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During the past weekend, the Korean pop music industry seemingly found itself embroiled in a major controversy after an individual, allegedly a former employee of YG Entertainment, came forward with threats to disclose confidential details pertaining to several top-tier agencies. An anonymous user operating under the alias «YG Leaker» initiated a new channel on the social networking platform Discord. In their introductory message, they revealed a strong motive for their actions, stating, «I am doing all of this because I was terminated. I hold immense resentment towards the entire company. The workplace is plagued with harassment, discrimination based on race, and gender bias.» This statement set the tone for the chatroom’s discussions, fueling curiosity and apprehension among onlookers.

Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day.” In India, which keeps getting pilloried by the US president as an exemplar of bad behavior in trade, the reciprocal tariff announcement of April 2 has acquired a fervent overtone. In preparation, New Delhi is offering one sacrifice after another, hoping that the angry god of the White House will let it go with nothing more serious than a slap on the wrist. The latest peace offering is the decision to do away with a 6% tax on ads that local businesses place with foreign search engines, social media and e-commerce firms. This is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s way of telling Trump, “Look, we aren’t China. Not only do we allow Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. to hog our digital-advertising pie, if you want us to make it cheaper for them to operate, that’s fine, too.” Also Read: India open to clearing import duty hurdle for US auto parts The sacrifice is a win for Trump, though it isn’t much of a loss for Modi. Known colloquially as the “Google Tax,” the levy was a bad idea when it was introduced in India’s 2016 budget. Since then, domestic advertisers have had to withhold 6 cents on the dollar when they get their bills from places like Ireland, where online platforms typically book their revenue. Just like Trump’s tariffs will be mostly paid by American consumers, the burden of the so-called Indian equalization levy had to be absorbed not by the tech platforms, but by the advertisers. It pushed up costs for local businesses. Where would they advertise, if not on Google or Facebook?

Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) model will be available to all free users of the Gemini app. The tech giant shared the news on X, stating: “...we want to get our most intelligent model into more people’s hands asap. Which is why we decided to roll out Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) to all Gemini users, beginning today.” However, it’s still unclear whether the stable version of Gemini 2.5 Pro will be offered for free to all Gemini users.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. If hard proof were needed of the digital dominance of Indian eyeballs, then the latest Ficci-EY report on media and entertainment supplied it. In 2024, it says, digital media finally displaced TV as the top revenue-generator of this industry, notching up ₹80,200 crore, almost a third of its overall pie.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In an industry known for controlling narratives, Indian advertising is now grappling with one it can’t spin. Just days before the Indian Premier League (IPL) kicked off—India’s single biggest ad moment of the year—the Competition Commission of India (CCI) launched a sweeping investigation into the heart of the media-buying ecosystem.

Binance have come under the glare of the tax authorities. Over the past few weeks, the Income Tax (I-T) department has inquired whether the 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) levied on such deals have been collected. Local investors must either provide proof of TDS deduction or submit documentary evidence on why TDS is not applicable to them, according to notices served by the tax office. Probing into the traders' source of money, the department has sought their I-T returns for the years when the funds used to purchase cryptos were earned. A few scrutiny notices, questioning the transaction data downloaded from the website of the offshore exchange, have imposed 30% tax on the entire turnover instead of claiming tax on the gains.

X (formerly Twitter) is currently experiencing a major outage, with thousands of users across the globe reporting issues accessing the platform. According to outage-tracking website Downdetector, more than 8,000 users in US have flagged problems, while the number of reports in India has crossed 400. Users are primarily facing difficulties with the X mobile app, with 61% of complaints related to app access in India. Others report trouble loading the website and server connectivity failures.

Shadowfax has converted itself to a public entity, according to regulatory filings with the corporate affairs ministry. It is a key step ahead of Shadowfax’s plan to file draft papers for its initial public offering (IPO), which could happen in the next three-four months according to people familiar with the matter. The company has appointed ICICI Securities, JM Financial and Morgan Stanley as the bankers for its public offering. “The company is proposing to undertake an initial public offer… comprising of fresh issuance of equity shares… and an offer for sale by certain existing shareholders of the company, and list the equity shares on one or more of the stock exchanges,” it said in the filing.

Planetcast, a leading provider of broadcast technology and media services, has announced that it has been selected by beIN Asia Pacific as its strategic technology partner to enhance the management and delivery of programming for 14 HD sports channels across Southeast Asia and Australia. By utilising Planetcast’s NexC suite of cloud-first products and services, this collaboration will enable beIN to optimise content preparation, processing, distribution, and monetisation, supporting business growth across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Planetcast Media Services’ support for beIN’s live sports content management and delivery is based on two key NexC modules: Cloud.X Turbo, an agile, high-performance sports playout solution optimised for multiplatform distribution with ultra-low latency, and Recaster, the managed IP delivery solution that uses public internet to deliver broadcast-quality video streams globally.

Under the mission, India has launched initiatives addressing various aspects of the Innovation landscape, from infrastructural capacity building to spurring innovation. India has allocated approximately 10,300 rupees under this mission over the coming five years. A major focus of the mission is to build high-end common computing facilities equipped with 18,693 Graphics Processing Units.

GTPL Hathway signed a grant of permission agreement (GOPA) with the information and broadcasting ministry to establish, maintain, and operate a headend-in-the-sky (HITS) broadcasting platform in Ahmedabad for 10 years. The company made the disclosure in a regulatory filing. On July 12, 2024, the company had announced that it had received the ministry’s approval to provide HITS service, subject to compliance with the relevant guidelines.

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday said investors can move forward with claims that Musk committed securities fraud by failing to make timely disclosures to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, posting “misleading tweets about Twitter’s future” and carrying out “a coordinated trading strategy to silently build up” his position in the social media company. Lawyers for Musk and the investors didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Bengaluru: A drone-shot video captures a 360-degree view of the Trump Towers project at Golf Course Extension Road in Gurugram, India’s hottest luxury property market. The all-glass façade of the 51-storey twin towers with sleek lines is a signature Trump style.

Amazon has disabled two key privacy features in its Alexa smart speakers, in a push to introduce artificial intelligence-powered «agentic capabilities» and turn a profit from the popular devices. Starting today (March 28), Alexa devices will send all audio recordings to the cloud for processing, and choosing not to save these recordings will disable personalisation features. How do voice assistants work? A voice assistant works by constantly listening for a «wake word», such as «Alexa». Once woken, it records the command that is spoken and matches it to an action, such as playing a music track. Matching a spoken command to an action requires what computer scientists call natural language understanding, which can take a lot of computer power.

X is down. The social media platform is reportedly facing an outage. As per Downdetector, X reported a surge in user complaints since 12 am on March 29. This follows a similar outage experienced by X, Reddit and MLB.TV on March 28.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Last year, Arpita Akhanda found herself—quite literally—a stepping stone. During her residency at the Hampi Labs, Karnataka, the artist was quite fascinated by the river-like patterns on a rock in a granite mine.

ONGC NTPC Green Pvt Ltd (ONGPL) has completed acquisition of 100 per cent equity stake in Ayana Renewable Power for Rs 6,248.50 crore. ONGPL is a 50:50 joint venture of NTPC Green Energy Ltd (NGEL) and ONGC Green Ltd. The acquisition was completed on March 27 for a cash consideration of Rs 6,248.50 crore at Rs 23.22 per share, NGEL said in an exchange filing. The Competition Commission of India had given its approval for the acquisition on March 11, 2025.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The early onset of summer this year has put the spotlight on stocks of power generation companies, with the BSE Utilities index up about 14% over the past one month. Peak evening demand in the first 26 days of March at the India Energy Exchange (IEX) crossed 14GW against 8.5GW during the same period last year, as per its market data.

NSE SME platform on Friday. Ahead of the listing, the company's shares are having a muted GMP of Rs 0 in the grey market. This indicates a flat to negative listing at the bourses, but could change depending on the sentiments in the secondary market. The company will utilise the Rs 44 crore it raised from the public offer for purchase of vehicles, working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.