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India will not bar any equipment suppliers, such as China's Huawei, in the upcoming trials for 5G, with Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday saying the government will allocate airwaves to all telecom service providers for conducting trials of super-fast speed 5G networks . Huawei rivals western equipment makers, such as Ericsson, and is banned in the US. Many countries, however, have allowed telecom service providers to use Chinese gears. And now, India has also indicated its unwillingness to keep any company out of 5G trials. The government has decided to give 5G spectrum for trials to all operators in the country, Prasad said on Monday on the sidelines of a telecom event. This implies that all operators, backed by equipment vendors they have decided to partner with, will be able to participate in the upcoming 5G trials in the country, and the stance is expected to spell a relief for Chinese gear maker Huawei. "The age of 5G is coming... We have taken

More than 92,000 employees of BSNL and MTNL have opted for voluntary retirement , Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday as he asserted that the government will make the two telecom companies profitable as they are strategic assets. The Communications Minister told the Lok Sabha that the merger of BSNL and MTNL will have pan-India foot print, synergy in operations, reduction of fixed costs and overheads, among others. The merger would resultantly help the two companies to "provide better quality services to customers on a pan-India basis," he said. During the Question Hour, the minister said over 92,000 employees of BSNL and MTNL have opted for Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). As part of revival efforts, VRS was introduced for the staff of the two telecom firms and December 3 was the last date for submitting the applications. The employee costs at both firms are high. Both companies are strategic assets and the government would make them more profe

Facebook blocked the most (956 or 58%) of URLs, under section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, followed by Twitter (25%) and YouTube (9%) Current Affairs News : As many as 1,662 uniform resource locators (URLs) or posts on social media were blocked over 18 months ending June 2018, Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister for electronics and information technology, told the Rajya Sabha (Parliament’s upper house) on August 3, 2018, as part of an explanation on combating fake news . “Recently, it has come to the attention of the government of India that a number of disturbing instances causing loss of innocent lives have taken place in various parts of the country,” RS Prasad said in his reply on the issue of misuse of social media and fake news. “These are deeply painful and regrettable, as well as a matter of deep concern for the government.” Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000 says websites/pages can be blocked in “defence of India”, its sovereignty, security and in

Facebook has reported that they are not aware of any misuse of information Current Affairs News : The CBI has initiated a preliminary enquiry against Cambridge Analytica and Global Science Research for alleged illegal personal data harvesting of Indians from Facebook, officials said on Wednesday. It is alleged that Cambridge Analytica received data from Global Science Research which employed "illegal means" of personal data harvesting of Indians using Facebook, they said. After receiving a reference in this regard from the Centre, the CBI has initiated the preliminary enquiry which is normally a first step to decide whether the allegations deserve a full-blown investigation through an FIR or not, they said. Data mining and analysis firm Cambridge Analytica earlier faced allegations that it used personal information harvested from 87 million Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 US presidential election. Article Source >> BS