Messaging platform WhatsApp on Wednesday said it has rolled out a pilot program across 500 villages across Karnataka and Maharashtra, aimed at empowering villagers with access to digital payments through 'payments on WhatsApp'. The announcement was made at Fuel For India 2021 - Meta's annual event in India. WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose said the pilot aims to effect a behavioral transformation to digital payments at the grassroots.
A day after getting permission to raise its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) user base to 100 million, WhatsApp on Thursday said it has plans to make significant investments in 'payments on WhatsApp' across India, including India-first features and driving adoption. The company, however, did not share details of its plans. The Meta-owned messaging app got its first greenlight for its payments service from the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) in November 2020 with a cap of 20 million users. A year later, in November 2021, the limit was raised to 40 million users.
The controversy also prompted a wave of support for Nafeesumma from various sections of society on social media on Thursday.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has alleged that leaders of the opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) were involved in a "conspiracy" against his cabinet colleague Jaykumar Gore in a case involving a woman. Fadnavis said there was proof of communication between NCP leaders Supriya Sule and Rohit Pawar, and one of the accused in the case where three persons, including the woman, have been arrested for trying to extort money from Gore. He also pointed to Gore's acquittal more than five years ago in a case involving the woman's allegations of harassment. Fadnavis emphasized that opposition and ruling parties are political opponents and not enemies. The CM also criticized the behavior of some opposition members in the state assembly, accusing them of insulting the House and pressuring ministers.
'Indian players in the digital market should not be dominated by global players, and they should not dominate the smaller players -- these discussions are on.'
The city's traffic control room on Thursday received the Rs 5 crore threat message on its WhatsApp helpline, police earlier said.
WhatsApp on Tuesday said its latest policy update does not affect the privacy of messages as the Facebook-owned company sought to address concerns around security of user data on the platform.
The most prominent changes deal with how WhatsApp shares information with Facebook and its subsidiaries.
The ministry has taken a strong position on the matter, and made it clear that it is not just problematic but also "irresponsible" for the messaging platform to leverage its position to impose "unfair" terms and conditions on Indian users, when many depend on WhatsApp to communicate in everyday life, according to the sources.
The ministry of electronics and information technology has directed WhatsApp to withdraw its new privacy policy, according to sources. The IT ministry believes that the changes to WhatsApp privacy policy and the manner of introducing the said changes undermines the sacrosanct values of informational privacy, data security and user choice and harms the rights and interests of Indian citizens, government sources said. The government has given seven days to WhatsApp to respond to the notice and if no satisfactory response is received, necessary steps in consonance with law will be taken, sources informed. In a communication to WhatsApp on May 18, the ministry has once again told the messaging platform to withdraw its privacy policy 2021, they said.
Link your UPI app to a separate bank account or wallet that has only a limited sum.
In a recent operation, Bihar Police busted a fraudulent scheme operating under the guise of 'All India Pregnant Job Service', which deceived men with promises of substantial payments for impregnating childless women.
A Mumbai court has extended the police remand of the boyfriend of an Air India pilot, who allegedly committed suicide, until December 2. The police are seeking to retrieve deleted WhatsApp chats between the two from the boyfriend's mobile phone, believing the chats could contain crucial information about the pilot's death. The boyfriend, Aditya Pandit, was arrested and charged with abetment of suicide after the pilot, Srishti Tuli, was found dead in her apartment on Monday.
A Dalit student at Delhi University's Shaheed Bhagat Singh College has filed a police complaint alleging that its principal hurled casteist slurs and assaulted him after he was falsely accused of sending obscene messages on the official WhatsApp group of his department. The student, a third-year BA Hindi Honours student, claimed the incident caused him mental trauma and defamation. He has also written to the University Vice-Chancellor and the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, seeking action against those involved. The principal has denied the allegations, claiming the student was being manipulated by a faculty member against whom an inquiry is underway.
Mumbai Police on Saturday received a message threatening to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an official said.
Fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Wednesday ordered a detailed probe into popular messaging platform WhatsApp's updated privacy policy and terms of service after finding that the 'exploitative and exclusionary conduct' in the garb of the policy update prima facie violated competition norms.
A new cyber fraud known as 'pig butchering scam' or 'investment scam' has emerged, targeting unemployed youths, housewives, students, and needy people who are made to lose large sums of money daily, according to the latest annual report of the Union home ministry.
There's not any effort -- not even a smidgen -- to resurrect a superstar on the wane in Sikandar, sighs Sukanya Verma.
The plea was filed by advocate Chaitanya Rohilla who stated that WhatsApp changed its privacy policy in "most arbitrary manner" and had made it compulsory for its users to accept its terms and conditions, failing which the accounts and services would be terminated after February 8, 2021 for the respective user.
The chargesheet in the murder case of Santosh Deshmukh, sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed district, reveals horrific details of the torture he endured at the hands of his abductors. The accused recorded 15 videos, clicked eight photos, and even made two video calls, documenting the brutality. Deshmukh was abducted and killed in December for attempting to foil an extortion bid on an energy company. Seven men, including a close aide of state minister Dhananjay Munde, have been arrested so far.
UPI-related frauds have accounted for a cumulative loss of Rs 2,145 crore across 2.7 million reported incidents.
'The country is a good test bed for enterprise adoption, but to scale rapidly, companies will need to look outside the country for customers.'
Top officials in key ministries, including finance and IT, are of the opinion that a sensitive payments system such as UPI should not be on a platform whose security is possibly compromised.
Former MLA Zeeshan Siddique has named several builders and politicians in his statement to police, alleging their involvement in the murder of his father and NCP leader Baba Siddique. Zeeshan claims that developers were in frequent contact with his father regarding redevelopment projects and that one builder used abusive language towards his father during a meeting. He also alleges a false case was registered against him for opposing a redevelopment project. This information is part of a 4,500-page chargesheet filed by police in connection with Baba Siddique's murder.
"The initial plan was to dispose of the body parts in a secluded location, but the duo eventually decided to keep it inside a large blue drum, filling it with cement and sand," said SP Singh.
The government said that the unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable.
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.
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.
rediffGURU Major Inderpaul Singh (retd) offers career guidance and helps students and individuals handle challenges in their professional lives.
The guidelines come after director general of police RR Swain said that posting any content on social media that promotes disharmony will be a criminal offence in Jammu and Kashmir.
The outage raised broader concerns about the dependency on a few large tech companies controlling critical platforms.
The chargesheet filed at the Ernakulam judicial magistrate court claims that there is digital evidence against Mukesh in the case.
A government school principal was arrested in Kota after he allegedly deleted Ganesh Chaturthi greetings posted on the school WhatsApp group, which triggered protests by people of the village, officials said on Sunday.
Stay firm yet respectful, and over time, they will have to adjust, advises rediffGURU Kanchan Rai, founder of the Let Us Talk Foundation.
Whatsapp clarified before the bench that it would not limit the functionality for users who are not opting for new privacy policy in the meantime.
The returning officer for the New Delhi assembly segment has directed the police to investigate an incident of Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Parvesh Verma allegedly distributing shoes to electors at a Valmiki temple in violation of the poll code.
The submissions were made before Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma during hearing of a petition by a lawyer against the new privacy policy of the social networking platform owned by Facebook.
From premium electric motorcycles to mass-market scooters, manufacturers are rapidly expanding their portfolios to capture a larger share of the booming market.
A 26-year-old man was arrested in Patna on Friday for allegedly propagating "anti-India" views through a WhatsApp group that he operated, the police said.
WhatsApp has drawn massive criticism from users globally, including India over concerns that data was being shared with its parent company, Facebook. WhatsApp, on its part, has maintained that messages on the platform are end-to-end encrypted and that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see the private messages on WhatsApp's platform.
