
MeitY to lead efforts to curb spam calls from OTT platform
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will spearhead a campaign. This campaign aims to combat spam and scam calls. These calls originate from over-the-top and rich communication services platforms. This decision emerged from a joint committee meeting. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India convened this meeting. The goal is to protect consumers from fraud.
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ( MeitY ) will take the lead to engage with stakeholders to tackle spam and scam calls from over-the-top (OTT) and rich communication services (RCS) platforms, a joint committee of regulators (JCoR) meeting convened by The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) decided on Friday.These platforms, which operate over the internet, have become new avenues for spammers and fraudsters to reach consumers.While the Trai has taken steps to tackle unsolicited communications through traditional means, the regulator has maintained that its regulatory framework does not extend to OTT services.The Trai has made fresh amendments to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, implementing simplified spam reporting, standardised message headers, enhanced compliance and stricter action.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
No rollback of satcom recommendations, government to decide: Trai official
NEW DELHI: The telecom regulator's views were based on an extensive consultative process involving divergent views from multiple stakeholders, and could not be reconsidered, while it's for the government to take a final call, a senior regulatory official said. "We have duly followed the extensive and transparent consultative process with multiple stakeholders sharing divergent views. It is for the government to decide," a Trai official on the conditions of anonymity told ETTelecom, adding that "a level-playing field is out of question" in the current context. "Satellite communications or satcom is a complementary service to terrestrial network providers, with no question of a level playing field between the two. The ₹500 per subscription charge is aimed at enhancing coverage and encouraging space broadband providers to offer services across the country's rural landscape." Early this week, Delhi-based Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, in a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said that the watchdog has "underestimated the potential capacities of satellite networks" while possibly overstating those of terrestrial networks. "Incorrect assumptions have led to unjustifiably low spectrum charges for satellite services relative to terrestrial networks," COAI director general SP Kochhar added in his letter to DoT secretary Neeraj Mittal. However, Trai, citing a huge capacity variation between the two sets of players, strongly defended its move. "In our recommendation, we have clearly brought out that there is no case of level-playing field between the satellite service providers and terrestrial service operators because of the huge difference of capacity between them," the senior official said. "So, the capacity of a typical satcom service provider in terms of the internet capacity, is of the order of maybe 0.5 to 1 or 2 percent of the capacity of a typical large terrestrial service provider. So there is no question of level-playing field. It is a complimentary service." The telco lobby group said that the planned capacity of Elon Musk-owned Starlink and Jeff Bezos led-Amazon Kuiper are expected to surpass the current capacity of Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea combined. The idea behind prescribing ₹500 additional charge for urban subscription, according to the official, was to "encourage and nudge satellite service providers" to offer services in the country's rural areas as well. "They can divert their capacity to urban areas to some extent, but we want to nudge them to focus on rural and remote regions. This is the background under which the recommendation was made," he added. Meanwhile, satcom players backed the regulator, and said Trai's views were aimed at bringing affordable space broadband services to bridge the existing digital divide. Telecom watchdog recommended administrative allocation of satcom spectrum with a fee pegged amounting to 4% of adjusted gross revenue (AGR), for a five-year term, and that can be extended by another 2 years. The 4% AGR fee applies to both geostationary and non-geostationary satellite operators. Trai's proposal to subsidise user terminals for satellite operators through the Digital Bharat Nidhi (DBN) fund further tilts the level playing field against the terrestrial operator, especially given that a majority of the DBN levy is contributed by telcos, Kochhar added in his letter. The regulatory official said that it has recommended facilitating a target set of users that the government might want to support in unserved or rural and remote areas. "The government can consider subsidising the cost of the terminal. It is for the government to make a decision based on a targeted group or category of users." Lately, the activity in India's nascent space-led communication services sector has intensified following the entry of spaceflight company SpaceX's satellite network Starlink, partnering with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and Sunil Mittal-driven Bharti Airtel.
&w=3840&q=100)

Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business Standard
India's IT giants can't afford to sit out the AI race, says senior official
While startups and academic researchers have so far led India's push to build foundational artificial intelligence (AI) models, the country's legacy IT giants are unlikely to remain on the sidelines for long, according to Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). 'Given the capability that our IT industry has and what we are hearing about Infosys and TCs, all of them are working on AI-based applications,' Singh said at the Accel AI Summit, 2025 on Wednesday in Bengaluru. 'There will be a need for doing this and enhancing their capabilities.' Infosys and TCS have both begun ramping up investments in high-performance computing infrastructure, including Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), while simultaneously retraining thousands of employees in AI-related skills. Singh noted that these companies are already supporting global clients with AI-driven applications, and it's only a matter of time before they begin to roll out proprietary AI products and platforms. 'Otherwise for them to survive without AI, it will be very difficult,' he said. 'The whole world is going towards the adoption of AI.' He said whether it's software delivery, coding practices, SaaS implementation, or solutioning for enterprise clients, everything is being reshaped by AI. Singh believes the transformation underway across the global IT landscape will force India's large tech players to shift from primarily service-driven models to product-led AI innovation. The demand for intelligent applications and automation is only accelerating. And given their scale and customer base, India's top IT firms are well-positioned to deliver on that demand—if they move swiftly. While traditional IT services companies may not be leading the development of India's foundational AI models, they are quietly catalyzing a wave of innovation through internal transitions and ecosystem partnerships, according to Prashanth Prakash, founding partner of Accel India. Inside many large firms, there's an active rethink underway about what comes next in the age of AI. One notable trend, he noted, is senior leadership exiting established IT companies to launch or support new AI ventures. These leaders already understand enterprise pain points and high-impact use cases. They bring domain expertise and built-in demand. 'They're now partnering with VCs to build startups from the ground up,' he said. Another model emerging is through Global Capability Centers (GCCs) based in India. These units are increasingly approaching startups with concrete enterprise use cases and positioning themselves as early partners. They are asking the startups to take their workflows and reimagine them using AI agents or automation. This convergence of talent migration, early-stage venture activity, and enterprise-driven use case development, signals a deeper transformation within India's services ecosystem. 'I think we're seeing multiple ways in which there will be disruption within the context of the Indian services ecosystem,' said Prakash. AI regulations As artificial intelligence applications proliferate across sectors, the Indian government is also taking a pragmatic approach to regulation—aiming to ensure compliance with existing legal frameworks while avoiding heavy-handed restrictions that could stifle innovation, according to Singh of MeitY. 'Regulation will primarily be to ensure that any AI application that is developed is compliant with the legal framework and the laws as they stand,' Singh said. 'But we are not inclined to have something similar to the European Union's approach.' Instead, Singh explained, the government will rely on sector-specific and harm-based safeguards anchored in current statutes—such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP), the Information Technology Act, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which recently replaced the Indian Penal Code. Citing examples, Singh emphasised that generative AI models must be sensitive to local legal contexts. He gave the example of pre-natal sex determination, which is strictly prohibited in India. Yet, an AI model trained on global datasets might identify the sex of a fetus from an ultrasound image, violating Indian law. He said developers will need to ensure such models are adapted to local legal and ethical norms. The focus, Singh added, will be on preventing harm—such as the spread of deepfakes, misinformation, or content that could incite violence or infringe on individual rights. He was of the view that if an application risks violating the law or causing harm to individuals or communities, it will be regulated. However, Singh was clear that regulation would not come at the cost of technological progress. 'We are more inclined towards promoting AI application development rather than restricting it.'
&w=3840&q=100)

Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business Standard
India doubles down on AI with Rs 10,000 crore fund, 50,000 GPU ambition
As India accelerates its push into artificial intelligence, the government is making a concerted effort to secure critical computing infrastructure—particularly graphics processing units (GPUs), the backbone of modern AI development. Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), said the IndiaAI Mission initially set a goal to make at least 10,000 GPUs available to researchers, start-ups, and institutions across the country. That goal, however, has quickly expanded in scope and ambition. 'In the first two rounds of tenders, we secured commitments for 34,000 GPUs,' Singh said at the Accel AI Summit 2025 on Wednesday in Bengaluru. 'Of these, around 18,000 are already deployed, with the remainder expected to be in place over the next two to three months.' With another round of bidding closing in early June, Singh anticipates an additional 15,000 to 16,000 GPUs will be secured—bringing the total to approximately 50,000 within the next six months under the government-led initiative. Private sector participation is also gaining momentum. Companies like Reliance Industries reportedly have plans for the world's largest data centre, while firms including Infosys and several academic institutions are investing independently in GPU infrastructure. Singh said the cumulative availability of GPUs in India will soon exceed 50,000. But he added this is still less than the scale of infrastructure available in Western nations. Industry experts said closing this gap will require sustained investment and collaboration across government, industry, and academia. To democratise access to high-performance computing, India has launched a centralised portal that allows start-ups and researchers to request GPU resources with ease and transparency. The objective, Singh emphasised, is to eliminate bureaucratic delays and ensure that India's AI start-ups and research institutions have timely access to the compute power they need. AI capital Venture capital interest in India's artificial intelligence ecosystem has also rapidly shifted from curiosity to full-scale commitment, according to Prashanth Prakash, Founding Partner of Accel India. Speaking about the state of AI funding, Prakash said early-stage investors are no longer sitting on the sidelines. 'Eighteen months ago, India had barely 20 to 30 AI-focused start-ups,' he noted. 'Today, that number has surged to over 250—and Accel alone has backed more than 40 of them.' This sharp uptick reflects not just a rise in entrepreneurial activity but a growing confidence among investors that India is positioned to play a meaningful role in the global AI transformation. He also observed a narrowing gap between trends emerging in Silicon Valley and their adoption in India. 'The lag that once existed is getting shorter—especially when compared to the SaaS wave.' Entrepreneurs today are much quicker to identify and act on India's AI opportunity. A key enabler of this acceleration, Prakash added, is the increasingly global outlook and structure of Indian start-ups. One is seeing more cross-border founding teams—start-ups with a founder in India and another in the US from day one. Many of these are driven by the Indian diaspora or entrepreneurs who have recently moved between ecosystems. In a bold bid to develop sovereign AI capabilities, the Government of India has also begun selecting start-ups to build foundational models tailored to the country's unique linguistic and cultural landscape. Among the applicants are not only domestic entrepreneurs but also Indian-origin technologists from abroad, signalling a potential reversal of brain drain. Singh mentioned start-ups like founded by a Stanford graduate returning to India, as examples of how this initiative could bring top talent back to the country. The government recently announced the first four start-ups selected for support, but Singh emphasised that this is just the beginning. The number of start-ups funded will depend on their resource requirements—particularly GPU needs—and the available budget. He acknowledged that the government is not under the illusion that all projects will succeed. This approach is similar to what VCs do. India is tapping trusted venture capital firms to help steer a newly announced Rs 10,000 crore fund-of-funds aimed at fuelling innovation in artificial intelligence and deep tech. The initiative includes a dedicated Rs 2,000 crore allocation under the IndiaAI Mission. Prakash of Accel also said that India's AI ecosystem holds distinct advantages that could position the country as a global innovation hub in two emerging dimensions of artificial intelligence—voice interfaces and cost optimisation.