Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday alleged that the Congress-led UPA government was "dragging its feet" on distribution of low-cost Aakash tablets and said the centre has failed to honour its much-hyped commitment. "I want to tell students that eleven months ago a minister of Congress-led UPA government, Kapil Sibal, had organised a big event at Vigyaan Bha
HDFC Bank, the largest player in credit card space in the country, on Wednesday launched a card exclusively for teachers. The new credit card -- launched on the Teacher`s Day -- offers special features such as multiple reward points, weekend bonanza points, petrol surcharge waiver and 500 teacher`s day special gift reward points. Explaining the rationale, the bank in a statement
The big data market in India, which presents a huge market opportunity for the IT services and analytics firms, will grow to USD 1 billion in 2015. The global `Big Data` market opportunity is estimated to grow at 45 per cent annually to reach USD 25 billion by 2015, from the current size of about USD 8 billion, according to a report launched by IT industry body Nasscom and Crisil on Wed
A hacking group on Wednesday said it has obtained a million identification numbers for Apple mobile devices after breaking into the laptop of an FBI agent, a claim which the federal probe agency said has "no evidence". Anonymous affiliate - AntiSec - released a file on the internet which allegedly contained a million identification numbers for the Apple devices. The gr
Driven by youth, Internet subscriber base in the country is expected to reach 150 million by the end of this year, says a report. The report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB) said, "the number of claimed Internet users has seen a growth of 16 per cent over last year. This number is estimated to grow up to 150 million by Dec
UAE telecom major Etisalat, the JV partner of Etisalat DB whose licences were quashed by the supreme court in February, on Wednesday said it will not participate in spectrum auction to be held in November this year. "... wishes to confirm that it has decided not to participate in the auction," Etisalat said in a statement. Etisalat is the first company to formally anno
Lifetime mobile connection plans offered by telecom companies are valid as long as operators are permitted to offer their services, minister of state for communications and IT Milind Deora has said. "The service providers have been prescribing certain condition of minimum recharge/usage as part of the lifetime validity plans. The subscribers in such plans are entitled to enjoy inco
RBI Deputy Governor H R Khan today ruled out allowing mobile network operators from offering cash-out or mobile wallet facility unless they convert their services as banking business correspondents. "We don`t want to permit cash-out facility by the mobile network operators (MNOs). We are very clear that they should not bypass the banking regulations. However, mobile wallet f
Over 270 government websites have been hacked by cyber criminals between January and July this year. As per information tracked and made available to Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), 201, 303, 308 and 273 government websites were hacked during the year 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (till July) respectively, an official statement on Tuesday said. Based on the threat
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has sought an allocation of Rs 33,400 crore for promoting electronics hardware manufacturing under the Twelfth Five Year (2012-17) Plan. The proposed allocation of Rs 33,400 crore in the 12th Plan for the programme has been sought keeping in view the objectives of the draft National Policy on Electronics 2011, an official
The education department in Punjab is all set to embrace modern technology for its daily routine work. The Director General of School Education has issued instructions to district authorities to use e-mail for routine daily correspondence, an official spokesman said in Chandigarh on Tuesday. All District Education Officers, Block Primary Education Officers and main offices of th
BSNL on Tuesday launched Internet data centre services in Hyderabad in partnership with Ahmedabad-based Sai Infosystem, and is eying revenue of Rs 15 crore in next one year. BSNL will offer managed collocation, hosting and cloud services through the IDC located at Telephone Exchange Building at Patancheru here which is built, operated and managed jointly by BSNL and Sai Infosystem, BSNL
Different suggestions flooded the FICCI auditorium on Tuesday regarding better monitoring and governance of the internet by the government at a panel discussion held here for discussing legitimate restrictions on freedom of online speech. The most prominent suggestion from the panellists and the audience alike was to provide more transparency and grievance redressal when the restrictions are im
The Andhra Pradesh government will develop a `Media City` here with the ultimate objective of making Hyderabad the "animation capital of the world", information technology and communications minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah said on Tuesday. "The vision of the Andhra Pradesh Government is to develop a futuristic Digital City that will serve as an epicentre of research and devel
City MP Vilas Muttemwar on Tuesday raised the issue of setting up an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Nagpur in the Lok Sabha. He said that the Maharashtra government had decided to set up such IIITs in Pune and Aurangabad. The state government was in the process of finalising a partner for the project and 59.26 hectares of land in Pune has been identified fo
Union minister for communications and information technology, Kapil Sibal will inaugurate the curtain raiser of ‘India Telecom 2012` conference-cum-exhibition jointly organised by the ministry and FICCI in the capital on Thursday. The minister will highlight the salient features of the event during the inauguration. The theme of this years conference is "new policy framework
In the three-day annual DGPs and IGPs conference scheduled for September 6, prime minister Manmohan Singh will review the security situation of the country. Among others, the recent violence in Assam and the exodus of people from the north-east from some states in the south and the west, and cyber threats are some of the issues which will come up for discussion. In wake of rising
The Gujarat government has nominated its food and drugs control administration`s Xtended Licensing and Laboratory Note (XLN) initiative for a public administration award given by the prime minister. XLN helps in regulating the sales and manufacturing of drugs, food and cosmetics and issuance of licenses. XLN is also a one-stop shop for regulatory officials, the industry and the general public w
A parliamentary panel has asked the government to reconsider the formulation of a separate law on electronic delivery of services as the same can be done by amending the existing IT Act, 2000 and incorporating new e-governance rules. The department of elctronics and information technology (Deity) drafted the bill on electronic delivery of services in February 2011 and subsequently
Telecom Commission is expected to finalise by Friday the guidelines for licences that are to be issued to new players that win spectrum in the auction which is due in November. "By Friday, we expect that the final recommendation of telecom commission in respect of Unified Licences in all aspect that will be relevant for the purpose of the auction will be available," Tel
