A G20 dinner invitation from President Droupadi Murmu describing her position as 'President of Bharat' triggered massive debate on Tuesday, with the opposition alleging that the government is planning to drop India and stay with just Bharat as the country's name.
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.
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.
After the draft data protection bill, the government is now all set to bring another key legislation -- Digital India Bill -- that will be made available for public consultation by the month-end, Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday. The Digital India Bill, which will replace the 22-year old Information Technology (IT) Act, will be contemporary and a modern piece of legislation, the Minister promised. The proposed bill, alongside the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill whose draft was released recently, will contribute to the evolving framework which is light on regulation, safeguards consumer rights and catalyses innovation, the minister said while speaking at CII Global Economic Policy Summit 2022.
Online gaming companies will not be allowed to engage in betting on the outcome of games under the principle laid in draft rules, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Monday. The minister said that as of now, all permissible online gaming will need to be registered with a self-regulatory organisation that will be accountable to the online gaming rules.
Significant controls and exemptions to the government under the proposed Digital Personal Data Protection bill 2022 are likely to make it harder for companies to invest in data centres and data processing activities in India, according to global technology industry body ITI. The ministry of electronics and IT has floated draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2022 and has invited comments on the same till January 2. "The Bill grants significant controls to the executive arm of GOI (Government of India) and delegates much of the detailed rulemaking authority to separate, as yet undefined processes.
About 24 or 31 per cent ministers have declared serious criminal cases including cases related to murder, attempt to murder, robbery etc.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday advised all the MPs to wear masks and follow the Covid protocol completely, in view of the increasing cases of COVID-19 in many countries across the world.
After a five-day long visit, Apple CEO Tim Cook left India with a note that he can't wait to return to the country. The visit of Cook coincided with 25 years of the iPhone maker's presence in India. Cook arrived in India on Monday. The visit started with the launch of the first official Apple store in Mumbai on April 18 followed by a second in the national capital on April 20.
Several Union ministers, including Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar resigned.
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.
'If Trudeau chooses to repeat his allegations in his UN speech on Friday, it would create a whole new escalation.'
The government has asked Chinese mobile companies to increase their exports from India and there is no proposal to ban the sale of handsets below Rs 12,000 made by such firms, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Monday. The Minister of State for Electronics and IT also said that Indian companies also have a role to play in the country's electronic ecosystem but it does not mean exclusion of foreign brands. "Only issue that we have raised and done very transparently with some of the Chinese brands is that we have said that our expectation is that they will do more exports.
Tharoor's social media post condoling Musharraf's demise evoked a sharp response from the Bharatiya Janata Party which accused the Congress of "Pakistan parasti (worshipping)".
The single-judge bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit which dictated the operative portion of the judgement also imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh on Twitter and ordered it to be paid to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority within 45 days.
The microblogging site has challenged a government order issued in June 2022, terming the blocking orders 'overbroad and arbitrary', adding that the requests failed to provide notice to the originators of the content and were disproportionate in several cases.
Stepping up their attack on Rahul Gandhi for his 'democracy under brutal attack' remark in the United Kingdom, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Union ministers, on Thursday demanded an apology from the Congress leader insisting that he was 'not above Parliament'.
Owners of these accounts are being identified for action under the law, Minister of State for IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.
'Banning a game is not the solution, rather, there should be laws that restrict the number of hours spent a week playing a game.'
"The Congress have gone and made promises in Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh that they never fulfilled," Rajeev Chandrasekhar claimed.
The draft policy proposes the launch of a non-personal data based India datasets program and addresses the methods and rules to ensure that non-personal and anonymised data from both government and private entities are safely accessible by the research and innovation ecosystem.
'You have to be a total anti-national bozo to shut down the Nokia plant in Sriperumbudur, which was the first large manufacturing plant for mobile phones in India.' 'Why was the unit shut down? Because of somebody's ego.'
'To me, this is true patriotism - not deciding who should and should not say 'Bharat Mata ki jai,' in what language, with what inflexion, at what time, etc, but the recognition that the Indians who protected our country and the military traditions that made those men, must be honoured,' says Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
Among the 36 new faces in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers, eight are lawyers, four are doctors, two former IAS officers and four MBA degree holders, besides several engineers, making it an eclectic mix of professionals.
Tharoor's remarks came after several BJP leaders accused the Congress of 'Pakistan parasti (worship)' and Union minister Jyoritiraditya Scindia asked if this was part of the 'Haath Se Haath Jodo Abhiyan' with enemies.
N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Tata Sons, believes that the Digital India Act is a necessity. "The Digital India Act is a necessity because so much has changed over the decades since the original Information Technology (IT) Act was put in place. I am glad the government is developing a participative approach to developing the Digital Act," he said, while answering shareholders at TCS' 27th annual general meeting. Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar a few months ago had said that the government would shortly roll out the Digital India Act - a renewed policy for the digital ecosystem and cyberspace in the country.
'There were two options before the government -- create a complex, cumbersome law, which will cause a tremendous amount of compliance challenges for startups or say let's go back and do a clean slate, where we do a framework of laws and policies'
'Maybe the State wants to be watching people all the time. But when they are watching, others too may be watching!' 'The State is becoming more and more secretive while throwing people to the wolves.'
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the underprivileged need economic and political power and not empty words as he again called for removing the 50 per cent ceiling on quota and demanded reservations for Dalits and tribals based on their population.
Union minister Rajeev Chandrashekar on Tuesday rejected Dorsey's claim, calling it an "outright lie" and "an attempt to brush out that very dubious period" of firm's history.
In a move that is bound to spell relief for social media users, the government on Tuesday launched the much-awaited grievance appellate committee (GAC) mechanism that will allow users to appeal against decisions of social media platforms by filing their complaints on a new portal.
Amid concerns over minorities being targeted in India, former Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan on Thursday cautioned that an 'anti-minority' image for the country can lead to loss of market for Indian products and may also result in foreign governments perceiving the nation as an unreliable partner. India enters the perception battle from a position of strength, the professor at Chicago's Booth School of Business said, alluding to credentials like democracy and secularism, but warned that this battle is "ours to lose". The comments came a day after bulldozers tore down several concrete and temporary structures close to a mosque in Jahangirpuri as part of an anti-encroachment drive, days after the northwest Delhi neighbourhood was rocked by communal violence.
This is the first time that the IT ministry has outlined its stance in a dispute between users and social media platforms.
India's expectation of Twitter complying with the country's rules for social media platforms will not change with its takeover by Elon Musk, according to a senior minister.
Despite their opposition based on ideology, both the political Right and the political Left possess similar behaviour, observes Shyam G Menon.
Indian cricket fraternity has also come out in support of the young pacer who had dropped a crucial catch in the 18th over of the match.
'As long as businesses do not consider cyber recovery an integral part of their enterprise IT, they remain greatly vulnerable.'
More than 6,000 URLs, accounts or websites were blocked in 2021, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
The government will come out with proposed modalities and terms of references for setting up grievance appellate committees to address social media users' complaints in the next 10-12 days, and expects the panel to be in place by November 30, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Tuesday.
Indian start-ups raised issues, such as blockages in international wire transfers, disruptions due to threshold limits on withdrawals, lack of communication from US agencies, and the need for preferential access to credit, in a meeting with the government over the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, held a virtual meeting with over 450 members from start-ups, venture capitalists, and investors who have been directly affected by the closure of SVB. He assured them that the IT ministry would put together a list of suggestions and give it to the finance minister on behalf of start-ups.