A quiet digital revolution is on in the countrysides and bylanes of India. Despite having one of the world’s lowest PC penetration (at just 1%), hundreds of millions of Indians are logging on to the Internet through their humble, tiny mobile phone. The latest ‘state of the mobile web’ report from Opera, whose browser accounts […]
The Indian Premier League or IPL, the country’s most successful domestic sports event, has broken its exclusive deal with Google-owned Youtube and decided to partner with Bennet, Coleman & Company’s Indiatimes as well for the current season. Google had managed a unexpectedly successful debut for the first live webcasting of any major sports event in […]
An important new recommendation made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) may unleash the era of the “small scale” or “boutique” telecom brands in the country. It will also offer a way for the new telecom operators — who don’t have the appetite or funds to start operations in India’s hyper-competitive mobile market […]
Fruits and Petrol led the items seeing highest rise in wholesale prices during the first week of April, according to the latest data released by the government. Price of fruits went up by 25% compared to the same week a year ago, while petrol prices were up 22%. Overall, inflation in primary articles — which […]
Gaz guzzling SUVs giving 5 km to the litre may soon become a thing of the past in India, as the government prepares to notify India’s first fuel-efficiency norms in a few days. Even before the notification, however, the norms are under fire from environmentalists. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has termed the […]
Traditional outsourcing firms, such as Infosys and TCS, may need to pay attention to the ‘depth’ of their professionals as companies are increasingly disappointed with outsourcing partners and are mulling going back to captive centres, according to a report. According to a report on the ‘re-emergence’ of the captive center by Forrester Research, more and […]
Important recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday. Reduce VAT on mobile handsets, increase duty on imported handsets Service providers to declare their carbon footprint half yearly, cap placed on power consumption of mobile towers Operators should reduce Carbon emissions by 8% by 2012-2013, 12% by 2014-2015, and 25% by 2018-2019 […]
IMD expects monsoon to be normal this year for June to September. It sees a very low probability of seasonal rainfall to be deficient. Rainfall, on an average will be 98% of long period average, from 91-2000. IMD said the cooler than normal summer or intermittent rainfall in North India has not been correlated with […]
Jairam Ramesh’s environment ministry has said that it will await the decision of the Bombay High Court before proceeding with the demolition of the Adarsh Society building in Mumbai. Responding to the decision by Bombay High Court on Wednesday to take more time to arrive at a judgement, the ministry said it too shall wait […]
After setting itself a modest target of growing its exports by just 15% to around $200 billion, India beat the target by a margin of 23%. In the end, the rising goods exports also helped bring down the trade deficit — the shortfall between exports and imports — to just $104.4 billion against the upper […]
Gartner, one of the world’s top two IT forecasters, warned of a slowdown in computer sales this year after disappointing data for the March quarter. Against an expected 3% growth (compared to March quarter of 2010,) it found a decline of 1.1% in the preliminary numbers this year. “Although the first quarter is traditionally a […]
Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrake Linux and one of the most user friendly flavors of the operating system, has released the second beta of its 2011 edition, the first after most of the development activity shifted to Brazil late last year. Mandriva’s parent company, which had been facing financial problems, moved to Brazil and shut […]
Cairn India, India’s biggest private oil producer, has sought government permission for increasing its capacity from 160,000 barrels to 350,000 barrels. The London-controlled firm, which approached the environment ministry for the nod, has been told to come back with the comments of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, under the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. […]
HCL Technologies, India’s fifth largest IT services provider, posted a moderate increase in revenues of 33.5% year on year and 5.8% quarter on quarter to $ 915 mn. Revenue growth has decelerated on a quarter on quarter basis, compared to the 9% jump exhibited in the September quarter. However, due to the same reasons of […]
The Indian economy is shifting into high gear, going by the four-fold increase in acquisitions and mergers reported by FT-owned Merger Markets. Value of mergers and acquisitions were up 271% in the three months ended March this year, hitting $18.3 billion. The value is second highest quarterly M&A size in Indian history, and second only […]
Mirroring the recovery in the enterprise software market, HCL was able to get a higher share of its income from ‘custom application services’ — creating software tailored to individual companies — compared to before. Against 29.9% contributed by this segment a year ago, it accounted for 32% during the March quarter. Custom application development is […]
Amidst allegations and counter-allegations, the Orissa government has accused anti-POSCO activists of forging documents to claim rights over the disputed land. In a report forwarded by the Orissa government to the environment minister Jairam Ramesh, Narayana Jena, collector of Jagatsinghpur district, question the integrity and character of the leaders of the protestors. “The Palli Sabha […]
Attrition at HCL Technologies jumped during March quarter, hitting nearly 8.8% during the quarter, or 35% on an annualized basis, raising concerns. The attrition levels have been around 25% (on an annualized basis) for most IT majors over the last several quarters. The company hired 7,534 employees during the quarter, but 6,381 employees left the […]
After coming under fire from transparency activists, including Anna Hazare, the Election Commission of India seems to have given in to the demand for paper-backed election instead of purely electronic recording of votes. The Election Commission had come under fire after Hari Prasad, an activist was arrested for securing an EVM from Mumbai in his […]
After two successive failures of the GSLV mission last year India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV_C16) has placed successfully a remote sensing satellite,Resourcesat-2 into orbit on Wednesday.The latest satellite will study and help in managing natural resources along with two nano satellites. ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organization) homegrown workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle placed in […]
