Working to raise health spending to 2.1% of GDP, says finance panel and all the latest news !!

As India battles the Covid-19  pandemic, fifteenth finance commission chairman NK Singh on Tuesday said the commission was working towards a financing model to raise federal public-health spending to about 2.1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) over the next five years. The NK Singh-led finance commission for the first time will devote an entire chapter on public health financing when it submits its final report, which is under preparation , he said. On Tuesday, Singh led a brainstorming session on the country’s health sector and the current Covid-19 pandemic…

Gadkari seeks forest clearance for infra projects, nudges ministries !!

New Delhi: Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday chaired a meeting of the ‘group on infrastructure’ with railway minister Piyush Goyal and environment minister Prakash Javadekar seeking to expedite clearances for several pending highway and infrastructure projects. The road transport and highways minister raised the issue of outstanding forest clearance for 187 highway projects. It was also noted that many of the projects had not yet applied for Stage II forest clearance. Environment minister Javadekar was asked to direct the forest officers posted in states to follow and implement the…

Startups wake up to a post-China world !!

BENGALURU : Last week, after India abruptly announced a ban on 59 Chinese apps, TikTok’s CEO Kevin Mayer called for a virtual town hall with his India employees. Over the past two years, ByteDance, which owns TikTok and Helo (also included in the list of the banned apps), had established a large presence in India. Despite the border conflict between India and China that led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers and the anti-China rhetoric that had been bubbling up here as the pandemic spread, the Beijing-headquartered Byte Dance had no inkling…

Google finally pulls the plug on Google Plus, replaces it with Google Currents !!

Google is finally doing away with Google Plus. In case you did not know, Google Plus is the company’s failed social network which once aimed to compete with the likes of Facebook. Google has already shut the end-user version of Google Plus. And now it is pulling the plug on the enterprise version as well. Google is replacing Google Plus with Google Currents. The iOS & Android apps of the social networking platform have already been re branded. Currents is available to everyone starting today.  Aimed at enterprise users, Google Currents…

Kashmiri student develops FileShare Tool, an Indian alternative to popular Chinese app SHAREit !!

The ban of Chinese apps, coupled with the demand for ‘Made in India’ apps, has fueled the local talent to develop new alternatives. One such made in India app is the FileShare Tool which has been developed by a boy from Kashmir. FileShare Tool has been launched as an alternative to SHAREit, a popular Chinese app that was recently banned by the Indian government. FileShare Tool, as the name suggests, is an app for sharing files between all these devices. The application is available for download on the Google Play Store and has an…

WhatsApp, Messenger may join hands to take on Apple and Google messages !!

As the world continues to battle with Covid-19 this year, in the domain of messages, the biggest tech names in the world are setting up to battle each other for the billions of users across the world. There are major updates on this front coming in for almost all the platforms this year – Apple is getting the iOS 14 update which is going to come with features that will be target WhatsApp, Google is working on adding to end-to-end encryption to RCS messaging and thereby closing in on the security issues…

Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google CEOs to testify to House on July 27 !!

Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook are likely to face a torrent of critical questions from lawmakers on the panel’s antitrust subcommittee as the investigation builds a case for revamping antitrust enforcement. Bezos may be in for a particularly tough session. Unlike the other chiefs, the world’s richest man will be addressing Congress for the first time, and his company has sparred with subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline over previous testimony by another company official and allegations of anticompetitive conduct. The appearances may be virtual, according to the Monday…

Elements promises a fix after several users report OTP registration failure !!

The new homegrown social media app ‘Elements’ launched this Sunday but users have not been unable to register on it. The team behind Elements has updated saying that they’re working on it. Many users posted on Twitter saying that the OTP for Elements is failing to generate. Due to that, eager users haven’t been able to experience the new social media app at all. The app has already garnered over 1 million downloads on Google Play Store in just the first 24 hours of its launch. Elements said it is working on…

Bharat Bond ETF-Series II: A Safe option, but should you invest?

The second tranche of the Bharat Bond ETF (exchange traded fund), managed by Edelweiss mutual fund, will be up for subscription from July 14. Just like the first tranche of December 2019, the second offer will come in two variants: a 10-year ETF that will mature in April 2030 and a five-year product that will mature in 2025. What is this bond about? The Bharat Bond ETF is India’s first to corporate debt ETF. Companies approach the firm managing the bond ETF with their borrowing requirements. The bond ETF raises…

PM Modi announces launch of Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge, invites startups, tech community to participate !!

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 4 announced that the  launch of a challenge to facilitate members of the Indian tech and startup community in creating world-class ‘Made in India’ apps. “To help our start-up and tech community achieve this objective, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology along with Atal Innovation Mission are coming up with the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovation challenge. This shall run in two tracks: Promotion of Existing Apps and Development of New Apps.” The challenge aims to promote those who may have the  such a working product or if feel they have the…