The United Bank of India (UBI) has decided to extend its services to 1,880 un-banked villages with a population of over 2,000 in 85 districts of 12 states and one Union Territory by March 31. UBI will set up Customer Care Service Points (CCSPs) in un-banked villages where a business correspondent of the bank will execute various customer transactions through Internet banking, UBI
India today raised the issue of visa fee hike by the US, emphasising the Obama administration not take any step detrimental to the interest of Indian IT professionals. The issue, which has an impact on the Indian IT industry, came up for discussion between visiting US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma here. Locke is leadi
The Indian IT industry has sought extension of tax benefits under STPI and simplification of the tax structure to encourage investments in the sector, among others as part of its budget wish-list. The USD 76 billion software industry has requested the government to extend the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme till the Direct Tax Code (DTC), which is under considera
Maharashtra Government has taken a small, but significant step towards ushering in an era of paperless offices, with the rollout of the ambitious `DigiGov` framework. "The `DigiGov` framework aims at increasing the intra- office efficiencies across the administration," Vijayalakshmi Bidari Prasanna, Director Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra, told PTI.
Yemen has denied that the website of President Ali Abdullah Saleh -- the target of anti-government protests -- was brought down by hackers this past week, its official news agency said. "An official in the ministry of communication and information technology denied reports claiming that the website of President Ali Abdullah Saleh was hacked" on Thursday, the Saba news a
Chinese officials have stepped up monitoring of cyber cafes and video game halls as part of a crackdown against Internet pornography and violence. More than 100,000 unlicensed cyber cafes were shut down over the past five years during a crackdown on Internet pornography and violence, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted an official of the State Administration for Industry and Comm
Hackers owing allegiance to protestors and stonepelters in Kashmir have hacked a website of Sikkim government and posted a message and pictures of the agitators on the page. The hacked website -- www.sikkim-culture.gov.in -- belongs to the Cultural Affairs and Heritage Department of the Sikkim government, which promotes art and culture of the north -eastern state.
Union minister for communication and information technology (C&IT), Kapil Sibal launched the Logo and website of national knowledge network (NKN) yesterday. While inaugurating the website the minister mentioned that NKN is a significant step towards ushering a knowledge revolution in the country and poses a challenge to the ways we think and work. Technology is enabler but efforts beyond th
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is the new twitterati politician and his most recent tweets include the condemnation of the killing of a 21-year-old "at the hands of army" and another seeking suggestions about "how to handle" the stone-pelting in old town Baramulla. Omar, who during his two years in power as chief minister witnessed turbulent su
Internet search giant Google received a staggering 75,000 job applications within just a week of kicking off its massive recruitment drive, says a media report. According to the Daily Mail, "Google received a staggering 75,000 job applications in just one week as it launch(ed) a huge recruitment spree." The US-based company holds the record for the highes
Trilok Singh is a harried man. All he wants is a passport for his son but the way matters are proceeding, it looks like a full-fledged crisis. He first went to the sector 34 office of the Chandigarh regional passport office (RPO). Now he has come to the new passport seva kendra (PSK), which he terms as passport pareshani kendra. Trilok Singh’s confusion is something all of us can
The Department of Post today entered into a strategic partnership with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for registration and distribution of unique identification (UID) cards to Indian citizens. "This is not a tactical, but a strategic partnership, where UIDAI will leverage the existing infrastructure of the DoP to reach out to the masses for providing UI
The Nandan Nilekani-headed I-T infrastructure panel today suggested that "efforts should be dovetailed with Aadhaar (UID) initiative" to ensure that welfare funds reach target beneficiaries. The Technical Advisory Group for Unique Projects, which submitted its report to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, gave far reaching recommendations to implement, with the help of a
The National Payments Corporation of India, an entity formed by 10 banks, is working with Unique Identification Authority of India to help customers make basic financial transactions using their mobile phones. "It may be to open an account, make a cash deposit or a withdrawal ... We will use the UIDAI number along with the customer`s thumb impression (for offering this servi
Seeking to make transparent government functioning, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today launched e-tendering web portal for Prime Minister Grameen Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) scheme in the state. "E-tendering and similar other methods to bring about transparency to restrict the chances of corruption are path- breaking in making transparency rule the roost in government functioning&q
The Supreme Court today directed telecom regulator TRAI to evolve a new set of revenue sharing norms and other regulations on interconnectivity among operators for carrying calls of one network through others. A bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to bring the new Interconnect Regulation on Mobile termination charges and carriage cha
State-run telecom entity Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) expects its 3G (third generation) mobile services subscriber base to touch the 3-million mark by March this year, a senior company official said. "We will be adding 2 million subscribers in the 3G services this fiscal," BSNL Principal General Manager (Value Added Services) N K Yadav told reporters on the sidel
Facing problems in implementing the order on dropping women employees home, the BPO industry today asked Delhi Police to define night shifts, relax norms on door-step dropping and allow installation of GPS on call centre vehicles in a phased manner. The Delhi Police had made it mandatory for BPOs, media and corporate houses to drop women employees at their houses during night hou
Delhi today got its first state-of-the-art operational control centre that will monitor the movement of vehicles in the capital, including those on the BRT corridor, to ensure their adherence to speed limits, routes and punctuality. The operational control centre (OCC) is the nerve centre for the intelligent signalling system, automatic vehicle location system, automatic fare col
The new modernised web portal of the state government, www.kerala.gov.in would be inaugurated by Chief Minister V SAchuthanandan on February 5. The portal had been developed by using free software in the content management framework, an official press release here said. In the new portal, nodal officers of all the government departments would be providing informati
