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Rajasthan Partners With Cisco For Connected Learning Solution

5Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA

Rajasthan Partners With Cisco For Connected Learning Solution

Rajasthan education department has partnered with US-based technology firm Cisco to promote digital learning across the state using virtual digital room solutions. "This initiative aims to enhance the quality of education through digital learning for academia to connect, collaborate, create and share content across 12 centres of State Institute for Education Management and Training (SIEMAT) in the state," Cisco said in a statement. The financial details of the partnership were, however, not disclosed. Under this association, Cisco and SIEMAT have committed to 50,000 manhours of training annually through the virtual digital classrooms. Cisco has partnered with the Rajasthan government to establish Digital Learning Solution Rooms (DLSRs) which will deploy virtual digital classroo...

After IIT Bombay Ban, Job Seekers Turn Cautious Against Startups Offers

4Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

ANALYSIS

After IIT Bombay Ban, Job Seekers Turn Cautious Against Startups Offers

Job seekers have become more cautious while considering offers from startups as it presents substantial risk to their long-term goals, according to experts. "With the premier tech school IIT Bombay blacklisting nine startups, job seekers have become more cautious before accepting offers from them. "There could be more job seekers declining offers from these companies as they will weigh the substantial risk they need to take while making such career moves as they consider their long-term professional goals," hiring consultancy Michael Pages Director Ankit Agarwala said. Recently, IIT Bombay had blacklisted nine startups for one year as a penalty for various violations, including revoking offers to some graduates. Startups are generally hiring cautiously and focusing main...

Finance Ministry Will Challenge Delhi High Court Order to Refund The Service Tax of Travel Portals MakeMyTrip, Ibibo and Ebiz

4Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA, News

Finance Ministry Will Challenge Delhi High Court Order to Refund The Service Tax of Travel Portals MakeMyTrip, Ibibo and Ebiz

A recent High Court verdict directing the central revenue authorities to refund service tax collected from three travel portals including MakeMyTrip may be challenged in Supreme Court by the government. Officials sources today said legal experts are going through the High Court order and an appeal challenging the verdict is likely to be filed in Supreme Court. Delhi High Court had on Thursday ordered Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), an intelligence arm under the Finance Ministry to refund the service tax collected from travel portals-- MakeMyTrip, Ibibo and Ebiz, saying the payment made by them "was not voluntary but under coercion and duress". The court had also pulled up the DGCEI for "unwarranted" arrest of a senior official each from MakeMyTrip and Ebi...

Ola Fires 250 People Citing Non-Performance, Other Issues to Take on Rival Uber

4Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

News

Ola Fires 250 People Citing Non-Performance, Other Issues to Take on Rival Uber

Within weeks of firing about 700 employees of its TaxiforSure operations, cab aggregator Ola has now sacked close to 250 people from its own workforce citing non-performance and other issues. The move comes as the Bengaluru-based firm is locked in an intense battle with global rival Uber in the Indian market. "An annual attrition of 3-4 per cent is a natural churn that is witnessed in the current industry scenario. This includes performance driven exits, contract roles as well as a few surfacing from constant business realignment," an Ola spokesperson said. The spokesperson further added that these have been "well thought through" organisational decisions, keeping in mind the best interests of employees and business efficiencies. The company, however, said it also inten...

Infosys Finacle Partnered Huawei to Develop a Financial Cloud Solution

2Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

BUSINESS

Infosys Finacle Partnered Huawei to Develop a Financial Cloud Solution

Infosys Finacle today said it has partnered Huawei to develop a financial cloud solution that will enable banks globally to accelerate digital transformation while keeping technology costs under control. Infosys Finacle is a part of EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys. The highly available platform will allow customers to run Finacle suite of applications on a private cloud network, delivering considerable performance, maintenance and total cost of ownership advantages, a statement said. No financial details of the partnership were disclosed. The solution will provide enhanced agility and quick service rollout, by enabling elastic, on-demand and secure computing resource pools, while supporting all-round management and service automation, it added. The so...

Snapdeal Launches Its Own Cloud Platform Cirrus

1Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

News

Snapdeal Launches Its Own Cloud Platform Cirrus

Online marketplace Snapdeal on Thursday announced the launch of its private cloud platform, Cirrus, to help the company offer a more frictionless, reliable experience to customers and help save costs. This move will enable Snapdeal to ensure that business growth is augmented with platform speed, security, and stability, it said. The private cloud solution has been built and operationalised in under a year and is timed to handle long-term growth in traffic, Snapdeal said in a statement. The launch follows a sustained increase in online traffic at Snapdeal and will also satiate fast growing demand for crunching big data "to build personalised and relevant experiences for consumers," it added. "Snapdeal was born in the cloud, but public clouds stopped being cost efficient af...

Facebook to Help Jodhpurs Handicraft Artisans in Growing Business

1Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

News

Facebook to Help Jodhpurs Handicraft Artisans in Growing Business

Social networking giant Facebook has come forward to help handicraft artisans of Jodhpur, which has a global imprint on handicraft manufacturing and exports. A business promotion team from Facebook will be in the city next week to hold seminars and one-to-one meetings with the artisans and train them to harness the social media platform for growing their business. In pursuance of an MoU between the Rajasthan government and Facebook, this team will help the artisans promote their products through a Facebook page and train them in the entire process, right from making a page to operating it effectively so as to maximise their reach. "Normally these artisans are engaged in completing the orders placed by the handicraft exporters and could never think of getting access to the glob...

WhatsApp to Share User Data With Facebook: HC Seeks Govt Reply

31Aug By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA

WhatsApp to Share User Data With Facebook: HC Seeks Govt Reply

WhatsApps recent decision to share user data with parent company Facebook today reached the doorsteps of Delhi High Court, which sought the governments response on the modification. A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra issued notice to the Centre on a plea by two users of the most popular instant messaging service, alleging that WhatsApp, Facebook Inc and Facebook India Online Pvt Ltds new private policy "compromises the rights of its users". Taking note of the concern by petitioners Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi, the high court wished to examine the issue and asked the concerned authorities to file their reply by September 14. "The privacy policy is in stark contrast to the Privacy Policy existing from July 7, 2012. In its first revised modificatio...

Indian E-commerce Companies Demand Exemption From GST

30Aug By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA, News

Indian E-commerce Companies Demand Exemption From GST

The rapidly expanding e-commerce companies today made a strong case for keeping them out of the proposed GST net but the state finance ministers appeared in no mood to oblige. At the first meeting of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers held after the Parliament approved the GST Bill, online retailers said they only provide a platform to vendors and customers and do not make money out of sales made. According to representation made at the meeting, companies like Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal are only service providers to the vendors and as such are liable to pay GST only on service income. When panel chairman and West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra questioned the billion dollar valuations some of the so-called online platforms command, the e-retailers s...

Bala Girisaballa Appoint as CEO of Microsoft Accelerator

30Aug By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

News

Bala Girisaballa Appoint as CEO of Microsoft Accelerator

Microsoft today said Bala Girisaballa will be leading Microsoft Accelerator in India as CEO-in-Residence. Prior to this, Bala was with Globalisation and market expansion advisory Zinnov as Partner and Practice Head helping MNC R&D companies. He took charge of the Accelerators India operations, with effect from August 1. Microsoft also announced that Ravi Narayan, Director, will now assume the role of Global Director at Microsoft Accelerator. Girisaballa will lead the Accelerators efforts to help market-ready startups and entrepreneurs to scale up and become successful businesses through the technology enablement, global go-to-market efforts and deep business advisory in the form of Hi-Po and Scale-Up programs, Microsoft said in a statement here. Ravi Narayan, in his new ...

28Aug By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

CHINA

Top 500 Firms of China Report First Revenue Decline in 15 Yrs

Chinas top 500 enterprises reported their first annual decline in combined revenues in 15 years, with a 0.07 per cent drop last year, as the economy continued to slow down amid falling oil prices and overcapacity issues. Among the top 500 firms, 155 reported declines in revenues in 2015, 61 more than a year ago, with many of them representing the overcapacity-plagued coal, steel, oil and chemicals industries. Meanwhile, 72 firms reported losses, 15 more than a year ago. The data was contained in 2016 edition of the top 500 Chinese Enterprises released China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association. The list is based on revenues from 2015, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The State Grid grabbed the top spot with 2.07 trillion yuan (USD 310 bil...

25Aug By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

FUNDING

Witworks Raises Funding From Fireside Ventures, Investopad and Execs of Ola, ITC & Oyo

Witworks Consumer Technologies today said it has received an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Fireside Ventures, Investopad and executives from Ola, Oyo Rooms and ITC. The consumer technology company will use the funds for development and launch of Blink a wrist-wearable platform designed to provide access to contextual information and services on the go. Witworks aims to tap into the nascent smart wearables market currently dominated by large technology players. "Witworks has raised a seed investment round from Fireside Ventures, Investopad, P39 Capital and a syndicated group of angels, including Anupam Mittal (Shaadi.com founder), Pranay Jivrajka (Ola COO), Maninder Gulati (OYO Rooms chief of strategy), Abhinav Sinha (OYO Rooms COO) and top executives from ITC," it said i...