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Telecom major  Bharti Airtel  has decided to do away with national roaming charges for both voice and data services , a move that will benefit its 268 million users, in order to take on Mukesh Ambani's Reliance JioInfocomm. Airtel announced free incoming calls, SMS and no Premium on outgoing calls while roaming across India. "This marks the death of national roaming," said Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel. In a BSE filing, Airtel said daily billing will be automatically adjusted to the price of basic one day pack even for customers who don't buy a roaming pack. With this, Airtel mobile customers will be able to carry their numbers across India and the world. Starting from April 1, 2017, Airtel customers will not be charged for data usage on national roaming. Call charges have been reduced by upto 90 per cent to as low as Rs 3 per minute and data charges by upto 99 per cent to Rs 3 per MB across roaming destinations...

Reliance Industries   (RIL) has rallied 6% to Rs 1,255, hitting an over 8-year high on the BSE in early morning trade. The stock is trading at its highest level since May 30, 2008. A sharp rally in stock has seen the market capitalisation of RIL crossing Rs 4 lakh crore. At 09:55 am; the stock was trading at Rs 1,250, with m-cap of Rs 405,629 crore, the BSE data shows. The company’s m-cap gained by Rs 57,336 crore in past four trading sessions. Earlier in January 18, 2008, RIL had m-cap of Rs 406,949 crore, the Capitaline data shows. RIL currently stands at number two position in overall m-cap ranking, and is behind the IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which has m-cap of Rs 488,676 crore. RIL hit a record high of Rs 1,626 on January 15, 2008 in intra-day trade on BSE. It had highest m-cap of Rs 467,537 on January 14, 2008 on the closing basis. In past four trading sessions, the stock surged 17% from Rs 1,074 on February 20, after Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJio)...

At a public rally in Uttar Pradesh's Gonda district, near the Indo-Nepal border, Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  on Friday said that the train accident in Kanpur on November 20, 2016, was a terror attack. He said hundreds were killed in the accident and the "conspiracy" was hatched from across the border. The PM appealed that people shouldn't cast their vote for those who were likely to help terrorists from across the border and make Gonda, and India, unsafe. On November 20, several coaches of the Patna bound Indore-Rajendranagar Express had derailed in Pukhrayan, near Kanpur Dehat. With 148 people killed, it was the deadliest train accident in India since 1999. Initially, the cause of these accidents was attributed to track fractures and wagon defects.  In its preliminary report, the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) found no evidence of sabotage in the November 20 accident. The report identified overaged coaches, carriage and wagon defe...

Update :  Starting Friday, iPhone, Android and Windows users can send photos, videos and GIFs through Status to share special moments throughout their day with friends and family. WhatsApp , a widely popular cross-platform instant messaging (IM) app, is about to turn eight. And, before hitting the eighth successful year towards making conversations more personalised, the Facebook-owned app introduceD one of the biggest fundamental change to its ‘Status’ feature. The new update allows user to play around with the statuses by putting them over video clips, GIFs or images.So, say goodbye to old “Available” or “In a meeting” statuses and try new, enhanced and more personalised ways to express yourself. The status update can be seen by everyone in your list for 24 hours before it disappears. Also, people can reply on status updates that shall be delivered in a chat with a message that refers to the status update.   Read more

The ruling  Shiv Sena  appeared all set to retain control over the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India's biggest and richest civic body, election officials said on Thursday. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was pushed to a distant second slot in Mumbai in the civic body elections held across Maharashtra. Of the 227 BMC seats, the Sena led in 84, still short of the 114 needed for a simple majority. The BJP had won 80 seats while the Congress was at a distant third with 31 seats to its credit. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) was poised to win 10 seats, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) eight and the All Indian Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen four. Stunned by the outcome, Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam offered to resign from the post.  Buoyed by its imminent victory in Mumbai, Shiv Sena supporters celebrated across Mumbai. The BMC had an annual budge...

Over 40 per cent of 1.84 crore voters exercised their franchise till midday today in the fourth phase of polling in eastern  Uttar Pradesh . "Polling is underway at a brisk pace in 53 assembly constituencies spread over 12 districts, including the backward Bundelkhand region," the CEO office said here. The pace of voting was slow in the first few hours but picked up as the day advanced. The exercise was by and large peaceful in view of tight security arrangements. Inter district and inter state borders have been sealed and patrolling by security forces has been intensified in poll-bound areas. Most of the sensitive polling centres are being manned by the personnel of Central Paramilitary Forces. 680 candidates are in the fray in this phase which covers Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Banda, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot and Fatehpur districts. The BSP has fielded its nominees in all seats, while BJP's nominees are in 48 constit...

Bharti Airtel , India's largest telecom network operator, is buying Norwegian Telenor's India unit, in yet another consolidation move in India driven by upstart rival Jio's disruptive pricing. Bharti Airtel said on Thursday it will buy Telenor (India) Communications Pvt Ltd, as part of which it will acquire the Norwegian company's operations in six Indian states. It did not disclose financial terms of the deal. The entry late last year of Reliance Industries' wireless carrier Jio into India's crowded telecom sector with its free voice and deeply discounted data plans has pushed rivals to slash costs, sharply eroding their profits. Bharti Airtel reported its lowest profit in four years in the October-December quarter while No. 3 player IdeaCellular posted its first-ever quarterly loss for the same period. Jio's gameplan is also sparking consolidation moves. Britain's Vodafone Group said last month it was ...

Bharti Airtel , India's largest telecom network operator, is buying Norwegian Telenor's India unit, in yet another consolidation move in India driven by upstart rival Jio's disruptive pricing. Bharti Airtel said on Thursday it will buy Telenor (India) Communications Pvt Ltd, as part of which it will acquire the Norwegian company's operations in six Indian states. It did not disclose financial terms of the deal. The entry late last year of Reliance Industries' wireless carrier Jio into India's crowded telecom sector with its free voice and deeply discounted data plans has pushed rivals to slash costs, sharply eroding their profits. Bharti Airtel reported its lowest profit in four years in the October-December quarter while No. 3 player IdeaCellular posted its first-ever quarterly loss for the same period. Jio's gameplan is also sparking consolidation moves. Britain's Vodafone Group said last month it was ...

The  Public Accounts Committee   of Parliament has summoned top officials of Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Allahabad Bank and UCO Bank to discuss their major loan defaulters and find out what action is being taken to recover the tax payer’s money.According to sources, the PAC, headed by Congress lawmaker K V Thomas, is keen to find out the details of huge loans given by the banks to corporates including the basis on which such favours were extended. The panel will further probe if the loan amount has been diverted by the defaulters for projects other than what they told the banks. With banks not forthcoming in parting with information about the big defaulters, the PAC has decided to go beyond the national capital and meet the bank officials in Chennai and Kolkata. As Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank are headquartered in Chennai, the officials will appear before the PAC in the Tamil Nadu capital on Febr...

The unlimited Rs 303 data plan for   Reliance Jio  prime members with free voice is expected to dent the premium subscriber base of the sector including those of the big three - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular --to the tune of 17 per cent. This is assuming that the premium data subscribers pay an average of Rs 600 per month. While there are about 350 million data subscribers, about 100 million are in the premium category.   Analysts at Motilal Oswal Securities say that if the downtrading were to happen from the higher average revenue per user (ARPU) level of Rs 600 to Rs 303, the sector will be impacted to the tune of Rs 35,640 crore a year. The larger players will be affected more as their ARPUs are much higher than the Rs 303 tariff of RJio.  Of Bharti Airtel’s overall subscriber base of 266 million, about 55 million are data subscribers who pay an average of data ARPU of Rs 174.7. Vodafone and Idea ...

Microsoft   on Wednesday launched Skype Lite, an exclusive "Made for India" app to provide seamless experience in messaging, audio and video calling even at lower bandwidths. "Packed in a 13MB file, the new app is available only for Android devices and is especially designed to save data," Satya Nadella, Indian-born CEO of Microsoft, told the media at the company's "Future Decoded" event here. The lightweight app supports Indian languages including Gujarati, Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. "Skype Lite" has data-friendly features such as "tracking data usage" which tells a user about how much data was used. It also categorises the internet usage into two sections -- the amount of mobile data or Wifi used while using the app. With these new features, the app lets a user to share multimedia files without downloading them to the device. Microsoft also introduced a dark theme for the new app making it easy ...

Reliance  Jio will start charging customers from April 1, but will offer sharply discounted prices for a year to those who sign up by the end of March. Customers who sign up by March 31 will be able to use unlimited data and voice services for a year at Rs 303 a month under a special offer, Mukesh Ambani said.  Enrolment to the plan would cost a one-time fee of Rs 99. As Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambanilaunched the Rs 303 per month plan for Reliance   Jio, rival Bharti Airtel shares were seen trading down 2.5%. According to the tariff plan, Jio will match the highest selling tariff of other operators and provide 20 per cent more data than what other operators provide. Jio will also offer Prime Memberships starting from March 1. The customers can enrol for this membership at Rs 99 and can continue enjoying unlimited offering for another 12 months after enrolment. Jio Prime Members can get t...

Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS')   board of directors has approved a proposal to buyback up to 5,61,40,351 equity shares of the company for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 16,000 crore, the company informed BSE in a filing.  The buyback size works out to 2.85 per cent of the company's total paid up equity share capital, at Rs 2,850 per equity share.  "The buyback is proposed to be made from the shareholders of the company on a proportionate basis under the tender offer route using the stock exchange mechanism in accordance with the provisions contained in the Sebi (Buy Back of Securities) Regulations, 1998, and the Companies Act, 2013, and rules made thereunder," the filing said.  Further, the buyback size does not include any expenses incurred or to be incurred for the buyback like filing fees, advisory fees, public announcement publication expenses, printing and dispatch...

Pihani,  Uttar Pradesh :  For 16 years, Kailash Rai (not his real name), 49, has been commuting six hours every working day between his home in the state capital Lucknow and the government degree college where he teaches in Pihani, 135 km to the northwest. A political-science lecturer, Rai cannot move with his family to Pihani, a cluster of over 100 villages (called a kasba ) in Hardoi district, with less than 40,000 families as per Census 2011. When he started working there in 2000, it lacked the basic public facilities–regular power supply, good roads, public transport and good medical services. Pihani remains an economic backwater. In the ongoing assembly elections, UP’s incumbent and contestingpoliticians are still promising the basic facilities they did 16 years ago: Electricity, buses and jobs, along with laptops and free data for poor youth. UP’s story parallels that of Pihani. The  kasba’s  population of 206,743 is serviced b...

11: 00 am Tymal  Mills was in demand as four teams bid for him, ultimately going to RCB for Rs 12 crore. A total of Rs 6.9 crore was spent in acquiring fast bowlers while wicketkeepers seemed out of favour as only one out of the batch of six found a buyer, that too at base priceKKR entered the bidding for the first time this season with  Trent Boult. The Knightriders have just four overseas players in the squad currently and need more players from abroad. They were joined in the bid battle by  Mumbai Indians  who bowed out at KKR’s bid of Rs 5 crore. Boult played for the Hyderabad team in 2016 and this year, will don the KKR jersey. English bowler Tymal Mills saw some aggressive bidding as well as Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab held their ground against each other. Both the teams did not shy from upping the stakes till Mumbai bowed out at Punjab’s bid of Rs 7 crore. At this point, the bid war between KKR and RCB started. RCB came out a winner wit...

Apple   Inc will in the coming months start assembling its lower-priced iPhone SE models at a contract manufacturer's plant in the technology hub of Bengaluru, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday. Apple's Taiwanese manufacturing partner Wistron Corp is setting up a plant in Bengaluru to focus solely on assembling iPhones, a separate source told Reuters earlier this month. Apple's move comes as it seeks to boost its share in the world's fastest growing major mobile market, where handsets far cheaper than Apple's iPhones dominate. It also comes as smartphone sales growth is slowing in Asia's other massive market, China. To lower prices, Apple has been seeking to set up local production and has been in talks with the Indian federal government regarding issues such as tax concessions. The industry source told Reuters the initial manufacturing of the iPhone SE model was not contingent on th...

UP polls 2017 Clean air is among the top three issues that exercise voters in India’s most-populous state, but it isn’t an issue that political parties in Uttar Pradesh (UP) address–or want to. UP’s air is fouled by thousands of brick kilns, sugar factories and coal-fired power plants that violate new emission standards and are among the country’s dirtiest; a seventh of India’s most polluted zones and half the country’s cities with the worst air quality are situated in the state. The pollution-control regime is not capable of enforcing clear-air and clean-water laws, and attempts to do so have led to widespread protests. About 138 million people will vote in the UP legislative assembly elections, which started on February 11, and polling will unfold in seven phases until March 8, 2017. People want clean air, but chafe at enforcement Air quality is the third most important issue in the upcoming UP elections, said voters according to a survey...

Sidharth, a computer science engineering student of Delhi Technological University (DTU), has been offered an annual salary package of Rs 1.25 crore from United States-based app-based taxi aggregator  UberTechnologies , reported The Hindustan Times on Friday.  While this is the second-highest pay package offered to a student from DTU, this is not the first time in the recent past that Uber has offered such a large package to a prospective employee. According to the  New Indian Express , in December last year, during the placements in the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Uber offered an M.tech passout from the varsity an international profile for a pay package of Rs 1.25 crore.  According to the  HT  report, Sidharth, an alumnus of Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj, has been offered the position of a software engineer at the San Francisco office of Uber.The whopping salary package he has been offered includes basic p...

These SIMs will have Rs 50 talk time and 50 Mb internet data at free of cost Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma on Wednesday launched pre-loaded SIM cards for tourists arriving in India on  e-visa . These SIMs, which will be provided by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, will have Rs 50 talk time and 50 Mb internet data at free of cost. "It will facilitate the foreign tourists in communicating with their acquaintances immediately after they land in India," Sharma said. "Also, they can get information in their own language using our 24x7 Tourist Helpline, which provides service in 12 foreign languages. A Russian speaking or Japanese speaking tourist can use the helpline easily," he added. The minister further said that the facility would be initially available at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, which will later cover the remaining 15 international airports in the country. Tourism Secretary Vinod Zutshi said that the serv...

Closing stocks of wheat with Central agencies as on March 2017 is projected to be 10 mn tn higher Indians are expected to consume over 100 million tonnes of  Wheat in 2016-17  marketing year that will end in March if Centre’s production estimates and trade’s import numbers for the year are correct. The government on Wednesday, as per its second advanced estimate, said that wheat output in 2015-16 crop year which is marketed till March 2017 is around 92.29 million tonnes. This is lower than its earlier estimate of 93.5 million tonnes. Assuming that the production numbers are accurate, the 2016-17 season started with an opening wheat stocks of around 14.5 million tonnes with the Food Corporation of India (FCI).  This when added to the total estimated production of 92.29 million tonnes, takes the total availability from domesticcrop at 106.7 million tonnes.  That apart, trade sources said that India is expecte...

OPS recruited Amma's niece Deepa into his team, Sasikala gave her nephew Dinakaran key position “Makkalaal Naan, Makkalukaagave Naan” “I am by the people, I am always for the people” Former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa never missed making this statement in any of her public speeches. All through her political career, Jayalalithaa differentiated her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from her archrival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam by pointing to one crucial factor: the DMK was a dynastic party dominated by its president M Karunanidhi’s family. She, on the other hand, had no family and always worked with the interest of the people in mind. Even an ordinary member in the party could aspire to become a minister, something which was impossible in the DMK. However, directly contradicting their former supreme leader’s stand, the   AIADMK  took a definitive turn towards dynastic politics on Tuesday evening, just hours after its general secretary VK Sasikala wa...

Over 500 police officials can be seen a t the Golden Bay resort, wheer the MLAs are staying. The police battalion has reached with Kuvathur village.  Sasikala visits MGR Memorial House before heading to Bengaluru. AIADMK  MLA Saravanan files complaint against Sasikala and Edappadi Palaniswami for allegations including kidnapping, says report Sasikala and two others have started their  journey to Bengaluru to surrender before the court. She will visit Jayalalithaa's memorial at Marina Beach before going to Bengaluru. Sasikala asked for two weeks time to surrender from the Supreme Court, but apex court turns down. She has now filed a plea before Bengaluru Special Court seeking two weeks time to surrender citing ill health. Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Thambidurai says soon review petition will be filed against the SC order. He said, "I am sure Chinna Amma (Sasikala) will come back soon  and will rule the State." He also welcomed the appointment of Din...

Valentine’s Day 2017  is here and it gives you numerous reasons to go out of your way to buttress your love for that ‘special one’. With a smartphone in hand today you can do so without fretting a lot. Thanks to these handy applications that help you sort your V-Day prep smoothly, there’s no need to hassle even if you have left your planning to the last minute! For those looking for some superfluous Valentine’s comfort this year, here are ten of the best Android apps for Valentine’s Day 2017.  1. UrbanClap - Want to regale your date by strumming a melody on the guitar but don’t know how to? Or tickle her taste buds with a gourmet meal? Worry not as Urban Clap gets you everything on demand at your doorstep- from a talented guitarist to a seasoned chef.  2. Kraftly – A C2C Ecommerce platform for Homeprenuers, sellers and Womenpreneurs brings to you “Giftree” which is a collection of handpicked products for ‘Him and Her’. The wide range of product offers gi...

PM Modi also accused the ruling Samajwadi Party for not fulfilling its promises in the state UP Elections 2017  : Taking a jibe at Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's repeated assertion of  ' kaam   bolta  hai' , Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday threw light on the rising crime rate in Uttar Pradesh and accused the Samajwadi Party of fooling the people. "They (Akhilesh) say  ' kaam   bolta  hai' , but several projects here are incomplete. What is speaking volumes are the instances of women harassment in the state," Prime Minister Modi said while addressing a rally here. "The people of Uttar Pradesh are not fools. They're well aware that criminals are still operating their gangs from behind bars," he added. Prime Minister Modi accused the Samajwadi Party of not fulfilling the promises made to the people of the state. "A scam that you (Akhilesh) promised to look into from the tenure of Mayawati was not done...

Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao is understood to have made it clear that he will await the judgement of the Supreme Court in disproportionate assets case against AIADMK General Secretary  V K Sasikala  before taking any decision on the issue of Chief Ministership, TV channels reported tonight. The channels, quoting a report purportedly sent by the Governor to the Centre, said Rao has been consulting legal luminaries in the wake of the "unique" situation. In the purported report, he is believed to have cited various provisions of the Constitution and the Supreme Court's verdict to suggest that he would wait for a clear picture to emerge before taking any decision. The Governor is believed to have said that in view of the impending judgement of the Supreme Court there is an uncertainty about Sasikala's qualification to become an MLA and hence the Chief Minister, the channels said citing the purported report. The government of Karnataka had recently ma...

A day after declaring that the Maharashtra government had been put on a "notice period", Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said that it is time to think of a "grand alliance" of regional parties as a formidable combination to take on national parties. "There have been many friends of  BJP  like Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee and (late) Jayalalithaa, who had in the past opted out of the NDA, fought elections on their own and won. But we (Shiv Sena) were innocent. Hoping for good days and for the sake of the Hindutva we stayed put (in the alliance)," he told reporters. Thackeray escalated his aggressive stand saying he is open to withdrawing support to the state ministry if the senior partner (BJP) failed to clear its stand on issues his party had raised time and again. "We are not an enemy of BJP and it is unfortunate that we are seen as their opposition. We are open to withdrawing support to the g...