Ashwini Vaishnaw News

Google Play Store have started complying with the internet giant’s billing policies, founders and executives at Indian internet firms said the fight between them and Google is far from over. On the one hand, Indian companies have called for a “strategic response” from the government on what they claim to be monopolistic behaviour by the US tech major. On the other hand, Google has said its actions against the ten companies are only to make the ecosystem “fair” for a “vast majority” of developers who comply with its norms.

By Aditya Kalra

driver and the assistant driver of one of the two passenger trains that collided leading to death of 14 passengers on October 29, 2023 were watching a cricket match on phone, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday while highlighting the cause of the accident. The Rayagada Passenger train hit the Visakhapatnam Palasa train from behind at 7 pm that day on the Howrah-Chennai line in Kantakapalli in Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh. Over 50 passengers were injured. Vaishnaw referred to the Andhra train accident while talking about new safety measures that Indian Railways has been working on. «The recent case in Andhra Pradesh happened because both the loco pilot and co-pilot were distracted by the cricket match which was going on. Now we are installing systems which can detect any such distraction and make sure that the pilots and the assistant pilots are fully focussed on running the train,» Vaishnaw told Videos.

protection of its startups. “India is very clear, our policy is very clear...our startups will get the protection that they need," Ashwini Vaishnaw said.

Amrit Bharat trains in the coming years and the work to make trains that can run at a speed of 250 kmph was on, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday. In an exclusive interview to PTI Videos, Vaishnaw also said the Railways has already started working on the export of Vande Bharat trains and the country should see the first export in the coming five years. While speaking on the transformational initiatives taken by the Railways in the last 10 years of the Narendra Modi government, he said the world's highest railway bridge — Chenab bridge — and the first under-river water tunnel for Kolkata metro are some of the significant technological advancements that happened in the rail sector. «The railways has a huge social obligation. We carry about 700 crore people every year. Two and a half crore practically every day. The fare structure is such that if the cost of carrying a person is Rs 100, we charge Rs 45. So we give 55 per cent discount to every person who travels by railways on an average,» Vaishnaw said.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister for electronics and IT, communications and railways. Vaishnaw told ET that the government will be focused on execution of India’s first semiconductor fab project, by the Tata group, along with two other chip assembly proposals, in record time.

₹7,600 crore (or $222 million) semiconductor facility in Sanand, Gujarat, as part of India's chip push. The Union Cabinet on February 29 approved the establishment of three semiconductor plants with a combined investment of ₹1.26 lakh crore. To encourage domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, the government is also offering incentives amounting to ₹76,000 crore.

Tata Electronics’ proposal to set up a semiconductor chip fabrication unit in India, making it the country’s first pure-play foundry. The Rs 91,000-crore project will be set up in Gujarat’s Dholera district in partnership with Taiwanese Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC), Union communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a press briefing on Thursday.

unsolicited calls, the telecom regulator has recommended that all network operators should implement the calling name display service on mobile phones and further that, all smartphone makers should be mandated to enable this feature within a stipulated time. In its recommendations issued Friday on calling name presentation (CNAP) service, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said, “the government should issue appropriate instructions for making CNAP feature in all devices sold in India, after a suitable cut off date, say after six months from the date of notification.” The pan-India implementation of CNAP shall precede with trials in one license service area where all operators must participate.

Rajya Sabha Elections 2024: As many as 41 of the total 56 leaders were elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The returning officers declared these 41 leaders winners on the last date of withdrawal of nominations as there were no other candidates in the fray on these 41 seats. Among these 41 leaders were former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief JP Nadda, Ashok Chavan and Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and L Murugan.

South Eastern Railways said that the 20828 Humsafar Express, operating from Santragachi to Jabalpur via Tatanagar, will not run on February 21 due to the construction of a third line between Anuppur and New Katni stations on the Ghunghuti section of Bilaspur. According to reports, the cancellation of the down train will extend to February 22 as well.

BSNL’s employees union wants to utilise the network of Vodafone Idea (Vi) for offering 4G services and has requested the government to take immediate action on the matter. The state-run firm’s 4G network is to be deployed by TCS in a phased manner and a few thousand sites are already up and running in a few circles. But since the network is not present pan-India, the telco has been losing customers. P Abhimanyu, General Secretary, BSNL employee’s union, said government of India is Vi’s largest shareholder with a 33.1% stake and it should utilise its status as the largest shareholder to ensure that BSNL is allowed to immediately provide 4G service to its customers by utilising the 4G network of Vi. “This will only by a temporary measure, till BSNL’s 4G network is commissioned by the TCS,” Abhimanyu said in a letter to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

BJD) leaders Debasish Samantray and Subhasish Khuntia on Tuesday filed their nominations for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections. The two BJD candidates filed their nominations before the Returning Officer here in the state assembly, in the presence of BJD President and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Three Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha are set to be vacant in April following the completion of the terms of Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, and BJD MPs Prashant Nanda, and Amar Patnaik. Debasish Samantray thanked CM Patnaik for choosing him and said the state will always be the priority.

«We are targeting $300 billion in production and around $100 billion in exports in the next few years. The ecosystem which is developing is giving us a lot of confidence because now the component manufacturers have started shifting to our country,” Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at the ET Now Global Business Summit 2024 a few days ago.. With a huge 22% boost in electronic exports in FY24 which breached the $20 billion mark, the IT Minister believes the target of achieving $100 billion exports in the coming few years is a visible thing. Electronics exports were at $7.6 billion in 2013-14 and $22.7 billion in 2022-23, as per the White Paper issued by the government.

Mumbai-Ahmedabad train corridor also known as 'Bullet train.' Captioning it “Stay tuned for #BulletTrain in Modi 3.0!", Vaishnaw's post ahead of the upcoming elections, seemed like yet another poll promise in the Indian railways, if Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet is voted back to power for a third straight term, in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor has been making steady progress since work began in November 2021.

Shirdi, which could result in a surge in ridership as a result. This announcement was made during his participation in the inauguration of the refurbished Mela Bus terminus of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) in Nashik. Originally, the Nashik-Pune semi-high-speed rail project intended to traverse Nashik-Sangamner-Pune, spanning a distance of 235 km, with an estimated cost of Rs 16,000 crore. The Nashik-Pune semi-high-speed rail project is being implemented by Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited, a joint venture between the Government of Maharashtra and the Ministry of Railways. The alteration in the route to include Shirdi adds an additional 30 km to the Nashik-Pune route. Fadnavis explained that discussions with Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw revealed that the initial route would escalate project costs substantially due to extensive tunneling requirements, a challenge alleviated by the new route.

Vande Bharat trains in the coming years, railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at the Global Business Summit on Saturday. «The challenge was to develop it (Vande Bharat) in our country by our own engineers and the challenge has been taken very well. I can say with a good level of confidence that in the coming years, we would start exporting this train,» said Vaishnaw, who also holds the communications, and electronics and information technology portfolios. The minister said the feedback on Vande Bharat has been good but more improvements will be done on the trains. «Work has already started on another version of the train, the Vande Sleeper,» he said.

Ram Mandir, telecom service providers including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and BSNL have together set up nearly 300 new towers, aimed at bolstering cellular and data traffic capacities. All telcos, put together, have set up 294 new towers and about 400 existing base stations have been upgraded, said a senior official from department of telecommunications told Mint. Additionally, 30 cell-on-wheels, or CoWs, have been strategically placed across the city to manage any sudden spikes in network usage, ensuring continuous 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G service availability, he said.

Indian Railways is considering a strategic collaboration with the Swiss railway system to enhance its operational efficiency. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw revealed plans to glean insights from Swiss best practices, specifically focusing on the hub-and-spoke model and advanced tunnelling technology. Learning from Swiss Excellence: In an exclusive interview with PTI during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted the significant learning opportunities arising from potential collaboration with Switzerland.

Airtel, Jio square off against Elon Musk in India's satellite broadband race "Starlink replied to the Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade, and in next few days or by the end of this month, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) may issue a Letter of Intent (LoI) to Starlink," ET Telecom quoted a source as saying. Meanwhile, a Moneycontrol report, citing sources, noted that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) could issue a letter of intent (LoI) to Starlink as early as Wednesday.

made-in-India chip will be out by December, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said here, crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for developing a very strong semiconductor industry in the country in a short span of time with focus on the entire ecosystem. Speaking to PTI at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, the minister said PM Modi launched a semiconductor policy in January 2022, adding that when he met senior representatives of the industry here, the one thing they all were surprised about was how this much work could be done in such a short time. «They all appreciated the policy and the fact that PM Modi has always stressed on creating a comprehensive ecosystem because not many countries have this kind of policy and therefore they could not get such success,» he said. The Minister for Communications as well as Electronics and Information Technology said the prime minister has always focussed on developing an ecosystem where there is a lot of focus on talent. «MoUs (Memoranda of Understanding) with 104 universities are already in place, their course curriculum are being revised, there is a lot of focus on design with a separate investment scheme. »Many design companies have got the benefit and they are gradually coming up in the value chain.