2011

Not only will  it (Nividia's India R&D) contribute  to the next generation Wayne, to be out in 2012, the centre will lead the work on Logan, targeted for a 2013 release.
“We will be spearheading it. Up to 80% of the work will be done out of here,” said Sridhar Manthani, senior director, research and development, Nvidia. MINT June 2 2011

The US-based Federal Insurance Co, part of the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, has tied up with HDFC ERGO to introduce a product that will cover cyber crimes in India. Chubb launched its cyber security insurance policy globally in 2009.
“The service was launched in Asia in 2010 and we hope to bring it to India this year,” Mr Noel Tan, Regional Manager, Chubb Specialty Insurance, Southeast Asia, Middle East and India, told Business Line.  June 2 2011

Four employees of Wipro quit over the last few months to devote their time to prop up the floundering dairy sector. They are in the final stages of readying the prototype of a cloud-based computing system to help farmers increase organic milk production, cut adulteration and pilferage, and track reproduction cycles of cattle in a scientific way. The system involves the use of sensors, including some on the body of cows. The data collected will be used to increase the quality and quantity of milk produced, and let vets know the right time to artificially inseminate the cows. Bangalore Mirror May 24 2011

Scytl, a premier provider of secure remote voting technology worldwide, has announced that it has successfully conducted the first Internet elections in the Indian State of Gujarat. This is a major step in India’s electoral history as citizens were able to vote through the Internet for the first time ever.

The State of Gujarat is using Scytl’s Internet voting technology with the aim to boost voter participation and avoid traditional long queues. The first binding trial was carried out in September 2010 and online voting was successfully used for the second time last month, during Gandhinagar’s Municipal Corporation elections, where 77,16% of registered evoters cast their vote electronically - either from home or from e-voting booths. SYS-CON  and agencies  May 22 2011

A new facility for students and faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, built with a one million-dollar grant from Labour peer Swraj Paul, was opened on Friday (May 13 2011) and will be the new home for its School of Management.

The grant was made through the Ambika Paul Foundation, set up by Lord Paul in 1978 in memory of his daughter Ambika who died of leukaemia in 1968 at the age of four. The Hindu  May 14 2011

The top 10 India-based IT services providers saw a reacceleration in growth in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. The top 10 Indian providers grew 19.9 percent, compared with 5.8 percent for the worldwide top 10 IT service providers and 3.1 percent growth for the global market.
Gartner analysts said these results reinforce that India's IT services providers are well out of downturn times and back on their growth trajectory. INFORMATION WEEK May 12 2011

Nokia’s recent decision to outsource development of Symbian software — the operating system which runs its handsets — to Accenture, has put 200,000 Indian software programmers in turmoil.As part of the deal, Nokia is also transferring 3,000 employees — 700 of them from Bangalore — to Accenture. Indian Symbian programmers, who are not Nokia employees but independently develop mobile applications (mobile apps) for its handsets, say they also face an uncertain future.... DECCAN Herald May 6 2011

Tulip Telecom has announced that it has chosen IT major IBM and data centre consultant Schnabel to establish a data centre in Bengaluru [ Images ], which the company said will be India's  largest and the world's third-largest data centre.  Times of India/ rediff.com

With the popularity of social networking and texting threatening to turn thumb gymnastics into a competitive sport, schoolchildren are getting less activity with each passing day. The result is one in three teenagers weighing more than they should, a number that grows by an average of 1% each year. Now there's linear data to prove it. A comparison between 14-17 year olds across one dozen private and government schools in Delhi shows that obesity in teenagers is up by 2% over four years, with rich children in private schools recording an over 5% jump, from 11.6% in 2006 to 15.9% in 2009. HINDUSTAN TIMES April 24 2011

BridgeCo, a pioneer and world leader in digital audio and media networking technologies has decided to make India its global hub with over 90% of its operations in Bangalore, India. BridgeCo is a semiconductor company that provides the most comprehensive processor and software solution for connecting consumer electronic products to the internet. BridgeCo also designs and develops chips & software for the world’s most popular products at their base in Bangalore  PR LOG Apeil 12 2011

The penetration of the internet in rural areas will see an all time high this year. In a survey conducted by IMRB for the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the total number of active internet users in rural area will rise by 98 per cent to touch 24 million by the end of this year from 12.1 million in December 2010.
The survey said that the claimed internet user category is also set to grow by 96 per cent to reach 29.9 million by December 2011 from 15.2 million in December 2010. BUSINESS STANDARD, April 13 2011

Ascendas is bringing on board Thomas Teo, a veteran of Ascendas in Singapore to take the reins of India operations at the International Tech Park in Whitefield, Bangalore. BUSINESS STANDARD  April 7 2011

IT major Wipro Technologies has acquired the oil and gas information technology practice of US-based Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) for $150 million (about Rs 670 crore). It's Wipro's second biggest acquisition in the IT space, the largest being its $600 mn takeover of Infocrossing.

SAIC is a $10-billion scientific, engineering, and technology applications company. It has a subsidiary in India that operates in Noida and Bangalore. SAIC's oil and gas information technology practice provides consulting, system integration and outsourcing services to global oil and gas majors involved in upstream activities.  TIMES OF INDIA  APRIL 2 2011

The Indian  government has announced an energy efficiency label for laptops.
The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) on Wednesday announced the BEE Star Label version 1 for laptops. The guidelines announced by BEE are based on United Sates Energy version 5 guidelines. INDIAN EXPRESS  March 30 2011

Indian corporates having presence in Japan  (have) accelerated the evacuation exercise, as the radiation crisis deepened at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on the eastern coast of the quake-hit nation. Business Standard March 17 2011

Even as Microsoft’s browser rules the roost when it comes to the number of users, Google Chrome users displayed loyalty with only 35 per cent switch-outs.

With no clear preference when it comes to browsers, Microsoft and Google are targeting Indian internet users to have greater share of the market. A Juxt study estimates the average Indian internet subscriber uses 2.3 browsers and the duplicate user base in browser usage stands at 31 per cent.

A Statcounter study says Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) leads with a 44.26 per cent share in India, followed by Firefox at 32.53 per cent and Chrome at the third position, with a 19.61 per cent share.

Business Standard March 14 2011

CheersBye.com, a travel portal linking travellers directly with the websites of hotels, serviced apartments, homestays, restaurants, event halls, shopping, entertainment and nightlife, has been launched recently. Being the commission-free booking hub, travellers will have access to the hotel's own best available rates, thereby saving significantly, besides getting a wider choice. It is a one-stop-shop for accessing the best rates in any chosen destination. CheersBye.com plans to go global featuring international hotels. The Hindu March 11 2011

As many as seven out of 10 Indian internet users watch online video and half of them use YouTube . They watch 58 videos for a total of 5 hours a month on average and the numbers of viewers are nearly the same as in the UK or Brazil.

ComScore Inc , a leader in measuring digital world habits, found that 30.2 million online users in India watched online videos in January 2011, representing 72% of the total online population. Economic Times March 11 2011

India’s largest IT services provider, TCS, is stepping into an unchartered territory by targeting the small and medium enterprises. As part of its SME Cloud offering, launched in mid-February, TCS will now also focus on firms in the revenue bracket of Rs 10 crore to Rs 500 crore. Business Standard March 8 2011

The blocking of a blogging website, even if only for a short period, raises the disturbing question of curbs imposed on free speech in India through executive fiat. There is a clear pattern of Internet censorship that is inconsistent with constitutional guarantees on freedom of expression. It is also at odds with citizen aspirations in the age of new media.  The Hindu March 7 2011

Computer-maker HP may be forced to stop production at its Pantnagar plant as the Budgetary announcement of an excise duty increase on PC components may eat into margins while making imports of desktops and laptops cheaper. Economic Times March 4 2011

NEW YORK: BMW has partnered with three Indians that have created a mobile phone application called MyCityWay, which helps people find everything from a place to eat to the closest park to relax in.
BMW has invested $5 million in the company. "I am thrilled to announce that we have just signed our first strategic partnership with MyCityWay," Ian Robertson, responsible for sales and marketing at BMW, said in Munich recently. "As a mobile app, MyCityWay provides users with information on public transportation, parking availability, and local entertainment for over 40 cities in the US. Press Trust of India  May 3 2011 in Business Sandard

Banks have not taken the full advantage of technology for bringing down the cost of small transactions, improving customer services and an effective flow of information within banks and with the regulator, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said.

“One of the shortcomings that has been observed is a disconnect between the information and technology. Although banks have deployed technology for transaction processing, the same has not been explored extensively for analytical processing,” the regulator said in its IT Vision document for 2011-17.BUSINESS STANDARD  March 2 2011

IEEE, an association of global technical professionals, today said it will set up an office at Bangalore as it looks to expand its presence in Asia.The association currently has 23,000 member base in the country. The new office will enable IEEE to further support engineering and technical professionals in India through a variety of educational and certification programmes, it said. The Indian office in Bangalore will be the fourth in Asia after Singapore, China and Japan , ECONOMIC TIMES March 2 2011

IN 2008, three young guys in Manhattan started Ignighter.com, a dating Web site focused on twentysomethings. They sought to set themselves apart by enabling members to set up group dates:.......“In January 2010, we made the decision that we are an Indian dating site,” Mr. Sachs says. And now, with almost two million users — and 7,000 more signing up daily — Ignighter is considered India’s fastest-growing dating Web site. NYT Feb 19 2011

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India’s largest information technology (IT) services company, launched a subscription-based cloud service for small and medium businesses that aims at $1 billion (Rs.4,550 crore) revenue in five years.

The pay-per-use service called iON, aimed at covering a small company’s spectrum of IT needs, has been running as a pilot with about 130 businesses to fine-tune the offering over the last one year.  Mint Feb 16 2011

Sales of personal computers in India rose 30 percent in 2010, the highest in four years, as consumer and commercial demand strenghtened after two years of negative growth, research firm IDC said .Sales of personal computers in Oct-Dec grew by 2.49 million units, a 26 percent jump compared with the previous year. Feb 16 2011

Features like long battery life, ease of use and the rapid development of applications are attracting companies to tablet PCs....Back in India, Magesh Ramamurthy, IT Director at Four Seasons Hotels, saw something more in the iPad that made sense: He saw it as a device to engage customers effectively. Quickly, Ramamurthy deployed two iPads at the hotel's front desk and tested customer reaction when the hotel staff began screening the rooms and facilities available on the tablet PC's 10-inch screen.  Business Standard Feb 7 2011

Students with creative ideas need no longer fear they are not going to be taken seriously. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is all out to tap their innovative ideas. Plans include a techno park close to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, where defence scientists will work with students on the products.

The move follows the success of Netra, the unmanned aerial vehicle. The prototype for Netra was developed by students of the IIT, Bombay. Netra is now at the mass production stage.  DNA Feb 10 2011

India's premier technical institute, the IITs, will now make all their engineering courses and lectures available for downloads to students, even on their mobile phones. 

Students can access the lectures of IITs, IISc and NITs from the NPTEL website www.nptel.iitm.ac.in and from YouTube www.youtube.com/iit . The 125 courses available include lectures both in web and in video format in electrical, mechanical, civil and computer science engineering.Feb 10 2011

Religare Technologies , one of India’s leading healthcare technology companies, on Monday announced the launch of HealthLine 24x7 - India’s first phone and web-based healthcare information assistance service.
HealthLine 24x7 is a health information helpline and assistance platform that offers identical yet complementary service over two channels - voice media through phone and digital media through the internet. The service is absolutely free and 24x7x365. Feb 7 2011

The information technology unit of India's Wipro Ltd., announced a major organizational shake-up to more effectively address demand for outsourcing services as the software exporter struggles to retain its crumbling market share.
Wipro--India's third largest software exporter by sales--said it is realigning its operations into six business units--energy and utilities; finance solutions; media and telecom; pharmaceutical, healthcare and life sciences; manufacturing and hi-tech; and retail, consumer goods, transportation and government.  Feb 7 2011

The recent performance of Indian IT majors indicates quicker recovery from recession and stronger profit growth, analyses Dilip Maitra
Software engineers in India, with at least two to three years of experience, are in great demand, thanks to the revival in the fortunes of the Indian IT industry. Rising from the ripple effect of the global recession from 2008 till the middle of 2010 that adversely impacted hiring of engineers, Indian IT companies are now on a massive hiring spree. Salaries too are skyrocketing as companies are vying with each other to hire and retain the best brains.

Back in India, where I grew up, my dad was an officer in the Indian railway system, and he used to take me inside the locomotives to see how they worked: there was the fireman, sweating and pitch-dark from the coal and dust and noise, shoveling coal into the fire as fast as he could... And next to him was the engineer, and he's trying to watch hundreds of dials and knobs and levers all at the same time to try to keep the train going 40 kilometers per hour.
"And a few years ago, my dad came to visit me in Germany and we took the ICE train from Cologne and that train had a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour. We enter the front compartment and there the driver sat, smoking a cigarette and calmly talking to another driver without even looking at the instrument panel.. INFORMATION WEEK...

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) reiterated on Thursday that it would not provide intelligence agencies access to its its enterprise email services.... "There is no possibility of us providing any kind of a solution," said Robert E Crow, vice-president, industry, government and university relations, RIM. "There are no keys to be handed...It's not possible to do so because the keys of the service are in possession of the corporate enterprises."

India is all set to leave its foot printsin the most talked about event that is coming up -The London Olympic Games 2012. Atos Origin (India),an international IT services company will play a lead role in delivering technology for the London Games 2012. Also Atos Origin contract with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the world's largest sports related IT contract till date.SILICON INDIA Jan 21 2011

India’s Wipro, the software services exporter, overhauled the management of its outsourcing business after reporting profit growth in its most recent quarter that lagged its rivals.

Wipro has been struggling to win big contracts as the sector recovers from the global downturn, and its shares and margins have suffered compared with its larger rivals, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys. REUTERS  Jan 21 2011

Infosys Technologies said it will appeal an income tax department order demanding India's No.2 software firm pay 4.57 billion rupees ($100 million) in tax for work done onshore.

In an email to Reuters, Infosys chief financial officer V. Balakrishnan termed the order arbitrary.

Earlier on Tuesday, The Economic Times reported that the tax authority, in the order issued a fortnight ago, refused to acknowledge onshore services as software exports, thus making them ineligible for tax benefits. REUTERS  Jan 18 2011

HCL Technologies Ltd. is betting on emerging markets to drive its revenue growth over the next several years, a senior executive said, as developed countries in the West continue to grapple with economic uncertainties.
Indian information technology companies such as New Delhi-based HCL Technologies get most of their business from the U.S. and Europe by offering services like computer software and back-office support at a fraction of cost their clients in developed markets would locally incur.
But, budget cuts by traditional customers, the European debt crisis and a slow recovery in the U.S. have made these IT companies to diversity their markets, especially into countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America where several economies are growing at a fast pace again WALL STREET JOURNAL Jan 18 2011

The three-volume encyclopedia on the A to Z of Indian music across 2000 years, the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Music of India released recently, will soon be available in digital format.

"We are preparing a digital version of the book in the US. It will be more versatile and will be available to people all over the world through the Oxford reference shelf," Oxford University Press India's Managing Director Manzar Khan said here.

A team from the Oxford University Press and Sangit Mahabharati, a Mumbai-based music academy, worked for 12 years to compile the encyclopedia, which has more than 5,000 entries on music, dance, vocalists, accompanists, poets and musicologists. INDIAN EXPRESS  JANUARY 11 2011

It is no secret that Phaneesh Murthy, CEO of iGATE, has for sometime now wanted to take his company into the big league - a $1-billion annual revenue was the benchmark for that goal.

On earlier occasions he has revealed, his ambition to make iGATE a 25,000-employee company, through acquisitions. The announcement that  his company  is buying  a majority stake in Patni Computers marks a milestone, what with the latter's annual revenues of $689 million and iGATE's $252 million.HINDU BUSINESSLINE  Jan 11 2011

In a bid to tap the rural e-commerce market across the country, the Ahmedabad-based Infibeam.com is set to launch Vishwagram Bazaar soon. At an investment of Rs 2000 crore over five years, Infibeam plans to build an e-commerce retail platform where rural consumers can have access to FMCG as well as products not easily available to rural households at transparent prices. BUSINESS STANDARD Jan 14 2011

Two possible outcomes loomed over the BlackBerry battles in India, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in recent months: Either local intelligence agencies get to snoop at messages from the handsets, or governments will shut them down.

An Indian entrepreneur says he has invented a third way, however, which threatens to complicate the efforts by Canadian manufacturer Research In Motion Ltd. to expand overseas.He called his service Bharat Berry

In an e-mailed statement, RIM dismissed the Bharat Berry as unimportant.But analyst Ashok Kumar, with Rodman & Renshaw, said this kind of technology could prove disruptive .. “It will resonate in places where price is front and centre." (TORONTO) GLOBE & MAIL Jan 3 2011

IIT-Madras plans to set up a centre of excellence for VLSI (very-large-scale integration) design and microchip making. A blue print on this will be ready in the next six months, according to Kamakoti Veezhinathan, Professor at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Madras.The HINDU Jan 4 2011

IT professor Girish Kumar, who has documented a detailed analysis of disadvantages of cell phone technology in India, has challenged the cell phone operators to prove their claim that EMR does not cause a major health risk.

"If people in the mobile companies think there is no health hazard, then let them stand in front of their own transmitting tower at 1m distance in the main beam for 6 hours - are they willing to take the risk?," he asks. DNA  Jan 2 2011

The deal was in the works for all of 24 months. When it was finally made public in March 2004, the telecom world watched in shock and awe. Sunil Bharti Mittal had outsourced the very heart of the telecom business — technology and networks....The Bharti model has been followed by Vodafone India , Idea Cellular, Aircel, Maxis, Videocon, Uninor and others. The telecom outsourcing arrangement is a Harvard Business case study and globally more than 50 boardrooms have discussed the Bharti model. Economic Times  Dec 31 2010

If figures tell a story, the technology services' tale has been spectacular: less than $4 billion in 2000 to $62 billion today; an average of 22% yearly growth; from less than 100,000 to over two million employees; an almost non-existent domestic market has grown to $10 billion-a-year opportunity.

Technology bellwether Infosys was 3,000 people in 2000. At the close of the decade, it has grown manpower 40 times to more than 1,25,000. Next 10 years will strengthen India's position as global technology services hub, with Nasscom projecting the industry size at $225 billion by 2020. Times of India Dec 31 2010

INDIA IS STILL PLANNING to develop its own proprietary operating system (OS) rather than use "bugged" Western systems.
The Indian government is still intent on developing its own operating system so it can own the source code and architecture rather than rely on Western technologies.


Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1933952/india-western-software-technology-bugged#ixzz18v3uEVlb
The Inquirer - Computer hardware news and downloads. Visit the download store today.The Inquirer Dec 21 2010

Mukesh Ambani's company Reliance Infotel, which is the only company with pan India spectrum to launch BWA services, has plans of selling tablets at less than Rs 8,000.

Our sources tell us that the company is currently testing tablets from almost 15 Taiwanese vendors. It has already decided that it will use LTE technology for its network.
Infotel is likely to announce its plans in the first quarter of 2011 and will start network roll-out soon after.
While the specs of the tablet are not known, our sources are certain that it will use LTE, or Long Term Evolution high speed broadband technology.  TelecomYatra  Dec 22 2010

The Adam is a 10-inch tablet starting at $375.33 that runs on a customized Eden UI, which combines elements from Android 2.3 and 3.0. Pre-orders began two weeks ago, although the company has not confirmed a shipment date.
In a blog post Rohan Shravan, founder and CEO of Notion Ink, said he wanted to wait until CES to demo the Adam, "but I can't stand against all of you."  PC Mag  19 Dec 2010

The long awaited Adam tablet brought out by India based company Notion Ink is finally up for pre-order. The Android based tablet sporting a 10.1 inch display screen is available in four ilks, differing in their prices and few specifications, as per Notion Ink website. SILICON INDIA Dec 13 2010

Is it a phone?  A radio? A computer? Is it a camera? Well, it can be any or all of them.The Adam comes with a memory expandable to 128 GB (you could possibly fit your entire movie library in it). A 3-megapixel swivel camera, fingerprint- and scratch-resistant touch-screen, a digital compass, GPS facility. Bluetooth and 3G HSPA connectivity are part of the package, too.The product comes equipped with HDMI Video output, USB and mini-USB ports for manual data transfer, while supporting Adobe AIR and Flash.  HINDU BUSINESSLINE  Dec 13 2010.

Online giant Google  has released a report – ‘Zeitgeist’ – on what 81 million Indian netizens have been searching for on the web. The company analyses billions of search queries to come up with the annual report.

Indian Railways continues to top the chart. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) emerged as the most searched for year-on-year, followed by low-cost smartphone maker Micromax Mobiles and YouTube movies.

Among the most popular on the web, Songs, Facebook and Google remained on the top. BUSINESS STANDARD December 13 2010

Mushrooming technical institutes and engineering colleges, often accused of poor standards, can now look forward to some handholding by the IITs.

The four-decade-old Institutes of Technology Act is being amended so that IITs shoulder additional responsibility of supporting and collaborating with technical education institutions and advising state governments on technological problems within the zone they are located. The Times of India  December 6 2010

The banker wanted another business card as the one Srinivasu Chakravarthula handed had ‘holes’. Unknown to the banker, the card was embossed in Braille that enables the blind to read. The banker’s response presented Srinivasu an opportunity to get to work — educating her about a technology that has made life easier for the disabled.

As accessibility manager at Yahoo! India’s research centre in Bangalore, Srinivasu teaches people about bringing technology closer to the disabled. As far as physical traits go to decide if an employee fits in, the 29-year-old computer science graduate is quite qualified: he is blind. ...ECONOMIC TIMES Dec 7 2010

Bangalore-based Notion Ink has developed a slate with Android 2.2 Froyo operating system (OS) that could rival Apple’s iPad. The buzz about it began over a year back but the final countdown has just started.

The device, which would be launched as Adam, has caught the attention of bloggers and gizmo freaks, who are waiting with bated breath for its launch this December..... DNA Nov 30 2010

The book is a lot more than a treasure trove of information, even to an Indian IT industry watcher of 25 years and a frequent visitor to the 'city of gardens', as it delves into the history of erstwhile 'Mysore state', renamed Karnataka. The book very systematically brings alive the story of the burgeoning IT industry, with Bangalore-based companies contributing nearly 36 per cent to India's software exports... Sanjiv Kataria reviewing "India's Silicon Plateau: Development of Information and Communication Technology in BangaloreBy R. C. Mascarenhas  in BUSINESS WORLD.

The animation films are still at a nascent stage as far as theatrical collections are concerned, says Hiren Gada,director of Shemaroo Entertainment   ECONOMIC TIMES Nov 21 2010

The police in Kerala have arrested someone for having forwarded an internet mail he’d got, making fun of the state’s communist party and its chief.....When we had given those warnings about the IT law, we’d said the passage of such clauses was an insult to Indian democracy and should be vigorously opposed.  Editorial in NEW INDIAN EXPRESS Nov 20 2010

With a host of learning technologies entering the classroom, students can look forward to better learning experiences... a survey of tech trends in Indian classrooms. DECCAN HERALD November 11 2010

“Companies in the US are still reeling under effects of the downturn and legal heads of MNCs are under severe pressure from CEOs/CFOs to cut costs. And cost-cutting can only be achieved by outsourcing legal work to India,” says Abhi Shah, CEO of LPO Clutch Group.The manpower costs in India are far less that those in the US, thereby fuelling outsourcing, says Sanjay Kamlani, co-CEO of LPO Pangea3. DNA  Money Nov 15 2010

For Shivam Sai Gupta, the 14-year-old from Patna, making computer games is literally a child's play. Drew to computers after he stumbled upon a Power Point presentation when he was 11, Shivam developed a penchant for computer and eventually became a games lover. 

Recently, he developed and put on live a game based on 26/11 (when terrorists attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008). Indiagames, the games developing company that has offered to provide him with necessary infrastructure to develop computer games, has decided to write a mobile version of the game.HINDU BUSINESSLINE Nov 13 2010

It has become fashionable in Washington to complain that companies overseas, particularly in India, are stealing American jobs. "Outsourcing" has become a dirty word and has been labeled as villainous by candidates for Congress this election.
But the truth is that India-based companies are bringing jobs to the United States in large numbers. The top six Indian information technology companies alone have created more than 35,000 jobs in the United States, according to a recent study by the India Brand Equity Foundation.  San Francisco Chronicle Blog Nov 4 2010

Bartz says while coping with the fast-paced industry was definitely an issue, Yahoo is now on track, having doubled its profits this year. By 2012, the company plans to achieve profit margins of 15-20% from around 6% last year. Yahoo, which has around 600 million users globally, and controls 73% of the Indian internet market, will also look for acquisitions in the country across content and technology space or to gain a bigger share of the audience.
ECONOMIC TIMES Nov 11 2010

"Mr. Obama “is not going to interfere with companies doing what they need to do to be competitive.”

“He’s too smart,” (Presidential biographer William) Chafe says of the president. “Obama may make rhetorical gestures to those who want him to be more protectionist, but he won’t do it because it would set off a cycle of retribution that is not in America’s best interest,” WALL ST.JOURNAL  BLOGS NOV 1 2010

The fact is that there is outward investment from India into the U.S. economy, which is creating jobs, which is something we would like to convey to President Obama and his delegation," said Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, at a press conference Thursday.

Indian officials will tell Obama and his delegation that the diaspora of Indian professionals with advanced skills in IT, business, and other high-demand areas to the U.S. has helped the American economy. They'll also note that many Indian service providers have established U.S. subsidiaries that hire American workers.

"If you look at the historical evolution of globalization, this is simply the latest phase. The center of gravity has shifted, with cars moving to Japan, then low-cost manufacturing moving to China and now the more knowledge-intensive work flowing to India," said Partha Iyengar, head of research for Gartner India, a U.S.-based global IT research organization. "Unfortunately, this time the U.S. is feeling it."
The outsourcing issue is a sore point in an otherwise deepening relationship between India and the United States, which see each other as vital partners in areas like counterterrorism, defense contracts and nuclear energy.WASHINGTON POST  Nov 7 2010

What is most striking to me being in India this week, is how many Indians, young and old, expressed their concerns that America seems at times to be running away from the world it invented and that India is adopting.....Thomas Friedman in his New York Times column this week. Nov 2 2010

OPINION: American jobs are being lost because of outsourcing, to places like BangaloreSo, unlike many other visiting dignitaries, President Obama is going to give that city a careful miss during his three-day Indian sojourn. That stands to reason, given that he has already announced visa restrictions that will affect India's software giants, and tax changes to prevent the "exporting of American jobs", as Lou Dobbs says it..... Editorial in Business Standard by T.N. Ninan ( October 30 2010)

Outsourced,” NBC’s new Thursday night sitcom, is about a Kansas City novelty company that moves most of its jobs to India and sends an American manager to run things. To see how the show compared to real life, The New York Times took two episodes to an India office of UnitedLex, a company based outside Kansas City, with most of its employees in India, and asked them to review it.

For a country that's supposed to be a world leader in information technology, India is woefully lacking when it comes to providing the benefits of that prowess to its own citizens. As against a telephone subscriber base, fixed and mobile, of over 706 million, the number of fixed internet subscribers is barely over 16 million. And of these, only 9.77 million are broadband users as against the government target of 20 million broadband users by this year. In an era where internet access has become as basic a utility as electric power, the government is not addressing the digital divide with sufficient urgency. Editorial in The Times of India Oct  27

Once a week, year six pupils at Ash-mount Primary School in North London settle in front of their computers, put on their headsets and get ready for their math class. A few minutes later, their teachers come online thousands of kilometers away in the Indian state of Pun-jab.

Ashmount is one of three state schools in Britain that decided to outsource part of their teaching to India via the Internet.....International Herald Tribune / Fiancial Chroncle Bangalore

Passengers travelling to the Bengaluru International Airport from  the International Tech Park will soon find they never have to go ‘offline'. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation's Vayu Vajra bus service, which ferries people to the airport and back, is soon set to provide entertainment and Internet consoles attached to the back of every seat.

Besides browsing the Internet, software packages will enable passengers to easily keep track of flight information, book tickets and even do an online check-in during their commute. Integrating such ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) and PTS (Passenger Information System) will increase passenger comfort and get more people to switch to public transport, BMTC officials said. ( see our Image of the Day feature on this page) The Hindu ( Bangalore) October 22 2010

Mobile number portability (MNP), that will allow a wireless phone subscriber to retain his number while shifting to another service provider in the same circle (state), is all set to be pushed to the next calendar year, 2011.

In 2009, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had set January 1, 2010, as the date for introducing portability of mobile phone numbers.

The deadline for implementing MNP was shifted many times during this year, the last one being set for October 31, 2010.  DNA October 14 2010

The Supreme Court has said that the new judges being appointed in lower courts must have the basic knowledge of computer operations.

'It will be unfair to overlook basic knowledge of computer operation for being a judge' when the steps were being taken for the computerization of the courts for their efficient management, said a bench of Justice Mukundakam Sharma and Justice Anil R. Dave in a judgment Friday.

The court said this while rejecting a petition by Vijendra Kumar Verma who was not selected for judicial service because he lacked basic knowledge of computer operations. SIFY / IANS

Small IT Firms Taking The World By Storm
The Indian IT/ITeS industry may lately have been at the receiving end of US President Barrack Obama's protectionist policies,but when it comes to most US government websites,Obama and his boys rely heavily on popular Made-in-India software FusionCharts for data visualisation.
Surprisingly,FusionCharts is no big ticket tech firm out of one of India's hot and happening IT hubs.Little known back home in India but popular abroad,this niche software firm is just a 30-member outfit based out of Kolkata from where it caters to its Fortune 500 clientele across 110 countries. Times of India October 10 2010

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is working on creating a futuristic computing system, including India's own operating system, said V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister and DRDO Director-General. 

“We do not have our own operating system. Today, various bodies, including banks and defence establishments, need security. Having our own operating system will help us prevent hacking of our systems.”

Two software engineering centres are being set up for this purpose in Bangalore and New Delhi. THE HINDU ( BANGALORE) OCTOBER 10 2010

IN THE southern Indian state of Kerala,the superstar of Hindi cinema,Amitabh Bachchan isnt the biggest draw.Here,Mammootty and Mohanlal call the shots.So,when you stumble upon a team of animators in Thiruvananthapuram researching Big Bs every move,gesture and dialogue,and caricatures of Bachchan move around on their computer screens while someone tries to match his baritone in a typical Malayali accent,you are left a tad befuddled.The head of the team,P Jayakumar,chief executive officer of Toonz Group,comes to the rescue as he reveals that the boys are working on a new animated flick titled Twinergy,which casts Bachchan in an animated format...... ECONOMIC TIMES OCTOBER 10 2010

Sixteen students have been suspended from a school Chandigarh after one of them posted abusive comments against a teacher, who had given him zero marks in an internal mathematics examination recently.

The students, including seven girls, of class XII were yesterday suspended for three months after one student uploaded the photo of the teacher and posted abusive comments on the social networking website Facebook, a school spokesperson said here today.

15 other students of the Vivek High School had supported the comments of the student in public abusing the mathematics teacher, director of the school HS Mamik said. DNA October 8 2010

Google Instant, a new way of searching that makes search more interactive and helps you find information more quickly and easily, has made its India debut.

The service launched in the US and some other geographies on Septmeber 8 has been launched in India. The new technology,  can save two seconds to five seconds off every Internet search, Google said. Times of India,  October 7 2010 

Tom  Hanks and his producing partner, Gary Goetzman, said their Playtone companywill bring “Electric City” to the Web early next year. The project, which its creators hope will eventually be spun off into other media, may also offer a preview of Hollywood’s future: it is being produced as a joint venture with Reliance Big Entertainment, a media company in India that is playing a growing role in global entertainment properties. NEW YORK TIMES  2 OCT 2010

As airlines continue to report higher passenger numbers, online travel firms are seeing renewed interest from investors. At least three Indian online travel firms—IxiGO.com, Yatra.com, and Cleartrip.com—are in the process of securing investment through initial public offers (IPOs), private equity or venture capital funding.  MINT October 1 2010

Virtusa Corporation, a global IT services company, has opened its new campus at Nanakramguda near Hyderabad,  built with an investment of Rs 73 crore( Rs 730 million).

The campus has come up on 6.32 acre with a built-up space of 350,000 sft. When fully completed, it would have a seating capacity of 6,000. Virtusa chairman and chief executive officer Kris Canekerante said the company planned to add 1,500 people in the first phase to the existing 1,500. It would add another 3,000 in the second phase. BUSINESS STANDARD SEP 30 2010

As the law stands, India prohibits the use of encryption using ciphers with a block size larger than 40 bits, which is plain ridiculous. No financial transaction is safe if carried out on encryption less than of 128 bits. As a result, India’s electronic commerce violates the law. Economic Times Sep 29 2010 

 In the United States, law enforcement and security agencies have raised privacy concerns with a new proposal for electronic eavesdropping powers to track terrorists and criminals and unscramble their encrypted messages. But here in India, government authorities are well beyond the proposal stage. Prompted by fears of digital-era plotters, officials are already demanding that network operators give them the ability to monitor and decrypt digital messages, whenever the Home Ministry deems the eavesdropping to be vital to national security.
NEW YORK TIMES Sep 29 2010

Infosys Technologies has  announced that it has been awarded the 2010 Force of Ideas Award at the Corporate Strategy and Finance Board Summit hosted by the Corporate Executive Board, USA in Washington DC.

This award recognizes management practices that redefine the way companies do business, creating sustainable value for organizations. Infosys has been awarded this honor under the category of ‘Strategic Engagement’ for its unique strategic planning methods engaging all stakeholders.  Sep 24. INDIAN EXPRESS

R u feeling better 2day? Yes indeed, says a new generation of net-savvy  seniors..... a look at India's  ' silver surfers'.

He moves from heading the Indian government's  IT to telecom department

Bangalore held the fifteenth Robot World Cup 2010, organised by the Federation of International Robot Soccer Association (FIRA), for the first time in the country. The event concluded on Sunday ( Sep 19)  with teams from Taiwan, China and Korea winning in most of the categories. In the humanoid soccer match, three robots from each team played against three from another team, Korea won the first and second prize while Taiwan won the third place.In the simulation event, the Chinese team won first and second places, while the team from PESIT, India, won third place.The overall championship was shared by two teams both from Taiwan and the third prize went to the Korean team. Sep 20 2010 Indian Express

Called 'Interactive Platform On Mobile (IPOMO)', the college provides handsets (a common model) to the students and teachers, where games and messaging options are disabled. Instructions are given to students and teachers on using the handset. After the respective tasks are done, the handsets are returned to the college. Sep 20   2010Times of India

Citizens, for they get to voice their opinions and ideas.Deputy chairman of Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said a special portal will be opened soon where people can drop in their suggestions. "We plan to make the process more inclusive. We invite people to comment and post their approaches on the portal. The suggestions will be discussed while finalizing the 12th plan," he said. Sep 20 Times of India