‘Freedom 251’ mobile priced at a sensational Rs 251 by Ringing Bells company first elicited amazement from all and sundry and then caused consternation to break out as the website freedom251.com crashed after tens of thousands of people tried to log onto the website to book the cheapest smartphone in the world, but to no avail. The result was that a lot of people were disappointed as the site crashed and stayed inoperative for 2 days running – those who actually found their way to the company’s door were turned away too.

While the world kept asking questions and Indians remained puzzled about the nature of the promised deal, the Noida-based startup, Ringing Bells, which had promised a Rs 251 (less than $4) ‘Make in India’ smartphone, delivery charges extra, on Friday claimed to have received nearly 5 crore registrations in just 2 days of opening up for online pre-orders.

Brendon McCullum struck the fastest ever test century in a blistering counter-attack that dragged his side back into the second test against Australia, with New Zealand 273 for six at tea on the first day on Saturday.

The New Zealand captain, playing his 101st and final test, reached his 12th test century from just 54 balls as he and Corey Anderson bludgeoned the visitors' attack in a scintillating 75 minutes after lunch at Hagley Oval.

New emission norms for thermal power plants are likely to increase NTPC's cost of producing power by 10 per cent. This extra cost would be passed on to consumers, executives with the country's largest power producer said.

After commitments made by the government during the Paris Climate Summit in December, the environment ministry notified new standards for thermal power stations relating to consumption of water, particulate matter, SO2, NOx and mercury.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will soon allow interoperability between cable service and DTH (direct-to-home) service providers, allowing users to change their cable operators, similar to the telecom segment.

As of now, cable operators and DTH service providers offer their services bundled with a set-top box which comes at a cost of Rs 1,500-2,000. However, if a consumer is not satisfied with his service provider, he is forced to buy a new set-top box from the other operator because of technical issues. Even the amount paid for the box is non-refundable.

After Mumbai and Bengaluru, Hyderabad will be the third city in India to get a World Trade Centre. A report in Deccan Chronicle states that this will become another hub for international businesses in the city. There are World Trade Centres (WTC) in a 100 countries at this point.

According to the report, the Telangana government is planning to set up the WTC in a public-private-partnership mode on outskirts of the city. The state government will get a licence from the World Trade Centres Association (WTCA) for the same. The headquarters of the WTCA are in New York. It was established in 1970 as a non-profit organisation to promote international trade.

Infosys on Friday said that it has appointed Michael Pesch as Chief Executive Officer of Infosys Consulting Holding (formerly Infosys Lodestone), with an aim of strengthening its consulting practice.

In this role, which would be effective April this year, Pesch, who has previously served as CEO of Germany-based arvato Systems Group would be responsible for Infosys'

Are you planning on buying the world’s cheapest smartphone? You might want to hold on as the Rs 251 smartphone has come under a cloud after the website has been crashing ever since the open sale began.

Ordering the phone online has been a struggle for most people, as the server takes them to the home page even if all the required details are correctly entered.

The Supreme Court has issued notice to Salman Khan based on the Maharasthra government's plea challenging his acquittal to Bombay High court in the 2002 hit-and-run case. During the hearing,the counsel for Salman Khan told SC that there was no reference in prosecution evidence that he was drunk and that the FIR didn't mention it either.

Earlier, Shaikh, Noorullah Khan’s son was quoted saying by Indian Express: “I forgive Salman, but now I don’t know who killed my father. It has been 13 years… even today, the question remains unanswered. The verdict has not brought any closure. In my view, his act was not intentional. It was an accident, and my father happened to be the unfortunate victim… the sentencing serves no purpose.”

India Ratings and Research has revised its outlook for the telecommunication services sector from stable to stable-to-negative for fiscal year 2017. The agency expects the launch of Reliance Jio Infocomm to intensify competition, which will squeeze the market share, operating margins and credit metrics of incumbents. The agency expects voice revenue to moderate in FY17 on stagnant minutes of usage (MoU) and further competition in call realisations.

Additionally, the agency expects data revenue to remain stagnant on a 30 -40 per cent decline in data realisations/megabyte in FY17 driven by RJio's launch, while support from data consumption growth to data average revenue per user will be gradual. The operators' debt profile will deteriorate in FY17 as the agency expects them to incur high capital expenditure on network expansion and acquisition of additional spectrum through trading, largely to compete with RJio.

Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) today said it has raised Rs 3,000 crore from bonds to fund business growth.

The bank yesterday issued 30,000, Basel III compliant, Tier-ll bonds, in the nature of debentures, of face value of Rs 10 lakh each at par, SBI said in a statement.

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