In this piece on UID, Pratyush & I discuss on some Hygiene issues that would make or break the UID system. And we will definitely refer to the Technical Scope of the recent tenders as well. In our last post, we had someone from the UID team telling us about the sarcasm...
Read more »

The much delayed MNP has landed in a security issue, owing to ownership of JV, MNP Interconnection Solutions, one of the two companies selected by the Department of Telecom (DoT) to implement MNP. Security concerns raised by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) have forced the FIPB to defer its own approval in February 2009...
Read more »

SME Market in India is too big to be ignored. And while Indian entrepreneurs are chasing the big enterprise market (and consumer segment), here are a few data points for SME opportunity India has the second largest population of small and medium businesses (SMBs) among BRIC countries and the US. SMEs in India contribute to more...
Read more »

Google Book Settlement Project has been a controversy child and the controversy over settlement has reached Indian shore as well. Couple of Indian publishers and authors (including Star Publications, Abhinav Publications, Daya Publication House and Pustak Mahal along with the Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation and Federation of Indian Publishers), have approached New York District Court...
Read more »

UID Project plans to introduce micro-payment platform in order to facilitate banking in rural India. The platform will enable Business Correspondents (who could be a local kirana shop owner and will act as ‘micro atm’) to conduct instant transactions.
Read more »

First announced in 2008, Kishore Biyani is now all set to launch MVNO services (in 6-8 weeks) and will reveal the details in few weeks. MVNOs, as you know do not own spectrum, and buy Minutes of Usage from telecom operators. ;there will be SIM cards based on the GSM platform from the Tata DoCoMo brand...
Read more »

Tata DoCoMo Launches BuddyNet BuddyNet is a platform where Tata Docomo subscribers can invite unlimited number of friends and stay connected and talk unlimited with them anywhere in India. The major benefits of having your friends on BuddyNet is that all local calls are charged at 1p/6sec and all STD calls are charged at 1p/2sec....
Read more »

Call it BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), UID authorities have proposed to make it mandatory for children to have the UID at the time of admission to school once the process of issuing the UID gets under way.The rationale behind the proposal is that children can be tracked for academic progress besides being targeted...
Read more »

LinkedIn has opened it’s India office (as we mentioned earlier) and has partnered with CNBC-TV18 for co-marketing of the service in India. DoT is all set to announce its policy for adopting the next generation protocol for Internet services in the country.
Read more »

Reliance has bagged contract to setup mGovernance infrastructure in Mumbai, Maharashtra circle and Kerala circle. RCOM would build infrastructure for mGovernance, which help give 24×7 provide real time police information, updates on land records and civil services through voice, GPRS, Bluetooth, SMS and 3G technologies. RCOM will team with local value added services (VAS) partners...
Read more »

Nexus Venture Partners has announced an investment in mChek (the funding was done around 6 months back) and Dr. Naren Gupta, Managing Partner at NVP has joined mChek’s board of director Reliance Communications launches Games on USSD Reliance Communications has announced the launch of Games on USSD. This is a significant innovation which now enables...
Read more »

Tata Teleservices has launched Photon TV, a 3G enabled live TV service that can be directly streamed onto your Laptop or desktop using your TATA Photon+. Photon TV Pricing Single Channel : @ Rs. 4 per month. My 10 : Combination of 10 channels @ Rs 29 per month. My Full Pack : All channels @Rs75 per...
Read more »

“Unfortunately, the particular viruses and malware that attacked the test delivery system were not detected by the anti-virus software at the testing centres” – Prometric on CAT fiasco (CAT Servers Fails to take the Load ) Lame excuse? Because if it’s real, then it shows how unprepared the CAT organizers were! Machines running CAT exams...
Read more »

We raised the question earlier ‘Online Exams – Can they Survive the Load?’ and there are reports that CAT servers in few centers faced overload problem and even though CAT Convenor do not want to accept the word ‘crash’, they have mentioned that exams at few centers(Blore, Chennai, LKO and Bhopal) were...
Read more »

Indian government’s site getting hacked is not a news, but 692 of them? Well, that’s a news and is representative of the sad state of technology in government sector.
Read more »

Post 26/11, Government is planning to setup a centralized system to automatically monitor communications on mobiles, landline phones and Internet. A pilot project of the central monitoring system (CMS) is likely to be launched by June, 2010 subject to clearance by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, Minister of State for Telecom and IT Gurudas...
Read more »

UK based Legatum Institute conducted an annual prosperity survey of 104 countries and measured countries on prosperity – not just wealth, but factors such as health, education, safety, governance, support for entrepreneurship/innovation etc. The nine sub-indexes/parameters are: Economic Fundamentals – a growing, sound economy that provides opportunities for wealth creation Entrepreneurship and Innovation – an environment friendly...
Read more »

News roundup: Nokia plans to launch m-banking services and is in talks with 6 banks to offer an universal platform where the mobile phone can be a medium for banking, international remittance, payment of utility bills, pay merchants for goods and services and buying tickets
Read more »

BSNL’s Rural Broadband Kiosk BSNL plans to setup 30,000 kiosks by 2011 (on a franchisee basis). These kiosks would extend broadband connectivity to those who have no alternative access to the facility, and to those who have little to spend on such services. The rural people will pay a small fee to access the services. The...
Read more »

Technology News Roundup: Indian Meteorological Departmen takes VAS route and has partnered with Handygo to provide weather forecast to farmers. MindTree Launches Bluetooth Health Device Solution on Android Platform.
Read more »