A year after promising a $1 billion loan to clean up the Ganga, the World Bank is in talks with India to fund new environment-related project, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said. “Our government is clear about the need to reflect and factor in ecological concerns into our growth process so that the benefits of growth […]
Indian government has decided to life the ban on 3G video calls on the new networks set up by private operators, the Ministry of Communication and IT said. It said the matter regarding Carriage of Video Calls in the network of mobile service providers was under consideration of the Government. It said that the ban […]
The government has registered a case against members of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) for holding an illegal terror training camp in Kerala. It was alleged that a secret training camp was organised by them at Thangalpara, Wagamon during Dec, 2007. National Investigation Agency re-registered the case as NIA Crime No. 04/2010 […]
Indian goods export created a new record in December last year, even as strong production numbers from Cairn India’s Rajasthan block reduced the oil bill to its lowest level in a year. As a result, India’s trade deficit narrowed to around $2 billion, the lowest number in several years and a fifth of the $10 […]
The government has raised the minimum wages under its ambitious job guarantee scheme, the National Employment Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) 17-30%, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The increase has been based on the increase in the Consumer Price Index for the agricultural labour, it said, adding that the total spend on the project […]
Pakistan and India may be traditional rivals, but that has not stopped the smaller neighbor from considering the import of a controversial product from India — the electronic voting machine or EVM. The Indian Election Commission said its Pakistani counterpart has asked for a demonstration of the Indian machine and will soon send samples to […]
The government unveiled the much awaited mobile number portability on Thursday. “It is the open season now,” declared telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh unveiled the long-awaited nation-wide number portability regime in the capital. Chandrasekhar, a recent entrant to the telecom ministry, seemed to almost echo the feelings of millions of telecom […]
The Indian Oil Corporation, which accounts for 50% of India’s petrol and diesel sales, has justified its recent increase in petrol prices, blaming the ever-rising international crude prices. It said, despite increasing petrol prices, it is losing Rs 159 Crore per day on the sales of other fuels like Diesel, LPG and Kerosene. “With the […]
After hectic talks between ministers and departments, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally announced his response to the food price crisis — and it promises more of the same. The new measures — including a scheme to sell onions at Rs 35 per kg — are similar to those announced by the government to beat […]
After calling the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) report on the 2G scam “totally erroneous,” the government on Saturday moved to overhaul the existing telecom policy along the lines suggested by the auditor. Under the new policy, whose fine-print will be announced by the TRAI shortly, operators will no longer get spectrum free of charge […]
HCL Technologies said that the era of big bang outsourcing deals from the US has come to an end. Indian IT providers had seen a virtual disappearance of deals that generate $100 million or more per year when the recession started two years ago. Despite the recession ending, such deals are yet to make a […]
HP, the world’s number one PC brand that had lost its India crown to Dell early in 2010, came back on top during the fourth quarter, according to numbers released by IT tracker Gartner. Against Dell’s 13% marketshare, HP accounted for 15.8% share of all PCs sold in the quarter ended December 2010, according to […]
Incumbents mobile operators, who were widely expected to see an initial outflow of long-held subscribers, claimed that they were, on the contrary, winning the first round. “It looks like people who were the keenest for MNP to be implemented are also the ones who are losing the most,” said a senior Airtel official, an obvious […]
Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday announced that the government intends to create nearly 10 million hectares of forests in the next ten years under its ‘Green India’ program. India currently has 69 million hectares, or about a fifth of its total area, under forests and had a long term plan to increase it […]
After nealry 2 months of deliberations, the environment ministry under Jairam Ramesh order the 31-storey Adarsh Co-operative Society building to be demolished. The final order, issued on Sunday, found the Society guilty of “negligence or an act of gross and deliberate misrepresentation” in failing to secure environmental clearance for their building. The order also found […]
The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) of government of India has asked state level agencies to report all violations of the coastal buffer zone rules within four months and initiate action in another four. The directive has been issued soon after the coastal management authorities got new powers under the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) […]
Airtel, which announced its first 3g launch on Monday, will charge Rs 675 per month for a decent 1.25 GB of data usage and around Rs 2,000 for 14 GB, according to details released during the Bangalore launch. The rates are slightly lower than those of Reliance Communications for low volume users, but costlier for […]
Sony has become the first computer firm to launch AMD’s Fusion brand in India. The firm, which has been targeting the mass market in India recently, announced a new laptop with the highest powered Fusion chip yet — the E-350 dual core 1.6 GHz processor. The AMD Fusion is a revolutionary design from AMD that […]
The Government may allow FM radios to air news bulletins after the setting up of a sector regulator, according to Arvind Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Kumar, addressing IACC’s 7th Indo-US Economic Summit, said that the government was afraid that irresponsible reporting can have deleterious impact on the social and cultural fabric […]
Bringing slight respite to the government, the whole-sale food price inflation has slipped to 16.9% for the week ended 1 January, 2011. The indicator, which shows the price rise in food articles at the wholesale market level, was at 18.3% in the preceding week. However wholesale vegetable prices were up a whopping 71% in the […]
