India is heading towards an unprecedented oil-shock, with under-recovering quadrupling over last year — according to early numbers from the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. With crude oil prices almost regaining their all time high of 3 years ago, India’s state-owned oil companies are heading towards a record breaking ‘oil shock’ year. “The Oil […]
Indian mobile operators continued to see average bill sizes shrink in the last quarter of 2010, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revealed in its latest ‘performance report.’ Year-on-year, GSM saw higher falls than CDMA. According to the report, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) — a measure of how big a bill […]
The latest release by whisleblower organization Wikileaks — prisoner stories from the Guantenamo Bay has shed light into the role played by Pakistan in training Taliban militants. Wikileaks started releasing hundreds of prisoner files from the controversial prison set up by the US after it started its attack on Afghanistan ten years ago. “Detainee attended […]
comScore, Inc., one of the top ‘web measurement’ companies, has found that the Netherlands led the world in penetration of mass messaging service twitter and the professional networking service LinkedIn. “The Netherlands is in many ways a nexus of global social networking behavior,” pointed out Mike Read, svp and managing director of comScore Europe. The […]
The Gauntanamo prison records released by the whistleblower site Wikileaks has thrown light on an aborted “parallel” 9/11 attack in Asia that was supposed to take place at the same time as the US attack. According to the records of the prisoner Abd al-Malik Abd al-Wahab, an alleged member of al-Qaida and former Usama Bin […]
Wipro Limited reported March quarter IT Services Revenue at $1,400 million, a sequential increase of 4.2% and YoY increase of 20.1%. The growth is slower than the 5.6% posted in December quarter and the 5.7% growth posted in September quarter, but higher than the 3.2% growth of the June 2010 quarter. It has guided for […]
Wikileaks release of more than 700 top secret prisoner records from the Guantanamo Prison off the Southern Coast of the US gives a unique picture of how a terrorist is made. The prison papers give detailed and often engaging history of terrorists — what their backgrounds were, how they ended up being ‘radicalized,’ how they […]
Darjeeling born and Harvard educated Tibetan leader Lobsang Sangey has become the new Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile. The result for the elections of the 15th Parliament in exile was announced today in Dharamshala, the capital of the Tibetan government in exile. . For the first time the role of the prime […]
This is the second part of the biographies gleaned from the Guantanamo prison records leaked by Wikileaks today. They show, up and close, how many young men decided to take up arms for their religion, how they were facilitated by religious teachers etc.. However, it must be remembered that the histories are largely based on […]
Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja, serving seven years in jail on sexual assault charges levied by his former housemaid, has received bail from the Bombay High Court. The Court granted bail after noting that Shiney has not tried to tamper with evidence even when he was not in jail as the case was going on. He […]
The Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s premier investigating agency, has filed the second charge-sheet in the $10 billion 2G spectrum case. However, the filing at the special CBI court in Delhi has been opposed on procedural grounds by A Raja’s lawyer. The Court is expected to allow or disallow the filing by 4:30 pm. While […]
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India’s biggest industry association, has warned of a ‘soft landing’ for the economy in the current year due to high inflation, oil prices and slowing capital investments. Addressing his first press conference after taking over as CII president, Tata Steel Vice Chairman B Muthuraman said CII expected Indian GDP […]
Reliance Infrastructure, the engineering, infrastructure and construction company from the Anil Ambani group has again started share buy-backs on a large scale. The company announced that it had bought back 1 lakh shares of the company today from the open market. At around Rs 695 per share, the company has spent Rs 7 crore in […]
Defence Minister AK Antony, known for his clean image, has urged top defence officials not to fall into the trap of corruption in the “garb of aggressive marketing.” “At times, vested interests bring about unnecessary pressure and resort to corrupt practices that can wreak serious havoc upon our security in more ways than one. We […]
Kaspersky Lab, the Russia-based anti-virus provider with a substantial marketshare in India, has announced a ‘privacy guard’ cum anti-virus software for smartphones. The software will not only protect phones from viruses, but also enable users to create white lists and black lists of contacts. No call records or contact details will be visible if persons […]
India Against Corruption (IAC), the umbrella body led by Anna Hazare spearheading the fight for the establishment of a Lokpal (corruption ombudsman) has announced plans to have a nationwide awareness program including mass rallies and meetings in the coming days. “The response is so overwhelming that all these dates have been pre-booked. Other dates are […]
The Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India’s Atomic Energy wing, has denied allegations that the Jaitapur Nuclear plant is situated in an earth-quake prone zone. It said the nearest tectonic fault — an area where one underground earth ‘plate’ meets another — is at least 30 km away. The plant has come under increasing […]
Freedom on the Internet is coming under more and more threat from governments around the world, according to the second ‘Freedom on the Net’ (FOTN) report by the Freedom Institute for 2011. The study of 37 countries found former Soviet republic Estonia to have the freest Internet, with a restriction of just 10 points, followed […]
In a judgement that will be welcomed by many air travellers in India, the Supreme Court has quashed the ‘Airport Development Fees’ or ADF charged by private airports like Delhi and Mumbai today. The judgement is likely to lower domestic air tickets prices by around Rs 200 or more. Besides ADF, air ticket prices are […]
The second ‘Freedom on the Net’ (FOTN) report by the Washington-based Freedom Institute has expressed concern over the decreasing freedom of expression on the Internet in India. The Institute, which put India in the company of states like China, Egypt and Iran which saw a deterioration of freedom of expression on the Internet since the […]
