Small developers often express exasperation at the vagaries of policies of Google and Apple’s App stores, and it turns out that the biggest companies aren’t immune either. Paytm’s flagship app has been taken off the Google Play store. The app is no longer available for download for new users, though those who’ve downloaded the app on their phones will be able to use it as before. Google had earlier published a blog post saying it…

The list of companies that are trying to make hay while TikTok is banned has just gotten longer. YouTube has announced the launch of a new short-form video app that it calls YouTube Shorts. The feature will allow users to upload 15 seconds or shorter videos using a set of creator tools including a multi-segment camera, speed controls, a timer and a countdown feature. The videos will also be able to set to music, thanks…

PUBG ended up being banned in India for being owned by China’s Tencent, but that hasn’t stopped the company from investing in a major Indian startup. Tencent has pumped in $62.8 million (Rs. 470 crore) into Flipkart according to regulatory filings made by the Walmart-owned ecommerce company in Singapore. The funding was a part of Flipkart’s $1.2 billion round. With the investment, Tencent owns 4-5.3 percent of Flipkart PTE, Flipkart’s Singapore-based holding company. Tencent’s investment isn’t keeping…

Yet another Chinese firm is now under the scanner for its activities in India — and this time it’s perhaps the most recognizable name to come from the country. At least 72 servers based in India are allegedly sending data of Indian users to China, and at the centre of this are cloud data servers of Chinese technology group, Alibaba, top intelligence sources told News18. This is allegedly a part of a systematic plan that has been organised…

A week before the IPL is to begin, its new title sponsor has managed to raise a tidy sum of money. Dream11, which won the rights to sponsoring the IPL after Vivo pulled out this year, has raised a fresh $225 million (Rs. 1600 crore) funding round. The round raises Dream11’s valuation to $2.5 billion. Tiger Global Management, TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD), ChrysCapital and Footpath Ventures participated in the round. “We are excited to welcome our new partners, who…

When tech workers had first realized that remote work was going to be the new normal, the possibilities had seemed endless — it could’ve been possible for someone working in Silicon Valley to move to a hill-station in India, and keep drawing a Silicon Valley salary. But tech companies are quickly making sure that employees who choose to work remotely for long periods will get salaries that are commensurate with the living expenses at their…

At this point, Reliance isn’t just India’s premier telecom and retail company. It now seems to be positioning itself to become the gateway into India for foreign tech giants. After Google, Facebook and a clutch of big-name foreign investment firms had invested in Jio Platforms over the last few months, Amazon could be the next multinational giant to get a slice of the Reliance pie.  Reliance is offering to sell a roughly $20 billion stake in its…

India’s food-tech sector has been routed by the coronavirus — nearly 10 percent of restaurants have already shut down, and another 30 percent could shut down going forward. But while there’s been plenty of attention being paid to the plight of formal restaurants, there hasn’t quite been as much focus on India’s millions of street vendors, who’ve seen their businesses be hit. But the Indian government appears to be thinking of creating a solution that…

All manner of companies and startups have been embracing the remote work concept that was necessitated by the coronavirus lockdowns — tech giants have said they’ll let employees work from home for as long as a year, smaller companies have said that they’re giving up their offices and going remote-first, and even established IT giants have said that remote work might be the way forward. But a discordant voice has now emerged around the remote…

Softbank has often been thought of responsible for pumping up the valuations of Indian startups — by buying up large stakes in companies at aggressive valuations over the last few years, it has created many highly-valued startups. It’s now transpiring that it’s gone ahead and done the same thing in the US stock markets. Softbank was the “Nasdaq whale” that bought billions of dollars’ worth of US equity derivatives that caused the recent rally in tech stocks,…