Social networking site Facebook will be launching its India operations from Hyderabad - its first office in Asia - within two months from now. A proposal to this effect was cleared by the government on Saturday.
Adoption of information and communication technology by post offices in different countries has contributed to inclusive growth and more responsive governance besides giving the postal sector a competitive edge, according to a study by the International Telecommunication Union and the Universal Postal Union.
The Finance Ministry, for the second time, turned down a proposal of Jaipur IPL Cricket (JIPL), the joint-owners of Rajasthan Royals, to transfer its entire equity abroad in a cashless transaction. The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) rejected the JIPL plea on objections from the Sports Ministry, a source said.
IT sector provides direct employment to 2.5 million people and has created eight million indirect jobs.
The Union HRD minister stresses the use of technology to spread education to dispossessed areas of the country.
The surface of the earth will be fully covered by the mobile cellular network by 2015, up from 90% today, and half of the world's population will be using the mobile phones by that time.
The Union Budget deserves two or maybe two-and-a-half cheers for what it has on offer for the Indian information technology (IT).
'Global jihadis want to promote internal tensions that will steer one community against another. They are trying to do that in every part of the world and I do believe that we didn't even see that in the magnitude that we will probably see in the future, in India too, and this is on top of the Kashmir conflict,' feels counter-terrorism expert Dr Boaz Ganor.
Pranab Mukherjee proposed the enhancement of the overall plan budget for higher education by Rs 2,000 crore over the Interim Budget estimates. He further announced the allocation of Rs 2,113 crore for IITs and NITs, which includes a provision of Rs 450 crore for new IITs and NITs. The finance minister also proposed to allocate Rs 827 crore for opening one central university in each uncovered state.
The UK has relaxed its immigration rules giving greater flexibility to students and businesses that employ and sponsor international migrants.
The data centre will act as a disaster recovery platform.
The company would focus only on expanding its existing facilities at an investment of around Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion), said S Gopalakrishnan, chief executive officer and managing director.
The combined India domestic IT-ITeS market will grow by 15 per cent in 2010 to hit revenues to the tune of Rs 1,20,666 crore.
It feels worsening economic downturn will dent the internet economy. The only silver lining for the IT sector, which generates about $50 billion for Indian IT services companies, is the likely growth in the services and software sectors 'along with new internet and communications-related products and infrastructure, as they are an essential part of spending and partly recession-proof,' the OECD report said.
Majority of the revenue for the Indian IT industry continues to come from low value addition jobs like manpower provisioning and low-end support services, Modi said in Bangalore at the ICT event Bangalore IT.biz. Modi stressed that the IT industry has to reinvent itself, must focus on innovations, and on systems rather than being comfortable with services.
According to ESC's Eastern Region Chairman S Radhakrishnan 20 IT/ITes non-competing companies located in New York and Chicago would be handled in the first phase. Each year, the expenditure for such centres would be about Rs 2.5 crore (Rs 25 million) and run for three years, Radhakrishnan told reporters in Kolkata on Wednesday.
Canada has offered its partnership in areas like agriculture, mining, life sciences, ICT, financial services and infrastructure. Canada's aim in India was to create new Canadian connections in sectors like agriculture, mining, life sciences, information and communication technology (ICT), financial services and infrastructure, areas where that country's firms have proven expertise. Canadian rep hoped to see Canadian companies becoming active in the Indian market & vice versa.
The telecom regulator had on Monday said that for the first unsolicited communication, a service provider would have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 5,000, which could go up to Rs 20,000 for each subsequent call.
Reliance Telecom and Bharti Airtel have entered the second round of qualifying process for a GSM-based mobile license in Qatar that the Gulf country plans to award by October this year.
The policy aims to create around 5,000 startups, including 10 global high-growth startups, and to create a minimum of 100,000 high skilled job creation, direct and indirect, in the startup ecosystem by 2023.
African countries too are embracing new technologies and evolving ways of tackling old problems.
Seventeen firms had originally applied for the licence but the figure has since come down to 12, with several big players in the mix.
Research and consultancy firms talk about next year's top IT trends in India.
It is more efficient than 2G spectrum but is still not available for use. The introduction of 3G services can only help in improving the use of ICT for commerce and will therefore help the economy grow faster. The argument that 2G is more important than 3G since only the richer strata in urban areas will use 3G services is irrelevant since spectrum is not even an issue in rural areas, whether it is 2G or 3G.
As hard as it is to believe, the impact of information technology is far greater in rural areas than in cities, says a survey on e-governance project by management and ICT consultancy firm Skoch.
Regular use of smartphones may have a negative effect on the development of figural memory performance in adolescents.
The Centre is hoping to boost the growth of information and communication technology by lowering cost of PCs to enable more people use them, Union IT and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran said on Friday.
Singapore is the world's most successful economy in exploiting ICT developments; US fifth, China 41st.
US-based BPO firm Sutherland Global Services Inc is planning to hire over 5,000 employees globally this year, of which 4,000 would be in India.
Asserting that leading international consultancy firm A T Kearney had rated India as the third hottest FDI destination, India on Thursday sought investment from Taiwan in telecom and ICT ventures.
India needs to make use of this opportunity to significantly enhance its exports especially in information and communications technology and the automotive sector.
Jaitley said the government proposes to establish a National Testing Agency as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organisation to conduct all entrance examinations for higher education institutions.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke on Monday said there were immense opportunities to enhance bilateral trade with India.
The two agreements were signed during Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's state visit to India in May.
Smart cities would be built in a way so that they have uninterrupted power, water, proper sanitation, efficient management of solid waste, decongestion of roads, last mile connectivity and effective use of ICT.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in a report on Monday that a lower but positive economic growth in India in the post-Covid-19 pandemic period and India's large market will continue to attract market-seeking investments to the country. The World Investment Report 2020 by UNCTAD said that India was the 9th largest recipient of FDI in 2019, with 51 billion dollars of inflows during the year, an increase from the 42 billion dollars of FDI received in 2018, when India ranked 12 among the top 20 host economies in the world.
It aims to attract $100 billion investment and create 4 million jobs in the sector by 2022.
