New Delhi [India], Apr. 1 : The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) entered into nine new Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) during the last two days of the current financial year, thus crossing the 150 mark.

New Delhi [India], Apr. 1 : Telecom operator Idea Cellular on Friday launched its 4G services in Assam circle, starting with five towns, namely Jorhat, Tezpur, Nagaon, Bongaigaon and Lumding, and is looking to further expand 4G network to cover 13 towns including Guwahati, by April 2017.

Idea also unveiled Digital Idea, a suite of digital applications for consumers in Assam. As part of the Digital Idea offerings, the company will offer a suite of three entertainment apps - Idea Music Lounge, Idea Movie Club and Idea Game Spark for its 13 lakh customers in Assam.

New Delhi [India], Mar 31 : Tata Motors on Friday announced the launch of JT Special Vehicles Pvt. Ltd., a 50:50 joint venture with Jayem Automotives Pvt. Ltd., for the development of special performance vehicles based on the latest series products.

As part of the agreement, both Tata Motors and Jayem Automotives will work towards performance enhancement and appearance of series vehicles to offer an exciting and innovative range of niche aspirational products for the passenger car customers.

New Delhi [India], Mar 31 : Global brand in personal peripheral devices for the digital world Genius on Friday announced its India launch of compact but powerful portable Bluetooth speakers at Rs.3050.

However, the product is also available on Amazon for an introductory offer price of Rs.1699 only.

With built-in microphone, the SP-906BT and the SP-906BT Plus feature superb clear audio, stunning loudness and extra heavy bass which is smaller and lighter than a baseball.

SP-906BT Series gives people on-the-go more than 10 hours of continuous playing, that's almost more than 200 songs, perfect for personal enjoyment, outdoor activities or hanging out with friends.

The exquisite audio and powerful bass of these products gives its users an amazingly clear and loud sound.

New Delhi [India], Mar 31 : The Software Alliance is sharing the BSA Encryption Principles - an analytical tool for examining related legislation and policy proposals.

With these principles, BSA aims to help lawmakers and other stakeholders find common ground in the encryption debate by addressing the needs and responsibilities of all sides.

"These principles offer a concrete step to help move the encryption discussion forward," said president and CEO of BSA, Victoria Espinel.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 30 : Ericsson and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly roll out a '5G for India' program.

To this regard, Ericsson will set up a Center of Excellence with a 5G test bed and incubation center at IIT Delhi and use this facility to drive the development of the country's 5G ecosystem.

This program has been conceptualised to fast-track realisation of Digital India initiatives and aid application development for Indian start-ups and industries.

In addition to hosting the Center of Excellence, IIT Delhi will conduct research and development to explore how some of the country's challenges can be addressed with mobile technologies.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 30 : Leading Solar EPC player Vikram Solar Pvt. Ltd. signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Israel's Water-Gen, a pioneer in air-to-water technology, to develop and introduce their path-breaking clean, hygienic drinking water solutions in the country.

The technology, developed by Water-Gen to create and store drinking water by harvesting condensation from the air, provides a potential solution to the clean and safe drinkable water crisis faced by India.

The larger objective of this collaboration is to make available drinking water to the remote locations of the country using its rich natural resources - air and humidity. The cost-effectiveness of the technology is an added bonus that will help make the solution available to the masses.

New Delhi [India], Mar 30 : Continuing with the new label launch spree in the month of March, India's leading fashion e-tailer, Jabong has announced the addition of yet another leading American high-street fashion wear brand, Aeropostale, to its product portfolio.

The New York based iconic specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories for teen will be available on Jabong for women and men in more than 600 variants across categories such as capris, dresses, jeans, joggers, jumpsuits, leggings, shorts, skirts, t-shirts, tops, jeggings, innerwear, casual shirts, polos and chinos with prices ranging from Rs.599 to Rs.2999. Jabong is also offering an inaugural discount of Rs.500 on purchases for Rs.2999 and above for all Aeropostale products.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 30 : Contrary to its previous announcement that was circulated with regards to banks being operational on April 1, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in a revised circular stated that all payment systems will be closed on the aforementioned date.

In a circular dated March 24, the RBI announced that it is mandatory for banks to render services on all days starting March 25, up to April 1. This was also applicable to RTGS and NEFT transactions.

New Delhi [India], Mar 30 : London Stock Exchange today welcomes the world's largest corporate Masala bond. The landmark bond issuance from Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC), one of India's leading banking and financial services companies comes less than 12 months after HDFC's INR 30 billion (USD 450 million) debt issuance in London, the first ever Indian corporate to list a Masala bond.

New Delhi [India], Mar 30 : Grameen Koota Financial Services Private Limited (Grameen Koota) has raised Rs. 250 crore from its holding company, CreditAccess Asia (CAA), headquartered in Amsterdam, which is the leading multi-country Microfinance operator in India and South-East Asia. Part of the infusion, Rs.50 crore, will be provided in the form of equity and the remainder, Rs.200 crore will be provided in the form of Compulsory Convertible Debentures (CCDs).

New Delhi [India], Mar. 30 : SBI Card, one of India's leading credit card issuers announced the launch of a credit card, 'SBI Card Unnati', targeted at all State Bank of India (SBI) customers, including Jan Dhan account holders, throughout the country.

The card, launched at an event by Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines in the Government of India, will place the power of card transactions in the hands of first time credit card users, including those who do not have a credit history.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 30 : Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India Limited (MSEI), the third national level stock exchange is all set to conduct a mock trading session in equity, equity derivatives and currency derivatives segments on April 1, 2017.

As per Securities and Exchange Board of India's ( SEBI's) requirements, mock trading is conducted on a monthly basis by all the stock exchanges-MSEI, BSE and NSE to test trading and risk management-related systems and applications.

All MSEI members are encouraged to participate in the mock trading to test the system's performance. Trading members, using in-house or empanelled vendor's algorithms, are required to take part in the session with their user-ids.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 30 : In an attempt to assist Bengali speakers discover new information quickly, Google on Wednesday announced the introduction of Knowledge Graph in Bengali language on Google Search.

Google Search will now also support spell correction for Bengali queries improving the Search experience for the millions of Bengali speakers around the world.

The Knowledge Graph enables users to search for things, people or places that Google knows about-landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more. The feature allows users to get straight to the answer and displays other relevant information.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 29 : FutureDial, a provider of device processing solutions partnered with Rocking Deals in order to examine and certify the quality of refurbished products that are being sold in the Indian market.

India is the second largest market for smart phones in the world and this is the main agenda behind FutureDial coming to India.

FutureDial provides solutions from the point of collection through the entire supply chain process including configuration and after sales. Their easy-to-use, automated solutions reduce the total number of operators involved, thus saving consumers time and money.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 29 : India's 'star serial entrepreneur' Sandeep Aggarwal announced plans of investing Rs. 20 Crore in up to 12 start-ups by the end of this year, in the areas of healthcare, tech and retail.

Aggarwal, who is the Founder of ShopClues and Droom, has already invested in seven start-ups across various industry verticals and is looking to further expand his investment portfolio by entering the data science app development arena as well.

Dekoruma, Wydr, Shopsity, Data Guise, Give Club, Duriana and Curo Healthcare have all received funding during the past few months. While Wydr, Shopsity and Curo Healthcare are Indian companies, the rest mostly belong to South East Asian markets and the Silicon Valley.

New Delhi [India], Mar 29 : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday called the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill revolutionary, saying it will benefit all with the free movement of goods across the country.

"We are keeping two standard rates of 12 percent and 18 percent and provided for a cess for five years to fund compensation," said Jaitley while announcing usage of a cess on luxury, sin goods for GST compensation.

"Aim of GST Council is to decide everything with consensus," said Jaitley.

" CGST Law shall apply to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir," he said while mentioning that the GST Council met 12 times till date.

He further said that GST will ensure one single tax and will ensure free movement of goods across country.

New Delhi [India], Mar 29 : GoDaddy, the world's largest cloud platform dedicated to small, independent ventures, today announced the launch of GoDaddy's new Website Builder combining a mobile optimized website builder with an integrated set of marketing and e-commerce tools, making it easy for small businesses in India to attract visitors and drive results.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 29 : According to Accenture's latest report, banks should use artificial intelligence (AI) to help understand the intentions and emotions of customers and enable better interactions.

The report, titled Accenture Banking Technology Vision 2017, draws on the analysis of an advisory board comprising more than two dozen individuals, interviews with technology luminaries and industry experts, and results of a survey of more than 600 bankers.

According to the report, more than three-quarters (78 percent) of bankers globally and 87 percent in India believe that AI will enable simpler user interfaces that will help banks create a more human-like customer experience.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 29 : The use of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform by B2B e-commerce majors has seen a significant rise in India. The companies are using it for all key operations to increase efficiency, be it their IT work or any other industry process. Apart from saving time and money, it provides user-friendly accessibility and hosting. Companies which provide SaaS are now well funded and are capable of leading the race.

The following are some of the SaaS B2B platforms that have played a major role in this technological shift, making it easy for SMEs to do business with a win - win situation:

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