Friday, March 29

News

Delhi 22nd in Top 25 Global Cities For Women Entrepreneurs
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Delhi 22nd in Top 25 Global Cities For Women Entrepreneurs

Delhi, at the 22nd spot, is the only Indian city to feature in tech giant Dells 2016 Women Entrepreneur Cities Index (WE Cities) that looks at a city's ability to attract and foster growth of women-owned firms. New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, London, Stockholm and Singapore were the top five cities for high-potential women entrepreneurs, Dell said in a statement. "WE Cities is the only global gender-specific index that looks at a city's ability to attract and foster growth in firms founded by women entrepreneurs," it added. Cities, instead of countries, were identified in order to show the impact of local policies and programs in addition to national laws and customs, it said. The report takes into account characteristics like capital, technology, talent, culture and mark...
RBI Guidelines for Payments Systems
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RBI Guidelines for Payments Systems

RBI today released its framework for Payment and Settlement Systems, with a view to moving towards "less-cash" society and ensuring access of mobile banking services to even basic phone users. The Vision-2018 reiterates commitment of RBI to encourage greater use of electronic payments by all sections of society so as to achieve a "less-cash" society, RBI said. "The policy efforts will also focus on ensuring that access to mobile banking services is seamlessly provided to the large number of users of non-smartphone handsets in multiple languages," it said. Leveraging on 5Cs-- Coverage, Convenience, Confidence, Convergence, Cost-- Vision-2018 focuses on responsive regulation, robust infrastructure, effective supervision and customer centricity, it said. "Building a robust payments infrast...
Indian Mobile Advertising Firm InMobi Pay $950k Fine For Tracking Locations of Its US Consumers
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Indian Mobile Advertising Firm InMobi Pay $950k Fine For Tracking Locations of Its US Consumers

In a report, Us based FTC ordered InMobi, SoftBank-backed Indian mobile advertising firm to pay $950,000 civil penalties for tracking locations of "hundreds of millions of consumers - including children - without their knowledge or consent" to serve their geo-targeted advertising. InMobi is subject to a $4 million penalty but the agency suspended the fine to $950,000 "based on the company's financial condition". This settlement comes at a time when InMobi is struggling to raise funds. In its 17 page report, FTC said, "InMobi created a database built on information collected from consumers who allowed the company access to their geolocation information, combining that data with the wireless networks they were near to document the physical location of wireless networks themselves. They w...
JSW Ventures Gets Sebi Nod For Startup Investments
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JSW Ventures Gets Sebi Nod For Startup Investments

JSW Ventures, the venture capital arm of the JSW Group, today said it has received clearance from markets regulator Sebi to begin investing in the country. JSW Ventures would focus on providing early-stage funding to technology-enabled startups operating in the education, healthcare, financial services, SaaS (software as a service) and enterprise software space. The fund will have an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore which it will invest over a three-year period. "JSW Ventures, the venture capital arm of the JSW Group, has received the mandatory clearances from Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), paving the way for it to begin investing," a statement by JSW said. "Technology innovation is happening across sectors, from old-fashioned verticals like real estate to research-driv...
Finally Indian Govt Approved Rs 10,000 Cr Fund For Startups
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Finally Indian Govt Approved Rs 10,000 Cr Fund For Startups

The government today approved Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds for Startups to support them with an aim to generate employment for 18 lakh persons. "The fund is expected to generate employment for 18 lakh persons on full deployment...A corpus of Rs 10,000 crore could potentially be the nucleus for catalysing Rs 60,000 crore of equity investment and twice as much debt investment," an official statement said. The decision was taken in the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "The Cabinet has approved the establishment of Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) at Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for contribution to various Alternative Investment Funds (AIF), registered with SEBI which would extend funding support to startups," it said. This is in line wi...
FDI Relaxation in E-commerce Will Help Grocery Startups
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FDI Relaxation in E-commerce Will Help Grocery Startups

The relaxation of FDI norms in e-commerce will help grocery startups access funds more easily, domestic ratings agency Icra said today. "The move to open up the domestically manufactured food products sector to FDI will enable farmers to directly sell their produce to retailers, thereby reducing margins for middlemen," it said in a report. "Further, potential investments by the investors in cold-storage and warehousing will ease supply-side pressures and arrest wastages, that have been driving inflation," it added. In the present scenario, lack of investment in logistics and inadequate storage facilities have been creating inefficiencies in the food supply chain, leading to significant wastages. Relaxation of local sourcing riders for single brand retail, which has been...
PayPal appoints Anupam Pahuja as India Country Manager and MD
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PayPal appoints Anupam Pahuja as India Country Manager and MD

Global payments platform PayPal today said it has appointed Anupam Pahuja as the Managing Director and Country Manager for its India operations. Pahuja has been with the company for over six years, heading technology for APAC, PayPal said in a statement. As the MD & Country Manager for India, he will be responsible for all aspects of PayPal’s India business and further strengthening the company’s operations in India, he added. “India continues to be a key part of PayPal’s growth strategy. In India’s fast-growing e-commerce and payments market, we have enabled hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs participate in the global economy,” PayPal Asia Pacific CEO Rohan Mahadevan said. With Pahuja’s appointment as the business leader of this market, Pa...
Ken Miyauchi Will Replace Nikesh Arora as Softbank President & COO
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Ken Miyauchi Will Replace Nikesh Arora as Softbank President & COO

SoftBank Group Corp said Wednesday that Ken Miyauchi, head of the group's Japanese telecommunications operations, would become president and chief operating officer to replace Nikesh Arora. Arora, the former Google executive handpicked by the SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son as his successor, has abruptly quit as president after it became clear that Son wanted to remain at the helm longer than first planned. The 48-year-old former Chief Business Officer at Google decided to call it a day as his 58-year-old boss Son said he was planning to quit at the age of 60 but felt he was “still a bit too young”. The development interestingly came just a day after Arora getting a clean-chit from a special committee set up by SoftBank to look into the allegations against him from some shareholder...
Nanu Started Offering Free Calling Service in India, Operators Object
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Nanu Started Offering Free Calling Service in India, Operators Object

A new mobile app, Nanu, has started offering free calling service, including on mobile numbers and landline connections -- a facility on which private telecom operators have raised objection before sector regulator Trai and government. "If you read the Indian Telegraph Act, you can interpret that every form of data transmission over the internet, which is a form of communication, is legal because it is not regulated by telecom licences. If you read in that context, its a grey area," Nanu Chief Martin Nygate said. The Nanu support gives free limited credits every day for making free call anywhere in the world on its application and even to those who have not installed its application. The call can be made on mobile number and even on landline. The Telecom Regulatory Aut...
Apple Will Have to Re-submit Its Application For Opening Retail Stores in India
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Apple Will Have to Re-submit Its Application For Opening Retail Stores in India

US technology giant Apple Inc will have to re-submit its application for opening single brand retail trade stores in the country and issues concerning "cutting edge" technology will be settled by the concerned administrative ministry, an official said. In light of the changes in the FDI policy announced yesterday, the official said, Apple will have to submit fresh application for opening single brand retail stores to seek exemption from local sourcing norms. Under the modified single brand FDI policy, companies using cutting edge technology will be exempted from meeting the local sourcing norm for first three years. Thereafter, in the next five years the company will have to meet the domestic sourcing norm at an annualised average rate of 30 per cent. "After a proposal comes to th...
Softbank Chairman Nikesh Arora Quits , #Nexit Trends on Twitter
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Softbank Chairman Nikesh Arora Quits , #Nexit Trends on Twitter

In line with trending terms like "Brexit" and "Rexit", now Twitterati have coined a new expression "Nexit" after India-born Nikesh Arora announced his surprise resignation as President and COO at SoftBank. For the past several days, two words Brexit and Rexit have been trending. Brexit in short stands for Britains possible exit from the European Union, while Rexit word came up after RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan decided against seeking a second term. On Twitter, Aroras surprise exit was being referred as #Nexit, in line with the trending terms -- #Rexit (Rajan deciding not to take a second term) and #Brexit (Britains possible exit from the EU). India-born Nikesh Arora, President and COO at Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, today said he is stepping down from his role as Masayoshi ...
Facebook Investors Announced New Share Class To Remove Zuckerberg’s Control over Facebook
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Facebook Investors Announced New Share Class To Remove Zuckerberg’s Control over Facebook

<span class="articleLocation" style="transform: translate3d(0px, 0px, 0px);">Facebook Inc shareholders approved a proposal to create a new class of non-voting shares, a move aimed at letting Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg give away his wealth without relinquishing control of the social media company he founded. The company's plan to issue two "Class C" shares for each Class A and Class B share held by shareholders, in what is effectively a 3-for-1 stock split, was approved by Facebook shareholders at the company's annual general meeting on Monday. The Class C shares will be publicly traded under a new symbol. Zuckerberg said in December that he intended to put 99 percent of his Facebook shares into a new philanthropy project focusing on human potential and equality. ...