About 71 million Indians `claim` to have used the Internet in 2009, a study by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and marketing research firm IMRB today said. In a joint report titled `Internet in India`, IAMAI and IMRB said the number of people who `claimed` to have used internet in 2009 stood at 71 million. `Claimed users` (those who said they had used the interne
Market regulator SEBI has directed stock exchanges to post all their regulatory orders and arbitration awards on websites from this fiscal to ensure greater transparency for investors. The exchanges have also been asked to post all such orders since April 1, 2007, on their websites within 30 days. SEBI said the move, prompted by feedback from investor associations,
The Department of Information Technology (DIT) is planning to recruit 150 officers to manage the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) as per the records accessed by Governance Now under the RTI. The officers will be placed at National e-Governance Division (NeGD) which has been established as part of Media Lab Asia (MLA), a section 25 company under DIT. Out of these 150 officers 21 will b
Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla on Monday launched the e-Office developed by National Informatics Centre at the finance ministry`s North Block office in New Delhi. e-Office provides a platform for personalised, role based, secure access to internal information for the employees that is accessible through any browser. Its salient features include unified view of data, content and document
The government seems to have woken up to the need for an inclusion policy in information-and-communication technolgy and electronics (ICTE) and e-governance for the disbaled. The government has invited suggestions from the public on a draft national policy for electronic accessibility (NPEA) which will be working towards removing barriers in ICTE usage for persons with disabilities. In
A Rs 6000 crore National Knowledge Network programme will be implemented in the next five years to facilitate interlinking of agricultural, medical colleges, research institutions and other academic organisations, Union Communications and IT Minister A Raja said today. The Network`s purpose was to enable research students and others to have interaction and keep themselves abreast
Puducherry government has launched an e-governance society as part of implementing Information Technology Policy and inked a MOU with Chennai based Information Community Technology (ICT) Academy, a consortium of the Union IT Ministry, Tamil Nadu government and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The MOU envisages training teachers in higher education institutions here on ICT.
The Income Tax department`s proposal to issue biometric PAN cards has been put on hold so as to avoid duplication with the UID numbers to be issued by Nandan Nilekani`s Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI). The biometric Permanent Account Number (PAN) card was proposed by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in 2006 to counter the problem of duplicate PAN cards which wer
In an attempt to reach to more people in India, British High Commission today launched it`s Hindi website hoping that this will bring a transformational change in the relations between both the countries. The website -- www.ukinindia.fco.gov.uk/hi -- will be updated on a daily basis parallel to it`s English counterpart. The website has sections like news, business, details for B
The threat e-mail by suspected maoists, which landed at Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik`s office here Saturday, had its server in Czech Republic, according to preliminary investigation by cyber experts. The e-mail to cmo@ori.nic.in from PLGA@orissa.gov.in had its server in Czech Republic, Commissioner of Police B K Sharma told PTI, adding all steps were being taken to reach the sen
The income tax department has warned people to be wary of a fraudulent email using its official logo asking for sensitive details like PAN card and credit card numbers. The Department has put up a warning on its website saying: "It is clarified that the Income Tax Department does not send e-mails regarding refunds and does not seek any information regarding credit cards of taxpayer
Minister of State for IT and Communications Sachin Pilot met officials in the Obama administration looking after the sector to discuss issues like security and terrorism in the cyber space. During his stay in Washington from March 28-30, he addressed a meeting of the US India Business Council (USIBC) and urged participants from over a 100 companies that have business relationship
People in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack in Orissa have got single window online services at `e-seva` counters to make payment of different utility bills and access other services of the urban bodies. The urban Jana Seva Centres (e-seva) in these cities, launched yesterday, would provide single window facilities for a host of services like registration and issuance of birth and death ce
The mobile number portability service, which enables subscribers to retain their numbers while changing operators, is delayed by another three months till July as the necessary network is not yet in place. The launch of MNP has been further extended to June 30, 2010 after assessing the readiness of various operators, an official statement said. This is for the seco
The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh doled out "undue benefit" to the tune of Rs 165.75 crore to erstwhile Satyam Computers Limited by allotting 50 acres of prime land at a throwaway price, the Comptroller and Auditor General has said in its report. While castigating the Congress government on this land deal, the CAG in its latest report submitted to the Andhra Pra
In a bid to spread Internet network in rural areas of Orissa, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has tied up with HCL to provide computers in villages on installment basis. As per the deal, HCL will provide computer sets with an initial payment of over Rs 2,000 with the broadband connections. The customers have to pay the rest amount on a monthly installment basis. &q
A railway subsidiary has bagged a contract to sell Commonwealth Games tickets online and sports lovers will get the option of choosing the row and seat at different venues. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has got the contract of Rs 12 crore to become the official ticketing agency for the Games, to be hosted by Delhi in October this year. IRCTC, a subsidia
Government will upscale CSCs to 250000 from the current number of 100000 according to Abhishek Singh, Director (e-Governance) with Department of Information Technology. The CSC roll out in states will reach 80,000 by month end and the Government targets to complete the roll out of 100,000 CSCs by June this year. The Government then plans to have a CSC in each village and upscale t
Network-equipment maker Cisco today said it will deploy networking facilities at the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), the country`s largest stock exchange in terms of daily turnover and number of trades. With IP migration, larger bandwidth and higher throughput, the new network will allow NSE to consolidate their technology infrastructure, thereby reducing IT costs and transactio
Weather forecasting by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) is all set to improve as it has now acquired better observing equipment and high-end supercomputers to process the data. Government has acquired four High Power Computing Systems (HPCS) to do the necessary number crunching and run high-resolution global, regional and local numerical weather prediction models round-the-cloc
