The country's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund also increased by $ 3.6 million to $ 3.344 billion.
Traders who pay in rupees generate over Rs 50 crore in daily cryptocurrency volumes. Indians actually invest a great deal more in forex-denominated trades, observes Devangshu Dutta, explaining why it is impossible to ban cryptocurrency.
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The auction for the 5G spectrum is likely to take place around April-May next year, Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. While relief measures announced in September this year for telecom operators marked the first set of reforms, the government will bring out a series of further reforms and "telecom regulatory structure should change in coming 2-3 years", Vaishnaw said. Speaking at the 'Times Now Summit 2021', the minister said India's telecom sector regulation has to be benchmarked with the global best, and added that "so, we will come with a series of reforms in this, such that the global benchmark of regulations is achieved in India".
The Delhi high court on Friday asked the Centre to reply to pleas by Facebook and WhatsApp challenging the new IT rules for social media intermediaries requiring the messaging app to "trace" chats and make provisions to identify the first originator of information.
Right to privacy includes right to be forgotten and to be left alone, the Delhi High Court has said while directing various online platforms including YouTube to remove certain objectionable videos and audio clips of a Bengali actress.
WhatsApp has scrapped its May 15 deadline for users to accept its controversial privacy policy update and said not accepting the terms will not lead to deletion of accounts.
Japanese chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato declined to give details but said Japan would make every effort to protect the Games from possible hacking attempts.
Here are 10 images that prove we live in a wonderfully weird world!
The submission was made by the UN Special Rapporteurs on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan; on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Clement Nyaletsossi Voule; and the right to privacy, Joseph Cannataci.
The plan is to establish a consultative panel and appoint mediators to address various domestic issues, both at the central government and state levels.
The value of the gold reserves increased $78.2 million to $22.764 billion
Social media giant Facebook has named Spoorthi Priya as its grievance officer for India on its website.
Head of WHO's emergency programme, Dr. Mike Ryan said the decision regarding future of the Tokyo Games will be made 'very soon'.
The UK's medicines regulator on Friday approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds.
There was speculation that a one-time special Covid-19 cess would be imposed and that it would raise an estimated Rs 18,000 crore.
'Our proactive detection rate for hate speech in India is close to 97 per cent -- which means that of the hate speech content we remove, we detect 97 per cent of it proactively, even before anyone reports it.'
The temptation to get into businesses that are hot is perhaps too great for any politician, no matter what his public slogans are. Nehru plunged into hot sectors of his time -- engineering and iron and steel. Modi has plunged into digital payments -- the hot sector of his time, notes Debashis Basu.
Initial data has shown immunity triggered by the two mRNA vaccines -- Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna -- lasts for at least six months
The main sectors that receive the maximum foreign inflows include services, computer software and hardware, telecommunications, trading, construction, automobile, and power.
WhatsApp on Wednesday said it expects to facilitate the purchase of "affordable sachet-sized" health insurance through its platform by the end of the year as part of its efforts to provide users in India with greater access to financial solutions. The Facebook-owned company noted that its 'Payments' feature is now available to users across the country (currently up to 20 million users) with support from banking partners - State Bank of India, HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank.
The partnership will also see the two parties cooperate on technology initiatives, including development of affordable smartphones.
The Tokyo Olympics should be called off to spare athletes the "stress" of trying to train in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, UK Athletics chairman Nic Coward said on Friday.
Google LLC has contended that the information technology rules for digital media are not applicable to its search engine, and urged the Delhi high court on Wednesday to set aside a single judge order which applied the rules on the company while dealing with an issue related to removal of offending content from the internet.
The volunteers are asked to keep an eye on posts which are against the sovereignty and integrity of India, against the defence of India, against the security of the state, against friendly relations with foreign states, content aimed at disturbing public order, disturbing communal harmony and child sex abuse material.
India conceding ground to bring only top 100 digital companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix into the global taxation pact may have revenue implications. This will mean that New Delhi will have to withdraw the contentious 2 per cent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators by 2023. This may have revenue implications for India, experts pointed out, as the equalisation levy has a much lower annual revenue threshold of Rs 2 crore (euro 0.2 million) as against euro 20 billion agreed by 130 countries at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). India, along with other developing countries, was pitching for at least euro 1 billion threshold to cover at least 5,000 global entities. India collected Rs 2,057 crore from the equalisation levy in 2020-21, an 85 per cent growth over Rs 1,136 crore in the previous fiscal.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed banks and financial institutions to provide services related to cryptocurrencies by setting aside the RBI's 2018 circular which had prohibited them. A three-judge bench, headed by Justice R F Nariman, said the Reserve Bank of India circular is liable to be set aside on the ground of "proportionality". "Accordingly, the writ petitions are allowed and the circular dated April 6, 2018 is set aside," said the bench, also comprising justices Aniruddha Bose and V Ramasubramanian.
Reacting to India's ban on the Chinese apps at a foreign ministry briefing, spokesman Zhao Lijian said, "The Indian government has the responsibility to uphold the legitimate and legal rights of the international investors including the Chinese ones."
Amid increasing popularity of virtual currencies in various parts of the world, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said it is open to exploring the possibility of a digital version of fiat currency. Host of private digital currencies, virtual currencies and cryptocurrencies have gained popularity in recent years, though Indian authorities continue to remain sceptical about them. "In India, the regulators and governments have been sceptical about these currencies and are apprehensive about the associated risks. "Nevertheless, the RBI is exploring the possibility as to whether there is a need for a digital version of fiat currency and in case there is, then how to operationalise it," the RBI said in its booklet on 'Payment Systems in India -- Journey in the Second Decade of the Millennium'.
After a report mentioned that Facebook overlooked its hate speech policies in cases of BJP MLA T Raja Singh and 3 others, Shashi Tharoor, chairperson of Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, said the committee 'would certainly wish to hear from Facebook'.
The most prominent changes deal with how WhatsApp shares information with Facebook and its subsidiaries.
The IT ministry has now written to all these companies, warning that continued availability and operation of these banned apps, directly or indirectly, is not only illegal but also an offence under the Information Technology Act and other applicable Acts, which would attract penal provisions.
The company is planning to bring IT operations into India which will include application development and desktop managed services.
The new PN3 norms and lack of clarity on what constitutes beneficial ownership are the primary reasons for the decline in investments from China and Hong Kong.
There are no regulations governing virtual currencies in India and the RBI has not given any licence to any entity/company to operate such currencies.
From its March 2020 low, Bitcoin has gained a massive 474 per cent and has surged 214 per cent year-to-date.
French security researcher Robert Baptiste posted a screenshot suggesting the micro-blogging platform that offers a Twitter-like experience in Indian languages had Chinese connections.
"Virtual currencies, also variously referred to as crypto currencies and crypto assets, raise concerns of consumer protection, market integrity and money laundering, among others," RBI said.
WhatsApp will not delete any account for not accepting its new privacy update, but users not agreeing to the controversial terms after "several weeks" will not be able to access their chat list, and eventually, will not be able to answer incoming phone or video calls over the app.
A collection of PHOTOS on New Year celebrations from around the world
