Andhra tops eSanjeevani telemedicine, RBI orders Geo-Tag Infrastructure, more

Andhra Pradesh leads the way in eSanjeevani telemedicine

Andhra Pradesh dominated the list of states that have used the Centre’s integrated telemedicine initiative, eSanjeevani, with 1.3 crore teleconsultations, accounting for 43.7% of the country’s total three crore consultations. Andhra Pradesh was followed in the rankings by Karnataka, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, according to TNIE.

There are a total of 13 telemedicine hubs at medical colleges in districts across Andhra Pradesh. These telemedicine hubs offer specialised services to patients who attend SHC/PHCs through videoconferencing as well as online prescription generation and home delivery of medications, the report said.

RBI instructs commercial banks and PSOs to geo-tag infra

Under its framework for geo-tagging of payment system touchpoints, the RBI has instructed commercial banks and payment system operators (PSOs) to send geographical coordinates of points where merchants accepts payments from customers such as PoS terminals and QR codes, Mint reported.

Indian telcos eager to pay off spectrum debts

As part of a cost-cutting strategy, Bharti Airtel Ltd said it paid a total of Rs 8,815 crore ahead of schedule to settle deferred liabilities with a 10% interest rate for spectrum bought in 2015, according to the Mint. FY27 and FY28 were the due dates for the installments, the report said.

Bharti Airtel had paid the government for the spectrum it had obtained in the 2014 auctions, totalling Rs 15,519 crore. In the last six months, rival Reliance Jio paid the telecom department Rs 41,583 crore, settling dues for all spectrum purchased in auctions before March last year, the report revealed.

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Coinbase now supports UPI and IMPS in India

Coinbase has started to provide support for payment instruments UPI and IMPS in India, making its crypto exchange widely available, Techcrunch reported.

It’s unclear with which Indian banks Coinbase has partnered to facilitate UPI and IMPS payments, or the scale of the rollout. Banks have mostly avoided collaborating with crypto companies due to pressure from RBI, the report said.

Temasek to participate in Mohalla Tech’s $5 billion funding round

Mohalla Tech, the parent company of ShareChat and Moj, is in negotiations with Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings and Times Internet to raise $5 billion in a Series H round, as per Mint. Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., is considering participating in the fundraiser.

Russian media association accuses YouTube of censorship

The Russian Union of Journalists has condemned YouTube for “censorship” and demanded harsh action, claiming that biased moderation and outright censorship by digital platforms must be punished under Russian legal requirements, according to an ET report. The union will call on Russian prosecutors, the foreign ministry, and Roskomnadzor, the country’s media watchdog to take measures against Google and YouTube, in a request.

Russian military allegedly hacked European satellites

According to US government sources, an assault on a European satellite internet provider that disrupted Ukraine’s KA-SAT satellite broadband network in late February was carried out by the Russian military, The Washington Post reported.

KA-SAT is owned by Viasat, an American satellite communications corporation. The KA-SAT network was plagued by failures on February 24, the day the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, affecting Ukraine and nearby European areas. Viasat blamed the problems on a “cyber incident” a few days later. The outage is known to have caused severe communications difficulties at the start of the war, however, Ukrainian officials have not fully confirmed the extent of the effect, the report said.

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US FCC adds Kaspersky and Chinese telecom firms to threat list

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) included Russia’s AO Kaspersky Lab, China Telecom (Americas), and China Mobile International USA to its list of communications equipment and service providers deemed dangerous to US national security in order to secure their networks from cyber attacks, according to an NDTV report.

Last year, the regulator named five Chinese businesses, including Huawei and ZTE, as the first to be added to the list, as required by a law passed in 2019. The first Russian firm to be listed is Kaspersky Lab.

Ukraine launches ‘Museum of War’ NFT

Ukraine has begun auctioning off a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from the ‘Meta History: Museum of War’ collection as part of a cryptocurrency fundraising campaign for its war effort, which Kyiv estimates has already raised more than $65 million (approximately Rs. 495 crore), as per NDTV.

The ‘Meta History: Museum of War’ collection is a selection of digital pictures that each represent a particular day in the fight, including silhouettes of jets, screengrabs of news headlines, and a cartoon-style representation of an explosion, the report said.

Spotify to halt its services due to Russia’s New Media Law

Spotify has decided to halt its streaming service in Russia indefinitely, blaming Moscow’s “unprovoked war on Ukraine.” Reporting any occurrence that might bring the Russian military into disrepute is now forbidden under Russian law, an NDTV report said.

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