The government plans to issue UID numbers to 600 million people by 2014.
'IT is not just about export and dollars -- or about big cities like Delhi and Mumbai --but also about how it is improving villages," said a proud Sachin Pilot, Union minister of state for communication.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Tuedsay faced more flak across the political spectrum for blaming 'migrants' for malaria outbreak in Mumbai with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying the remarks were uncalled for and deplorable.
The government is committed to connecting every single panchayat in the country with high-speed Internet in two years, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said.
Union Minister of State for Communications and Technology Sachin Pilot on Friday charged the National Democratic Alliance government in Bihar with misuse of central funds worth over Rs 11 crore under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and other flagship programmes for the poor.
The government on Wednesday said it has received over Rs 2.15 lakh crore (Rs 2.15 trillion) so far from telecom operators as spectrum fee and licence fee.
The outsourcing ban by Ohio has come as a disappointment to India, and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said on Tuesday that the move is 'not welcome at all.'
As a solution elude monitoring of data transmitted through Blackberry phone, India on Friday said it would not risk national security, especially when answers to the problem have been found elsewhere in the world.
The government on Thursday said it has extended the timeline for implementation of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) to October 31, 2010.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communication and other GSM telephone operators owe government over Rs 451 crore (Rs 4.51 billion) in license fee and spectrum charges, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.
The minister felt that not everybody has to become a politician, but one needs to be involved in the system and hold the leadership accountable and make sure that there is more transparency in the system.
Union minister of state for communications and IT, Gurudas Kamat, launched the railway reservation system for providing tickets at four post offices in Mumbai on Monday.
India's minister of communications and information technology speaks to Ajit Jain in Toronto.
The man who could well have been a high-level corporate may have to content himself being deputy chief minister. But other challenges await.
The 41-year-old 'young gun' travelled the length and breadth of the state to strengthen the party at the grassroots level and ensure its comeback.
From a teledensity (number of phones in use for every 100 individuals) of just 1.4 per cent in 1995, India today has reached a teledensity of over 50 per cent, with big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, etc going up to 130-140 per cent, same as in Europe and North America.
Union Minister of State for Communication Sachin Pilot on Thursday said that efforts are on to increase the teledensity in the country to 40 per cent by 2014.
Minister of state for communications and IT, Sachin Pilot said the IT and ITES industry has been a large generator of employment with about 2.2 million professionals directly employed by the industry, while indirect job creation is estimated at around eight million.
The telecom ministry will decide on the merger between the state-owned telecom companies, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, only after the listing of the former.
The government on Thursday said the domestic IT sector has not recovered fully and is expected to grow by 5.5 per cent in 2009-10 against a growth rate of 16.6 per cent in the previous fiscal.
Telecom operators owe government a huge amount of Rs 17,980.77 crore in licence fee and spectrum charges, but the outstandings are under litigations, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
The minister said the reasons for withdrawal of landline connections includes preference for mobile phones, move to private operator, disconnections due to non-payment of dues and surrendering of second telephone taken for get internet connection due to availability of broadband. The total number of landlines in the country as on March 2008 is 39 million, which was 4 crore in March 2007. At present, BSNL has 31 million landline users while MTNL has 3.68 million users.
The Centre will set up 1 lakh community centres, equipped with Internet facilities and other advanced technology at panchayats across the country.
Brushing aside fears of a slowdown in the IT industry, the government on Thursday said the Indian IT-ITes/BPO (including hardware) sector's revenue is expected to grow at over 33 per cent in 2007-08.
The department of post is planning to offer banking services by starting a full-fledged bank, to be named Post Bank of India.
"What I would have really liked is if Rahul Gandhi got involved in a government a long time ago, like me and like a lot of my other colleagues. I think if he got into government like five yeas ago, when we came back into power in 2009, a lot would be different for our government. "A lot would be different for our party. A lot would be different for Rahul also, perhaps, in terms of being able to say he has experience," the Mumbai South member of Parliament told NDTV.
India is now getting ready for the next step, using broadband connectivity to take education and healthcare to the villages, says IT and Telecommmunications Minister Shakeel Ahmad.
To check cyber crimes like publishing sexually explicit material in electronic form, government introduced a Bill in Lok Sabha on Friday to amend the IT Act to enable service providers to set up and maintain e-signature facilities.
India's software export during the current year (2002-03) reached up to Rs 47,000 crore which represented 29 per cent growth, Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.
Minister of State for Communication Shakeel Ahmad said that the exact modalities for effecting it would take some time because of the complexities involved.
The government on Monday urged private operators to play a big role in providing rural telephony across the country to reach a respectable level of teledensity.
The government on Wednesday ruled out privatisation of postal services but said franchising post office facilities was an option that the department will pursue in future to expand the postal network.
Prices of computers and charges for Internet connections may be reduced soon, Union Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology, Shakeel Ahmed said on Tuesday.
The government on Tuesday said it would require about Rs 300,000 crore (Rs 3000 billion) of investment for the equipment to roll out broadband services and 150 million new telephone lines over the next three years.
The government will amend the more than 100-year-old Indian Postal Act to bring courier services within its ambit, Minister of State for Communications and IT Shakeel Ahmad said in Lok Sabha.
The government on Wednesday said it has set up dedicated Central Bureau of Investigation cells in four metros for detecting and checking telecom related frauds.
Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Milind Deora on Friday demanded that the judicial commission's report on Adarsh scam should be debated in the Maharashtra legislature.
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