While the public bicycle sharing (PBS) initiative is yet to be launched across most smart cities, many manufacturers are crying foul over the import of bicycles from China in the few cities where the initiative has been launched. The bicycle makers are calling for the procurement of ‘Make in India’ products rather than depending on [...]
January 25, 2022
Loknath Das
Technology
Netflix has announced new and reduced prices for plans in India, with the mobile-only plan now starting at Rs 149 per month, instead of the earlier Rs 199 per month. The new plans will be applicable for all customers. The move is likely part of Netflix’s attempts to woo more subscribers in the country given [...]
January 15, 2022
Loknath Das
Technology
To give a thrust to the national ‘Fit India’ movement, it has been decided that there will be a convergence of activities of Ministry of Health and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan stated this after meeting Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju yesterday for charting the convergent actions of the two [...]
December 27, 2019
Loknath Das
Health
NEW DELHI: UK companies are upbeat about doing business in India, with 56 per cent of them saying it is getting easier to do business in India and their perception about corruption being a barrier to operating in India seeing a sharp drop, according to a report. The UK India Business Council’s fifth annual Doing Business in India report [...]
November 15, 2019
Loknath Das
Business
New Delhi: As part of India’s energy security plan, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is exploring newer battery technologies such as polymer-based solid state batteries that may allow India to avoid dependence on lithium or cobalt imports. This comes in the backdrop of Chinese state-owned firms securing lithium mine concessions in countries such as Bolivia, [...]
August 5, 2019
Loknath Das
Technology
Sensing the potential of the student housing market, many start-ups have entered the fray. Student housing providers such as Oxfordcaps, Tribestays, PLACIO, Stanza Living, Campus Student Communities, Housr, Simplyguest, etc. currently operate in Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Noida, Mumbai, Indore, Dehradun, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. The top 10 players in the organized student housing space collectively operating [...]
July 2, 2019
Loknath Das
Real Estate
It is just as well that the government has junked a proposal in the K Kasturirangan education panel’s report—the official line is that this was a ‘draft’, not the final policy—that suggested reviving the three-language formula with a focus on mandatory Hindi in non-Hindi-speaking states. Protests, spearheaded by Tamil Nadu, against the “imposition of Hindi”, [...]
June 4, 2019
Loknath Das
Education
The practice of determining the legality of a publication based on its ownership and on the nature of its contents has existed for almost as long as recordable communication has existed. We are, of course, no longer confined to the basic forms of communication such as the written word, and content laws, once unabashedly censorship [...]
May 8, 2019
Loknath Das
Technology
Google could have avoided this huge embarrassment if they had only googled to find out what lay ahead. (Illustration by C Sasikumar) Consider this: An external advisory council, the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) — essentially an ethics council to guide new technologies — set up by Google in the last week of March, being disbanded [...]
April 27, 2019
Loknath Das
Technology
Singapore/Seattle: In a rare retreat for Amazon.com Inc., the e-commerce giant plans to shut down its Chinese marketplace business in July as it shifts its focus to offering mainland consumers overseas products rather than goods from local sellers. Amazon will keep running its other businesses in China, including Amazon Web Services, Kindle e-books, and cross-border operations [...]
April 21, 2019
Loknath Das
Business
One thing clear is that you want to write good business. I am not going to focus on topline and ignore the bottomline. We want to be selective but having said that there have been challenges in the motor insurance business. We have run into some huge challenges. We are devising ways to tackle the challenges. There [...]
March 27, 2019
Loknath Das
Business
Mizoram, the last Congress bastion in Northeast, is all set for a change in government according to India Today-Axis My India exit poll projections. The Mizo National Front (MNF), a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre, is likely to win between 16-22 seats, giving it a simple majority to form government in [...]
December 24, 2018
Loknath Das
News