Over 600 social media accounts of the central government were hacked in the last five years, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
"The order to block 240 escorts websites was issued to internet service providers on Monday on recommendations made by an expert committee under the Ministry of Home Affairs," an Information Technology ministry official said.
India and the US have signed an agreement to promote innovation through increasing cooperation among startups, address regulatory hurdles and share best practices on fundraising by entrepreneurs, an official statement said on Wednesday. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) on enhancing innovation ecosystems through an innovation handshake under the framework of India-US Commercial Dialogue was signed on November 14 in San Francisco. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is in San Francisco.
Members of a parliamentary committee on Thursday raised the issue of Twitter temporarily locking the account of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in 2020 as well as misrepresentation of the Indian map by the micro-blogging site, sources said.
Former Maharashtra minister and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Aaditya Thackeray on Monday claimed nearly '50 people', including 'some middlemen' and personal assistants, will be part of the delegation that will travel with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde for the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos, Switzerland.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) too, is going big on popularising e-Sport with Singapore being confirmed to host the inaugural Olympic Esports Week in June next year.
The ministry of education is yet to take call on the recommendations by the empowered expert committee and the University Grants Commission.
Meta is working closely with the Election Commission. This enables the Commission to flag unlawful content.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to the attendees of the Kashi Tamil Sangamam in Varanasi with his speech being translated for the audience in real-time using artificial intelligence.
It started out as a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to make India an export hub. But after many a twist and turns, the latest 2.0 PLI for IT hardware, for which the 40 eligible candidates have applied till its deadline, is now focused on 'import substitution'. The scheme will help in reducing India's over-dependence on imports (80 per cent of laptops are imported), especially from China which include laptops, tablets and servers.
A fresh PIL was filed on Thursday in the Supreme Court challenging the Centre's decision to block a BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The apex court also directed the Centre to produce original records relating to take down order.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will invest nearly $4.4 billion (Rs 36,000 crore) in India by 2030 and support more than 48,000 jobs externally through a new regional service launched on Tuesday, said the on-demand Cloud computing company. AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) is the company's second infrastructure region in India, six years after it opened its first Cloud region in Mumbai in 2016. The Hyderabad region will give customers access to AWS technologies for data analytics, security, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
The Quad also vowed to work towards a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific, a region that has seen increasing Chinese military muscle-flexing in the last few years.
ISRO chairman S Somanath said the success gave the space agency "greater confidence," as the GSLV will be next deployed in the NISAR mission, a collaborative effort with the US' NASA.
Cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar will now get an opportunity to examine issues related to information technology. The Rajya Sabha MP has been included in the Standing Committee on Information and Technology.
Samariya, the first Dalit to have been appointed to the post, was working as information commissioner in the transparency panel Central Information Commission (CIC). A 1985-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Telangana cadre, Samariya retired after serving as the labour and employment secretary in the Government of India. He was sworn in as the information commissioner on November 7, 2020.
Senior advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for Twitter on Monday online, argued the company was following the rules laid out in the Information Technology Act.
The action was taken under Section 69A of the Act that empowers the government to block any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence.
The salient features of the new OTT/social media policy announced by the Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar on February 25, 2021.
While Facebook said on Tuesday it will publish an interim report on July 2 as mandated by the IT rules, Google will publish its transparency report as required under the new IT Rules in India.
Asked about action taken against those spreading fake news, and publishers of anti-national material, he said more than 60 accounts have been blocked including those on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Around $200 million worth of deposits of Indian start-ups have been withdrawn from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was taken over by US banking regulators last week after it collapsed, and moved to the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) IFSC, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state (MoS) for electronics and information technology said on Thursday. "It turns out that there was over a billion dollars of deposits of Indian start-ups in SVB. "The existential, solvency crisis that was there six-seven days ago has become much more manageable, even the short-term liquidity crisis is being addressed as the bank allows access to deposits," the minister said while speaking at Lenovo's Tech World India Edition event.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, addressing over 100 communication officers of the government, stressed on the importance of reaching out to all sections of the society, particularly the underprivileged.
The ministry has said the information is classified as 'top secret' and it cannot be disclosed.
The government has identified nine key focus areas in the AI national programme, including agriculture, education, Indian languages, smart cities, cybersecurity, transportation, and finance.
These banned clones include Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, SHAREit Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite and VFY Lite. The order regarding the ban on these apps came on Friday, July 24.
The SFJ pushed for Sikh Referendum 2020 as part of its separatist agenda. It openly espouses the cause of Khalistan and in that process challenges the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, another official said.
Zuckerberg is expected to speak for 15 minutes.
Besides representatives of Facebook, the committee has asked representatives of the ministry of electronics and information technology to remain present on September 2 to discuss on the subject of "safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space".
The political slugfest has been going on between the two, which started after Tharoor's announcement that the panel would like to hear from Facebook about the report published in Wall Street Journal claiming that the social media platform ignored applying its hate-speech rules to politicians of the ruling party in India.
The government has asked social media companies to immediately remove any content from their platform that uses or refers to the term 'Indian variant' of coronavirus, to curb misinformation around COVID-19, sources said Friday.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday closed proceedings in a petition alleging non-compliance of new IT Rules by Twitter, saying that 'nothing remained' in view of the central government being satisfied with the micro-blogging platform appointing a chief compliance officer (CCO), resident grievance officer (RGO) and nodal contact person.
While asserting that the CoWIN portal is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy, it said an internal exercise has been initiated to review the existing security measures of CoWIN.
The government on Thursday tweaked curbs on imports of laptops and computers as it allowed importers to bring in shipments of IT hardware from overseas on a mere 'authorisation' upon detailing quantity and value. The new 'import management system' is aimed at monitoring shipments of laptops, tablets and computers into the country without hurting market supply or creating a cumbersome licensing regime. The announcement is likely to provide relief to companies in the IT hardware segment in India as they had flagged concerns over the imposition of a strict licensing regime for importers.
Journalists acting in a manner prejudicial to the country's "security, sovereignty and integrity" as well as "public order, decency or morality" will lose their government accreditation, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has said in its new guidelines.
Facebook had collected certificates from both the firms in 2016-17 that data collected by them using "thisisyourdigitallife" was accounted for and destroyed.
The videos of the perfume brand Layer Shot sparked outrage among a large section of social media users, who claimed the advertisement sought to promote sexual violence against women.
The 'Indira Gandhi award for best debut film' and the 'Nargis Dutt award for best feature film on national integration' have been retitled with the names of the late prime minister and legendary actor being dropped as part of a raft of changes for the National Film Awards, according to a notification.
According to official sources, various states are contemplating bans on TikTok, Kwai, LIKE and other such apps over the next few months, on the worry that these platforms encourage child pornography, nudity and the spread of fake news, report Karan Choudhury and Neha Alawadhi.
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