Friday, March 29

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Didi and Uber Join Fight Against Ola in India
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Didi and Uber Join Fight Against Ola in India

Didi Chuxing's acquisition of Uber's China business last week reshapes the landscape in Asia's growing ride-hailing sector, and leaves India's Ola more vulnerable to attack by Uber in its $12 billion home market. Four months ago, Ola executives met with Didi hoping the Chinese firm would invest fresh capital to help it fight Uber Technologies Inc which, with its deeper pockets, has made rapid inroads into India. They were told Didi wanted first to sort out its own challenges in China, said a person with direct knowledge of Ola's plans. Didi and Uber have raised and spent billions of dollars in a discount slugfest to win drivers, passengers and market share in China. Didi, now worth around $35 billion, last year invested about $30 million in Ola, which is also backed by Japan's ...
Logistics Company’s Could Save $200 Bn Annually Post GST
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Logistics Company’s Could Save $200 Bn Annually Post GST

Logistics sector, which accounts for nearly 14 per cent of the GDP, could see savings to the tune of USD 200 billion annually on implementation of GST, which will ensure faster movement of goods and less idle hours, say experts. With the introduction of Goods and Services Tax, many taxation procedures will come down, nearly halving the cost of inventory as customers will not need to pile up stocks in different warehouses, say experts. "For a USD 2-3 trillion dollar economy, this could mean a potential of USD 200 billion wasteful inventory spent being available to deploy in productive value creation and further propelling the economy's growth," said Deepak Garg, founder of logistics firm Rivigo. Describing the passage of the GST bill in Rajya Sabha as a "positive reform", apex transpor...
Apple Started Bounty Bug Program For Developers
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Apple Started Bounty Bug Program For Developers

Apple Inc said it plans to offer rewards of up to $200,000 (£152,433) to researchers who find critical security bugs in its products, joining dozens of firms that already offer payments for help uncovering flaws in their products. Such rewards are already offered by dozens of firms, including Facebook Inc, Google, Microsoft Corp, Tesla Motors Inc and Yahoo Inc. The program will initially be limited to about two dozen researchers who Apple will invite to help identify hard-to-uncover security bugs in five specific categories. Those researchers have been chosen from the group of experts who have previously helped Apple identify bugs, but have not been compensated for that work, the company said. The most lucrative category, which offers rewards of up to $200,000, is for bugs in Apple's ...
Jugnoo Offers ”Pokemon Go” on Its Portal
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Jugnoo Offers ”Pokemon Go” on Its Portal

Appease your Pokemon bug with Jugnoo's latest integration 'Pokemon Go' on its app. The integration is corresponding to the advisory issued 'Do not drive and play Pokemon Go', by the game developer Niantic Labs and most of the governments around the world, in public interest. The additional feature is also a customer engagement endeavor by Jugnoo, to help 'Pokemon Go' zealots to play their favorite online game, while riding with Jungoo. Furthermore, this integration also brings to the fore, Jugnoo's up-to-the-minute facade, pacing up with various ongoing frenzies across industry. "Pokemon Go is trending across the world and the nexus that we identified between our brand and the game is that - both have to do with travelling or be on the move. The game can only be played while on the ...
P2P Lending Platform i2ifunding Announces ‘Principal Protection Fund’
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P2P Lending Platform i2ifunding Announces ‘Principal Protection Fund’

i2ifunding.com, leading peer-to-peer lending platform has announced first-of-its-kind investor protection fund, which will allow its investors to enjoy up to 100% protection against loan defaults. Speaking about the announcement of Principal Protection Fund, Vaibhav Pandey, Co-founder and CEO of i2ifunding.com said, "The principal protection fund is a step further in our commitment to build a healthy ecosystem. The investors on our platform now significantly reduce the risk of losing their principal because of a loan default. While we ensure that there are no defaults, even if they do happen, we will share the burden with the investors. With this fund, we have increased our skin in the game." The participation in the 'Principal Protection Fund' is available by default to all investors wh...
IBM, Apple Unveiled First Global Development Platform in India
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IBM, Apple Unveiled First Global Development Platform in India

IBM today unveiled a new enterprise mobility platform IBM MobileFirst for iOS Garage in India and plans to open satellite centres in many other countries including Brazil, China and Romania. IBM MobileFirst is a platform for building mobile apps for the enterprise. The Garage is dedicated to enable clients to complete digital mobility projects as quickly as possible and will tap into the worlds largest concentration of Swift developers, IBM design and iOS device expertise and consulting services, Mahmoud Naghshineh, GM, Apple partnership, IBM, told reporters. "It will serve as a global development hub for iOS apps and work with existing design locations in Atlanta, Chicago, Cupertino and Toronto," he said. IBM also plans to open satellite centres in Brazil, Romania and many oth...
Reliance Jio To Have 1 Million Recharge Outlets At Launch
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Reliance Jio To Have 1 Million Recharge Outlets At Launch

Reliance Jio Infocomm is setting up 500,000 activation outlets and close to a million recharge outlets to prepare for the launch of its 4G services in the coming months. Reliance Jio, which will compete with the likes of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone in offering 4G services, expects to play a "significant role" in lifting India to among the top 10 nations in Internet penetration, from the current 155 rank, its parent Reliance Industries said in its annual report. "With respect to sales and distribution, Jio will have half-a-million activation outlets and close to a million recharge outlets at launch. This will be in addition to the digital channels that Jio is promoting for seamless activation and recharge facilities for customers," it said. All outlets will have real-time access to the 1,072...
GST is Challenge For IT Industry Because of Multiple Taxes : Nasscom
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GST is Challenge For IT Industry Because of Multiple Taxes : Nasscom

The GST regime would streamline the taxation system and make it much more transparent, but would also create multiple taxation points, which will be a "challenge" for the IT industry, Nasscom said today. Nasscom President R Chandrasekhar said the concerns regarding multiple taxation points have been brought to the notice of the government and it expects a positive response while framing the GST law. "IT services are intangible. The way things are looked at in the GST law, not the Constitution amendment, there we have a number of concerns which have been shared with the government. "We feel that today for IT services, it is a simple regime. One single point of taxation which is central service tax, one single point of registration, one single invoice, one single place where you hav...
Sebi Proposes Relaxed Norms For Start-up Listing
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Sebi Proposes Relaxed Norms For Start-up Listing

To encourage listing of start-ups, Sebi today proposed an easier framework that allows more investor categories, relaxed shareholding norms and reduced trading lot amount. In this regard, the markets regulator has mooted changes to the framework of Institutional Trading Platform (ITP), which has not seen much traction even though it was put in place in August 2015. The rules were brought in to encourage Indian start-ups and entrepreneurs to remain within the country rather than go overseas for raising funds. Seeking to widen the eligibility ambit for getting listed on ITP, Sebi has proposed increasing the category of eligible investors when it comes to shareholding before the listing. Besides QIBs (qualified institutional buyers), family trusts or systematically important NBFCs...
Uber Launches Scheme For Local Taxis and Autos
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Uber Launches Scheme For Local Taxis and Autos

Taxi aggregator Uber today announced the Mi Pan Malak scheme to encourage taxi and auto drivers across the megapolis to join its platform. Under the scheme, the drivers can avail of offers and services through Ubers partnerships with leading financial institutions and car manufacturers with a down payment of as low as Rs 25,000, Uber said in a statement here. (more…)
Zoho Looking to Hire 4,000 People in 3-4 Years
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Zoho Looking to Hire 4,000 People in 3-4 Years

Cloud services firm Zoho plans to double its headcount to 8,000 people over the next 3-4 years as it introduces new solutions and expands focus on small and medium businesses (SMBs). The company, which currently has some 4,000 people on its payroll, has development centres in Chennai and Tenkasi (Tamil Nadu) which work on products like customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise e-mail solutions. "We are looking at a headcount of 8,000 in the next 3-4 years. We are looking at entering newer segments like payroll management. All our solutions are built in India and that is how it will continue to be," Zoho Chief Operating Officer Manikandan Vembu said. While he declined to disclose the revenue numbers, Vembu said about 45 percent of the company's topline comes from the US while ...
Twitter Revenue & Users Growth Slows
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Twitter Revenue & Users Growth Slows

Twitter Inc reported its slowest revenue growth since going public in 2013 and set a disappointing forecast, fanning concerns that faster growing social media services will make it a niche product. The microblogging service operator's shares fell 11 percent in extended trading to $16.40. While Twitter struggles to find a way to boost user growth and win over advertisers, social media services such as Instagram and Snapchat are expanding their footprints. Co-founder Jack Dorsey returned to the company as chief executive a year ago, but his plan for reviving Twitter is at best seen as unfinished. The company's second quarter revenue missed Wall Street estimates and the revenue forecast for the current quarter of $590 million to $610 million was well below the average analyst estimat...