Paying Rs 16 to receive calls to ultra-cheap data: 30 years of India's mobile journey India's first mobile call, 30 years ago, marked the start of a journey that turned a luxury product into an everyday gadget. From paying to even receive calls, to super-cheap data, India has seen a telecom revolution. With over 1.2 billion connections, mobile phones have become India's bank, classroom, television and lifeline. On July 31, 1995, a phone call between Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram in Delhi and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in Kolkata opened India to mobile telephony. The call was brief and ceremonial, but it marked the beginning of a journey that would redefine how the country lived, worked and connected. Thirty years later, on July 31, 2025, the anniversary of that first call is a reminder of how an elite luxury turned into the backbone of everyday life for more than a billion people. India's mobile networks began with Modi Telstra’s GSM service in 1995, limite...
We’ve been left with an impossible choice…’: Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta joins Google in halting political ads in Europe
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has announced it will stop selling and displaying political advertisements in the European Union starting this October. The company cited the EU’s new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) legislation as the reason, arguing that the new requirements pose “significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties.” In a blog post, Meta said the TTPA imposes “significant, additional obligations” that add an unmanageable level of complexity for advertisers and platforms operating in the EU. Meta: EU rules undermine personalised advertising Meta explained that the TTPA’s strict limits on how political and social issue ads can be targeted and delivered will make it harder for advertisers to reach the right audiences. As a result, users are likely to see less relevant ads on Meta’s platforms. “Despite extensive engagement with policymakers to share these concerns, we have been left with an impossible choice: either change our services to...