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Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest technology services and consulting company, announced a surprise change at the top yesterday. CEO Rajesh Gopinathan has resigned to “pursue his other interests,” and K Krithivasan, another company veteran will take over in the coming months, the Mumbai-listed IT giant told the stock exchanges after the mar…

Venture capital funding for India’s startups fell from $38.5 billion in 2021 to $25.7 billion in 2022, according to the latest report on the sector by Bain and Company, a consultancy, and Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association. However, more early-stage deals were struck in 2022, helping the overall deal volume to be marginally higher, ac…

Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms will lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion, the company announced Tuesday, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning economic instability could continue for “many years,” CNBC reports. Also in this brief, OpenAI releases GPT-4, the latest version of its large …

The year 2022 saw women-led startups in India increase their share of venture capital investments and do better than the overall startup ecosystem in the country, even as the so-called funding winter descended on the sector amid worsening global macroeconomic conditions. Marquee investors such as Sequoia Capital and Accel as well as accelerators an…

Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest contract manufacturers, said on Saturday that there was no definitive agreement about investment in India, the French news agency AFP reported. This came after a report from Bloomberg on Friday last that Foxconn will invest about $700 million to build a new plant near India’s tech capital Bengaluru. Also in this brie…

Amazon announced on February 24 that it will integrate its logistics network and SmartCommerce, a suite of SaaS products built on Amazon Web Services, with the government of India-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Ericsson has announced the largest layoff in the telecom sector in the current economic slowdown, Reuters reports. Also i…

Google has started to support third-party billing for Google Play Store purchases in India as the Android maker begins to comply with local rules, after its challenge to a diktat from India’s Competition Commission was initially rejected by the country’s top courts, but remains pending, TechCrunch reports. Meanwhile, C.E. Info Systems, better known…

India and Singapore have linked their digital payments systems, UPI and PayNow, to support instant and low-cost cross-border payments. The system went live yesterday. Capgemini forecast weaker revenue growth and said it would slow down hiring in 2023 amid a global economic slowdown, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, Wipro is asking some recruits to join …

Tata Group’s Jaguar Land Rover said on Tuesday it is opening three new engineering hubs in Europe to develop autonomous vehicle technologies as part of its partnership with Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company Nvidia, Reuters reports. Also in this brief, several countries, last week, agreed on a call to action over the use of AI in warfar…

Microsoft’s announcement of its Bing AI last week was received with much fanfare, which even prompted Google to rush through its botched announcement. The experience of some early testers, however, hasn’t been very good, and the whole thing could backfire. Also in this brief, Tesla is recalling more than 360,000 cars over safety concerns related to…

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took a vacation to French Polynesia to “detox” himself from gadgets and other digital distractions, the entrepreneur told The New York Times, Business Insider reports – the original piece is behind a paywall. Benioff took a vacation after firing 10 percent of the cloud-based CRM provider’s staff. Meanwhile, fintech darli…

Blue Origin, the aerospace company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has developed the technologies needed to make solar panels on the Moon, with zero carbon emissions and no water, the company said in a blog post on Friday last. Twilio, yesterday, announced plans to cut another 17 percent of its workforce or roughly 1,500 jobs, CNBC reports. A…

Shell’s board of directors are being personally sued over their alleged failure to properly manage risks associated with the climate crisis, Euronews reports. The lawsuit, brought by Environmental law charity ClientEarth says the British oil giant’s 11 directors have breached their legal duties under the UK’s Companies Act by failing to bring their…

Microsoft has re-launched its search engine Bing with artificial intelligence features, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The new search engine is available for preview at bing.com. Microsoft is a large investor in Open AI, the research lab and company whose ChatGPT bot has taken the tech world by storm for its ability to deliver human-lik…

The naval version of India’s light combat aircraft made a successful landing on the INS Vikrant, India’s indigenous aircraft carrier, the ministry of defence said in a press release yesterday. Separately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, yesterday, opened India’s largest helicopter factory at Tumakuru, near Bengaluru. The facility, established by Hind…

As India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the country’s budget today for the coming fiscal year that starts April 1, expectations are high on all fronts, especially as India is widely seen as the one major economy that will grow strongly during a period when the global economy is expected to slow down. Here’s what some of India’s tech…

The International Monetary Fund yesterday revised upward its global growth projections for the year, after better-than-expected data on spending by American households and businesses, and in other countries, and Europe’s handling of its energy crisis, CNBC reports. Also in this report, pet fish apparently changed their owner’s Nintendo username, do…

The US Justice Department yesterday accused Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, and said the internet giant should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, Reuters reports. Venture capital funding of startups fell more than 38 percent in 2022 versus 2021, GlobalData finds. Indian software-as-a-service companies, however, were a r…

Amazon has launched Amazon Air, its dedicated air cargo fleet in India, partnering with Quickjet, the ecommerce giant said in a press release yesterday. It will start with Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Activist investor Elliott Management’s next target is Salesforce, Wall Street Journal reports. Also in this brief, Microsoft invests more …

India’s Supreme Court yesterday rejected Google’s ask that an order by the Competition Commission imposing a fine and changes to its market practices with respect to Android software be stayed. Google had approached the top court after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, earlier this month, had refused to stay the Competition Commission’s …

GoMechanic, a car service startup backed by VC investors including Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management and Chiratae, will cut 70 percent of its staff and undergo an independent audit of its books, the company’s co-founder Amit Bhasin said in a post on LinkedIn yesterday. Also in this brief, Microsoft yesterday confirmed the 10,000 job cuts tha…

Microsoft will likely announce thousands of job cuts soon resulting from a decision to cut 5 percent of its global workforce, Sky News reported yesterday. With more than 220,000 employees at Microsoft, that could mean more than 10,000 layoffs, The Verge pointed out. Also in this brief, Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptops with the M2 chips, Google’s pla…

ShareChat, yesterday, joined a growing list of Indian startup unicorns that have laid off employees amid a funding winter. The company has laid off 20 percent of its workforce to conserve cash, as the current global economic slowdown has made it harder to raise funding, according to multiple reports. The desi social media venture is among the most …

Infosys yesterday raised its revenue outlook for FY23 citing strong growth momentum from the first nine of the fiscal year and a record order book, even as a recession looms large in its biggest markets. The company’s numbers beat street expectations and CEO Salil Parekh said its strong capabilities in cloud technologies and automation had helped I…

Normal air traffic operations are slowly resuming in the US after flights were halted across the country on Wednesday, due to a software glitch in the Federal Aviation Administration’s computer systems, BBC reports. Also in this brief, Jio crosses 100 cities with its 5G services; and Maruti Suzuki India expects to launch the eVX, an electric SUV, b…

Microsoft is in talks to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, the AI app that has gone ultra-viral, Semafor reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter. OneWeb yesterday confirmed the successful deployment of 40 satellites launched by SpaceX, taking it to a total of 542 low-earth-orbit satellites and a step closer to…

Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company, said its quarterly revenue has crossed the $7 billion mark, with sales for its fiscal third quarter, the October-December period, coming in at $7.075 billion. A near-term slowdown in demand is apparent in the staff addition numbers. TCS saw a net reduction in its workforce, for the fir…

Apple may not be releasing a new iPhone SE in 2024, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who bases his predictions on sources in the supply chain, The Verge reported on Jan. 7. The Infosys Prize for 2022 was announced on Jan. 7, by Infosys Science Foundation. The Prize carries a pure gold medal, a citation, and a cash purse of $100,000 each in catego…

Indian Space Research Organisation and Microsoft yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to together help space-tech startups in India. They will offer technology tools and platforms, go-to-market support and mentoring to help Indian space startups scale and become enterprise ready. Amazon’s layoffs are bigger than originally rumoured. And a…

Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta Platforms was fined 390 million euros or $414 million in the EU’s latest fine against the social network apps provider, Wall Street Journal reports. In India, Google’s appeal seeking an immediate stay against a Competition Commission fine has been declined by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, …

India currently doesn’t plan to put restrictions on how much time individuals, including youngsters, spend playing games online, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s minister of state for electronics and information technology, told the lower house of the country’s parliament on Dec. 14, according to a government statement. Also in today’s brief, Moneycon…

Infosys turned 40 this year, and the journey has seen many firsts for India—from listing in the US to the distribution of wealth across the rank and file of the enterprise. The story of the company, widely seen as the bellwether of India’s IT services industry, includes chapters in which the founders came back from retirement—not once, but twice. I…

Tata Consultancy Services, India's biggest IT services company, is facing a class-action lawsuit in the US, the company’s biggest market. TCS has been sued by Shawn Katz, a former employee, who alleges that the IT giant discriminates against non-South Asian and non-Indian applicants and employees, Money Control reports. Also in this episode, Vivo’s…

Google, last week, followed Apple, in releasing its version of what’s called a passkey, which if widely adopted could take us closer to a passwordless future. Air India is close to placing historic orders for as many as 500 jetliners worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing, Reuters reported yesterday, citing industry sources. …

Einride, a freight mobility technology company, said yesterday it has raised $500 million in financing, comprising $200 million in Series C equity investment and a $300 million debt facility. Blume Ventures has announced the close of its Fund IV at more than $250 million, bringing its assets under management to more than $600 million. Apple has del…

Sorrento Therapeutics has received clearance from the US FDA to initiate clinical trials with its new mRNA vaccine against Omicron variants of the Coronavirus. One Peak, an investor in growth-stage B2B software companies in Europe and Israel, has closed its latest fund at $1 billion, Private Equity Wire reported yesterday. Israeli AI inference chip…

Apple may bring some of its iPad production to India from China if talks with the Indian government are successful, CNBC reported yesterday, citing two sources close to the government. Microsoft has hiked prices in India by up to 11 percent to match prevailing dollar-based pricing in Asia, the company said in a post. And nutritional supplements sel…

India’s Department of Telecommunications has told the country’s top telcos to stop setting up 5G networks close to airports, over concerns that they could interfere with airplane instruments, Press Trust of India reports. India’s EV scooter sales continue to grow as established players raise their game. And in agri tech, DeHaat, one of the biggest …

Google will face damages claims for up to 25 billion euros ($25.4 billion) over its digital advertising practices in two lawsuits to be filed in British and Dutch courts in the coming weeks by a law firm on behalf of publishers, Reuters reports. Tata Group is looking to buy a facility in Bangalore, from Apple contract manufacturer Wistron, Economic…

India will conduct the first pilot of the e-rupee for retail digital currency on December 1, Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank said yesterday in a statement. Meanwhile, the central bank has rejected the NBFC licence applications of some well-known fintech startups, The Hindu Businessline reports. And Vikram Kirloskar, the well-known…

Amazon Web Services at its annual re:Invent conference, which began yesterday, said it will be water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations, according to a press release. Table Space, a co-working space provider, has raised $300 million in fresh funding, Economic Times reports. And the high-end v…

The Reserve Bank of India has asked Paytm Payments Services Limited to resubmit the application to operate a payments aggregator business, barring it from adding online merchants while the approvals remain pending, Mint reports. Satellite ventures in India step up their efforts in India. Pixxel in Bengaluru and Dhruva in Hyderabad together sent thr…

Amazon will be shutting down Amazon Academy, an online learning platform it launched in India for high-school students last year, TechCrunch reports. Ultraviolette Automotive, an EV technologies company, yesterday announced the commercial launch of its first product, a high-performance motorcycle called F77, starting at an ex-showroom price of Rs. …

Amazon Web Services yesterday announced the launch of its second Indian data centre facility in Hyderabad, called the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region. The first was opened in Mumbai in 2016. Britain’s top competition authority will launch an investigation into the Apple-Google duopoly in the web browser market after many developers and business…

India has released a framework to curb fake and misleading reviews on ecommerce platforms and portals offering tour and travel services, restaurants, eateries and consumer durables, TechCrunch reports. HCL Technologies is launching a climate change course to get its 220,000-strong workforce to reduce its carbon footprint. And hyperspectral imaging …

India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has released a draft bill, titled ‘The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022’ for public feedback. The last date to provide feedback, via the ministry’s website, is Dec. 17. This brings India a step closer to formulating rules that will govern the individual rights of the ‘digital citi…

India ranked eighth on the annual climate change performance index, jumping two positions since last year, Carbon Copy reports. India is among the high-performing countries in the index, preceded by Denmark, Sweden, Chile, and Morocco, while the first three positions for “very high” performance remained empty, according to the report. And Meta Plat…

Tata group’s iPhone components factory in Hosur, near Bengaluru, is set to employ 60,000 workers, with a large proportion being women, Press Trust of India reports, citing Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. SoftBank Group is set to sell part of its 12.9 percent stake in Paytm in a transaction that will fetch the Japanese telecom and internet…

Tata Consultancy Services has won a contract from TAP Air Portugal to modernise the airline’s IT systems and business processes to improve customer experience, as part of which it will establish a digital centre for innovation that will eventually serve other airlines in the region as well. Google has added UPI Autopay as a payments option for subs…

Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as early as this week, in what would be the largest job cut in the company’s history, New York Times reports, citing people who know about the plan. Billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate has received the go-ahead for an open offer for broadcaster NDTV’s …