Ashwini Vaishnaw News

overcrowding in a 2nd AC coach.

Apple contributed 65%, or about $10 billion, double the $5 billion of phone exports from India in FY23, when the US major became the first smartphone brand to achieve this feat. India’s fledgling mobile electronics manufacturing ecosystem has helped create more than 1.2 million jobs, while producing goods worth $50 billion, in FY24, show the data.

Elon Musk's satellite internet venture Starlink has received an in-principle approval from the telecom ministry. This approval clears a critical hurdle that the venture has been facing for almost three-and-a-half years. The approval process is now at the desk of communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, awaiting final vetting by the home ministry over certain security matters, according to highly-placed sources. One of the sources as reported by TOI stated, «The commercial part has been examined on issues, such as, foreign investment and net worth. The essential examination shows that it (Starlink's application) is in line with the (official) guidelines. Thus, it has been approved.» The source further mentioned that the technical requirements have also been examined as per the license conditions. «The technical requirements have been examined as per the licence conditions,» the source said, adding, the company has also submitted a «declaration» regarding its ownership.

Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had told ET last week that the government is looking at introducing such an AI law.

NEW DELHI : Big Tech firms like OpenAI, Google and Meta agreed to add checks and balances to deepfakes and election-related discussions on online platforms, after meeting with officials at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), including Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Rajeev Chandrasekhar. At least three senior officials close to the developments told Mint that the meetings gave the tech firms “informal directives" to tackle issues of misinformation, by curbing artificial intelligence (AI)-driven content and generative results about “highly sensitive keywords".

BJP raised the issue of the different approaches taken by poll officials in different states to similar infractions by politicians and urged the Election Commission to take measures to avoid this 'discrepancy'. A BJP delegation, comprising Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, general secretary Vinod Tawde, BJP leaders Om Pathak and Sanjay Mayukh were part of the delegation which met the poll watchdog to highlight this. Tawde later told reporters that while action was recommended against Union minister Shobha Karandlaje, who is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Karnataka, for her controversial comments against Tamils, the objectionable remarks made by a Tamil Nadu minister have not drawn any censure by the poll body.

semiconductor hub and will also raise the country’s profile in the global semiconductor value chain,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said. Modi on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for India’s first pure-play commercial semiconductor chip manufacturing foundry by the Tata Group at Dholera in Gujarat.

spectrum regulatory sandbox allowing entities including educational institutions, telcos and network manufacturers to test their equipment by paying a notional amount and doing registration. As per Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, through the sandbox, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will be giving easy permissions to test new equipment that requires use of spectrum. “Let’s say, a college design a new equipment which requires spectrum to be used for testing. Instead of coming to DoT for a license and a number of license conditions and a series of other requirements, can we create a very simple construct in which the college simply logs in through a portal and everything that needs to be done is done by paying a token amount of Rs 1000,” Vaishnaw said.

Gautam Adani is excited by United States-based chipmaker Qualcomm's plans for India, he said on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), on March 11. In his post, Adani said he met with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano R Amon and added that the company's vision and plan for artificial intelligence (AI), emerging technologies and semiconductors in India "inspired" him. "Great meeting with Qualcomm CEO @cristianoamon & his leaders! Inspiring to hear his vision for semiconductors, AI, mobility, edge appliances and much more across different markets.

Chip giant Qualcomm's vision and plans in the domains of semiconductors, AI and other emerging techs have caught the attention of Indian business magnate Gautam Adani. The Adani Group chief shared details of his meeting with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano R Amon on social media on March 11, saying that he is enthused by the chip giant's work.

₹76,000 crore, as it expects a mushrooming of chip fabs and testing units in the country in the years ahead. India will emerge as one of the top five semiconductor ecosystems in world in the coming five years, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in an interview. This will be backed by investments by global majors that are increasingly considering India for setting up fabrication or other units, the minister said.

India will soon start making equipment for semiconductor manufacturing, Union telecom and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday. «The entire semiconductor ecosystem of fabs, ATMP units, chemicals, gases, substrate, consumables and equipment for semiconductor manufacturing will be made in India,» he said. He was speaking at the inauguration of American chip equipment supplier Applied Materials' India Validation Centre in Bengaluru which was set up at a cost of $20 million.

India will soon start making equipment for semiconductor manufacturing, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday. “The entire semiconductor ecosystem of fabs, ATMP units, chemicals, gases, substrate, consumables and equipment for semiconductor manufacturing will be made in India,” he said. He was speaking at the inauguration of American chip equipment supplier Applied Materials’ India Validation Centre in Bengaluru which was set up at a cost of $20 million.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently inaugurated the carbody structure of the Vande Bharat sleeper transit, a new project by Indian Railways. The sleeper transit, currently under construction at BEML, aims to revolutionize overnight travel with enhanced passenger comfort. The first Vande Bharat sleeper trainset is expected to be completed in the coming months. BEML Begins Production of Vande Bharat Express Sleeper Prototype BEML, in Bengaluru, has commenced the production of the first Vande Bharat Express sleeper prototype, as reported by TOI in October 2023. The Vande Bharat sleeper train, a self-propelled train set, is designed to offer superior features compared to the existing Rajdhani Express trains, setting a new standard in overnight travel. Shantanu Roy, CMD of BEML Ltd, expressed delight in contributing to this milestone, emphasizing the focus on comfort and world-class facilities while reducing travel time.

Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday hailed Nivetti Systems for the indigenously developed 2.4 tbps router. He termed it a momentous achievement for the country. «I came to Bengaluru for a very special purpose. First indigenously developed 2.4 tbps router. It's not a very small thing. It's really a momentous achievement for our country,» Vaishnaw, who holds the Electronics, Communication, Information Technology and Railways portfolios, said at the launch here. «This is indeed a very big milestone that we have achieved,» he noted.

NEW DELHI : The Union cabinet on Thursday approved an India AI Mission, raised dearness allowance (DA) for central employees and pensioners and extended its flagship cooking gas subsidy scheme, clearing a slew of decisions ahead of the upcoming general elections. The ₹10,372 crore India AI Mission will aim to build a base of graphic processing units (GPUs), multi-modal domain-specific large language models (LLMs), and a unified data platform. It will offer an open-source database of non-personal data that can be used to train AI models and market artificial intelligence (AI) applications commercially.

India will grow more than five-fold to $50-60 billion in the coming time from about $11 billion last year, IT and Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday. While speaking at a fintech event, the minister said employment in the electronics manufacturing sector will increase from about 10 lakh at present to 25 lakh in the coming days. He said that 10 years ago India imported 98% of mobile phones and at present 99% of the devices are made in India.

Union Cabinet cleared the proposals entailing investments of $15.14 billion, officials told ET. The projects include an $11 billion semiconductor fab facility, the country's first, to be built by the Tata Group in at Dholera in Gujarat. The other unit proposed by the conglomerate involves a Rs 27,000 crore chip assembly, testing, marking and packaging facility at Morigaon in Assam. Murugappa Group's CG Power will be setting up a chip assembly facility at Sanand in Gujarat at a cost of Rs 7,600 crore.

Sanchar Saathi portal, which was unveiled in May last year. While launching the platform, Union Minister for Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw said, the government has been persistently making efforts to check cyber-frauds under the Secure India project.

NEW DELHI : India has rolled out a digital platform that will allow individuals to flag calls and text messages by fraudsters, adding a layer of protection against faceless criminals using tech to rob people of their money. The department of telecommunication’s new platform, Chakshu, simplifies reporting on fraud calls and messages, and allows for real-time intelligence-sharing among several stakeholders.

The fundamental reason for Google suspending Indian apps was the non-payment of its Play Store “service fee"—a charge that Google levies on apps that earn through subscriptions. At the moment, this fee ranges from 11% to 30%. Startups, including Bharat Matrimony and Shaadi.com, have refused to pay up.