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UIDAI Allows Airtel Aadhaar Based Verification till March 31

15Jan By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA

UIDAI Allows Airtel Aadhaar Based Verification till March 31

Aadhaar-issuing authority UIDAI has extended the temporary permission given to Bharti Airtel for using the biometric identity for re-verification of its mobile customers till March 31. It had last month allowed Airtel to use Aadhaar for re-verification of its mobile customers till January 10 with stiff riders after the company returned ₹138 crore LPG subsidy that allegedly flowed into unsolicited payment bank accounts. The Unique Identification Authority of India maintained however that Airtel Payments Bank’s eKYC licence will remain suspended till final enquiry and audit report, sources privy to the development told PTI. When contacted, an Airtel spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the UIDAI has permitted Bharti Airtel to continue Aadhaar based e-KYC till March 31, 2018, subj...

11Jan By AnkitaNo Comments

INDIA

India Lost 2 Crore Mobile Users in November

The number of telecom subscribers dwindled by 1.58 crore to 118.5 crore in November, even as Reliance Jio continued to lead in customer addition with over 15 crore subscribers, as per a report by Trai. "The number of telephone subscribers in India declined from 1,201.72 million at the end of October 2017 to 1,185.88 million at the end of November 2017, thereby showing a monthly decline rate of 1.32 per cent," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a monthly subscriber report today. The decline was mainly on account of closure of mobile services by some of the operators including Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCom), which lost over 2.57 crore subscribers during the period. As per the report, the number of total mobile subscribers declined to 116.24 crore from ...

Editors Guild Condemns FIR Against Tribune Reporter Who Exposed Aadhar Leaks

8Jan By PriyankaNo Comments

INDIA

Editors Guild Condemns FIR Against Tribune Reporter Who Exposed Aadhar Leaks

The Editors Guild of India is deeply concerned over reports that the Deputy Director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had registered an FIR against Rachna Khaira, a reporter of The Tribune, in the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police. The reporter has been booked under IPC sections 419 (punishment for cheating under impersonation), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), 471 (using a forged document) and also under sections of the IT Act and the Aadhar Act. The Tribune report of January 3 by Khaira had exposed how, for a small sum of money made to a payment bank, an agent of a private group would allegedly create a gateway to access details contained in an individual’s Aadhar card. Using a false identity, Khaira had posed as an interested party and claimed in her report that s...

4Jan By RishabhNo Comments

INDIA

RBI To Issue Chocolaty New Rs 10 Notes

The Reserve Bank of India will be issuing new Rs 10 notes under Mahatma Gandhi series. The new Rs 10 notes will soon be available in chocolate brown color as the base with a picture of Konark Sun Temple. As per the source, the government has already printed around 1 billion pieces of the new Rs 10 note. It was only last week that the designed got approved by the government, which has not been changed since 2005. The new Rs 200 and Rs 50 notes were launched in August 2017 under the Mahatma Gandhi series. The aim of introducing new notes of lower denominations is solely to prevent counterfeiting of notes and promote digital economy. The government has been trying hard to promote digital money, i.e. payments by debit, credit cards or digital wallet in a bid to eliminate black money o...

TCS Secures Record $2.25 Billion Deal From Nielsen

23Dec By PriyankaNo Comments

INDIA

TCS Secures Record $2.25 Billion Deal From Nielsen

Those who are saying that the days of Indian IT industries are over are now yet to rethink because one of India's leading IT exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has bagged a record USD 2.25-billion outsourcing contract from Nielsen, a television rating measurement firm. The partnership, signed in October this year, is a renewal of TCS existing collaboration with Nielsen. The two companies had struck a 10-year deal in 2008 for USD 1.2 billion, which was expanded to USD 2.5 billion in 2013. Under the new deal, the terms of the agreement have been extended for an additional five years so as to expire on December 31, 2025, with three one-year renewal options granted to Nielsen, the TV rating company said in a regulatory filing to the US SEC. "Nielsen has committed to purchase servic...

Free speech cannot be absolute, should not be trampled upon:VP

21Dec By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA

Free speech cannot be absolute, should not be trampled upon:VP

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said today that freedom of speech and expression cannot be "absolute" but it should also not be trampled upon. Naidu, who was the Information and Broadcasting Minister before getting elected as the vice president, said he was "not pleased" with India's ranking in the World Press Freedom Index. This issue should be addressed by strengthening medias independence, ensuring transparent flow of information, making legal framework more coherent and ensuring safety of journalists, he said. India's World Press Freedom Index ranking plunged to 136 in 2017. Naidu, in his keynote address at the Ramnath Goenka Awards for Excellence in Journalism, also said that he twice expressed the desire before Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retire from active politics and...

18Dec By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA

India Can Grow At 8 Percent For Next 20 Years: UN Expert

India can achieve an 8 per cent growth rate for the next two decades if it unleashes the next set of reforms that could help it in realising its full potential, according to a senior UN official. The UN, in its latest report, projected Indias growth rate to be 7.2 per cent in 2018 and 7.4 per cent in 2019. Describing India's economic condition as largely positive and "favourable to growth", Sebastian Vergara, an Economic Affairs Officer at the UN, said the country needs to unleash the next set of reforms to achieve its potential. "It needs to think as to how to maintain and consolidate its growth for a very long period of time. India in our assessment has the potential to grow at eight per cent, not for a few years, but 20 years," Vergara told PTI. "For that, India needs to com...

17Dec By PriyankaNo Comments

INDIA

Indian Government Will Bear Merchant Charges On Debit Cards To Promote Digital Transactions

Indian government is trying to encourage small shopkeepers to accept electronic payments, by bearing the merchant charges, that one needs to pay to the banks, on purchases of up to Rs 2,000 starting January 1, 2018. The subsidy will be provided to the small shop owners who now need to pay a fees to the banks for transactions through Debit cards, BHIM or Aadhaar. In India, where the average debit transaction value is just Rs 1,500, accepting debit cards for payments will become as cheap as accepting cards for small merchants. This news was announced by IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, saying that government is implementing measures to accelerate digital payments in the country. Also a committee of secretaries has been set-up to ensure that no misuse of subsidy occurs and that benefits...

Flipkart Completed Buyback Share Programme Worth $100M, With 3,000 Participants

13Dec By RishabhNo Comments

BUSINESS, INDIA

Flipkart Completed Buyback Share Programme Worth $100M, With 3,000 Participants

Indian online e-commerce giant Flipkart has recently completed its $100 million re-purchase of employee stock options (ESOPs), marking it the largest share buyback programme in Indian startup history, a financial daily reported. In a release on Wednesday, Flipkart said that over 3,000 existing and former employees of Flipkart, PhonePe, Myntra, and Jabong had participated in this programme, Mint reported. “Employees are our biggest source of strength, without whom Flipkart couldn’t have built the e-commerce industry in India. As an organisation, we believe they should be equal partners in Flipkart’s success. This ESOP repurchase programme is an extension of that culture, and a token of thanks for the dedication and hard work they have put in over the years. We’re delighted to be setti...

I-T Department Conducts Surveys At Bitcoin Exchanges Country-Wide

13Dec By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

INDIA, News

I-T Department Conducts Surveys At Bitcoin Exchanges Country-Wide

The Income Tax Department today conducted survey operations at major Bitcoin exchanges across the country on suspicion of alleged tax evasion, official sources said. They said various teams of the sleuths of the department, under the command of the Bengaluru investigation wing, today visited the premises of nine such exchanges in the country including in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi and Gurugram, since early morning. The survey, under section 133A of the Income Tax Act, is being conducted for "gathering evidence for establishing the identity of investors and traders, transaction undertaken by them, identity of counterparties, related bank accounts used, among others," they said. The survey teams, sources said, are armed with various financial data and inputs about the workin...

1Dec By reutersNo Comments

INDIA

India sees growth rebound as businesses adjust to GST

India’s economic growth rebounded in the three months ending in September, halting a five-quarter slide as businesses started to overcome teething troubles after the bumpy launch of a national sales tax. Data released on Thursday showing faster growth could help Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been facing criticism over the hasty July launch of a goods and services tax (GST). The tax was aimed at transforming India’s 29 states into a single customs union but it has hit millions of small businesses due to complex rules and technical glitches. Gross domestic product grew 6.3 percent in July-September, its fastest pace in three quarters, compared with 7.5 percent a year earlier, the data showed. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast annual growth of 6.4 percent in the q...

1Dec By reutersNo Comments

INDIA

Nissan Sues India Over Outstanding Dues; Seeks Over $770M

Japanese automaker Nissan Motor has begun international arbitration against India to seek more than $770 million in a dispute over unpaid state incentives, according to a person familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by Reuters. In a legal notice sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, Nissan sought payment of incentives due from the Tamil Nadu government as part of a 2008 agreement to set up a car manufacturing plant in the southern state. According to the notice, Nissan said repeated requests to state officials for the payment, due in 2015, were overlooked and even a plea by the company’s chairman, Carlos Ghosn, to Modi in March of last year seeking federal assistance did not yield any results. The notice, sent by Nissan’s lawyers in July 2016, was followed by more th...