The tussle between Ahmedabad-based Nirma group and union environment ministry got tighter today as the ministry took strong exception to Nirma refusing to abide by its order. The ministry warned Nirma group that it its refusal to honor the ‘stop work’ notice given by it would be counted as a ‘dereliction’ and would be counted […]
Close on its acquisition of Waze, an Israel-based mapping company, Google is all set to launch a new ‘intelligent’ version of its Google Maps product. The new product will focus on three things – an overall improvement in the quality and sophistication of the product, artificial intelligence and a more ‘social’ experience. In the new […]
India’s trade minister Anand Sharma today held a ’round table conference’ with foreign companies and others to address their concerns about the country’s foreign investment (FDI) policy for the retail sector. The meeting came after many foreign firms, such as Wal-Mart, seemed to have gone slow in firming up their plans for investing in the […]
The government of India has withdrawn its three month old circular on how to calculate taxes payable by captive research & development (R&D) units of foreign companies in India. The circular, which would impact tax rates of companies like IBM, Microsoft, Samsung, GE, Google and others in India, was issued on March 26. While the […]
While many exporters have never been happier thanks to the steep fall in the level of rupee to 60 per dollar, the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) has urged policy makers to take a longer term view. The association pointed out that while, in the short term, exporters will get more rupees […]
Private Equity firms invested about $2,330 million across 82 deals during the quarter ended June 2013, according to early data from Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and valuations in India. The investment amount was 17.7% higher than that invested in the same period last year ($1,980 million across 114 […]
Santosh Koli, one of the 11 Aam Admi Party candidate for the Seemapuri assembly constituency in Delhi, has recovered from her critical condition after an accident last week. Koli and her co-worker were hit by a car on their way to their office a week ago. AAP said Koli, a long time member of Arvind […]
Taiwanese peripherals and laptop maker Asus has signed on a second India-wide distributor to expand its reach across the market. Along with existing distributor Rashi Peripherals, Ingram Micro, a Fortune 100 company, will help the company widen its base, Asus India said. Unlike Rashi, Ingram is an international firm, and is expected to give marketing […]
SanDisk has tapped Freescale Semiconductor’s India head Ganesh Guruswamy to head its Bangalore-based India Design Center. Guruswamy, who has been appointed Vice President, will be in charge of leading the memory device maker’s Bangalore-based engineering teams to devleop what it called its next-generation consumer storage solutions, including USB flash drives, memory cards, microSD cards, and […]
One of India’s biggest neutraceuticals and health-food brands, Dabur, has clarified that it was not aware of exports of its products from India to the USA, leading to a US FDA alert. Media reports had said that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency that approves drugs and medicines and maintains quality of packaged […]
Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) may not have to cough up an elaborate caching and monitoring system for its enterprise customers as feared. Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha, deputy communications minister Sachin Pilot said the government is free to check out the mails at the premise of RIM’s corporate customers, rather […]
Apparel Exports Promotion Council (APEC) of India has urged the government to either ban the exports of cotton from India or allow Indian garment makers to import cotton at zero duty, to offset the increasing prices of raw materials avoid further job losses. Speaking on the full-year numbers for apparel exports from India, Chairman Dr […]
Close on the heels of a controversy set off after a fiesty blogger was denied an Aadhar card because she didn’t wear a ‘dupatta’ (shawl), the Planning Commission of India has said that there is no ‘dress code’ for Aadhar photographs. In fact, the Commission’s Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) even went to the […]
Russia’s Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) has bid for 8 out of the 22 license regions in the ongoing 800 MHz CDMA spectrum auction in India, according to sources. The company, which operates CDMA-based telecom services under the MTS brand in India, had earlier told subscribers in 10 license regions (called circles) to switch over to […]
Once the darling of the Indian stock markets, India’s biggest education tools provider Educomp Solutions Limited has been downgraded by ratings agency India Ratings & Research on account of declining revenue and profits. “Educomp has reduced the pace of its growth in the hitherto upfront capital intensive smartclass business (multimedia education to private schools) as […]
Eleven states have agreed to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail in India, according to the a statement released by the central government today. The states that have agreed to allow 51% FDI in retail are Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Manipur and Daman & […]
Crisil Research said it expected industrial growth to continue to recover “somewhat” over the next fiscal year with the help of a normal monsoon and lower inflation and interest rates. The research wing of Crisil ratings agency said it continued to expect inflation to fall further and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut […]
Nokia will launch its first Windows smartphone in around 12 months from now, and not 2 years as is being widely reported, its head for India D Shivakumar said in Delhi today. He said the new phone will tightly integrate with the rest of Microsoft’s services such as Bing Search, Zune music player and Facebook, […]
How much does Facebook care about Freedom of Expression? This is the question a group of liberals in the southern Indian state of Kerala are pondering over after their ‘Free Thinkers’ group has been ‘made unavailable’ by Facebook repeatedly. The group was among the top 20 or so from India until it was blocked by […]
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) want to go for permanent foreign teachers, the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development said in a statement. The IITs, one of the world’s leading technology education brands, are currently facing shortage of qualified teachers. They are currently allowed to appoint temporary teachers from abroad to tide of the […]
