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There was a time when Flipkart wanted to switch to an app-only business model. However, faced with consumer backlash, the company dropped the plan. While apps are central to the smartphone world, it can be good idea to have alternatives to them. And, India's on-demand cab providers are taking that route by providing users with ways besides apps to book a cab. They are interacting via text messages, booking a cab from a browsers, and interacting with applications such as Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Google Assistant, to help the customers.
How far would you go to avenge your broken heart? For a 35-year-old woman from Palwal in Haryana, it was murder. The woman, identified as Aarti, reportedly made three crude bombs with firecracker powder, nails, glass and stones. She was planning to blow her ex-boyfriend, Rakesh, to pieces after he walked out of their six-year-long live-in relationship to go back to his ex-wife and children. Her partner-in-crime was another ex-boyfriend, Pradeep alias Daroga.
India's industrial growth, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), during the first five months of the current fiscal, is the worst in a decade at -0.27 per cent. In contrast, industrial growth stood at 18.14 in the first five months in 2007-2008 fiscal, showing a steep decline in factory and industrial growth. The industrial growth rate is also worse than the five-month period in fiscal 2009, just following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the global financial crisis.
Police in Kannur district in Kerala are on high alert after a BJP worker was hacked to death in an alleged retaliation to the killing of a CPI(M) worker three days ago. The area is reportedly volatile and the authorities are worried that fresh violence may flare up.
According to a new survey, the BJP is likely to emerge as the largest political party in the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, with over 170-183 seats. However, with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) expected to win 115-124 seats, t Samajwadi Party about 94-103 seats and the Congress ending up with 8-12 seats, the verdict is likely to throw a hung Assembly.
Pakistan high commissioner to India Abdul Basit on Wednesday said that India's claim about the surgical strikes carried out across the Line of Control in Pakistan occupied Kashmir on 29 September was false. He claimed that if there had been such a strike, Pakistan was sure to have 'retaliated'. He also claimed that India's evidence of video tapes from the strikes were 'fabricated'.
Bollywood actor Neil Nitin Mukesh, grandson of legendary singer Mukesh, got engaged to Mumbai-based Rukmini Sahay on the auspicious occasion of Dussehra on Tuesday. Reportedly, it was a union fixed by the couples' family, and a wedding is planned for early next year. Rukmini belongs to the aviation industry and both the families know each other well.
Over two dozen Indian companies have invested about $450 million in Qatar, in the last seven years. Creating over 2,000 jobs, Indian companies have invested about $225 million in Doha alone, say new reports. Some of the largest Indian companies who have invested in Qatar include LIC, TCS, L&T, ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC Bank, Voltas and Shapoorji Pallonji, among others.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday said the state government would be investing over ₹5,000 crore for taking high-speed Internet connectivity to each of the 29,000 villages by 2018. Fadnavis said the project, called 'Mahanet', was on the lines of the Centre's ambitious Bharatnet, which aims to take connectivity in a phased manner with the first milestone of having 1 lakh villages by March 2017.
Virat Kohli showed in more than one way that he has matured and mellowed down in the recent Test series against New Zealand. Donning the captain's character, it was unusual to see Kohli appear this calm and composed, writes Natasha Singh for India Today. "Kohli has seemed to realise that he is now not just a cricketer but also an international celebrity and needs to watch his words more carefully. This is probably why he has chosen his bat to do the talking instead of him," she says.
In this age of copy-and-paste, plagiarism and piracy are rarely regarded as serious issues, writes Bibek Debroy in The Indian Express. "Notice, a person will not typically steal a music CD from a store, but is quite amenable to downloading songs from the internet. Stated differently, there is a notion of theft when there is something physical or tangible, not otherwise. Copyright and related rights may assume physical form, but the notion is inherently that of something intangible and non-physical. We don't accept these things as commercial. To the extent we accept copyright and related rights as commercial, we do it more for neighbouring rights and less for old-fashioned and narrow copyrights," he writes.
India could be at the heart of future global growth by forging economic links with Indian Ocean rim countries, writes James Crabtree in Mint. "Research suggests that India will be the world's fastest growing nation in the decade to 2024, with its gross domestic product expanding by an average of 7% per year. But of the world's six fastest growing economies over that same period, four will also be in east or southern Africa, including Kenya and Tanzania. A host of other countries likely to grow comparably quickly... This potential growth is already attracting corporate India, with groups like Tata and Mahindra targeting African markets. If Modi's Make In India export drive is to succeed, goods manufactured in domestic factories must seek buyers around eastern Africa and South-East Asia," he writes.
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