Friday, March 29

Tag: India

Internet Connectivity Still Out of Reach For 950 million Indians
INDIA, News

Internet Connectivity Still Out of Reach For 950 million Indians

India may have the world's second largest internet user base, but connectivity remains out of reach for nearly 950 million citizens, a report said today. "Even with the internet data plans in India being among the cheapest in the world and the average retail price of smartphones steadily declining, connectivity is still out of the reach of nearly 950 million Indians," according to the Assocham-Deloitte joint study India currently has about 350 million internet users, second only to China. Internet penetration is increasing in India and the access to affordable broadband, smart devices and monthly data packages are required to spread digital literacy to make their ends meet, the study titled 'Strategic national measures to combat cybercrime' said. Existing government infrastructure as...
Chinese Smartphone Maker Oppo Plans $216 million Industrial Park in Greater Noida
News

Chinese Smartphone Maker Oppo Plans $216 million Industrial Park in Greater Noida

Betting big on the booming Indian smartphone market, Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is planning an industrial park in Greater Noida which will house a manufacturing unit. "We already have a production unit in India and the SMT (surface-mount technology) centre is now undergoing the furnishment...it will be finished in February. Also, with regard to the industrial park, we will have the agreement signing press conference at the end of next month," Sky Li, vice president of Oppo and managing director of international mobile business and President of Oppo India. He said the industrial park is spread over 1,000 acres and entails investment of about 1.5 billion RMB (Renminbi) yuan or about USD 216 million. Oppo already has manufacturing operations in Noida. Exuding confidence on the co...
Prime Minister Unveiled 2 Lucky Draw Schemes To Promote Cashless India Vision
INDIA

Prime Minister Unveiled 2 Lucky Draw Schemes To Promote Cashless India Vision

With an eye on cashless economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today unveiled two schemes "Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi Dhan Vyapaar Yojana" for customers and traders alike to promote mobile banking and e-payments. Making his last monthly address this year in his Mann ki Baat programme, he said there is "an atmosphere of curiosity" in the country as to what is cashless, how cashless business can take place and how one can make purchases without using cash. "To encourage this trend, strengthen mobile banking and inculcate the habit of making e-payments, the government is launching from today encouragement schemes for consumers as well as traders. To encourage customers, the scheme is Lucky Grahak Yojana and to encourage traders, the scheme is Digi Dhan Vyapaar Yojana," he said. Modi...
Facebook Gets Over 6,000 Data Requests From India
News

Facebook Gets Over 6,000 Data Requests From India

Social networking giant Facebook received 6,324 requests from Indian government agencies for 8,290 users/accounts in the first half of 2016. This is the second highest after the US, which made 23,854 requests for 38,951 users/accounts during January-June 2016, according to Facebook's Government Requests Report. Requests from India have increased, a trend seen globally as well from the previous period. Indian agencies had made 5,561 requests for 7,018 users/accounts in July-December 2015 period. Facebook said it was able to produce "some data" in 53.59 per cent of the cases in the first half of 2016, compared to just over 50 per cent in the July-December 2015 period. Government requests for account data increased by 27 per cent globally compared to the last half of 2015, increasing ...
Gaana, India’s Favorite Music App, Crosses 50 Million Milestone
News

Gaana, India’s Favorite Music App, Crosses 50 Million Milestone

Gaana, India's favorite music app, announced that it has crossed 50 Million app downloads since it was launched, 4 years back. Gaana is now the biggest music and content streaming service in India and is credited with reinventing the music industry by replacing low quality online music with a monthly subscription service with unlimited downloads and listings of over 10 million songs. Gaana has added various unique and innovative features in the recent past which includes original content programming with top celebrities (likes of Asha Bhonsle, Shankar Mahadevan, Ashish Vidyarthi), India's first Facebook messenger music bot, local music integration, localisation of app in 9 languages, mobile wallet integrations, music recommendation engine and seamless playability even at 2G speed which ...
News

BBC Launching Services in 4 New Indian Languages, Opening 157 New Jobs

The BBC Worldwide Service today said its plan to launch services in 11 new languages, four of them Indian - Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati and Punjabi - was progressing well and they would be operational by mid-2017. The services in the four Indian languages, which will focus on radio, mobile and video content, will create 157 new jobs, the London-headquartered broadcaster said. Addressing the media at the Mumbai Press Club, Indu Shekhar Sinha, Head of Business Development (Asia Pacific), BBC Worldwide Service, said, "We, as a broadcaster, are going to launch services in Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi and Punjabi with focus on radio services, mobile and video content, thus opening the vacancies 157 new jobs in India. "This is certainly one of our biggest expansions till date and is the part of...
Save 46 percent Tax Using Digital Transaction- Indian Govt to Small Traders
INDIA, News

Save 46 percent Tax Using Digital Transaction- Indian Govt to Small Traders

Government today said small traders will be able to save up to 46 per cent in tax by migrating from cash to digital transactions as the decision to tweak the presumptive income norms would reduce tax liability. "Apart from making a tax saving of almost 46 per cent by migrating to banking mode, the small businesses would be able to build their books which may also help them get bank loans easily," the Finance Ministry said in a statement. Also, if transactions are carried out through banking channels, then anybody having annual turnover up to Rs 66 lakhs will have zero tax liability after availing the benefit of Section 80C, after amendment of this new rate structure, it said. Earlier in the day, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said "The object is if you do transactions using digital m...
“4 Din Mai Bano Karobari (Businessman)” – PM Modi’s New Business Mantra
INDIA, News

“4 Din Mai Bano Karobari (Businessman)” – PM Modi’s New Business Mantra

Aiming to break into top 50 best countries to do business in, the government has identified areas requiring doing away with complex rules and simplifying procedures to enable businesses to start in four days flat. With India ranked poorly at 130th among 190 nations on the World Bank's Ease of Doing index, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday held a meeting to identify areas to improve the business climate and the country's ranking by cutting down on steps required to start a venture and make easy credit available. An eBiz portal will provide one-stop shop for dealing with matters related to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs as well as registrations of PAN/TAN and employee provident fund/employee insurance. "The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, CBDT, the Ministry of Labour and Employment ...
Indian Online Travel Portal Yatra.com Listed on Nasdaq Today
News

Indian Online Travel Portal Yatra.com Listed on Nasdaq Today

Online travel firm Yatra Online Inc has been listed on the American stock exchange, Nasdaq, under the ticker symbol "YTRA" with effect from today. Yatra said it has completed the transaction with Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corporation (TRTL), which will result in TRTL becoming a partially owned subsidiary of Yatra. As a part of this process, Yatra has raised more than USD 92.5 million of primary capital from global investors, and the merged entity, 'Yatra Online Inc', will continue to be led by Yatra's management team, Yatra Online Inc said in a statement. Commenting on the development, Yatra Co-founder and CEO Dhruv Shringi said: "It's a matter of great pride for us to be one of the few Indian companies to be listed on Nasdaq". Over the course of the past decade, Yatra has established i...
Kalyan Jewellers Launches Sanskritimatrimony.com, an Intuitive Matchmaking Website
News

Kalyan Jewellers Launches Sanskritimatrimony.com, an Intuitive Matchmaking Website

India's largest jewellery chain, Kalyan Jewellers will now be making inroads into the marriage industry with its new initiative Sanskritimatrimony.com. With this unique matchmaking website, the wedding jewellery brand intends to simplify one's search for a life-partner. Sanksritimatrimony.com promises to quicken the search for the perfect match through a slew of unique functionalities. Built with proprietary algorithms, the website's Compatibility Meter has been designed to help connect individuals with the most compatible matches. Matches are made based on varied criteria ranging from basic ones such as age, gender, etc., to cultural, psychological factors. Speaking about the new launch, a company spokesperson stated, "Kalyan Jewellers has been a household name for many years. For d...
Innovation Helped us Hold Over 3/4th Market Share: Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka
Entrepreneurs Talk

Innovation Helped us Hold Over 3/4th Market Share: Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka

Transport aggregator Ola today said its India-focussed innovations like offline booking and local language apps have helped the homegrown company "effectively hold onto over three-fourth market share". The SoftBank-backed firm, which is locked in an intense battle with US-based Uber, also claimed that every bit of technology it has built has been "made from the ground up without any premise to use as a base". "When they (Uber) launched in India in 2013, Ola hardly had a first mover advantage as we were doing just about 2,000 bookings a day. In spite of this, we have continued to build on our innovations effectively holding onto over three-fourth of the market-share," Ola COO Pranay Jivrajka told Pixr8. He added that the focus needs to be on localisation for building customised products f...
Sold Business in China Because Wants Full Focus on India – Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber
Entrepreneurs Talk

Sold Business in China Because Wants Full Focus on India – Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber

Months after selling its stake in China, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick today said it sold its stake to rival Didi since the "battle in China became global", prompting the US-based company to focus on other areas such as Ubereats, driverless cars and markets like India. "The battle in China had become global. We had sovereign wealth of China being invested in our competition globally. We had American tech companies that were being compelled to invest in our competitor in China. And so China battle had become a global battle," Kalanick said at the TiE Global Summit here. In August, the Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing announced acquisition of Uber's operations in China in a USD 35 billion deal. While Didi acquired Uber China's brand, business operations and data, Uber received 5.89 perc...