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The transport wing of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has called for an indefinite strike of drivers of cab aggregators Uber and Ola starting Monday midnight. Scores of commuters could be inconvenienced due to the indefinite strike starting from Monday. The strike has been called by the Maharashtra Navnirman Vahtuk Sena which has claimed that several drivers are not being able to cover costs due to falling business. Union leaders said that drivers in other cities like New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune among others would also be participating in the strike "Ola and Uber had given big assurances to the drivers, but today they are unable to cover their costs. They have invested Rs 500,000 - 700,000 and were expecting to make Rs 150,000 a month. Click Here To know More – Ola 

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Sunday called for a 'Modi-mukt Bharat. Addressing a rally on the occasion of Gudi Padwa in Mumbai's Shivaji Park, Thackeray said, 'Today, we have to gear up for the third independence. All the political parties must unite to make Modi-mukt Bharat a reality. In an hour-long speech, the MNS chief also warned about attempts by certain elements to spark nation-wide riots in future. Voices of a "united opposition" gained even more momentum after the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) lost two crucial seats in the Uttar Pradesh by-polls. According to the experts, joining forces is the only way to dethrone the Modi-led government in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Click Here To know More – Raj Thackeray

Vladimir Putin has been re-elected as Russian president with 75 per cent of the vote after half the votes were counted, partial results showed today. Putin's nearest competitor, Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin, was on 13.2 per cent, according to data from the central election commission. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Clik Here To know More –Russia

The domestic indices opened marginally higher on Monday despite weakness in their key Asian counterparts. The market participants will closely watch key developments in the parliament following the no-confidence motion moved by TDP after it broke away from the BJP-led NDA following the Centre's refusal to grant Special Category status to Andhra Pradesh. In major political development, the YSR Congress and TDP is likely to push for acceptance of their notices for no-confidence motion against the central government when Lok Sabha begins on Monday amid no signs of a let-up in the Parliament deadlock. In the global markets, Asian share markets slipped into the red on Monday as caution gripped investors in a week in which the Federal Reserve is likely to hike US interest rates and perhaps signal that as many as three more lie in store for the rest of the year. Japan’s Nikkei extended early losses to drop 1.3 per cent, while the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia...

The government is likely to relax the eligibility criteria for Air India disinvestment by allowing airlines with negative net worth to bid. However, non-airline companies may be told to satisfy minimum net worth conditions to prove their financial strength. The evaluation committee of Air India, after discussions with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, had suggested that all bidders be mandated to fulfil a minimum net worth criterion, a source said. However, when the Core Group of Secretaries on Disinvestment (CGD) met over the last two weeks to finalise the bidding norms, some members pointed out that setting high net worth as an eligibility condition would block the prospects of many airline companies. In fact, the difference in opinion between the two government bodies has led to a delay in the announcement of the expression of interest. The core group has now suggested that a company with a proven track record of running a successful airline be allowed to b...

China-based smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi on March 14 announced the Redmi 5 in India. On the same day, home-grown electronics company Micromax announced a new budget offering, the Bharat 5 Pro. Both the smartphones compete in the same price segment of sub-Rs 10,000. While the Redmi 5 offers a modern look because of its futuristic 18:9 aspect ratio screen, the Bharat 5 Pro centres around the battery. Business Standard compared the Micromax Bharat 5 Pro and the Xiaomi Redmi 5 on ke parameters, and here is what we found: Where the Redmi 5 is ahead of Bharat 5 Pro The Redmi 5 looks similar to the recently launched the Redmi Note 5. The smartphone looks modern with its 5.7-inch 18:9 aspect ratio HD screen. The metallic chassis looks plush and the form factor is better than most of the budget smartphones, except the Huawei Honor devices. In terms of performance, the Redmi 5 uses better innards with three RAM and storage options to choose -- 2GB/16GB, 3GB/32GB and 4GB/64GB....

The world’s largest music streaming service, Spotify, is looking to bring its service to India, one of the fastest-growing internet markets in the world, as it looks to boost growth and stay ahead of rival Apple. Announcing Spotify’s plans to list on public markets on April 3, CEO Daniel Ek said the Stockholm-based company was planning an entry into some of the largest markets in the world. Spotify is taking a rather unusual path to go public and will directly sell shares to the public. "We are working on launching in some of the biggest markets in the world, including India, Russia, and Africa, which have a very rich musical culture," Ek said during his presentation. He said that post IPO, the company would continue to focus on growth rather than turning on the profit machine. While no further details were divulged on when Spotify could launch its service here or its pricing in the country, the company did disclose in its IPO filing last week that it has l...

Actress Jacqueline Fernandez, who has recreated the evergreen track "Ek do teen" on-screen for "Baaghi 2", says nobody can come close to Madhuri Dixit's performance in the original song. "I can't wait for Madhuri ma'am to watch the song. It is my tribute to her. Her performance in the original is unmatchable. Forget me, no one can ever come close to her," Jacqueline said in a statement. The foot-tapping "Ek do teen" song first featured in the 1988 film "Tezaab". For the new version of the song, three choreographers -- Saroj Khan, Ganesh Acharya and Ahmed Khan -- came together on the set. Ahmed is also directing the film. He was keen to retain Saroj's famous hook steps and even urged Manish Malhotra to keep Madhuri's pink outfit in mind while designing Jacqueline's costume for the new song. Click Here To know More - jacqueline fernandez

Korean automobile major Hyundai is planning to invest around Rs 65 billion over the next three years in developing new products, including an electricsports utility vehicle (SUV). The company also plans expand its capacity by 50,000 units at its facility near Chennai through debottlenecking. Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) Managing Director & Chief Executive Y K Koo said the proposed investment would be towards developing nine new products over the next three years. The company has so far invested Rs 210 billion in India. The line-up of the proposed new products includes two facelifts, two new segments and four full models, besides an electric vehicle. One product, to be launched in the second half of the present year, will be positioned between the Eon and the Grand i10. While there are market rumours that it would be the Santro, Koo said the company had not decided on the name yet. "People, including customers, politicians and dealers are asking for the San...

engine and software giant Google, a has open-sourced its artificial intelligence-based ‘Semantic Image Segmentation’ technology – a technology used in the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL portrait mode to achieve shallow depth-of-field effect without the need for a secondary camera. “Today, we are excited to announce the open-source release of our latest and best-performing semantic image segmentation model, DeepLab-v3+, implemented in Tensorflow. This release includes DeepLab-v3+ models built on top of a powerful convolutional neural network (CNN) backbone architecture for the most accurate results, intended for server-side deployment. As part of this release, we are additionally sharing our Tensorflow model training and evaluation code, as well as models already pre-trained on the Pascal VOC 2012 and Cityscapes benchmark semantic segmentation tasks,” stated a blog post shared by Google. In the blog post, Google explained what the technology was and how it worked to ...

It’s been termed as a David versus Goliath fight ever since it started. With the entry of prepaid wallets in the payments ecosystem, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ushered in a new era where small transactions were no longer dependent on heavy paperwork or two-factor authentication. Then came demonetisation and Indian payments wallets turned billion-dollar entities riding on the wave of digital transactions. But, all that seems to have come to a halt. On October 2017, the central bank issued a master circular directing prepaid instruments issuers (PPIs) to make sure their customers comply with full know-your-customer (KYC) norms by February 2018. But wallets seem to be floundering to get even a fraction of their users to do their KYCs. While giants such as Paytm have tried to offer incentives, the industry as a whole hasn’t managed to reach a double-digit percentage of KYC-compliant users even in the second week of March, insiders say. “The figure of KYC-compliant wallet...

The stands of Old Trafford stadium on Tuesday were abuzz with around 2,200 Sevilla fans, fervently hoping for an away win in the second leg game against English football giants Manchester United in the Champions League round-of-16. A Sevilla victory would mean qualifying for the quarterfinals for the first time in six decades, and the historic chance has drawn the largest crowd of Sevilla fans so far to attend an away match in the Champions League knockout stage, reports Efe. Emotions were running high after the first leg ended in a goalless draw, with a mixture of both fear and hope despite facing one of the toughest teams in European soccer. The official Sevilla expedition arrived in Manchester on Monday with the first group of 100 fans, who have steadily increasing with the arrival of more groups. The Andalusian supporters are looking forward to the clash with Man United, pushing aside the memory of three recent unsuccessful attempts to reach the Champions League qu...

Regional content, be it films or documentaries, comedy or music, has been firing up the Internet in India for a few years now. With cheap data and easy access to content, small local libraries such as Hoichoi (for Bengali content) and national home grown platforms such as Alt Balaji, Voot from Viacom 18, Hotstar from Star India and, besides of course the dedicated channels for several Indian languages on YouTube, have flourished. Now Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar are raising their stakes in the game, commissioning original shows and going all out to acquire regional films for their libraries. Could this sound the death knell for local entertainment platforms or will the entry of the big brands help deepen the language market further? “India is one of the largest internet markets in the world and we have seen strong growth since our launch,” says Jessica Lee, vice president, Communications–Asia, Netflix. The availability of regional content on Netflix has increa...

Concerned about government regulations over privacy rules affecting growth in India, Google said on Tuesday that the ecosystem of location-based services was still evolving globally. As part of the internet giant’s “Next Billion User” initiative, it has customised its voice navigation in India, which will include six indic languages — Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam — apart from Hindi. The company has launched a host of features in its already available services. The move will add a new set of users in tier-III cities as well as in the rest of the Indian market. Speaking about the concerns over privacy issues, the company said it follows the law of the land where it operated. “The entire space around location technology and services is dynamic. The ecosystem is still evolving. Some of the concerns that governments have are not specific to one country as everyone wants to protect their citizens. We work in multiple countries and abide by the law of the...

Using Facebook in moderation can boost happiness in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a study has found. The finding could not be generalised to overall use of social media, however, because the same was not true of those who used Twitter, researchers said. Researchers from Fielding Graduate University and University of Virginia in the US found that while happiness and Facebook use increased together up to a certain point, the beneficial effect of social media use then waned. The researchers propose that that ability to interact with others on Facebook, instead of in more challenging face-to-face interactions may help protect these individuals against mental health issues associated with ASD such as depression. "Some studies report that up to 50 per cent of adults with ASD have co-occurring social anxiety disorder. Facebook may provide a safe starting point for training and refinement of conversational skills," said Brenda K Wiederhold, Editor-in-Chief o...

Axis Bank Share India’s third largest private sector bank Axis Bank on Tuesday said it would soon be able to process payments over the popular chatting application ‘WhatsApp’. The bank also termed the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) as a “huge opportunity”. “ We are the market leaders in terms of innovation, and we do believe that UPI is a huge opportunity. We are working in terms of creating a differentiated environment for our customers,” Axis Bank Executive Director -Retail Banking, Rajiv Anand said. Click Here To know More – Axis Share Price 

Xiaomi Mi TV 4A series with 32-inch and 43-inch models will go on sale on Tuesday, a week after they were launched in India. Last month Xiaomi debuted its 55-inch "Mi TV 4" in India. "Both the variants feature the company's own 'PatchWall system' that has been redesigned for India and brings together over 15 different content partners across 12 Indic languages, thus resulting in a rich library of video content ever integrated on a smart TV in India", the company said in a statement. 'PatchWall system' will give users over 5,00,000 hours of content to watch from a library of video-on-demand providers with over 80 per cent content being free. Both the 32-inch and the 43-inch Mi TV 4A versions will be up for grabs from Mi.com/in, Mi Home Stores and Flipkart. 1. Price Xiaomi Mi TV 4A price: Rs 22,999 for 43-inch Xiaomi Mi TV 4A price: Rs 13,999 for 32-inch These are introductory prices, as the Mi.com site shows higher slashed out prices a...

TCS India's Tata Sons is set to sell on Tuesday a roughly 1.5 percent stake in its flagship Tata Consultancy Services for about $1.25 billion. Tata Sons, which owned 73.5 percent of TCS as of end-December, is selling TCS shares in a price range of Rs 2,872 to Rs 2,925 each, according to a deal term sheet. That would be a discount of 4.2 to 5.9 percent to TCS's Monday closing price of Rs 3,052.15. TCS, the top Indian software services exporter, is the second-most valuable company in the country with a market capitalisation of close to $90 billion. Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are managing the TCS share sale. Click Here To know More - TCS

Homegrown ride-hailing major Ola has launched its operations in Sydney, its second market in Australia, as it looks to tap more developed markets to build a profit base to take on rival Uber at home. Ola had kicked off its service in Perth last month after signing up over 7,000 drivers on its platform there. The company is now looking to expand into more cities in the country which is said to have among the most open regulations for ride-hailing services globally. As part of its launch in Sydney, Ola said that it has hired a local team which will support its driver partners. It said that drivers for Ola will get training to use its technology and how to increase their earnings via the service. “We’ve been very pleased with how the service has been received by customers, driver-partners and the community in Perth, and can’t wait to continue building on these experiences and learnings for our second city launch,” said Chandra Nath, Vice President and Head of Internatio...

Huwaei's sub-brand Honor on Monday announced the official roll-out of "Face Unlock" update for its smartphone Honor 7X. The "Face Unlock" feature will be available via HOTA (Huawei's Over the air update) and will be completed by mid-March 2018, the company said in a statement. "The 'Face Unlock' intelligent feature is usually available in flagship-level smartphones. However, Honor has introduced this feature in the coveted Honor 7X," said P Sanjeev, Vice-President, Sales, Huawei Consumer Business Group. Honor 7X is priced at Rs 12,999 for the 32GB version and Rs 15,999 for the 64GB Version. Click Here To know More - Honor 7X

Faced with a public-relations crisis, the government of India’s richest state accepted four major demands made by thousands of farmers, after they flooded in to Mumbai on March 12, 2018. A seven-day, 180-km march of 35,000 mostly poor farmers in India’s richest state finally attracted nationwide attention when they reached the country’s financial capital to bring their problems to the attention of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. They marched for four distinct reasons: land rights to those who have tilled forest land for several years; better minimum prices from the government for agricultural produce and better security against the vagaries of the monsoons; pensions for agricultural labour, still considered a part of the informal sector; proper implementation of farm-loan waivers that the government promised; and for relief from the economic losses of 2016’s demonetisation decision. As the march made national headlines, the government announced by th...

Apple Inc's streaming music service now has 38 million paid subscribers, up from 36 million in February, the company said on Monday. Apple is locked in race for subscribers with Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc's Google and others as streaming music becomes the dominant form of paid music consumption. Apple's number compares to 71 million premium subscribers at the end of 2017 at industry leader Spotify, which plans to list shares in the coming weeks on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SPOT. Apple said Eddy Cue, senior vice president of internet software and services, disclosed the most recent subscriber number for Apple Music at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Amazon Music Unlimited has 16 million paying subscribers, and Pandora Media Inc has 5.48 million total subscribers. Google does not release paid subscriber numbers for its service, Google Play Music. Apple, Spotify, Google and other services charge $9.9...

Theni District Collector, Pallavi Baldev on Monday said that she has not received any information on the casualty in the forest fire that erupted near Kurangani hills here. Baldev informed that around 37 people in two separate groups reached Kolukkumalai for trekking on Saturday and a day after the fire suddenly erupted. "They camped in an estate and were returning when the fire broke out in the forest. I haven't got information on the casualty. Fifteen people have received burn injuries," she said. Earlier on Sunday, 15 students trapped in a forest fire near the hills were rescued by the Indian Air Force (IAF). "Just now I have spoken to District Collector. He communicated that 10-15 students have been rescued. They are coming down from the hill. Operation continues," Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharman said. The IAF was pressed into action by the Defence Minister after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami sought ...

Cab service company Ola is looking at raising a new round of funding, of at least $1 billion (Rs 64 billion), from Singapore-based Temasek Holdings to diversify its investor base. And, its US-based rival, Uber Technologies, is deciding to sell its business in Southeast Asia to local rival Grab Inc. With these, the focus has again shifted to the outlook for the ride hailing business in this country, in case the US-based company also sells the business and merges it with Ola, in exchange for equity. Both have a common investor, Japan-based SoftBank. The latter recently took a 20 per cent stake in Uber and, according to estimates, also has more than 20 per cent in Ola, the largest stakeholder there. Ola promoters Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati have already put in place a plan to deal with the eventuality of a merger or buyout, to ensure they are in management control. For one, they are clearly diversifying their investor base. This is to ensure no one investor, such as SoftBank,...

Cab service company Ola is looking at raising a new round of funding, of at least $1 billion (Rs 64 billion), from Singapore-based Temasek Holdings to diversify its investor base. And, its US-based rival, Uber Technologies, is deciding to sell its business in Southeast Asia to local rival Grab Inc. With these, the focus has again shifted to the outlook for the ride hailing business in this country, in case the US-based company also sells the business and merges it with Ola, in exchange for equity. Both have a common investor, Japan-based SoftBank. The latter recently took a 20 per cent stake in Uber and, according to estimates, also has more than 20 per cent in Ola, the largest stakeholder there. Ola promoters Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati have already put in place a plan to deal with the eventuality of a merger or buyout, to ensure they are in management control. For one, they are clearly diversifying their investor base. This is to ensure no one investor, such as SoftBank,...

Amitesh Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) on Monday said that no road would be closed due to the protest march by the All India Kisan Sabha's farmers. Kumar said, "No road closure or diversions will happen due to Farmers' Morcha now". All India Kisan Sabha protest march, led by over 30, 000 farmers, reached Mumbai's Azad Maidan, after walking with blistered feet for about 180 km in the sun over the last five days. They will proceed to the state assembly later in the day. The protest, which is held to demand a complete farm loan waiver among other things, commenced on March 5 from the CBS Chowk in Central Nashik. Shiv Sena's Aditya Thackeray had also met the farmers and interacted with them. The farmers of the state have been demanding a complete waiver of loans and electricity bills. Last year, the Maharashtra government had announced a loan waiver of Rs 4,000 crore under the first phase of the farm loan waive...

A consortium of Jet Airways, Air France-KLM and Delta Airlines understood to have expressed interest in the disinvestment of national carrier Air India, according to sources. Moving ahead with the strategic disinvestment of loss-making Air India, the government is expected to soon invite Expression of Interest (EoI) from the bidders. Against this backdrop, sources said a consortium of three full services, including Jet Airways, are keen to put in their bid for the national carrier. Jet Airways along with Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines are interested in participating in Air India disinvestment, sources told PTI. When contacted, a Jet Airways spokesperson said the airline would not like to comment on speculations. Queries sent to Air France-KLM and Delta remained unanswered. Jet Airways' possible bid for Air India by way of a consortium also comes less than four months after the Naresh Goyal-led airline enhanced cooperation agreement with the Air France-KLM Group. Inter...

With half the world population as target customers, a market potential of $50 billion by 2025, spurred by almost $1 billion in funding over the last three years, and a positive regulatory environment, female technology (FemTech) is emerging as the next big disruptor in the global health care market, according to Frost & Sullivan. “FemTech” refers to software, diagnostics, products and services that use digital technology to improve women’s health. Frost & Sullivan identified the following insights on women’s economic power and customer behaviour: Ninety per cent women are primary health care decision makers for their family and key influencers for friends; 80 per cent of the household health care spending is done by women; working females spend 29 per cent more per capita on health care compared to males in the same age group; 50 per cent of global health care customers are women and they’re the primary caregivers for the elderly and children; 66 per cent of wome...

One Plus 5T Few would have bet on a Chinese handset brand racing up the charts in the premium category in India even a year ago. And yet in the latest Q4 numbers for 2017 OnePlus, the brand owned by BBK the firm that too owns Oppo and Vivo, has gone past Samsung with 24.2 per cent share of the market according to research firm IDC. And standalone monthly figures for January 2018 from Counterpoint Research show that it notched up a share of 27 per cent (in volumes) as against 44 per cent by Apple at number one and 22 per cent by Samsung at number three. How did OnePlus work around comm on Click Here To Know More – One plus 6 Price

Government-owned MMTC, the country’s largest international trading company, will hold the first auction under the Gold Monetisation Scheme (GMS) of the central government in the next 10 days. The Government of India has mobilised about 21 tonnes of gold under the scheme. Of this, 12 tonnes is aimed to be sold through auction in the next three to six months, said a senior official of MMTC. “We have completed the documentation with the department of expenditure to initiate the process. The notification for the auction is expected in a day or two and the auction will be held in the next seven to 10 days,” he added. Under GMS, gold deposits are accepted from households, temples and trusts, with tenures of 1-3 years (short term), 5-7 years (medium term) and 12-15 years (long term). While short-term deposits are converted into gold coin by MMTC, the long-term ones are marked for auction. The official said the majority of the gold under the scheme had come from temples and trusts. ...

Fugitive jeweller Mehul Choksi, accused of causing fraud worth crores of rupees to the Punjab National Bank, has said it was "impossible" for him to return to India because his passport has been suspended. "It is impossible for me to travel back to India. I wish to point out that the Regional Passport Office Mumbai has not given me any explanation as to why my passport has been suspended and as to how I am a security threat to India," Choksi said in a letter to the CBI, which is probing the alleged fraud. He has said he was travelling "abroad for my business" and had embarked on the journey before the probe agency filed an FIR against him. Click Here To know More – PNB Scam

“Can I try the Cole Haans in a size 8?” Later that night on Facebook: An advertisement for Cole Haan pumps. OK, maybe a coincidence. “What’s the best high-tech scale?” my wife asks aloud. Five minutes later on Instagram: An ad for scales. Wait, are they listening? “Get the little red Sudafed pills,” my mom says after I sneeze. That afternoon: An advertisement for Sudafed PE. Yep, they’ve even wiretapped my bodily functions. A conspiracy theory has spread among Facebook and Instagram users: The company is tapping our microphones to target ads. It’s not. “Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed,” says Facebook. Yeah, sure, and the government swears it isn’t keeping any pet aliens at Area 51. So I contacted former Facebook employees and various advertising technology experts, who all cited technical and legal reasons audio snooping isn’t possible. Uploading and scanning that much audi...

President Donald Trump finally followed through on his almost year-old threat to restrict imports of foreign steel. On March 8, the president slapped a 25 percent tariff on the metal, while also putting a 10 percent duty on foreign aluminum. After initially suggesting there’d be no exceptions, Trump promised to be “very flexible” and initially exempted Mexico and Canada from the duties, which are set to go into effect in 15 days. While Trump cited “national security” as the impetus, he’s been vowing since the campaign to use trade policy to restore jobs to the American manufacturing sector, which has suffered in recent decades. The steel sector, for example, supported as many as 650,000 American workers in the 1950s, yet now employs only about 140,000. My research focuses on the politics of trade and what prompts political leaders to impose restrictions like tariffs. The last time a president slapped tariffs on steel offers an illuminating lesson – and cautionary tale – for T...

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against the Allahabad High Court's order acquitting Nupur Talwar and Rajesh Talwar in the Aarushi- Hemraj murder case. The Allahabad High Court, in a judgment last year, observed that the Noida-based dentist couple couldn't be held responsible for the murder of Aarushi and household help Hemraj because of insufficient evidence. That verdict itself was the outcome of a nine-year-long case that dragged on following several twists and turns. A CBI court in Ghaziabad had earlier sentenced the doctor couple to life imprisonment in 2013. The CBI has said that the Allahabad HC made a mistake in overturning the trial court's 'well-reasoned' judgment. However, following the High Court's October 2017 order, Hemraj's widow had in December moved the apex court against the acquittal. On May 15, 2008, 14-year old Aarushi Talwar had been found dead in the Talwars' Noida apartment....