Sunny Sen

2 yrs since Make in India launch, only smartphones thrive in manufacturing sector

Narendra Modi promised a job revolution through manufacturing but two years later, little has flown into the programme’s centrepiece, apart from mobiles and autos.

Reliance Jio challenges Airtel’s fastest network claim, says Ookla took sides

Hours after Sunil Mittal-promoted Airtel issued a public statement that its network speeds are the fastest according to Ookla, a Seattle-based internet testing firm, rival Reliance Jio said “the public should not be misled by false claims based on Ookla results”.

With $1 bn funding, Flipkart adds muscle in battle against Amazon

Flipkart with its fresh funding can increase its leadership over Amazon by a few notches. But, if that will lead to another round of price war in e-commerce, it is not yet known.

IT major Cognizant may fire 6,000-10,000 people to reduce non-performing employees

Cognizant, the New Jersey-headquartered software services company with most of its operations in Chennai, may fire 6,000-10,000 people, to reduce redundant and non-performing employees.

Idea-Vodafone merger: What’s in it for the customers

While Vodafone and Idea Cellular will merge to become India’s largest telecom operator, its customers will also benefit from better infrastructure, better services and better tariffs of the combined entity.

Struggling startup ecosystem supports Stayzilla co-founder behind bars

Yogendra Vasupal was arrested by the Chennai police on charges of fraud, and inability to pay dues after his company Stayzilla, a homestay and hotel aggregating startup, ran out of money.

Slack-rival Flock gets $25 mn from founder for expansion, but is it a good decision?

Flock, the local rival of global office communication app such as Slack and Facebook at Work, gets $25 million from its founder to grab market share in India and grow its overseas business.

V-Mart wants to become the H&M of small towns

Lalit Agarwal’s V-Mart is not impacted by the rise of e-commerce in India. In fact, he believes that there is a lot of headroom for growth as in small towns, buyers still want to touch and feel clothes before buying them.

ShopClues board backs Radhika-Sethi over ousted founder Aggarwal

In a turn of events, two days after Sandeep Aggarwal, ousted co-founder of ShopClues made public remarks of Facebook that he was shortchanged by co-founders Radhika Ghai and Sanjay Sethi, the e-commerce firm’s board backed Ghai and Sethi and instilled faith in the current management.

Sandeep-Radhika Aggarwal divorce might end in a battle of control of ShopClues

ShopClues founder, Sandeep Aggarwal (also founder and CEO of used-car marketplace Droom) is going through a bitter separation with Radhika (they share the second name), who is also the co-founder of the company. This might just be the beginning of a fight of who controls ShopClues.

Threatened by Patanjali, HUL goes mass market with ayurvedic products

Hindustan Unilever, one of India’s oldest consumer product brand, is adding a large number of ayurvedic and herbal products in the budget or affordable segment to take on Ramdev Baba-promoted Patanjali, which is its biggest threat.

Decision awaits: Who will fix Uttar Pradesh

State will have to come out of its decades-old caste, communal and religion politics, to transform itself from a “sick” to a healthy state

Driver income continues to fall after Uber and Ola withdraw incentives

With cars on loan and salaries to pay, drivers of Ola and Uber, who earned over a lakh per month, are finding it difficult to make ends meet.

End of Tata Steel-ThyssenKrupp merger: Chandra’s first step to undo what Mistry did

After N Chandrasekaran took over as the chairman of salt-to-software maker Tata Group, Tata Steel’s breaking off from the planned merger with German conglomerate Thyssenkrup might be his first big move as the new chairman.

Uber clears air on falling driver income, pegs per day earning at Rs 1,500-2,500

Uber India head Amit Jain signals reducing incentives in major cities, weeks after drivers in Delhi and Karnataka protested against falling income and long working hours.

Reliance Jio’s fight with other telcos could be rural India’s gain

India adds 15,000 new internet users, everyday. And telcos are bleeding in the fight to capture the new users, but biggest beneficiary of this is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India campaign, which aims to provide internet literacy even in the remotest parts of the country.

Court restores water supply to Pepsi, Coca-Cola in Tamil Nadu, but retailers ban it

The Madras High Court restored water supply to Pepsi Co and Coca-Cola, but retailers continued to enforce the ban of not selling cola made by the multinationals, signals the rise of nationalism in India.

Sexual harassment: Fall from grace of some top executives

Sexual harassment charges on senior executives have been plenty in the past, most of which has resulted in ousters.

Reliance Jio’s fight with other telcos will boost the Digital India agenda

The competition from Jio is very stiff, and has most of the existing telecom companies on their knees. With the government’s emphasis on digital transactions from mobile wallets such as BHIM, to cashless ways of money disbursements, an increase in data users in villages could change the industry’s dynamics.

How entrepreneurial dreams are lost when investors take over startups

In India, founders don’t seem to hang up their boots. They either put pressure from outside or, on certain occasions, return. This is because founders and managements don’t often think alike.

WhatsApp eyes biz app segment in India, to make money from commercial messaging

WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned instant messaging app, is working on a new platform targeted at small businesses, and will use India as the testing ground for the global launch of a product it sees as a potential money spinner.

Are job cuts at Snapdeal a precursor to its merger with Alibaba and Paytm?

Modi’s demonetisation woe: Rs 2,000 notes could attract more fake money dealers

Larger denominations are a favourite of counterfeiters as it becomes easy to push a bigger amount through fewer notes, easier to handle, and is cost effective.

Telenor exits India as Airtel acquires local arm to fight Reliance Jio

Once India’s fastest growing telecom operator, Telenor sells its operations to Bharti Airtel, as the former fails to make money in world’s second largest subscriber base.

With Reliance Jio, Mukesh Ambani aims to change the way India uses data

With Reliance Jio, Mukesh Ambani aims to create an eco-systems where a user does not have to step out of the family of apps to access services online. Ambani announced a slew of offers inlcuding the Reliance Jio Prime membership.

Flipkart to reduce office space by half to 900,000 sq-ft to cut cost

Flipkart is in talks to reduce its office space lease -- down to less than half from what it was a couple of years ago -- signalling a need to cut mushrooming cost in the house of India’s largest e-commerce firm

H1B visa: India begins dialogue with US lawmakers

The Indian software services companies will breathe a sigh of relief as the Indian ministries, authorities and industry lobby had a dialogue with a visiting eight-member US delegation headed by Congressman Bob GoodLatte, on the ongoing concerns of H1-B visa holders.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio promises free voice calls, stay cheaper than rivals

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries promises mobile users to offer cheaper tariff than any other competitor in the years to comes, and also launched Jio Prime membership for its users.

H-1B visa concerns: Members of India’s top IT industry lobby to visit US

Nasscom expects ease out the pressure of the Indian IT companies, which earns 65% of its $155 billion revenue from the US.

Allegations and losses: Tata Sons’ Chandrasekaran has a lot to clean up

N Chandrasekaran has a reputation to protect. The 30-year old IT industry veteran has the top job of cleaning up the Tata Group of its allegations, stumbling business. In the process he will have to take some tough decisions.