Category: Government

India proposes social security benefits for gig workers in annual budget

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a handful of benefits for the startup ecosystem and to accelerate the growth of digital services in the annual budget Monday as the South Asian nation looks to revive the economy that plunged into deepest recorded slump amid the coronavirus pandemic. Sitharaman said the…

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New rule reins in China’s flourishing self-publishing space

Despite China’s history of stringent media control, an industry of uninstitutionalized, individual publishers has managed to flourish on social media platforms like Tencent’s WeChat and ByteDance’s Toutiao. These self-publishers are called “We Media” in the Chinese internet lexicon, denoting the independent power of citizen journalists and content creators. Meanwhile, self-publishers…

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India plans to introduce law to ban Bitcoin, other private cryptocurrencies

India plans to introduce a law to ban private cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin in the country and provide a framework for the creation of an official digital currency during the current budget session of parliament. In the agenda (PDF) published on the lower house website, the legislation seeks to “prohibit…

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AOC, Ted Cruz slam Robinhood for freezing some trades amid GameStop volatility

With Reddit’s interest in sending some stocks soaring showing no sign of slowing down, the trading app Robinhood started restricting some transactions Thursday morning. Reddit wasn’t happy — and neither are some lawmakers. The incident apparently struck an unusual bipartisan chord, with Texas Republican Ted Cruz throwing his weight behind…

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Pro-Trump Twitter figure arrested for spreading vote-by-text disinformation in 2016

The man behind a once-influential pro-Trump account is facing charges of election interference for allegedly disseminating voting disinformation on Twitter in 2016. Federal prosecutors allege that Douglass Mackey, who used the name “Ricky Vaughn” on Twitter, encouraged people to cast their ballot via text or on social media, effectively tricking others…

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Forget winning, can Amazon survive in India?

During a visit to India in 2014, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos made a splashy announcement: His firm was investing $2 billion in the South Asian nation, just a year after beginning operations in the country. Amazon’s announcement underscored how far India had come to open up to foreign firms.…

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