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The minister described it as a "non-negotiable" demand of the Indian government during the meeting, said one of the sources. India's IT ministry said in a press statement all platforms had agreed to align their content guidelines with government rules. Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) YouTube, Facebook and Chandrasekhar did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have raised concerns over deepfakes in recent days. India has been tightening regulations of social media companies, which count the South Asian nation as a top growth market.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Chandrasekhar, Narendra Modi, Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra Organizations: Facebook, REUTERS, Rights, YouTube, Reuters, Thomson Locations: India

The officials inspected laptops of Lenovo employees during the visit, one of the sources said. They also tried to contact Lenovo's senior management during and after the visit as part of the inquiry, the person added. Lenovo, which confirmed the visit, said it was "co-operating with the authorities and will provide all possible support required". Earlier in the day, Reuters reported that tax officers also visited the facilities of contract manufacturer Flex Ltd in Tamil Nadu state. Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Toby Chopra, Kirsten DonovanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Thomas White, Munsif, Aditya Kalra, Toby Chopra, Kirsten Donovan Organizations: Lenovo, REUTERS, Rights, Wednesday, Reuters, Flex, Thomson Locations: Puducherry, Bengaluru, Tamil Nadu, New Delhi

Reliance, whose interest in making semiconductors has not been previously reported, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. India's IT ministry and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office also did not respond to requests for comment. The country does not as yet have any chip manufacturing plants, although India's Vedanta (VDAN.NS) and Taiwan's Foxconn (2317.TW) are both looking at building facilities. India's government has forecast the domestic chip market will be worth $80 billion by 2028 compared with $23 billion currently. But chip manufacturing is an industry that has historically been beset with boom and bust cycles and requires much expertise.

Persons: Amit Dave, Mukesh, Narendra Modi's, Modi, Vedanta, Taiwan's Foxconn, Arun Mampazhy, –, Foxconn, Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra, Edwina Gibbs Organizations: Reliance Industries, Gujarat Global Trade, REUTERS, Reliance, Google, U.S, Vedanta, Ventures, Semiconductor, Intel, Orbit Ventures, Thomson Locations: Gujarat, Gandhinagar, India, DELHI, Abu Dhabi

TAIPEI/BENGALURU, July 10 (Reuters) - Taiwan's Foxconn said on Monday it has withdrawn from a $19.5 billion semiconductor joint venture with Indian metals-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta, in a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's chipmaking plans for India. Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, and Vedanta signed a pact last year to set up semiconductor and display production plants in Modi's home state of Gujarat. "Foxconn (2354.TW) has determined it will not move forward on the joint venture with Vedanta," the electronics maker said in a statement, without elaborating on the reasons. India, which expects its semiconductor market to be worth $63 billion by 2026, last year received three applications to set up plants under a $10 billion incentive scheme. These were from the Vedanta-Foxconn joint venture, a global consortium ISMC which counts Tower Semiconductor (TSEM.TA) as a tech partner and from Singapore-based IGSS Ventures.

Persons: Taiwan's Foxconn, Narendra Modi's chipmaking, Vedanta, Foxconn, Modi, STMicro, IGSS, Munsif, Ben Blanchard, Aditya Kalra, Louise Heavens, Jason Neely, Alexander Smith Organizations: Vedanta, Apple, Reuters, IGSS Ventures, Intel, Thomson Locations: TAIPEI, BENGALURU, India, Gujarat, Singapore, Bengaluru, Taipei, New Delhi

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU, June 2 (Reuters) - The India and South Asia head of Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) cloud division, Puneet Chandok, has resigned with effect from August 31, the company said on Friday. Chandok had taken the helm of Amazon Web Services in June 2019. Vaishali Kasture, currently head of enterprise for mid-market and global businesses at AWS India and South Asia, would take on the role of interim leader of commercial business for the unit, Amazon India said. The news came over two weeks after Amazon's cloud computing unit revealed plans to invest 1.06 trillion rupees ($12.87 billion) in India by 2030, doubling down on its past investments to cater to the growing demand for such services in Asia's No. The interim provides an opportunity for other cloud companies such as Azure and Google Cloud Platform, along with homegrown players, to make aggressive bids for accounts, said Akshara Bassi, an analyst at Counterpoint Research.

Persons: Inc's, Puneet Chandok, Chandok, Vaishali Kasture, Akshara Bassi, Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra, Varun, Savio D'Souza, Dhanya Ann Thoppil, Sohini Organizations: NEW, Amazon Web Services, India, Amazon, Counterpoint Research, Varun Vyas, Thomson Locations: NEW DELHI, BENGALURU, India, South Asia, Amazon India, Asia's, New Delhi, Bengaluru

[1/2] Visitors stand next to a "Make In India" logo during a three-day semiconductor event in Bengaluru, India, April 30, 2022. They were from the Vedanta-Foxconn JV; a global consortium ISMC which counts Tower Semiconductor (TSEM.TA) as a tech partner; and from Singapore-based IGSS Ventures. SETBACK FOR VEDANTAMost of the world's chip output is limited to a few countries like Taiwan, and India is a late entrant. Amid much fanfare, in September, the Vedanta-Foxconn JV announced its chipmaking plans in Gujarat. Modi called the $19.5 billion plan "an important step" in boosting India's chipmaking ambitions.

Persons: Munsif, India's Modi, Taiwan's Foxconn, Narendra Modi, IGSS, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Modi, Foxconn, STMicro, Chandrasekhar, David Reed, Aditya Kalra, Jane Lanhee Lee, Steven Scheer, Nick Zieminski Organizations: Visitors, REUTERS, Companies, Intel, India's Vedanta, Vedanta, IGSS Ventures, JV, Reuters, Orbit, Foxconn JV, Twitter, Thomson Locations: India, Bengaluru, DELHI, OAKLAND , California, Singapore, Gujarat, Taiwan, New Delhi, Oakland , California

"They are very seriously looking at India as a production and innovation base," Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in the first public comment by an Indian government official on the talks. Tesla proposed setting up a factory in India to build electric vehicles (EVs) and is also looking at manufacturing EV batteries, Reuters reported. Asked if talks with Tesla included more than just making vehicles, Chandrasekhar said "you don't talk about cars alone" when such discussions take place. "You talk about cars, you talk about energy, you talk about manufacturing technology. Outside the United States, Tesla has a plant in Shanghai - its largest factory worldwide - and one in Brandenburg, Germany.

NEW DELHI, April 11 (Reuters) - Three public policy executives of the India team of Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) have resigned, sources told Reuters on Tuesday, in simultaneous departures as the country's biggest smartphone player faces several regulatory headaches. Public policy teams have increasingly critical roles in companies efforts to balance regulatory issues as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has boosted domestic electronics manufacturing while backing tougher regulations on tech firms. Binu George, who looked at corporate affairs and strategy, Surabhi Pant who worked on policy and public affairs, and Nikhil Kaura from the same team quit last week, two sources said. They were part of a seven-member team headed by Rajiv Aggarwal, a former bureaucrat who, before joining Samsung in December, led public policy at Meta (META.O) and Uber (UBER.N) in India. Samsung racked up sales of $10.3 billion in India in fiscal 2021-22, with smartphones making up $6.7 billion.

NEW DELHI, March 24 (Reuters) - Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) Taiwanese supplier Pegatron Corp (4938.TW) is in talks to open a second India factory, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, as the U.S. tech giant's partners continue to diversify production away from China. Pegatron currently accounts for 10% of Apple's iPhone production in India on an annualised basis, research firm Counterpoint said. The talks for starting a second Pegatron facility on lease are ongoing and it will be located inside Mahindra World City near Chennai, just around where the company inaugurated the first plant in September 2022. India is the second biggest smartphone market in the world, where Apple also plans to assemble iPad tablets and AirPods. Last week, Reuters reported Foxconn has plans to build a $200 million factory in India to produce the wireless earphones for Apple after winning a contract.

While Xiaomi remained focused on selling mobile phones under 10,000 rupees ($120), Indian consumers were willing to pay up for better looking models with richer features. According to Counterpoint, the market share of the sub-$120 phones in India fell to 26% in 2022 from 41% two years ago. And premium phones - priced above 30,000 ($360) - saw their share double to 11% in the same period. Xiaomi and Samsung both count India as a key growth market, with smartphones their top selling electronic device. And premium phones accounted for only 0%-1% of Xiaomi's total India phone shipments in the last two years, when Samsung's higher-end phones more than doubled their share to 13%, Counterpoint data showed.

"Pre-installed apps can be a weak security point and we want to ensure no foreign nations, including China, are exploiting it. India has ramped up scrutiny of Chinese businesses since a 2020 border clash between the neighbours, banning more than 300 Chinese apps, including TikTok. Currently, most smartphones come with pre-installed apps that cannot be deleted, such as Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi's app store GetApps, Samsung's payment app Samsung Pay mini and iPhone maker Apple's browser Safari. While European Union regulations require allowing removal of pre-installed apps, it does not have a screening mechanism to check for compliance like India is considering. An industry executive said some pre-installed apps like the camera are critical to user experience and the government must make a distinction between these and non-essential ones when imposing screening rules.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered Google in October to make a series of changes, such as refraining from agreements that ensure exclusivity of its search services and mandatory pre-installation of its apps. It also told Google to allow third-party app stores to be housed within its Play Store. "There was negative impact over the years, we hope now consumers and device makers use our app more." About 97% of 600 million smartphone devices in India run on Android, according to Counterpoint Research estimates. Naval Chopra, a lawyer at India's Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, which has challenged Google in courts in the past, said Thursday's court decision was a landmark one.

Google challenged the directive in the Supreme Court saying it would hurt consumers and also its business, warning the growth of the Android ecosystem could stall. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, which included the chief justice of India, extended the implementation date of CCI's directives by a week beyond Jan. 19, but declined to block the ruling despite Google's repeated requests. Google licenses its Android system to smartphone makers, but critics say it imposes restrictions such as mandatory pre-installation of its own apps that are anti-competitive. Google also says in its India filings that "no other jurisdiction has ever asked for such far-reaching changes". "We have not cut, copy and paste," N Venkataraman, a government lawyer representing the Competition Commission of India (CCI), told the top court.

NEW DELHI, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Google has been jolted after the Indian antitrust authority sought changes to how it markets its Android system, which powers 97% of smartphones in the world's second biggest mobile market. * Google should not impose any curbs in India on the practice of "sideloading", or downloading apps without using its app store. * Competitors and app developers should not be denied access to the programming interface of Google Play services, the underlying software system that powers Android devices. This directive is meant to ensure compatibility between apps on Play Store and third-party app stores based on Android variants, the antitrust authority has said. * The CCI asked Google not to restrict makers of Android smartphones from developing other devices, such as tablets or TVs based on modified versions of Android.

NEW DELHI, Nov 18 (Reuters) - India on Friday proposed a new data privacy law that will allow companies to transfer some users' data abroad, while giving the federal government powers to exempt state agencies from the law in the interests of national security. The proposed law would be the latest regulation that could impact how tech giants such as Facebook and Google process and transfer data in India's fast-growing digital market. It comes after India in August withdrew a 2019 privacy bill that had alarmed companies by proposing stringent restrictions on cross-border data flows. The latest privacy bill, however, relaxed certain stringent norms on cross-border transfers proposed earlier, with the government saying it could specify countries to which entities managing data can transfer personal data of users. Supratim Chakraborty, a partner specializing in data privacy at law firm Khaitan & Co, said the proposal would bring relief for big technology companies that need to transfer user data abroad where they maintain their servers.

NEW DELHI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - India continues to favour a self-regulatory body for social media content disputes, a federal minister told Reuters, despite a lack of consensus among Big Tech companies to form a joint appeals panel. Decisions about social media content have been a particularly thorny issue in India. During a press briefing on Saturday, Chandrasekhar said the current system of in-house grievance redressal at tech companies was "broken". The government panel "is a signal to them (social media firms) that they need to up their game," Chandrasekhar told Reuters. Reporting by Munsif Vengattil and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; editing by Clelia OzielOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Below are the details of NavIC's inception, why India wants smartphone makers to adopt it and how the system compares to other global or regional navigation systems. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterNavIC, or Navigation with Indian Constellation, is an independent stand-alone navigation satellite system developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Like GPS, there are three more navigation systems that have global coverage - Galileo from the European Union, Russia-owned GLONASS and China's Beidou. QZSS, operated by Japan, is another regional navigation system coveringAsia-Oceania region, with a focus on Japan. India says NavIC is conceived with the aim of removing dependence on foreign satellite systems for navigation service requirements, particularly for "strategic sectors."

NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) and GPS (Global Positioning System) logos are seen in this illustration taken, September 25, 2022. In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's drive for self-reliance, India has over the years expanded the use of its regional navigation satellite system called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation). Global Positioning System (GPS), and says NavIC provides more accurate domestic navigation and that its use would benefit the economy. India's IT ministry and the space agency ISRO that are both involved in the project also did not respond. India would not be the first country to push smartphone makers to add support for a native navigation system.

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