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.
A young Indian man was arrested in Pakistan after illegally crossing the border to meet a Facebook friend he wanted to marry. However, the woman told police she was not interested in marrying him. The man, Badal Babu, was arrested in the Mandi Bahauddin district of Pakistan's Punjab province on December 28. He had crossed the border to meet his Facebook friend, Sana Rani. Rani, in her statement to police, said she had been friends with Babu for the past two-and-a-half years but was not interested in marrying him. Babu's family has appealed to the Indian government to intervene for his release.
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.
The sources further stated that all the Indian nationals there are safe and the embassy remains available to assist them in the crisis-hit nation.
Atul Subhash, who worked for a private firm in Bengaluru, left behind a 24-page death note, giving extensive details of what he alleged was years long of emotional distress of marital issues; multiple cases filed against him and harassment by his wife, her relatives, and a judge based in Uttar Pradesh, police said.
Will the Draft UGC Regulations 2025 undermine our universities? Unlikely, notes Professor Mohammad Sajjad, citing how AMU has utilised its exceptional autonomy.
"If the BJP had governed with the same intensity with which it is running the bulldozer of injustice, today its members wouldn't have to hide in their homes, fearing the anger of students," he said.
Film folk are still celebrating Diwali on social media.
Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus on Thursday said it plans to invest up to Rs 6,000 crore in its India business over the next three years. The company plans to make the investment in tranches of Rs 2,000 crore annually for the next three years under 'Project Starlight'. OnePlus on Thursday announced an annual investment of Rs 2,000 crore over the next three years to accelerate innovations in products and services in India.
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.
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 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.
The most prominent changes deal with how WhatsApp shares information with Facebook and its subsidiaries.
India's e-commerce market alone is projected to reach $200 billion by 2026, making it a prime industry for ambitious entrepreneurs, explains rediffGURU Harsh Bharwani.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday raided the premises of businessman Raj Kundra, the husband of actor Shilpa Shetty, and some others as part of a money laundering case linked to alleged distribution of pornographic content. Around 15 locations in Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh are being searched. The probe pertains to the role of suspects in alleged distribution of pornographic content through mobile applications and other modes.
'The abuse got so ugly and toxic that I became depressed and had to seek therapy.'
Brought up in penury, the sensational Yashasvi Jaiswal says he now uses the experience gained from those difficult days as ammunition to conquer the battles on and off the field.
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.
The MHA said that the law and order situation of all states should be monitored in view of the protests.
A study published in the journal Environment and Planning F has revealed that cameras and drones originally intended for conservation activities in Corbett National Park are being misused by local government officials and men to surveil women without consent. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Cambridge, found that forest rangers intentionally flew drones over local women to scare them and prevent them from collecting natural resources, despite their legal right to do so. The researchers argue that these technologies, deployed under the guise of wildlife monitoring, are being used to intimidate and exert power over women, invading their privacy and altering their behavior in the forest. This has had a negative impact on women's mental health, with one woman interviewed for the study being killed in a tiger attack.
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 majority of these calls originate from foreign-based gangsters or their associates, using Voice Over Internet Protocol or international phone numbers, they said.
The operations revealed evidence of price and volume manipulation of stocks through the use of platforms like YouTube and WhatsApp.
The government said that the unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable.
The advisory depicted the logos of social media platforms like WhatsApp and Skype to showcase that calls for such scams are made using such platforms.
WhatsApp has made the statement before Justice Yashwant Varma who was hearing a lawsuit by one of the aggrieved parties whose identity was earlier allowed to remain concealed by the court.
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.
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.
The Kerala high court has observed that no religious belief stands above the Constitution.
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.
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.
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.
The move came amid violent protests against the scheme in different parts of the country since it was announced a few days ago.
A university in Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh has set up a probe panel following complaints of some students that a professor was propagating Islam and harassing Hindu students, a senior varsity official said on Monday.
Andhra Pradesh Police are searching for film director Ram Gopal Varma after he failed to appear for an investigation regarding his alleged offensive social media posts against Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and others. Varma's lawyer claimed that the director would cooperate with the investigation via "digital mode" as "digital policing is prevalent all over India now." However, police have stated that Varma was given ample time and has failed to show up for the investigation twice. The police are combing every place where Varma is suspected to be present.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Whitefield, Shivakumar on Tuesday confirmed that Bengaluru-based techie Atul Subhash died by suicide in the early hours of December 9 following harassment from his wife and her family.
The administrators or creators of a WhatsApp group cannot be held vicariously liable for any objectionable content posted on it by any of its members, the Kerala high court has held.
The threat message was received on the Mumbai traffic police helpline and an officer read it around midnight, the official said.
Travelling from South India to Kashmir in December was magical for Ganesh Nadar as he feasted his eyes on the beauty of the snow-capped Himalayas.
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.
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