Technology Correspondent
99 articles · Writes about Technology, Opinion
Arjun Nair reports on technology, startups and digital India for The NE Times — covering everything from semiconductors and AI to UPI, data rules and the gadgets readers actually use.
India's I4C ordered a Bitchat GitHub takedown on 23 July 2026, giving three hours to disable Jack Dorsey's offline mesh app. Two days on, the repositories are still live.
The HCLTech-Sarvam Odisha AI data centre MoU, signed on 24 July 2026, plans Rs 14,257 crore for Bhubaneswar's Sovereign AI Park, plus a 5,000-seat HCLTech technology centre by 2028.
As authorities briefly cut mobile internet near Jantar Mantar during the NEET-UG protests, here is the law on proportionality, transparency and the costs of a shutdown.
As misinformation spreads around the NEET-UG 2026 leak protests and Sonam Wangchuk's fast, here are the recurring fake-post patterns and a practical verification toolkit for readers.
Concerns about digital marking widened the movement beyond a single leaked paper to the reliability and transparency of assessment technology
Temporary internet restrictions can disrupt coordination and misinformation alike, but they must be examined for legal authority, geographic scope,
Police recording can preserve evidence and protect against false claims, but broad identification of peaceful participants can also chill lawful dissent
The CJP timeline shows how a deliberately absurd online identity became an organising brand capable of setting deadlines, negotiating with ministers
The volume of viral content made verification a central public-safety issue, but official claims about coordinated misinformation also require evidence
The Delhi High Court’s restoration of CJP’s X account highlights how platform blocking, Section 69A and fast-moving protest movements collide online
Social media turned the hunger strike into a national issue, but viral health claims, recycled images and personality-driven coverage can distort the movement’s demands
India's first hydrogen-powered passenger train is important less as a single service than as a test of an entire operating system.
India's digital payments push is really an identity project in disguise, and the country is scaling it faster than it is building the privacy guardrails to match.
Thirty-one million Aadhaar downloads and a relaunched Aarogya Setu prove Indians want digital identity — but adoption is not proof that consent is being honoured.
The Department of Space has tightened the process for accepting resignations and voluntary retirement requests from senior scientific and technical personnel working on critical programmes, including...
The beta launch of a redesigned IRCTC website affects far more people than an ordinary commercial website update.
Reports that files linked to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project appeared on the dark web have understandably generated alarm.
With cars increasingly run by software, the government is reportedly preparing update and security norms aimed at preventing vehicle hijacking and governing how connected cars in India are patched and protected.
ISRO has completed successful integrated parachute tests for the Gaganyaan crew capsule, validating a critical part of the descent and recovery system as India's human spaceflight programme advances through key engineering milestones.
India's debate over artificial-intelligence regulation is shifting from broad principles to hard questions of liability, deepfake labelling and high-risk system obligations, as the government weighs how to protect users without stifling innovation.
India's National Drone Summit has spotlighted a cooperative-led drone platform, signalling a shift in the country's drone economy from startups and defence towards rural and commercial applications.
The Centre has ordered the removal of three Chinese apps — BAT-BMS, Lossigy and Epoch-i-ion — over fears they could remotely disable battery-run e-rickshaws, turning mobility software into a public safety concern.
IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur have jointly launched a practice-oriented Bachelor of Cybersecurity featuring two years of field deployment, a direct response to India's widening shortage of trained cyber defence professionals.
New science coverage says findings from ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission reveal a link to Earth's first lunar meteorite, showing the landmark landing is still generating research long after touchdown.
The OnePlus N6, with its 8,000mAh battery and sub-Rs 25,000 price tag, leads a busy late-June run of smartphone launches in India spanning OnePlus, Oppo and Samsung.
OnePlus is opening a new front in India's most fiercely contested price band, launching its N Series with a phone built around a three-day battery and a sub-₹25,000 sticker.
Tata Motors is set to unveil the Sierra EV on 30 June, reviving an iconic nameplate as an electric SUV at a moment when the company has just posted record monthly EV sales.
The revived N series targets the crowded sub-Rs 25,000 segment, with OnePlus teasing a giant 8,000mAh battery and a seven-year battery-health promise.
Discussions between India and the United States on AI, semiconductors and critical minerals underline how technology cooperation is fast becoming a supply-chain and resource-security story, not just a software one.
Fresh updates on Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 rocket and Mission Aagaman have renewed attention on India's private space ecosystem and the wait for the country's first private orbital-class launch.
With access to some US frontier AI models growing harder, Indian companies are widening their supplier options toward Asian and Chinese alternatives, turning AI procurement into a strategic business decision.
The government has issued a stern warning to Telegram over pirated films, books and exam material circulating on the app, sharpening India's push to hold digital platforms accountable for unlawful content.
India's cybercrime coordination body has flagged a 'Boss Scam' in which fraudsters impersonate senior executives, hijack WhatsApp sessions and push finance teams into urgent money transfers.
Meta is investing about $900 million in Indian fintech CRED and has chosen founder Kunal Shah to lead WhatsApp globally, a twin move that ties one of the world's biggest platforms ever closer to Indian consumer technology.
The government is preparing to transfer proven rocket technology to local private space companies, a step that could deepen industry participation in launch vehicles, satellites and manufacturing while ISRO retains strategic oversight.
India's Aadhaar mobile app has passed 31 million downloads, underlining how QR-based digital identity is becoming part of everyday verification across welfare, banking, telecom and travel.
WhatsApp is letting users reserve unique usernames ahead of a wider rollout, giving Indians a way to be reachable on the app without handing out their personal phone number in every new interaction.
The government reportedly plans to summon Meta over Instagram advertisements alleged to promote child sexual abuse material, thrusting ad-review systems and platform accountability to the centre of India's tech-policy debate.
Indian tech startups raised $7.2 billion in the first half of 2026, up 12 per cent year-on-year, but the number of funding rounds fell sharply as capital concentrated in a handful of mega-deals.
Google has restored Telegram on India's Play Store after a short government-ordered block during the NEET-UG re-exam, reviving a charged debate over exam security versus digital rights.
India's cybercrime coordination agency has flagged an emerging 'Boss Scam' in which fraudsters impersonate regulators and executives to push urgent, fraudulent money transfers at companies.
A new report places India second globally for tech job losses in 2026, with over 50,000 cuts worldwide and AI-driven restructuring forcing workers and companies to rethink roles, skills and career paths.
Eleven years in, Digital India is being judged less by its early public-service wins and more by whether it can deliver semiconductors, AI compute and resilient payments infrastructure at scale.
Amazon is trialling its upgraded Alexa+ assistant in India with Hindi language support and India-specific features, betting on multilingual households to defend its lead in the AI assistant race.
A major X (formerly Twitter) outage hit Indian users alongside several other countries, with thousands of complaints logged before service recovered, reviving questions over platform dependence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated CG Semi's chip assembly and test facility in Sanand, Gujarat, giving India's semiconductor mission a working manufacturing milestone rather than another policy promise.
Skyroot Aerospace has stacked its Vikram-1 rocket at Sriharikota with a launch window from July 12 to August 4, putting India's private space ambitions on the pad for the first time.
CRED founder Kunal Shah has been named global CEO of WhatsApp as Meta leads a $900 million round valuing the Indian fintech at about $4.5 billion, placing a homegrown founder atop one of the world's biggest apps.
Homegrown brand Noise has opened sales of its new design-led ALT range in India, leading with a rotating-crown smartwatch and open-ear earbuds that both carry Red Dot Design Awards.
With a reasoning model, a coding flash variant and image generators trained on its own licensed data, Microsoft is signalling it wants to build at the frontier rather than rent it.
The company is releasing its most capable widely available model yet, paired with a locked-down sibling reserved for cybersecurity work, in a careful balancing act between power and safety.
The government is reportedly weighing stricter rules for VPN providers, including a mandatory India office and compliance officers, reigniting the debate between cyber enforcement and digital privacy.
India's plan to hand proven PSLV rocket technology to private space companies could reshape the country's space economy, moving industry from parts supply to full launch capability.
ISRO and the European Space Agency are advancing cooperation on human spaceflight, astronaut training and lunar science, opening the door to European involvement in the planned Bharatiya Antariksh Station.
With a notified SEZ for the Tata fab in Dholera, Micron's assembly plant operational and 13 projects cleared under the national mission, India's semiconductor build-out is moving from paper to silicon.
With more than 34,000 GPUs already onboarded at subsidised rates and over 500 model proposals received, the government is scaling its compute backbone to anchor a homegrown AI ecosystem.
The government's IndiaAI Mission has greenlit eight new indigenous foundational model projects and rolled out 30 fresh AI Data Labs, deepening the push for sovereign, India-built artificial intelligence.
Fresh data on BharatNet shows active rural connections lagging far behind the fibre laid, sharpening the question of whether India's flagship village internet scheme is being used, not just built.
US event-contract platform Kalshi has added India to its restricted jurisdictions, barring Indian users from trading as MeitY tightens its squeeze on offshore betting and prediction-market platforms.
OpenAI has rolled GPT-5.5 into ChatGPT as the new default and begun phasing out GPT-5.2, while pushing personalisation upgrades to free and lower-tier users in June.
CRED founder Kunal Shah is set to become global head of WhatsApp after Meta announced a major investment in the Indian fintech, placing a homegrown founder at the heart of a platform central to India's digital life.
A government report cited by Reuters says authorities are proactively tracking Telegram groups over concerns about child abuse material and financial scams.
Bajaj Auto has disclosed that a ransomware attack affected systems at the company and its subsidiary Bajaj Auto Technology, intensifying concern over cyber risk across India's increasingly digital manufacturing sector.
iQOO is preparing to launch its Z11 in India this month with a battery reportedly crossing 9,000mAh, a striking pitch to power users in the budget-to-mid segment.
With India now its second-largest market and weekly ChatGPT users past 100 million, OpenAI is scouting partners for a one-gigawatt facility under its Stargate infrastructure push.
With 112 unicorns and a surge of AI and robotics startups, India took 120 deeptech firms to France's Bharat Innovates 2026 showcase.
Commander Randy Bresnik will lead a four-person crew on a two-week orbital flight to test the technology that will eventually put astronauts back on the Moon.
Indian travellers can now scan and pay at millions of Cambodian merchants, while a new India-Nepal remittance link extends UPI's footprint to its tenth international market.
Infosys leadership says artificial intelligence will not displace the IT major but will demand new skills, learning and operating models, reframing India's services sector around reskilling and proven productivity.
CRED founder Kunal Shah has been named global head of WhatsApp as Meta deepens its India bets, placing an Indian fintech entrepreneur in charge of the platform's largest market.
Reports that Meta has acquired a stake in CRED at an $8.8 billion valuation and tapped founder Kunal Shah to lead WhatsApp thrust Indian fintech leadership into a global spotlight.
Telegram is under sharper scrutiny in India after a Home Ministry cybercrime report flagged the platform's alleged use for child sexual abuse material and financial fraud across its largest market of 150 million-plus users.
Indian officials are again examining Telegram over exam-leak misinformation, channels sharing child sexual abuse material and piracy, reopening the debate on encryption, platform accountability and user safety.
Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio-SES backed Orbit Connect India hold licences but cannot switch on services, awaiting security clearances and a dedicated spectrum framework for low-earth-orbit constellations.
With the data-protection rules now notified, the government is rolling out the consent-manager framework that will let citizens grant, review and withdraw data permissions across services.
Surging demand for memory and storage chips from AI data centres is squeezing global supply, threatening to make smartphones, laptops and gaming devices costlier for Indian consumers.
From a surprise Until Dawn sequel to a Platinum-made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, the year's biggest games showcase leaned hard on horror, nostalgia and a few genuine surprises.
Xiaomi has put its 17T on shelves across India, betting that a Leica-tuned triple camera, a silicon-carbon battery and a sub-Rs 60,000 price can revive its premium ambitions after a four-year gap.
After a four-year gap, Xiaomi's T line returns with a 5x periscope telephoto camera, a 6,500mAh silicon-carbon battery and a Rs 59,999 starting price.
Motorola's new flagship arrived in India on 4 June priced at Rs 47,999, pairing a slim 7.34mm body with a triple 50MP camera system and 50x AI Super Zoom.
ISRO successfully ran its indigenous semi-cryogenic engine power head at 175 tonnes of thrust, clearing a key hurdle toward powering the LVM3 upgrade and the Next Generation Launch Vehicle.
Indian startups raised roughly $400 million across about 20 rounds in a busy mid-June week, with sovereign AI, verifiable AI and climate technology emerging as the dominant investment themes.
At WWDC 2026 Apple unveiled 'Siri AI', a top-to-bottom overhaul powered by Google's Gemini models under a reported $1 billion-a-year deal.
India's cybercrime agencies are proactively monitoring Telegram groups and channels linked to fraud and illegal content, as the government balances citizen safety against lawful digital communication.
Tata Electronics has confirmed a cybersecurity incident after a ransomware group claimed to post over 200,000 files allegedly tied to Apple and Tesla component designs, spotlighting India's electronics supply-chain security.
Telegram is available again for many Indian Android users after a temporary nationwide restriction tied to NEET-UG re-exam integrity, reopening debate on exam security and digital limits.
The early-stage firm's second fund will back 25 to 30 startups across space, semiconductors, AI and defence, the latest sign that capital is flowing into India's hard-tech ambitions.
ISRO has confirmed that flight integration for its first uncrewed Gaganyaan mission is underway, with the humanoid robot Vyommitra set to ride an LVM3 rocket ahead of a crewed launch in 2027.
New fonts, a global rollout of Trial Reels and a redesigned Notes experience headline a month of incremental changes aimed at keeping creators engaged.
Space regulator IN-SPACe has picked TakeMe2Space, SatSure and Astrobase for its maiden funding round, spotlighting an AI-powered star tracker built in Hyderabad.
Existing subscribers are now feeling YouTube's first major US price rise since 2023, with the family plan jumping $4 a month.
After months of rumours, Nintendo closed its June Direct by reviving its most revered N64 classic with overhauled visuals for Switch 2.
India's largest IT services firm will deploy Claude to 50,000 of its own associates and build a dedicated business unit to take Anthropic's models to banks, hospitals and government clients worldwide.
The mission strengthens India's homegrown positioning system, with applications spanning aviation, disaster response and everyday navigation.
A seven-second lip-sync set to Josh Fawaz's remix of 'Like a Prayer' has become TikTok's easiest viral entry point of the season, with small creators racking up millions of views.
The messaging giant is rolling out optional handles that let people connect without sharing their number, a change that quietly rewrites how its largest market communicates.
Researchers at IISc have demonstrated a quantum-resilient security chip for IoT devices, presented at the world's premier semiconductor forum, as India accelerates its National Quantum Mission.
Google's fastest agentic model is now the default brain for over 900 million Gemini and Search users, claiming to beat last year's Pro tier on coding and multimodal tests.
Insomniac's long-awaited Wolverine game opened Sony's June State of Play with an extended gameplay look ahead of its 15 September PS5 launch.