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.
India's minister of communications and information technology speaks to Ajit Jain in Toronto.
The recent ruling by the Authority of Advance Rulings making back-office services provided by a company to global firms taxable under GST, has sent shockwaves through the information technology and business process outsourcing industry.
'Such steps would be a barrier and something people do not want.'
'To be able to sail through such volatilities, it is prudent to focus on quality.'
He said the transformation brought about by the fintech sector in India is not just limited to technology, but its social impact is far-reaching. He also stressed that fintech has dented the parallel economy and is bridging the gap between villages and cities on the financial services front. The prime minister also said that in the last 10 years, the fintech space has attracted investments of more than $31 billion and fintech startups have grown by 500 per cent.
India is among the fastest-growing markets for Google in the cloud services segment, a senior executive has said, adding that the tech giant is looking to partner companies in their business transformation through its offerings. Google Cloud India is seeing an "increased adoption" of its offerings across segments from the public sector to small and medium businesses and from startups and digital-native companies, Google Cloud India vice president and country managing director Bikram Singh Bedi told PTI.
rediffGURU Aasif Ahmed Khan counsels students on the best career options in tech and engineering.
Will allowing business correspondents to hawk insurance products help in reviving 5-lakh strong field agents as a viable channel?
While Paytm (One97 Communications) is not completely past regulatory hurdles, its share price has gained in the last month or two. The Paytm handle migration is complete along with FDI clearance necessary for the Payment Aggregator (PA) license. UPI consumer data indicates stable market share, and expansion in partner networks in financial distribution. All this implies Paytm could be set to meet guidance of turning Adjusted Ebitda breakeven by Q4FY25 (ex of UPI-incentives).
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.
The information technology and IT-enabled services sectors are expected to grow 12-14 per cent and clock export revenues of $84-87 billion in the next fiscal, industry body Nasscom said.
The objective of Section 72A is to make business operations tax-neutral encourages the amalgamation and restructuring of a company or firms by allowing set-off or carrying forward of unabsorbed depreciation and accumulated business losses.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recognised the Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) as a self-regulatory organisation (SRO) in the fintech sector, the central bank announced on Wednesday. The banking regulator received three applications for fintech SRO. Of the remaining two applications, one has been returned by the RBI with a provision for resubmission after meeting specific requirements, while the third application is still under examination, said Governor Shaktikanta Das at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai.
The Indian arm of the Union for Information & Technology Enabled Services is planning to file a public interest litigation against the alleged 'arbitrary policy' of many Indian and multinational IT/ITeS firms in India who have, for the past two months, reportedly been enforcing longer working hours that violate the daily eight-hour working mandate of the Indian Factories Act, 1948.
India must diversify its services trade away from low-cost programming if it is to remain an IT-enabled hub.
The study also found that new job generation plummeted in most sectors as about 20 out of the total 32 sectors tracked by the study registered a fall in new job generation.
Senior bankers point out that while they will eventually attract qualified professionals, onboarding them takes time.
The rupee's sharp depreciation has been the most important issue in the current debate on the state of the economy.
The proportion of women to men falls radically after the mid-management level.
A National Association of Software and Services Companies study done by McKinsey suggests that the industry has quadrupled its gross domestic product contribution to four per cent, contributed to 45 per cent of all incremental urban employment created in the last 10 years, employed over two million people and gave impetus to new entrepreneurs, and increased the number of tertiary education institutions in the country.
Three years after B Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced founder and chairman of Satyam Computer, announced the project, Mahindra Satyam dropped the project and surrendered the 26 acre-land to the state government.
During the quarter, venture capital firms have invested $144 million through 21 deals, a sharp decline compared to the corresponding period previous year which had recorded 28 deals worth $173 million. The maximum VC investment was attracted by online travel portal Cleartrip.com of about $18.5 million from DAG Ventures.
IT firms are training employees of their clients and even aspiring IT professionals, in order to create fresh revenue streams amid shrinking deal sizes in traditional software maintenance, says Ayan Pramanik.
The number of information technology professionals in West Bengal would almost treble by next year in view of the expansion in the IT and IT-enabled services sectors in the state.
New age technology will reshape India's future.
The net leasing of Grade-A commercial office space in India will stagnate this financial year at 32-34 million square feet, with global uncertainties brewing caution among key tenant categories, according to the latest Crisil Ratings report. Major seven cities in India - Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), National Capital Region (NCR) and Pune - had Grade-A office space with an operational stock of around 705 million square feet as of March 2023. India's commercial office space is dominated by technology companies, with information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) companies occupying 42-45 per cent of the operational stock.
Budget expectations 2013: IT sector.
Information technology (IT) giant Wipro has a strong pipeline of large artificial intelligence (AI)-led deals in the health care vertical, according to a senior company executive. Health care stands as the third-largest vertical for Wipro, contributing roughly 14 per cent to the company's overall revenue. Moreover, while most other verticals reported negative growth, health care demonstrated robust growth of 9.9 per cent year-on-year and 7.5 per cent quarter-on-quarter in constant currency during the October-December quarter.
Under the title of "legal enforcement", states and Union Territories were directed to appoint officers solely responsible for discharging the functions of Child Marriage Prohibition Officers at the district level.
As many as 86 per cent of senior business executives have deployed artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance revenue streams or create new ones, said a report by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Wednesday. As many as 69 per cent of businesses are more focused on using AI for innovation and increasing revenue than on improving productivity and optimising cost, said the 'TCS AI for Business Study'.
One effect of the globalisation of Indian business has been the rise in the grant by companies to staffers of employee stock options.
IT companies would be entitled to the same tax benefits as SEZ developers.
The number of frauds in the banking sector during the first half of the current financial year has increased substantially to 14,483 cases, although the amount involved is only 14.9 per cent of the previous year's amount, according to a RBI report. The report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India 2022-23, underlined the need to protect the banking system and the payments system from the risks of fraud and data breaches emanating from cyber threats. As many as 14,483 frauds were reported involving an amount of Rs 2,642 crore in the first half of current financial year, as compared to 5,396 cases (Rs 17,685 crore) in the same period a year ago.
However, Bengaluru is on a high with the share of IT/ITeS in the total office space transaction rising from 55 per cent in 2011 to 75 per cent till May 2012, according to data by DTZ, an international real estate research firm.
The effects of the sub-prime crisis and the resultant slowdown of the US market is evident on the margins of Indian information technology (IT) and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) firms. Business process outsourcing (BPO) firms such as Firstsource, Pune-based HOV Services, Zenta, Aegis BPO and others have been receiving inquiries from existing as well as new customers for ramping up their account receivables management (ARM) business.