A Chinese daily has said that  "Modi's plan of making 'Digital India' will be just empty talk. From this perspective, India is not even close to where China was five years ago," it said. Commenting on the New York Times report that "India replaces China as next big frontier for US tech companies" after meetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping with the executives of US tech companies during their recent visits to the US, an article in the Global Times today pointed to the inability of the BJP government to get the GST legislation through the Parliament. "India lags behind China in the fields of manufacturing, logistics and infrastructure by more than five years. Apart from the hardware, the key actually lies in the integration and openness of markets and in this respect China is more accomplished than India," it said.

Google launches Accelerated Mobile Pages to speed up mobile web
Google announced its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project on Thursday for a faster and open mobile web.An open source initiative, AMP embodies the vision that publishers will create mobile optimized content once and have it load instantly everywhere. The aim is to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web so that web pages with rich content like video, animations and graphics work alongside ads, and load instantaneously. Additionally, the same piece of code will work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant—no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device is being used.

US, China weakening while India is on a firm footing, says OECD
Growth seems to be easing off in most of the world's major economies, including the United States and more notably in China, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Thursday. The OECD said its monthly leading indicator, a synthetic measure that seeks to capture turning points in the economic climate, showed moderating growth generally. However, the euro zone was stable, with growth actually firming up in euro zone countries France and Italy, and also in India. Taking an index reading of 100 as the long-term average, China slipped further, to 97.2 from 97.6 in its latest update, the OECD said. The US economy dropped to 99.2 from 99.5, Japan to 99.8 from 99.9 and the UK to 99.5 from 99.7.

BSE fines 370 firms for non-compliance with Sebi norms on woman director
Leading stock exchange BSE today said it has imposed a fine on 370 companies for not complying with Sebi norms to appoint at least one woman director on their respective boards within the prescribed timelines.The exchange had earlier issued notices to 530 companies in July for not complying with the provision by June 30. The capital markets watchdog Sebi had issued guidelines in February last year asking companies to appoint at least one woman director on their boards by October 1, 2014, which was later relaxed to April 1, 2015.

6 of top 10 world cities keying in 'porn' are Indian
Why there was so much noise about ban on porn sites is being answered by Google. The latest Google Trends data shows that six of the top ten cities in the world keying in 'porn' on the search engine are in India. Leading the brigade of porn surfers are netizens from New Delhi, followed by Pune, Mumbai, Howrah, Unnao, Kuala Lumpur and Bangalore in that order.The data reflects both fetishes, and also perversion. the highest number of searches for 'animal porn' were from Pune, followed by New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. 'Rape porn' was widely googled in Kolkata, Howrah, New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Pune. Unnao actually had the most number of Google searches for 'child sex'. The country witnessed online outrage over the porn ban, few months back, from celebrities to ordinary citizens.

Demand for Hindi books has risen by over 60 per cent: Amazon
With increasing Internet penetration and ease of buying Hindi books online, the demand for Hindi books has seen a rise of over 60 per cent in the past six months.

During this period, the selection of Hindi books has risen by close to 40 per cent.

Public transport app launched by Google in Delhi
Google today launched Delhi Public Transport App, which aims to make it easier for the residents of the national capital to get around on public transport. The new experimental app will be built into Google Maps and will help users get transit directions easily even when the connection is slow and data is difficult to access, the internet giant said. Delhi Public Transport app makes the direction and time-table information for Delhi Metro and buses available offline.

Dalai Lama feels he could be the last to hold the title
Amid concerns over his age and falling health, exiled Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has said that he may be the last to hold the title. In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, the 14th Dalai Lama said, "I have no concern," adding that it is "possible" he would be the last to hold the title. The exiled spiritual leader also criticised the Chinese government for "being more concerned about the institution of the Dalai Lama than the man who carries that name.” The Tibetan leader also rued the fact that the Chinese establishment still viewed him as a political leader, and not as a spiritual leader.

Sensex falls 190 points to close below 27,000; Nifty settles at 8,129
Stock markets retreated from their highest levels in nearly one-and-a-half months on Thursday, snapping a six-day winning streak, on profit-taking in blue chips while lack of announcements on restructuring power distributors’ burgeoning loans also hurt. The benchmark BSE Sensex fell 0.7%, or 190.04 points, to 26,845.81. The broader Nifty fell 0.6%, or 48.05 points, to 8,129.35.

Panel suggests flexible approach to implementation of CSR rules
Taking note of the concerns of companies, a high-level panel constituted to suggest measures for monitoring the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Rules, 2014, has come up with 24 recommendations which have been uploaded on the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) website. The panel, which was constituted mainly to look into the monitoring of CSR rules, has taken into account a number of other concerns raised over the past year by companies as part of its report. Recognizing the subjective nature of CSR, the committee has made recommendations which are more flexible. The report also points out that the existing provisions on reporting, auditing, selection of CSR activities or partners are the prerogative of the company’s board or committee and the government should not intervene