'There were deep discussions within the Sangh Parivar before this decision was made.' 'They were convinced, and only then did the Modi government proceed with the caste census.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocated for a global framework for artificial intelligence (AI) based on open source, emphasizing the need for trust, transparency, and the elimination of biases. Co-chairing the AI Action Summit with French President Emmanuel Macron, Modi highlighted the transformative potential of AI across various domains, including politics, economics, security, and society. He stressed the importance of democratizing technology, addressing concerns about cyber security and disinformation, and developing quality data sets free from biases. Modi also acknowledged the need for open-source AI ecosystems to foster trust and transparency, while emphasizing the importance of localized technology for effectiveness and usefulness. Recognizing the potential of AI to improve health, education, and agriculture, Modi proposed pooling resources and talent to leverage the technology for sustainable development goals. Addressing concerns about job displacement, he emphasized that while the nature of work may evolve, technology creates new opportunities. Modi highlighted India's leadership in AI adoption and data privacy solutions, emphasizing the nation's readiness to share its expertise and contribute to an AI future that benefits all.
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.
'It has the potential to sow seeds of furthering discord when the direction of the discourse is aimed at propagating the perceived supremacy of 'cultural nationalism' from a distant past over the prevailing dominance of 'Constitutional nationalism',' argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Soros, a Hungarian-American political activist, and his organisations like OSF have been accused by the ruling BJP of acting against India's interests. His utterances during the Adani-Hindenburg controversy also drew criticism from the party.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has earmarked assets worth about Rs 15,000 crore that will be restored to victims of real estate, Ponzi and other frauds across India during the current financial year. The agency has been "aggressively" initiating this provision for restitution since last year to ensure rightful claimants duped by financial crime get their dues. The ED has already restored Rs 31,951 crore worth of assets under this provision, including Rs 15,201.65 crore from 2019-21 in cases related to Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL). The ED Director has issued directions to all regions to actively work on cases marked for restitution of assets worth Rs 15,000 crore during the financial year 2025-26.
Stepping up the company's AI and cloud play, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday announced that Jio users will get up to 100 GB of free cloud storage to securely store and access their photos, videos, documents, digital content and data. Addressing the 47th AGM of RIL, Ambani said the Jio AI-Cloud Welcome offer will be launched during the upcoming Diwali, which would bring a "powerful and affordable solution where cloud data storage and data-powered AI services are available to everyone, everywhere". "Jio users will get up to 100 GB of free cloud storage to securely store and access all their photos, videos, documents, all other digital content, and data.
In a serious data breach, personally identifiable information of 815 million Indians has been up on the dark web for sale, according to a report by US-based cybersecurity firm Resecurity. Details such as Aadhaar and passport information along with names, phone numbers and addresses are available for sale online, it has said.
When Gensol Engineering made its public market debut through a small and medium enterprises (SME) initial public offering (IPO) in September 2019, its promoters held a commanding 96 per cent stake. Now, that figure has shrunk to a "negligible" fraction.
The Indian government has informed Parliament that there are currently over 10,000 Indian prisoners, including undertrials, in foreign jails. The Ministry of External Affairs shared country-wise data, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE having the highest number of Indian prisoners. The government has assured that it prioritizes the safety and well-being of Indians abroad and provides consular assistance, legal aid, and financial support to those imprisoned.
After the Competition Commission imposed a Rs 213-crore penalty on Meta in relation to WhatsApp privacy policy, the company said it disagrees with the watchdog's decision and plans to appeal. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Monday asked WhatsApp to refrain from sharing user data with other applications, owned by Meta, for advertising purposes for a period of five years.
Developers in India now have expanded access to Google's powerful AI models with the 2 million token context window in Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemma 2, the next generation of open models.
We no longer have the ambition to rival China save through words. We are happy to be fighting ourselves and digging up disputes from centuries ago as a substitute for real development, argues Aakar Patel.
Taxing capital less may not lead to more investments but taxing more will drive capital away, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Friday said during a discussion on Inequality, Economic Growth and Inclusion. While it is easy to drive capital out, bringing it back is a lot harder, said Nageswaran.
According to a parliamentary response by the Union health ministry in 2023, around 654,000 families in Delhi are eligible to enrol under the scheme.
'The choice is clear: We either embrace this transformation and cement our global leadership, or hesitate, lose ground, and fade into irrelevance.'
331,602 Indians are studying in the US, making India the 'top sender' of international students to America for the first time in 15 years, as it overtook China for the academic year 2023-2024.
'He's got a lot of time ahead of him'
Front-running is a fraudulent practice where traders exploit advance knowledge of large client orders for personal profit.
Bad loans in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry more than doubled in financial year 2024 (FY24) to Rs 1,163 crore from Rs 472.1 crore in FY23, said a financial services company on Monday. Non-performing assets (NPAs), as such loans are officially called, were a modest Rs 14.7 crore at the end of FY19 when P2P lending was in its nascent stage, according to Capitalmind Financial Services that accessed data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through a right to information application.
The BJP received the highest amount in large donations among national parties in the financial year 2023-24, with over Rs 2,243 crore declared from 8,358 donations, according to a report by poll rights body the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The report, based on data submitted to the Election Commission, highlighted trends in political donations above Rs 20,000. The total declared donations to national parties stood at Rs 2,544.28 crore from 12,547 contributions - a sharp 199 per cent increase compared to the previous year.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said the fundamental drivers of the Indian economy are gaining momentum and the country is moving on a sustainable growth path. In the inaugural address at FIBAC 2024, the governor said that massive changes are taking shape in various economic sectors and markets, and the country is geared for orbital shifts.
India stares at the risk of an influx of Chinese products as US tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, including solar panels, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, syringes, and steel, are set to take effect from September 27. With higher tariffs reducing China's access to the US market, there is concern that China may divert its exports to other markets, including India, which could lead to potential dumping of goods. This situation could challenge Indian industries, particularly in sectors where competition with Chinese products is already fierce.
From the 30-share blue-chip pack, Adani Ports dropped over 4 per cent. UltraTech Cement, Sun Pharma, IndusInd Bank, NTPC and Tata Steel were also the among the laggards. Nestle, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Tech were among the gainers.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will launch the Unified Lending Interface (ULI) nationwide in due course, aiming to transform India's lending sector, similar to how the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) revolutionised the payments ecosystem, Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Monday.
Markets regulator Sebi has notified a stricter regulatory framework for small and medium enterprise (SME) IPOs by introducing a profitability requirement and capping a 20 per cent limit on offer-for-sale (OFS). The reforms aim to provide SMEs with a sound track record an opportunity to raise funds from the public while protecting investor interests. This move follows a rise in SME issues, which has driven significant investor participation.
'The intensity and frequency of heatwaves will be much higher than in previous years over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.'
The government on Thursday tabled the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 in the Lok Sabha with an aim to protect the privacy of Indian citizens, while proposing a penalty of up to Rs 250 crore on entities for misusing or failing to protect digital data of individuals.
'Mamata needs to address the anger and resentment among various sections of the Hindu community because low-scale communal violence has always paid richer electoral dividends for the BJP.'
The government will investigate a claim that WhatsApp accessed the microphone of smartphone users while the phone was not in use, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday.
From a few rain gauges in 1875 to rivalling the world's best weather agencies, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has weathered its way to becoming a global leader in forecasting.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar clarified the process of deportation of Indian nationals from the US, stating that it is not a new phenomenon and has been ongoing for several years. He assured the Rajya Sabha that the government is engaging with the US to ensure that the deported Indians are not mistreated during their transit. Jaishankar also emphasized the need for strong action against the illegal migration industry while ensuring ease of visas for legitimate travellers. The minister provided details about the number of Indians deported from the US since 2009, highlighting the peak in 2019 with 2,042 deportations.
Non-banking entities such as fintech firms will have to tap into use cases beyond peer-to-peer (P2P) and peer-to-merchant (P2M) transactions to scale up the presence of the retail version of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is also known as the e, said industry players. These use cases will enable programmable transactions across domains, including the government's direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes, with subsidies restricted to specific purposes such as food coupons, hospital bills, fertilisers, pesticides, and cross-border remittances.
After subdued earnings in the first half amid global headwinds, India Inc is taking a cautious approach on their capital expenditure (capex) for the second half of the financial year ending March 2025, according to management commentary. Minutes from the October monetary policy meeting show the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) optimism about private investments picking up.
Such private universities are empowered to award general degree programmes without the specific approval of the UGC, the official said.
AI-driven and deepfake-enabled cyberattacks are anticipated to become increasingly prevalent in 2025 with sectors like healthcare and finance most prone targets, according to a recent report. The India Cyber Threat Report 2025 by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and Seqrite, spotlighted the evolving tactics of cybercriminals and the rise of AI-driven attacks as a major concern. "Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be used to develop highly sophisticated phishing campaigns utilising deepfake technology and personalised attack vectors, making them harder to detect.
'No one manufactures intelligence at the moment.' 'This is a concept that your IT industry understands.' 'What you need is infrastructure. Everything else can then be taken care of.'
'The earlier a child is given a smartphone, the worst it becomes when they are 17, 18.' 'Every year you delay in giving a smartphone to child, the outcome becomes better.' 'The behavioural changes that are very specific to smartphones are aggression and anger.'
India is trying to add 75,000 medical seats in five years as it also eyes to touch the WHO standard of one doctor for every 1,000 persons.