While we are distinctly aware that the Internet is slowly trickling down to small towns and rural India, we were not really sure about the manifestation of that technology in terms of enabling commerce in the region. All e-commerce firms have had one common observation over the last few months – internet users from small towns and rural areas are increasingly buying stuff online. Digital content...

TranServ Private Limited, a company offering pre-paid solutions has received funding from Nirvana Venture Advisors Private Limited. As part of the deal, Amit Patni (Chairman) & Rajan Mehra (MD) of Nirvana will join TranServ’s board. The funds are going to be utilized for increasing the footprint of the company across India & enhance the product lineup. The company was started last year to...

One of the biggest revelation of the census this year unveiled the eBay Census Guide 2011 at Mumbai has regained its position as India’s second largest eCommerce hub. Mr. Kashyap Vadapalli, Director-Category Management, eBay India, unveiled the 4th edition of the annual eBay Census Guide which documents the key trends in online buying, importing, selling & exporting across Indians in the Top...

The potential of rural India in terms of being a market for mobile technology and the benefits of the same to the rural poor has been highlighted earlier on this blog. Recently, one of the leading research firms in the world, TNS conducted a detailed study of ‘needs and attitudes’ of those staying in the rural areas of Tanzania, Senegal and India. On first look it might seem a little weird that...

The Indian government seems to have finally woken up from its slumber and taking a serious step towards correcting India’s dismal IT infrastructure. The first National Policy on IT, 2011 is being drawn out at present. India has over 65 million active internet users, which the third highest in the world after China and USA, yet a vast majority of the country either do not have any idea about what...

750 Million Indians, that is three fourth of of the countries population, lives in rural India. Yet, traditionally, companies have for the most part ignored this huge market in favour of urban markets. This could be because rural India contributed to only 30% of the countries GDP. This, however, is changing, with more and more companies targeting India’s rural segment. A reason for this shift...

Handygo Technologies has partnered with Tata Indicom to launch a VAS service called ‘Ek Behtar Zindagi’ for the customers in the rural areas of India. ‘Ek Behtar Zindagi’ sounds interesting and useful for the rural customer because the service guarantees to provide day to day information. Updated information like forecast, agriculture, livestock, mandi rates, fisheries education,...

3G auctions have been done and dusted since some time now but the country is still waiting for the roll out of 3G services. Earlier this month, we had reported that 3G services were just around the corner as the Government had allocated 3G spectrum to service providers who had won circles in the auctions. Now, Minister of IT & Communications, Mr. A. Raja, has announced that 3G, along with Broadband...

India’s population and the number of mobile phone connections in the country seem to be growing at similar rate. Ok maybe, just maybe, the mobile revolution is growing much faster. A recent report by Boston Consulting Group concluded that India will reach 237 million internet users by 2015. Considering the increasing mobile connections, and the soon to be launched 3G services, the number definitely...

After tying up with Tata DoCoMo, Nokia has now joined hands with Reliance Communications to provide Nokia Ovi Life Tools to RCom subscribers in the rural areas of India. Nokia Ovi Life Tools provides information on agriculture, weather, education, entertainment and much more, which can be important in the progress of the rural parts of the country on the socio-economic front. Nokia Benefits? It has...