As Google evaluates its response to two recent penalties slapped by the Competition Commission of India (CCI), here is a look at the app economy. Apps are bread and butter for mobile operating systems. India ranks second in the number of mobile downloads, with nearly 27 billion downloads in 2021, according to Deloitte. Accounting for 11.6 per cent of global app downloads, the Indian smartphone user spends over 4 hours a day on apps.
Siva Prasad Nanduri, chief business officer, TeamLease Digital, outlines the skills that will help you get a job in 2023.
Since payment alternatives such as UPI, e-wallets and USSD - based mobile banking through different platforms are directly or indirectly linked to the user's bank account one needs to be extra careful to keep hackers at bay, explains Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar.
French IT firm Atos is planning to hire 15,000 people in the next 12-18 months in India, including climate experts, as it moves towards decarbonisation by 2028, chief operating officer (COO) Nourdine Bihmane said. "India is a strategic market for Atos. "We have been present here for the last 30 years, and we have grown organically since. "People and innovation are our two key drivers to build momentum. "India represents one-third of our total workforce," Bihmane said. Atos has around 40,000 employees in India.
A common mistake students make is either they don't have a focussed strategy or there are too many gaps in the study plan, warns Dr Rajesh Pandey, Academic Head, Engineering, Aakash Byju's Digital.
'Sector funds like IT funds should be included only in the satellite portfolio.' 'Limit your exposure to IT sector funds to around 5-10 per cent of your equity portfolio.'
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday extended the card-on-file (CoF) tokenisation deadline by six months to June 30, 2022, in view of various representations received from industry bodies. Card-on-file, or CoF, refers to card information stored by payment gateway and merchants to process future transactions. The earlier deadline was December 31, 2021. "In light of various representations received in this regard, we advise...the timeline for storing of CoF data is extended by six months, ie., till June 30, 2022 and post this, such data shall be purged," RBI said in a notification addressed to all payment system providers and payment system participants.
Reinvent and innovate will be the key mantra for the Indian pharma industry in the New Year as the 'pharmacy of the world' looks to move from volume to value leadership, amid emerging challenges of inflation and pricing pressures in the global markets. While R&D investment, market competitiveness, regulatory scrutiny, and domestic price regulations are expected to shape the growth of generics and injectable products, concerns such as price control and customs duties on medical equipment will continue to bother the healthcare industry in 2023. The industry believes that in view of India's G20 Presidency, digital health innovation, achieving universal health coverage, improving healthcare infrastructure and delivery will continue to be the key driving factors in 2023.
Byju's, India's most-valued startup, has decided to put two of its key assets -- Epic and Great Learning -- on the block to generate $800 million-$1 billion in cash, with an aim to meet the edtech firm's various commitments, including repaying the entire $1.2 billion term loan B (TLB) within six months, according to sources. The cash-strapped company has proposed repaying $300 million of the $1.2 billion loan in the next three months, depending on whether the lenders accept Byju's amendment proposal, said the people familiar with the development. "This loan repayment proposal has been submitted to the lenders and conversations are going in the right direction," said a person in the know.
Among other segments, home broadband subscriptions have picked up and the virtual private network service, too, increased by around 15 per cent.
Rapid strides in digital payments notwithstanding, the Indian economy will likely remain cash-dependent for many years to come, at least that's what the automated teller machine makers and cash logistics companies are betting on. After growing at over 20 per cent for most of 2020, currency in circulation growth fell to 8.5 per cent as of October 29 this year, shows data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The reason for the steep rise in currency last year was the uncertainties related to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, where people preferred to hoard cash to meet exigencies.
India can potentially have 40 million 5G users in the first year when the next-generation service is made available to them, a report released by telecom company Ericsson said on Wednesday. According to Ericsson ConsumerLab report, consumers have shown willingness to pay 50 per cent more for 5G plans bundled with digital services while they want to pay only 10 per cent more for just 5G connectivity. The data collected from 26 countries in December 2020 for the report shows that consumers across several markets are willing to pay 20-30 per cent more on an average for 5G plans bundled with digital service use cases.
'The CM wants to develop a Film City that would provide the entire value chain of film-making services and infrastructure in one place.'
A Goldman Sachs report said, in the past also, major crisis have led to a sharp increase in outsourcing and even offshoring particularly to India , thanks to lower wages for technology developers as compared to developed economies, and an increasing annual base of engineering graduates.
The industry came under scrutiny after the proliferation of games like cards, casinos, and fantasy sports among young people led to addiction and financial losses, with some reported cases of suicide.
Having missed most of the first three industrial revolutions, India has its chance to lead the fourth industrial revolution through a convergence of its IT prowess, ultra-high-speed internet connectivity and affordable smart devices, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said on Thursday. The richest Indian, who heads the nation's most valuable company Reliance Industries, said his group's telecom and digital unit Jio was conceived to provide the key ingredients needed to lead the fourth industrial revolution.
The investment will enable Airtel to add EdTech to its premium digital content portfolio and give distribution scale to quality learning material from Lattu Kids.
Railway Budget is the first indicator of possibly better days
'We're seeing major Bollywood celebrities, fashion icons, and even movie studios all wanting to build Metaverse experiences'
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will soon start public consultation for a national retail trade policy, which is likely to include an insurance scheme aimed at providing financial protection against losses caused by theft, accidents or natural calamities. The policy will also spell out ways to give traders access to low-cost finance, promote digital inclusion, and create necessary infrastructure to support them, a senior government official told Business Standard. This is expected to offer relief especially to traditional traders, who are facing stiff competition from large e-commerce players.
"We commend your leadership and the proactive measures you and your government have taken to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 infection rate in India, such as adopting a national lockdown, expanding focused testing to identify hot spots for isolation, quarantining, and care, and significantly increasing health expenditures to strengthen the health system response and promote R&D and digital innovation," Gates wrote.
'EV-charging is the next big opportunity after fuelling'
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said the rupee is holding up relatively well when compared to the currencies of emerging market peers and advanced economies. Days after the domestic currency breached the 80-level against the dollar, Das said Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has zero tolerance for volatile and bumpy movement in the rupee and added that the central bank actions have helped in smoother movement. He said RBI has been supplying US dollars to the market to ensure adequate supply of liquidity and also clarified that the central bank does not target a particular level for the currency.
This will be done across five cities - Delhi, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Bhopal, and Shillong. Thereafter, it will be scaled up and launched in 100 cities over a period of six months, said a senior government official.
The silver lining for India's presidency is likely to be the support by almost all G20 countries to its proposal to include the African Union as a permanent member of the bloc that has emerged as perhaps the most influential multilateral forum after the United Nations.
By 2026, around 25 per cent of the global population may spend at least an hour a day on Metaverse. This will open the doors for many businesses, the NFTs market will spread, and Web 3.0 will attract more investment.
'As valuations of large-caps appeared to be out of whack, investors started lapping up quality mid-caps and small-caps, which were available at relatively comfortable valuations.'
'The Indian economy and the Indian financial sector today remain resilient and much better placed.'
Traditionally, financial institutions have operated risk functions in silos. However, the nature of unknown threats today requires industry participants to work together, says Vikram Limaye.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is likely to join the list of Big Tech companies going for large-scale layoffs. With this, almost the entire universe of FAANG - acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google - has now come under the layoff turbulence hitting tens of thousands of tech jobs around the world. Reports surfaced on Tuesday about the Mountain View (California)-headquartered tech giant planning to fire around 10,000 employees.
Pichai said a whole new generation of technologies are happening in India first, and that people in the country no longer have to wait for technology to come to them. Investments, he said, will focus on four areas key to India's digitisation, including enabling affordable access and information for every Indian in their own language, be it Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or any other.
The cloud market in India is expected to grow by 26% by the end of 2022.
In the midst of third wave of COVID-19, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has come up with an impactful Budget which is balanced, fiscally prudent and growth-oriented, the USA India Chamber of Commerce has said. President of the Boston-based USA India Chamber of Commerce (USAIC) Karun Rishi, however, said it is a matter of concern that the budget lacks tangible measures to increase revenue generation. "Opting to keep the fiscal deficit at 6.9 per cent and increase capital expenditure by 35 per cent is a masterstroke. "The annual budget estimates the effective capital expenditure of Rs 10.68 lakh crore in 2022-23, making up about 4.1 per cent of the GDP," he said. "A phenomenal increase in the government's capital expenditure is likely to facilitate the expenditures on infrastructure and create jobs.
'They (the ransomware attackers) are not after any VVIP data.' 'Had that been the case, they would have quietly installed a different malware.'
Consumer anxiety is at the highest levels since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic in India with the less affluent most skeptical about economic outlook while a majority of consumers think their income in the next six months will be lower than the pre-COVID levels, says a latest study. As per the COVID-19 consumer sentiment research by global management consulting firm Boston Consulting group (BCG) conducted between May 23 and May 28, 2021, covering around 4,000 respondents across metros, tier I, II, III, IV and rural India, 51 per cent of consumers expected their spends over the next six months to be lower. In the last round of survey conducted from July 20 to August 2, 2020, the figure stood at 40 per cent.
'Health will continue to be at the centre of the government's attention as it underpins economic recovery and our collective well being.'
'What can a teacher do that ChatGPT cannot?'
'Cinema or the sentiment of a people, disgusted by contemporary politics and wanting to feel whole by collectively recalling a moment of great difficulty that was also a cause for togetherness?', asks Shyam G Menon.
'These companies hired in high numbers last year and are balancing that out this year by recruiting fewer freshers.'
'We are the only country in the world where everybody gets a digital vaccination certificate immediately... Then as we open up, as they did yesterday, which I think is a welcome move, you will have lots and lots of points where people will come in'
