Year: 2020

Supreme Court gives 10 year relief to clear outstanding AGR dues Rs 1.6 lakh cr.

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In a historic verdict, The apex court has given telecom firms 10 years to clear AGR dues. It has directed telcos to pay 10 per cent of the total AGR dues by March 31, 2021. The seems a big blow to Vodafone Idea, whose shares tanked 20% after the verdict was pronounced. The supreme court, also ordered the bankruptcy court to decide on whether airwaves can be subject to insolvency proceedings . This issue came to the forefront when the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) highlighted that bankrupt telcos have not paid AGR dues of Rs…

200K plus IT/ITeS people are likely to lose their jobs

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The increasing bench job in the IT companies for redeployment on new projects raises concern with the increased bench count. Sources said, IT and ITeS employees set to lose their jobs over the next few quarters – because of the COVID disruption to cross much above 200,000 mark. Sources further said, some are providing only the insurance support in case of anyone suffers from pandemic. Several IT majors are reportedly laying off thousands while headcount fell at TCS, Infosys, and Wipro in the June quarter.   The Indian IT and BPM sector employs around 4.4 million people,…

Congress demand for Parliamentary panel probe into Facebook issue

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The Congress on Saturday reiterated its demand that the government to constitute a joint parliamentary committee to investigate what it called an “unholy intimacy” between Facebook’s India operations and the BJP. The Congress flagged a Time magazine story which, it said, not only confirmed a piece by The Wall Street Journal but also pointed out that WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, also had similar connections with BJP. WhatsApp, which was used by 40 crore Indians, had been “compromised and controlled indirectly” by the BJP, the Congress alleged. K C…

Former President Pranab Mukherjee breathes his last today

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Former Indian President and Indian Political heavyweight Pranab Mukherjee passed away. The most admired and loved leader of the country, Mukherjee was 84.Mukherjee was the 13th President of India.   Mukherjee had suffered a fall at his Rajaji Marg house and had been operated to remove a blood clot in his brain on August 10. Doctors on Monday morning warned that there was a decline in his condition and he was in septic shock due to infection in his lung.   Later in the afternoon, his son Abhijit Mukherjee made…

Massive ransomware attack on Paytm Mall

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Paytm group suffers a massive data breach – paytm mall hacked and ransom demanded, the cybercrime group demanded ransom after gaining unrestricted access to the entire databases of Paytm Mall, although the e-commerce platform denied the claims.   The cybercrime group with the alias “John Wick” was able to upload a backdoor/Adminer on Paytm Mall application/website, said Cyble. A Paytm Mall spokesperson, however, said that the claims are “absolutely false” and that user data, as well as company data, is secure.   As per the sources, John Wick” is the same…

UK-wide study shows children with gastrointestinal symptoms should be included in COVID-19 testing strategies

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Over 1,000 children from Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, known as ‘COVID Warriors’ have had their antibodies measured in the UK-wide trial called ‘Seroprevalence of SARS-Cov-2 infection in healthy children’. The findings have been published today (Friday 28 August) as a pre-print on the server medRxiv. The study is led by Queen’s University Belfast, in partnership with the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust Northern Ireland and Public Health England. The aim of the study, which began in May and is ongoing, is to assess the number of children who…

Trend Micro Blocked 8.8 Million COVID-19 Threats in the First Half of 2020

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Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), the leader in cloud security, today released its annual mid-year roundup report, which reveals COVID-19 related threats as the single largest type of threat in the first half of the year. In just six months, Trend Micro blocked 8.8 million COVID-19 related threats, nearly 92% of which were spam delivered via emails.    Cybercriminals shifted their focus from January through June to take advantage of global interest in the pandemic. The risk to businesses was compounded by security gaps created by a completely remote workforce.…

India’s proposed new agile pharma regulations will benefit innovator companies

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India is overhauling its pharma regulatory norms to expedite approval process and promote innovation. Given that the country is now focused more than ever on developing novel therapies and vaccines on account of the COVID-19 situation, the move will not only remove unnecessary procedural roadblocks but also foster innovation, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.    In May 2020, a high level committee in India proposed that there will be a single-window system to accelerate the approval of new drugs. Accordingly, parallel submission of applications for new drug…

High-profile investors, e-commerce mentions prominently feature in Reliance’s filings, finds GlobalData

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Jio Platforms Limited (Jio), a subsidiary of India-based Reliance Industries Ltd. (Reliance), has recently added two tech giants Facebook and Google to its roster of high-profile investors. Subsequently, the mentions of ‘investment’ in Reliance’s filings (filed in Q3 2020, and earnings released on 30 July 2020) have grown multifold as compared to Q2 2020 (ended June 2020), according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.   Rinaldo Pereira, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, says: “The fledgling tech company is not only weathering the COVID-19 storm but also thriving in it,…

Has China finally moved away from cheap cost to high premium development and manufacturing?

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In light of current times, many companies are still perceiving China as the ‘place-to-go’ for the development and manufacturing of their products, attracted by the theory of saving money in their development costs. In some aspects, China still holds a good ground to manufacture basic products at affordable prices, however, China’s landscape has changed, and will continue to do so, startups and corporations no longer look toward the East for cheap production, but rather high-premium quality development and manufacturing. In recent times, economically successful regions such as the Greater Bay…