India's Mars Orbiter Mission – aka MOM – has celebrated its 1,000th Earth day in orbit around the red planet. The probe arrived on November 5, 2013 and last week ticked over into four figures. The mission cost a pittance or, as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) puts it, MOM “is credited with many laurels like cost- …

The number of H‑1B visas requested by Indian outsourcing companies has dropped drastically, but not for the reasons you might think. In 2016 the top seven Indian firms filed only 9,356 new H‑1B petitions to US immigration, a drop of 37 per cent, according to non-profit think tank the National Foundation for American Policy ( …

India has successfully launched its GSLV Mark III heavy-lift rocket on schedule, leaving explosion-watchers disappointed. As we reported last week, the launcher represents India's entry into heavy rocketry: its GSLV Mark III is currently able to hoist four tonnes to a geosynchronous transfer orbit, or eight tonnes to low earth …

The Indian Space Research Organisation has set June 5 as the next milestone in the country's ambitions to build a heavy-lift rocket. That's when ISRO's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark III is due to hoist a 3,136 kg GSAT-19 satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit, the first time a launcher in the GSLV …

India's issued three “Guidance Notes” outlining its government's policies for procuring software and entering into alliances and running RFPs. The new Model RFP Templates and Guidance Notes for Implementing Services (PDF), RFP Templates and Guidance Notes for Consulting Services (PDF) and Model and Model RFP Templates and …

The UK's Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating claims that the Metropolitan Police used outsourced Indian hackers to illegally access the email accounts of Guardian journalists and environmental campaigners. A whistleblower claiming to be a serving police employee said the Met evaded Britain’s already lax …

If you're enthused about governments operating large-scale online identity projects, here's a cautionary tale: the Indian government's eight-year-old Aadhaar payment card project has leaked a stunning 130 million records. Aadhaar's role in authenticating and authorising transactions, and as the basis of the country's UID ( …

Following demands for an investigation into the security of India's electronic voting machines, the country's election watchdog has invited all comers to hack its e-ballot boxes. A kerfuffle over the machines kicked off after a round of recent elections: some in the Indian parliament claimed tallies were maliciously altered by …

Microsoft's opened its three Indian Azure data centres to the world. Azure India kicked off in September 2015 but at the time Microsoft noted that “The India regions are currently available to volume licensing customers and partners with a local enrollment in India”, adding that “The India regions will open to direct online …

The Indian State of Kerala, home to 34 million people, has declared its citizens have a right to internet access. The State's budget speech (PDF), delivered last week by finance minister Dr. T.M. Thomas lsaac, included provisions for “free internet connections … provided to 20 lakh [two million - Ed] poor families. For others …

The United States has suspended “premium” processing of H-1B visas, the skilled worker visa often used by technology companies to bring workers to the nation. The H-1B is very useful for tech companies, because the first 20,000 applications each year by those with the equivalent of a US Masters degree are exempt from the 65, …

Tying up loose ends, BlackBerry has found a licensee to sell BlackBerry-branded devices in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. It now has deals in place covering the planet, the largest by far being with Chinese giant TCL. Publicly listed Optiemus Infracom will sell the devices in the Indian region. The company is a …

Google this week added Hindi to the languages spoken by its "Allo" digital assistance service, the company's Siri-and-Cortana competitor. The Register fancies this is a pretty significant thing to have done, because the world has about 400 million Hindi speakers in India alone, with plenty concentrated in states like Bihar …

Between September 2015 and October 2016 India opened 38 new mobile phone factories with a combined peak output of 248m handsets a year. So says a Department of Telecommunications report (PDF) into the nation's “Make In India” effort to kickstart a manufacturing industry. Of the 29 companies responsible, Reg readers may …

India has just recorded its first-ever 30-million-smartphones-shipped quarter, according to abacus-shuffling firm IDC. Don't get too excited about that representing a breakthrough and serious momentum towards a wired India, because the firm says “channel preparation for the festive season, mega online sales and early import of …

Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and BT have been revealed as bidders for rights for India's top sporting attracting, the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket competition. IPL matches often attract more than 100 million television viewers and the League runs all-but-daily for nearly two months, making it a media monster with few …

Google's decided that India needs its very own YouTube, so has cooked up something called “YouTube Go” that permits peer-to-peer video sharing. Details of the new app are sketchy, but the bits aimed at India are the ability to preview videos before downloading them and advance warning of file sizes. Vids can be saved to a …

India's government has decided to build a submarine cable between the city of Chennai and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The where? The Andaman & Nicobar Islands are about 1,300km east of India, way out in the Bay of Bengal. The Islands are home to about 380,000 people, among them the Jarawa people who lived a more-or-less …