India’s oil import bill continued to remain near record levels in January, and imports of non-oil items too gained pace, taking the trade deficit to the unhealthy $200 billion mark this year. India’s oil bill rose 7 percent in January to $15.6 billion. The increase was 12.3% in rupee terms, as the value of the […]
Intel said it is appointing Kumud Srinivasan as president for Intel India. With over 3,500 people, India is Intel’s largest non-manufacturing site outside the US. Kumud succeeds Praveen Vishakantaiah who is relocating to the U.S. as the General Manager of Client Solutions and Technology group in the PC Client Group for Intel. Srinivasan has been […]
UPDATE: The plans are no longer available and were posted on Vodafone’s website in error, a public relations official speaking on behalf of the operator told RTN. Readers are advised that the plans are not available. After a period of relative calm in India’s 3G data tariffs space, Vodafone Delhi has shattered the silence with […]
U.P chief minister Akhilesh Yadav rejected Arvind Kejriwal’s claim that the U.P. government is not serious about allegations of misappropriations by a trust owned by Salman Khurshid’s wife, Louise Khurshid. “It is not correct. It is our government which initiated the inquiry. We could start the inquiry only when we came to power. How can […]
A month after the much bandied number portability was introduced, telecom firms have started accusing each other of using underhand means to prevent subscribers from leaving them. The accusations have come even as consumer complaints grow that some operators are just not letting them move out of their networks. The system is being hijacked by […]
Asian Americans are the American minority most unimpressed with how they are portrayed in mainstream TV, according to a survey about 1,500 households in the United States. 27% of the Asian respondents felt the portrayal of their community in mainstream media was inaccurate, while only 22% felt it was accurate. The rest were neutral. Similarly, […]
Growth prospects for India’s industrial production look quite weak and the output may show less than two per cent expansion in the current financial year, an ASSOCHAM study has indicated. The not-so-bright outlook for the industrial growth has been projected despite the fact that there are visible signs of improvement in the business confidence in […]
Mobile customers of state-owned telecom operator BSNL can now look forward to better quality of service in North and South India as the company has finally placed purchase orders for equipment after four years. BSNL has been facing controversies and delays in purchasing new GSM equipment for the last 4 to 5 years due to […]
Telecom firms that failed to get 3G or 4G spectrum in the auctions may be allowed to launch such high-speed services using their existing, or 2G, spectrum, according to the latest consultation paper by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In its consultation paper in response to the Supreme Court judgement quashing 122 mobile […]
If you are on the look out for the latest and sexiest Android smartphone, you can safely give the new Samsung Galaxy Galaxy GC100 a miss. It is as thick as four or five of the new smartphones available at the same price levels in India, Rs 29,850. But the Galaxy GC 100 is not […]
Weeks after popular outrage over the brutal rape and murder of a student in Delhi, the government has increased the punishment and widened the scope of anti-harassment legislation in several laws. Insertions include new definitions of what constitutes sexual harassment, specifying punishment for throwing acid, use of hidden camera to record women’s private acts, stalking, […]
Google India has launched its free video-conferencing tool, Google Hangouts, to users of Gmail in India. Earlier all videoconferencing in Gmail, google’s free email service, used to happen on a “peer to peer” basis. In other words, the video call would go straight from one user to another, like a phone call. With Hangouts, the […]
Ever wondered what happened to ‘advanced search’ on Facebook? Ever wanted to find all those from your home town in your current city, or a list of everyone on Facebook who is working in your company? You are in luck because the new ‘graph search’ from the social networking leader lets you do just that, […]
With one month to go before the end of the current year, the government of India has projected a GDP growth rate of 5% this year, down from 6.2% last year, according to its latest numbers. Presenting India’s budget for 2012-13, former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had said that India’s GDP will grow by 7.6 […]
The Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar has scalded the Finance Ministry’s decision to withdraw the Income tax concession given to Special Economic Zones (SEZ.) Khullar said the move is akin to changing the policy “midstream” and will affect the sentiments towards investing in India. “It is one issue to hurt people who have already taken the […]
The Congress led government of Kerala seemed to be softening its stand on re-investigating Rajyasabha deputy chairman PJ Kurien’s culpability in the infamous Suryanelli rape case even as pressure mounts. Asked why the government was stonewalling requests for a new investigation into Kurien’s alleged role in the rape-saga, chief minister Oommen Chandy said: “Who has […]
Telecom companies in India continued to purge inactive subscribers in December, with Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications losing 16 million, or about 12% of its mobile subscribers, during the month. The trend has been continuing since June this year, when India’s total mobile subscriber base hit a record of close to 935 million, or about 77% […]
If you needed a reminder of who actually rules the Indian stock markets, yesterday’s sale of 78.3 crore shares of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) was as good as any. Nearly all the shares were bought by institutions and foreign investors, including banks and mutual funds, and very little by ordinary investors. According to the […]
The Suryanelli rape case has again burst into the headlines in Kerala with a private news channel running video footage of a conversation with one of the judges in the High Court panel that let off all but one of the dozens of accused in the case. Basant is shown as asking a reporter of […]
The Kerala Government will not order a re-investigation into the 1996 Suryanelli Rape case, home minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan told the state assembly. The statement was unexpected as the government was expected to seek legal opinion on whether or not the case, that involves Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurien, can be reopened. “No person can […]
