Apple grew at a strong double-digit rate in India, hitting a new March quarter revenue record in an "incredibly exciting market", even though the tech titan's overall quarterly revenue declined 4 per cent. Apple's India showing earned praises from CEO Tim Cook who described the market here as a "major focus" and said Apple is working on the entire ecosystem from developer to the market to operations. The top honcho said he is "very pleased" with the growth numbers.
The latest ultimatum underlines the hardening of the government's stance on the issue of deepfakes and misinformation powered by AI, after the Centre categorically told platforms to crack down with urgency on doctored and manipulated videos rampantly being circulated on social media.
Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks on Pakistan sparked a political row on Friday, with his party quick to dissociate itself from the comments while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party latched on to them, accusing the Congress of being an apologist for Pakistan and the terrorism emanating from its soil.
He further added that the people of India respect different languages, religion, food and customs which varies from region to region. "That's the India that I believe in, where everybody has a place and everybody compromises little bit," he said.
'All those who participated in the agitation were branded as anti-nationals.'
Many senior BJP leaders and outgoing Rajya Sabha MPs, including seven Union ministers such as Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav, have not been renominated by the party for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls amid strong indications that several of them may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
A case has been registered against Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar for allegedly making statements that promote enmity between different groups, police said on Tuesday.
Entities may be given about a year to tune their systems to comply with norms of Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of consultation with the industry, Chandrasekhar said the Data Protection Board and guidelines for the eight rules, including consent management, will be put in place within a month. "Industry wants some more time for age-gating, different timelines for transition for different data fiduciaries.
The government on Saturday said a person who is eligible for Aadhaar can enroll using iris scan in case fingerprints are unavailable. The statement comes after Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar intervened to ensure the enrollment of a woman, Josymol P Jose, in Kerala who could not get enrolled for Aadhaar as she did not have fingers. A team from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) visited Jose at her home in Kumarakam, Kottayam district, in Kerala, the same day and got her Aadhaar number generated, the statement said.
'If an employee has a contract with the employer that he cannot moonlight, you should honour that contract.'
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
Apple has incorporated India's Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) GPS system in its iPhone 15 models, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday. NavIC, which is powered by ISRO satellites, will be available along with other GPS systems of Galileo and Glosnass in iPhone 15. On September 12, Apple unveiled iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models, and they will be available for purchase later this month.
The former Congress president also tagged a post by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in which he talked about eliminating EVMs.
BJP heavyweights Smriti Irani, Arjun Munda, Ajay Mishra Teni and Kailash Chaudhary were among the 13 Union ministers who tasted defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states forced the BJP to rely on allies to form the government.
Union Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has rebutted The Washington Post report on the Indian government allegedly targeting Apple after the company warned independent Indian journalists and opposition party politicians that government hackers may have tried to break into their iPhones and called it 'half facts, fully embellished'.
E-commerce startup Dukaan has replaced 90 per cent of its customer support team with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, founder and CEO Suumit Shah informed on Tuesday. Attributing the decision to prioritising profitability, he said customer support costs reduced by 85 per cent while resolution time went down from over two hours to three minutes. "We had to lay off 90 per cent of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely," Shah tweeted.
The government may not be able to put in place the Digital India Act, which aims to replace over 23 years old IT Act 2000, before the next general election, as there is not much time left for extensive consultation, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday. While speaking at the Global Technology Summit 2023, the minister, however, said the rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection Act will be out later this month for consultation and are expected to be notified by the end of December or early January. Chandrasekhar said the existing IT Act doesn't even have the word internet, and there is a consensus that it can be safely superseded and replaced.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
The G20 leaders will deliberate on pressing global issues at the grouping's annual summit here on September 9 and 10. India is hosting the summit in its capacity as the current G20 chair.
Despite the robust growth in this country, Apple's India share in its overall global sales remained modest -- constituting 1.5 per cent of its overall turnover of $389 billion in FY23.
The Congress' victory in the Karnataka assembly polls is likely to help the party get its candidates elected in three of the four Rajya Sabha seats from the state falling vacant next year.
Political pundits unanimously suggest that the state is not experiencing a discernible Gandhi wave this time around.
"Government has decided to notify an entity through Meity and that organisation then would be the fact checker for all aspects of content online and only those that are related to the government," Chandrasekhar said. Talking about rules for online gaming, the minister said that there will be multiple self-regulatory organisations (SRO) which will decide on permissibility of online games based on the framework.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday named 14 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls including former Union minister R P N Singh and Sudhanshu Trivedi -- the only outgoing MP renominated by the party.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
India is all set to make its presence felt in the $47 billion global outsourced semiconductor testing and packaging market, an arena where Malaysia and Vietnam have been way ahead so far. The Cabinet last Thursday cleared two projects, the Tata's assembly testing and packaging plant (ATMP) and the Murugappa-owned CG Power with Renesas from Japan as its tech partner. These, together with Micron's assembly and testing plant which is already being constructed in Sanad in Gujarat, will collectively invest Rs 47,300 crore to set up the factories.
Former Karnataka chief minister Jagdish Shettar, who had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party to join the Congress ahead of the state assembly polls last year, rejoined his old party on Thursday.
Twitter chief Elon Musk on Wednesday said the social media platform has no choice but to follow the local laws in any given country or risk being shut down.
Tata Group is set to become India's first homegrown iPhone maker after Taiwan's Wistron Group agreed to sell a plant in Bengaluru to India's largest conglomerate. Wistron's board approved the sale of Wistron InfoComm Manufacturing (India) Private Ltd to Tata Electronics for $125 million, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer said in a statement on Friday. The unit operates an iPhone assembly plant near Bengaluru.
At least one commentator felt that both the BJP's reach and popularity had been underestimated in Kerala. They have shown systematic gain; one that seems personality-neutral and therefore institutionalised, explains Shyam G Menon.
BJP leader and Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Monday charged that China, NewsClick website and the Congress are linked to an "anti-India umbilical cord" as he cited a news report which alleged that companies linked to China were funding the portal.
Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy on Thursday called out "fake news items", which claimed he endorsed automated trading applications and warned the public not to fall for such fraudulent claims. He also slammed "fake interviews" that used "deepfake pictures and videos" of him. In a series of posts on X, Murthy drew the attention of the public to false content being put out by malicious sites and products or services being sold fraudulently using his name and urged people to report any such instances to the concerned regulatory authorities.
Sixty-eight Rajya Sabha members, including nine Union ministers, are completing their tenure this year, triggering a race of sorts among leaders across political parties to eye a six-year term in the Upper House of Parliament.
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Tuesday met social media platforms to review progress made by them in tackling misinformation and deepfakes, and asserted that advisories will be issued in the next two days to ensure 100 per cent compliance by platforms.
In his post, Vaishnaw said Apple has also claimed that Apple IDs are securely encrypted on devices, making it extremely difficult to access or identify them without the user's explicit permission.
...Even if it means less democracy, so that their everyday problems get solved? argues R Jagannathan.
In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, political parties are extensively using social media to propagate their achievements and seek support from voters.
Two full-fledged semiconductor fabrication plants are going to come up in India very soon entailing multi-billion dollar investment besides several chip assembly and packaging units, Minister of Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. In an interview with PTI, the minister confirmed that the two projects include a $8 billion proposal submitted by Israel-based Tower Semiconductors and the other from Tata Group. "I am happy to share this with you and you are probably the first one I'm sharing this with.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.