Riding on the fourth industrial revolution with disruptive technologies, global computer data storage major Dell EMC is building IT infrastructure for citizen services like Aadhaar in “Digital India”.

“As a leading hardware vendor, we build IT infrastructure also for the government to provide citizen services like Aadhaar, passports, invoices of customs and GST settlements,” Dell EMC India Managing Director Rajesh Janey told IANS here.

Though US-based Dell Technologies has been hard-selling its computers, laptops, tablets, and servers in India over the years, it began providing data storage, hybrid Cloud and data protection solutions to enterprises and state-run organizations following its acquisition of EMC in 2016 for a whopping $67-billion (Rs 4.61 lakh crore).

In September 2016, Dell Technologies acquired Massachusetts-based data-storage systems major EMC Corp, founded in 1979 and named after its founders Richard Egan, Roger Marino and John Curly, in one of the largest deals in the technology sector, worldwide.

“Data on the unique identification card (Aadhaar) issued to citizens is run and stored on our server racks managed by third-party vendors,” Janey said in an exclusive interview.

Similarly, passports are archived on the company’s storage while Customs and Excise departments use Dell IT infrastructure to raise invoices for businesses.

The company sells IT infrastructure products and services, including flash-based storage, data protection, security, hyper-converged infrastructure, backup solutions for small and medium businesses.

“The central and state governments also use our digital platforms for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) settlements by traders on the GST Network across the country, Janey asserted.

In the enterprise segment, leading banks and telecos use Dell EMC’s hardware for computing, storage and data security.

“Our products and solutions enable enterprises to undergo digital transformation as part of the fourth industrial revolution, leaving behind legacies such as mainframes, client servers and networked work stations,” Janey said.

The first industrial revolution occurred in the 18th century when agrarian practices and rural life under went industrial change with the roll out of the steam engine; the second from 1870 to 1914 marked mass production in industries and the third, from the 1980s, and subseqeuntly witnessed the emergence of personal computers and internet.

In the fourth revolution, disruptive technologies have been replacing the conventional platforms with artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), Cloud, robotics and automation.

Hinting that new technologies would disrupt the functioning of many businesses, Janey said the increasing use of AI would make humans digital conductors, telling machines what they have to do.

“More mundane and routine tasks will get offloaded to machines,” he noted.

According to industry estimates, the number of IoT devices — devices, home appliances and vehicles connected through the internet — will explode to 200 billion over the next decade from 20 billion in 2020.

“Dropping cost of networking is fuelling the growth of IoT devices. At the same time, when we have so many devices with data, we need AI to analyse and convert it into actionable intelligence, thereby removing the routine tasks,” the top executive noted.

The evolution of sectors will happen as these technologies are being introduced into them, said Janey, who was earlier EMC’s President for India and the South Asia region.

“The future requires rethinking of what an intelligent human being can do. Our belief is the skilling of workforce will change. People will move away from mundane tasks to higher level skills. Secretarial work will be passe,” he pointed out.

With around 1.3 billion people and growing, India is a huge market for any industry, Janey admitted.

“Skilling our people through initiatives like the government’s Skill India and courses by educational institutions on Big Data are key, as sectors are undergoing digital transformation,” he added.

With India among the top five markets in the world for Dell EMC’s services, after America, China, Europe and Britain, the company is planning to hire more techies in India, Janey said, but did not specify the present workforce present and how many are being hired in the subcontinent.

Dell EMC claims to be the leader in India’s storage market with 43 per cent share by revenue and second-largest in server market with 26 per cent share by revenue.

The company is also said to have leadership in flash-storage and hyper-converged infrastructure segments.

“We are investing $4.5 billion on research and development in fiscal 2018-19. India contributes significantly to the research, particularly in servers,” Janey stated.

“India is ahead of other developing nations in the use of digital infrastructure,” he disclosed.
The country is also at par with the developed nations in innovation as advancements in e-commerce industry like cash-on-delivery and video subscriptions allowing download options by streaming sites are Indian innovations for the world, driven by consumer needs, the official said.

With its diverse offerings through hardware, software and data storage areas, the company is upbeat about its market share increasing in India as businesses head for disruption.

Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams is among the nine astronauts named by NASA on Friday for its first human spaceflight programme from the US soil since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

The astronauts will fly on the spacecraft developed by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and global aviation firm Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, as part of the US space agency’s Commercial Crew programme to send humans to the ISS on private US spacecraft.

Williams has been named for the Boeing programme to the ISS — the first test flight scheduled to take place in the middle of 2019.

“For the first time since 2011, we are on the brink of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

Born in Euclid (Ohio), Williams came to NASA from the Navy where she was a test pilot and rose to the rank of captain before retiring.

Since her selection as an astronaut in 1998, she has spent 322 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for Expeditions 14/15 and Expeditions 32/33, commanded the space station and performed seven spacewalks, the US space agency said in a statement.

“The men and women we assign to these first flights are at the forefront of this exciting new time for human spaceflight,” said Mark Geyer, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“It will be thrilling to see our astronauts lift off from American soil, and we can’t wait to see them aboard the ISS,” he added.

In 2014, Boeing and SpaceX were awarded a combined $6.8 billion in contracts from NASA to develop spacecraft capable of flying crews to the space station.

SpaceX is targeting November 2018 for Crew Dragon’s first uncrewed demonstration mission (Demo-1), three months later than the previous schedule released by NASA early this year.

The crewed demonstration flight, with two astronauts on board, will follow in April 2019, four months later than previously announced.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, on the other hand, will likely perform two crucial test flights next year, instead of this year as planned.

Each test flight will provide data on the performance of the rockets, spacecraft, ground systems, and operations to ensure the systems are safe to fly astronauts.

The crew for Boeing’s Crew Flight Test and SpaceX’s Demo-2 flights will each include at least a flight commander and pilot aboard to test out the systems.

After successful completion of the flight tests with crew, NASA will review flight data to verify that the systems meet the agency’s safety and performance certification requirements and are ready to begin regular servicing missions to the space station, the US space agency said.

Additional crew members will be assigned by NASA’s international partners at a later date.

 
The Shiv Sena on Thursday predicted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will get a ‘demonetization-like’ shock in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

It said that winds of changed in favour of the opposition alliance were blowing in almost all the states and that people had “made up their minds since one-and-half years” to give a big jolt to the BJP.

“A major obstacle has come up on the ‘Delhi route’, via Uttar Pradesh with the coalition of the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party. There are similar reports emerging from Bihar where Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal are forging alliances with other parties. There are strong signals of a change of power at the Centre,” the Sena said.

Political pundits are already speculating that in the next parliamentary elections, the tally in Uttar Pradesh may be reversed compared to 2014 when the BJP swept with 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats.

“For now, the bouquet of ‘jumlas’ (falsehoods) has now wilted. The last resort is to create caste divisions and polarization,” the Sena said in an editorial in the party mouthpiece ‘Dopahar Ka Saamana’.

Disillusionment with the BJP was now evident in every state and when people demand answers to past promises, the best option was to confound them in caste politics.

The rulers (BJP) seem to have realized this and have already launched their poll campaign, it said.

“In normal circumstances, such haste has never been witnessed ever when the government and its head have plunged into full-fledged canvassing almost a year before the elections.”

“Now, the masses feel that in order to strengthen democracy, the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers must keep away from the poll campaign arena on moral grounds. The people have elected you to do their work, not carry out your party’s duties. The people who feel cheated know too well how to teach them a lesson, similar to the ‘demonetization’ bombshell,” the Sena warned.

The editorial said there was growing unrest in all parts of the country including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) crossed the Rs 95,000 crore mark in July for the second month in a row and stood at Rs 96,483 crore, the government said on Wednesday.

The government said the revenue was broadly on expected lines and that Rs 3,899 crore was released to the states as GST compensation for the months of April and May.

The GST revenue collected till July 31 was for the month of June and it was significantly higher than the average monthly collection of Rs 89,885 crore during 2017-18. It was also higher than Rs 95,610 crore collected in June (for the month of May).

The government said in a statement that out of the total GST collection, Rs 15,877 crore was collected as Central-GST (CGST), Rs 22,293 crore as state-GST (SGST), and Rs 49,951 crore as integrated-GST (IGST) which included Rs 24,852 crore collected on imports. Additionally, Rs 8,362 crore was collected as cess.

The total number of GST returns filed till July 31 was 66 lakh compared to 64.69 lakh returns filed in the previous month, it added.

The construction of the 103-km long Kolhapur-Vaibhavwadi link on Konkan Railway in Maharashtra, providing the first connection from the state’s hinterland to the coastal regions, will start soon, an official said on Wednesday.

The railway link would also boost the proposed Nanar refinery complex in Ratnagiri.

The decision on this project, estimated to cost around Rs 3,000 crore, was taken at a review meeting of Koknkan Railway Corporation (KRC) chaired by Union Minister for Industry and Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu in Delhi on Tuesday. Among those present were the Chairman of Railway Board, the Chairman and Managing Director of KRC, and other officials.

The Minister said that the construction of this section would be a game-changer not only for the KRC, but also for the coastal Konkan and the state’s economy.

It will link the coastal region of Maharashtra with western Maharashtra, boost tourism, lead to development of ports and harbours, including the Jaigarh and Dighi ports and allow flow of goods from the hinterland to the coast.

Additionally, it will facilitate the movement of petroleum from the proposed world’s largest integrated refinery-cum-petrochemicals complexes coming up at Nanar, near Vaibhavwadi in Ratnagiri district, he added.

The $40 billion mega-refinery complex, scheduled for commissioning by 2022, is being built by the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL).

The refinery complex will have a capacity to process 60 million tonnes per annum and the Kolhapur-Vaibhavwadi rail link will facilitate movement of petroleum and petrochemicals from the refinery to the interiors.

However, currently it is mired in a huge controversy with major political parties including ruling ally Shiv Sena and the opposition Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, local villagers, environmentalists and others strongly opposing the project and the $16 billion Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project also planned in the same district.

Prabhu explained that the future economic growth of Maharashtra hinges on the connectivity of its coastal areas — separated by the tall hills in the Western Ghats — with the rest of the state and the country.

KRC CMD Sanjay Gupta told the minister that in order to improve services of the Konkan Railway (KR) network to cover more villages and towns, 10 new stations are also being constructed en route, with the first slated for inauguration in January 2019.

The Indian Railways had sanctioned the Kolhapur-Vaibhavwadi line in which the Central government will bear 50 per cent of the total cost and the rest will be footed by Maharashtra.

Caution ahead of the third RBI monetary policy review along with disappointing quarterly results pulled the key indices of the Indian equity market lower during the late-morning trade session on Tuesday.

The Reserve Bank of India is slated to announce its third bi-monthly monetary policy review statement on August 1.

Besides the review, investors were also cautious about the upcoming macroeconomic data points of Eight Core Industries (ECI) and the fiscal deficit figures.

According to market observers, heavy selling was witnessed in banking, oil and gas and metals stocks.

Around 11 a.m., the broader Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) traded at 11,279.25 points — lower by 40.30 points or 0.36 percent — from its previous close.

The barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex), which opened at 37,534.95 points, traded at 37,346.84 points — lower by 147.56 points or 0.39 percent– from its previous session’s close of 37,494.40 points.

Sensex has so far touched a high of 37,534.95 points and a low of 37,298.75 points during the intra-day trade.

On Monday — the last trade session — both the S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 touched their new respective intra-day and closing record highs.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp on Tuesday rolled out its group calling feature — for both voice and video options — on iOS and Android devices for its 1.5 billion users.

The group calling feature supports up to four people simultaneously.

“You can make a group call with up to four people total — anytime and anywhere. Just start a one-on-one voice or video call and tap the new “add participant” button in the top right corner to add more contacts to the call,” WhatsApp said in a statement.

WhatsApp users currently spend over two billion minutes on calls per day.

“Group calls are always end-to-end encrypted, and we’ve designed calling to work reliably around the world in different network conditions,” WhatsApp added.

At Facebook’s F8 developer conference in May, WhatsApp had announced to bring group calling support on its platform.

The instant messaging service unveiled video chatting in 2016 and voice calling in 2014.

By increasing productivity and reducing cost, Blockchain technology has the potential to create the value of up to $5 billion in India in the next five years, a top official of IT industry’s apex body Nasscom has stressed.

“The Blockchain ecosystem is evolving in India. Creating awareness on how this technology is simpler and easier to use with the existing social media and Cloud technology can go a long way in helping the country realize its potential,” KS Viswanathan, Vice President (Industry Initiative), Nasscom, told IANS in an interview.

Based on the distributed storage of data, Blockchain technology can enhance the speed of transactions while increasing transparency. It is widely recognized as having the potential to transform several sectors of the economy, including banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) industry, travel, retail, healthcare, and supply chain, among others.

But despite its potential, the response of Indian organizations to adopt this technology has been far from enthusiastic.

The primary factors that are holding back the widespread deployment of this technology in India is lack of awareness, unavailability of adequate skilled persons and insufficient computing infrastructure, Viswanathan, who also head Nasscom’s 10,000 Startups initiative, said.

“There are currently just 20-30 good Blockchain startups in the country,” Viswanathan said, adding that one way to increase investment in Blockchain is to invest in startups.

To create awareness on the importance of the technology and develop skill sets for Blockchain adoption and deployment in India, Nasscom in February tied up with Blockchain Research Institute (BRI), Canada.

The two entities agreed to collaborate on various activities, including joint webinars and knowledge sharing.

The industry body earlier this month also launched a platform, called FutureSkills, for skills development in eight varied technologies — Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), robotic process automation, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data analytics, 3D printing, Cloud computing, and social and mobile.

This platform was launched with the aim of up-skilling two million technology professions and skilling another two million potential employees and students over the next few years.

While cybersecurity was later added to the list as the 9th skill, Viswanathan said that Blockchain will be added to the list as the 10th skill by October this year.

In collaboration with BRI, Nasscom also started the first Nasscom Industry Partnership Programme (NIPP) Blockchain challenge from June this year.

The shortlisted teams will come together for a 36-hour session in Bangaluru, to be held on July 28-29, to explore new opportunities for co-creating innovative solutions in the areas of Blockchain technology.

For the challenge, eight large corporates including Fidelity Investments, Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI), ICICI Bank, Amdocs, SAP Labs, Wipro and IBM (which is also the knowledge partner) have joined the initiative as strategic partners.

“Boosting skill levels, creating awareness on how this technology is simpler and easier to use with the existing social media and Cloud technology, organizing multiple hackathons and getting international research papers on Blockchain published are among the priorities that Nasscom is focusing on to increase deployment of the technology,” Viswanathan said.

He said that time is not yet ripe for India to think about a regulatory framework specifically for Blockchain as it can come under the ambit of regulations on data security and privacy.

Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said the GST has replaced the ‘Congress Legacy Tax’ — which was 31 percent for most goods — with a ‘good and simple tax’, adding that the existing 28 percent slab will be phased out following further improvement in revenue collections.

“It is an opportunity to celebrate the biggest tax reform since Independence, which has replaced ‘Congress Legacy Tax’ with a ‘good and simple tax’,” he said in a Facebook post.

“The pre-GST tariff was a Congress party legacy. The standard rate for central excise plus VAT plus CST (Central Sales Tax) was 12% + 14% + 2%. To this, if the cascading effect of the tax on tax was added, the eventual tax payable on a commodity was 31 percent.

“Items of household use – from mineral water, hair oil, toothpaste, soap, dairy, to construction material and white goods – were all taxed at 31 percent. The total number of goods falling in this category was 235. This 31 percent tax was Congress party’s gift imposed on India. This tax was the ‘Congress Legacy Tax’,” he said.

The Minister added that the day GST was implemented, several items earlier proposed to be put in the 28 percent category (where the 31 percent items were adjusted) were brought down to 18 percent.

“Within a record period of thirteen months, the GST Council has almost phased out the 28 percent category. It is only a matter of time that the final obituary of the ‘Congress Legacy Tax’ is written. Only the luxury-sin tax would remain,” Jaitley said.

Around 177 items were shifted from the 28 percent slab on November 10, 2017, and another 15 items on July 21 this year.

“If the entire category of all the slabs is taken, the past one year has seen a reduction of tax in 384 commodities with no increase on a single product. India has never witnessed such mass tax reduction since Independence. Lesser rates and higher collection is the result,” the Minister said.

He added that bulk of the items remaining in the 28 percent category were luxury items or in goods.

“The other items outside the luxury-sin goods category are cement, air-conditioners, large screen televisions and a handful of others. Hopefully, with further expansion of revenues, these few items may also witness a change of category,” he said.

“Similarly in the services category, which has now become a part of the GST, on four different occasions 68 different categories of services have witnessed their rates reduced. The net revenue loss which the government has suffered on account of the reduction of tax on goods and services is about Rs 70,000 crore,” he added.

Jaitley said the revenue burden was entirely borne from the share of the Central government since state governments had been guaranteed a 14 percent increase over their pre-GST revenues for the first five years.