Flipkart's hyper-value e-commerce platform Shopsy is intensifying efforts to tap over half of the 821 million internet users (about 442 million) in rural India. These efforts are being led by Prathyusha Agarwal, who recently joined as business head at Shopsy. The aim is to become the go-to destination for consumers seeking entry-level products across various categories.
Nasdaq-listed Cognizant Technology Solutions has signed a definitive agreement to acquire global engineering company Belcan for about $1.3 billion (Rs 10,853.7 crore) in cash and stock. The transaction is expected to close in the September quarter. The total consideration includes $1.19 billion (Rs 9,935.31 crore) in cash and 1.47 million Cognizant shares, valued at $97 million (Rs 809.53 crore) based on the information technology services provider's closing share price on June 7, 2024.
Messages sent through Internet-based messaging service providers such as Whatsapp, Signal, and Telegram, as well as those which are encrypted, are understood to be within the Act's ambit.
Sources close to the development told Business Standard the company was exploring different ways to save on its employee costs and had laid off a few employees on "performance" grounds. "We will see a similar development for the next few months. "The company is fine-tuning its hiring policies and implement rigourous measures to look into employee performance," a source said.
Artificially intelligent smartphones will be able to offer solutions and suggestions based on user behaviour.
Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer of Ola, is encouraging developers to switch from Google Maps to Ola Maps. Ola is offering developers a year of free access to Ola Maps on the company's Krutrim Cloud and over Rs 100 crore in free credits. This initiative comes after Ola replaced Google Maps with its own Ola Maps, leading to annual savings of around Rs 100 crore.
'India has a skill shortage of 56%.' 'This is a very interesting paradox -- the unemployment rate is 6% to 7%, and at the same time 20% of those qualified are unemployed.'
Organisations are facing growing privacy concerns over the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) while getting attractive returns from investments in privacy, according to Cisco's latest Data Privacy Benchmark Study. The findings highlight the responses from 2,600 privacy and security professionals across 12 geographies, said the annual review of key privacy issues impacting business. "Organisations see GenAI as a fundamentally different technology with novel challenges to consider," said Dev Stahlkopf, Cisco Chief Legal Officer.
'The pricing model will be different. The product will be different.'
In March 2021, Ola Electric founder Bhavish Aggarwal was seen surveying an empty 500-acre land surrounded by shoe factories, temples, bakery shops, coconut trees and dusty roads in Pochampalli town of Krishnagiri district, Tamil Nadu. Many excavators and workers were busy at the construction site to build the Ola Futurefactory for electric vehicles.
India's internet economy is estimated to reach $1 trillion by 2030, primarily due to e-commerce, which is expected to be worth $325 billion and rank third globally, according to industry experts. Last year marked a crucial turning point for India's e-commerce sector, with notable changes in consumer trends, technology, and regulations. InGovern Research Services, a leading corporate governance advisory firm, hosted a virtual roundtable to deliberate on the notable developments in India's e-commerce sector in 2023, with a particular focus on the essential role of customer trust in fueling its ongoing expansion.
Infosys said on Tuesday it is collaborating with Microsoft to jointly develop industry solutions that leverage Infosys Topaz, Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Cognitive Services. Both organisations are bringing together their respective artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to enhance enterprise functions with AI-enabled solutions across multiple industries. The integrated solutions are aimed at accelerating the rapid democratisation of data and intelligence that will help businesses increase productivity and drive new revenue growth.
'If creative jobs can get disrupted, then left brain jobs like coding are easily disrupted. We are going through the journey of huge disruption.'
A bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, which had taken cognisance of the incident, has kept the matter on top of the cause list for hearing at 10:30 am on Tuesday.
Digital literacy is emerging as the professional language of 2024. It is the ability to process complex data sets, deploy critical communication technologies appropriately and validate your importance at your workplace, explains Jagdeep Kochar, managing director, Baker & Taylor India.
While the current headcount reduction has more to do with slowing demand, the rise of artificial intelligence will impact jobs in the future.
Nearly 40 per cent of IITians sitting for placements in 2024 are yet to receive job offers, showing a doubling of the 'unplaced' in the last three years from 19 per cent in 2021-2022 to 38 per cent in 2023-2024.
'A credit line on UPI is going to make banks think about credit fundamentally as they digitise the credit process entirely.'
'The hiring in India will be primarily around skills in data engineering, AI, and product engineering.'
Zee Entertainment on Friday said it has "pruned" its Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) by about 50 per cent following the guidance of a special committee, which had conducted a critical assessment of its several business verticals. The MD & CEO has pruned TIC staff strength by 50 per cent to achieve a cost-effective structure, a Bengaluru-based business vertical of the company that offers technology solutions, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) said in an official statement.
IT services firm Infosys has said that a global company has decided to terminate a multi-year contract worth $1.5 billion with it. On September 14, 2023, Infosys announced a pact with a global company to offer enhanced digital experiences alongside modernisation and business operations services leveraging Infosys platforms and AI (Artificial Intelligence) solutions. In a BSE filing on Saturday, Infosys said the global company has now elected to terminate the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the parties will not be pursuing the master agreement."
Police said there were intelligence inputs that attempts would be made to trigger violence during the match, because of which it was cancelled.
After months of tracking, Indian intelligence agencies finally managed to get India's Most Wanted, and Operation Yasin Bhatkal finally became a success. Vicky Nanjappa speaks to two intelligence officers and finds that Yasin had found a safe haven in Nepal and was planning on crossing over to Pakistan.
'A mule operates someone else's account to transfer illegal money.'
'Alongside economic growth and the Asian century, stress has become an Asian caravan.' 'But stress doesn't arrive in one's country as invitation to taste exhaustion. It comes dressed as a challenge.' 'Its evangelists ask: Are you man enough to shoulder stress?' points out Shyam G Menon.
'Their deteriorating economic and international situation is also responsible for being more reasonable.'
Food delivery major Swiggy has received approval from its shareholders for a $1.25 billion initial public offering (IPO), according to filings made with the Registrar of Companies sourced by Tofler. The Bengaluru-based firm plans to raise as much as Rs 3,750 crore (around $450 million) via a fresh issue and up to Rs 6,664 crore (around $800 million) through an offer-for-sale (OFS) component, the filings stated.
For Lori Beer, chief information officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co, largest banker in the US, India is a big part of the organisation's global technology footprint and is core to its products and services. This is evident from the fact that in less than two months since JPMorgan & Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon visited India, Beer has come here to see the recently opened centres in Mumbai and Bengaluru. "What is different for me this year are our new centres and to be able to come and see the vibrancy, and connectedness is great.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified "climate shocks" as a risk to food inflation rates and overall price rise while stating that the outlook for the country's economic growth remains bright. In its Annual Report for 2023-24, released on Thursday, the central bank said easing supply-chain pressures, broad-based softening in core inflation, and early indications of an above-normal southwest monsoon meant well for the inflation outlook in 2024-25. "The increasing incidence of climate shocks, however, imparts considerable uncertainty to the food inflation and overall inflation outlook," said the RBI while noting headline inflation moderated by 1.3 percentage points on an annual average basis to 5.4 per cent in 2023-24.
The regulatory gap between crypto firms registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-India) and unregistered offshore entities is expected to narrow, industry players said, after global crypto players Binance and KuCoin received approvals to register with India's anti-money laundering unit.
"If I am using data to build intelligence and personalisation for you, then it's meaningful," says Ankur Warikoo, co-founder and CEO, Nearbuy.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has to "keep evolving" and be relevant to clients as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies emerge, K Krithivasan, chief executive officer and managing director of the IT company, has said in a New Year's message to employees. "It is always heartening to see the reinforcement of how strong our relationships are with our clients and the level of trust they place with us.
Creating an LLM trained on Indian languages is not easy. Experts say each language in India has a nuance of its own, so creating a ChatGPT-like product is an ambitious challenge.
Wipro said it has used its industry-leading cybersecurity practices and partner ecosystem for remedial steps and has shared this intelligence with its partners to develop the AntiVirus signatures.
Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) funding for Indian startups in the artificial intelligence sector has seen a dramatic decrease with deal sizes shrinking, notwithstanding the buzz around the country's potential as a major AI hub. Data from research agency Traxcn, which tracks PE/VC investments, shows that total funding for AI startups in India, which started with a bang in 2022 at $599 million, dropped sharply in 2023 to $168.4 million - a decrease of over 71 per cent.
After startups and Big Tech, the layoff season may have begun at the $245 billion Indian information-technology (IT) industry. Bengaluru-based IT major Wipro is looking to cut hundreds of jobs, targeting mid-level employees working onsite as the company looks to improve margins, according to a media report, citing two sources. The company has said it is aligning its business and talent to the changing market environment.
'An entire operation was running systematically prior to the revoking of Article 370.'
India's fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector witnessed growth in rural consumption in volume terms outpace urban consumption for the first time in five quarters, in the January-March period. According to a report from consumer intelligence firm NIQ, rural consumption grew at a rate of 7.6 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in Q1CY24, overtaking that in urban areas which stood at 5.7 per cent.
Russia and China are tight-fisted and Iran is broke and none of them has the political will or capacity to bankroll the Afghan economy, which only the US can, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Dhanush deserves credit for imagining a visually rich, edgy action thriller which is enhanced by a fascinating background score from A R Rahman, observes Divya Nair.
