Also in the letter:
■ Earnings corner: CarDekho, Oxyzo
■ Nazara’s fundraise
■ Honasa elevates Vipul Maheshwari
MeitY, DoT at work on projects for fair AI development
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are spearheading multiple initiatives to ensure the responsible development of artificial intelligence (AI) as it becomes ubiquitous across sectors and daily life.
Driving the news: The Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), a technical body under DoT, has proposed to develop voluntary standards for assessing and rating the robustness of AI systems in telecom networks and digital infrastructure.
This will build upon the standard for “Fairness Assessment and Rating of AI Systems” released by the TEC last year, which highlighted procedures for assessing and rating AI systems for fairness.
The departments will collaborate with several academic institutions for the same.
Insight: The key word is voluntary, an official told us. These initiatives are aimed at the safe and trusted development, deployment and adoption of AI, by developing indigenous responsible tools and frameworks that are contextualised to India’s social, cultural, and linguistic diversity.
Quote, unquote: “We should extend our standard to modalities like pictures. There can be biases in AI-generated images. We’d also like to extend our standards to assess fairness in unstructured text like tweets, emails, tables, natural language processing and LLMs (large language models),” the official said.
Also Read: India AI Mission chooses projects of 8 colleges for ethical AI development
CCI orders probe against Google on Winzo’s complaint
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered a probe into Google after a complaint by online gaming company Winzo against the tech giant’s anticompetitive behaviour.
Driving the news: In its order, the CCI has pointed out Winzo’s claims that Google’s policies restrict the listing of real money gaming apps on its Play Store.
The following allegations were levelled by Winzo:
- It alleged that Google’s practices deny market access to gaming apps such as Winzo despite them being deemed legal by the Supreme Court.
- Winzo said developers must agree with Google’s “one-sided” policies to be on Google’s Play Store, which are unreasonable and unjust.
- It also said Play Store restricts the hosting of gaming applications that offer real money games in India.
Fine print: As per the CCI order, Winzo has alleged that Google’s pilot programme on allowing daily fantasy sports apps and rummy games on Play Store for a year between September 2022 and September 2023 was “discriminatory and arbitrary constituting abuse of its dominant position”.
Counterpoint: Google submitted to the CCI that its decision to not include India in the list of countries where real money games are allowed on the Play Store was influenced by “the legal and regulatory uncertainty” in offering such games in the country.
Quote, unquote: “Monopolistic practices stifle innovation and hinder competition, which are the lifeblood of any thriving industry. This decision is a significant move to ensure equitable opportunities for all players, fostering innovation and creating a level playing field that benefits both businesses and consumers,” Winzo cofounder Saumya Singh Rathore said.
What’s next: In its order, the regulator has asked its director general to conclude its investigation and submit a consolidated report within 60 days.
Under scanner: In 2022, Google had been fined Rs 2,274 crore by the CCI in two different antitrust cases. The tech giant is also in the middle of antitrust investigations in multiple countries. The antitrust case against Google in the US regarding its online advertising business domination recently drew to a close.
Also Read: Google’s antitrust case in the US: a timeline
Earnings Corner
Amit Jain, CEO, CarDekho Group
CarDekho: Jaipur-based CarDekho Group, which operates businesses such as vehicle classifieds, insuretech and fintech, logged an 11% on-year decline in net revenue in FY24, and narrowed its net loss.
Details:
- Net revenue at Rs 2,074 crore vs Rs 2,331 crore in FY23.
- Net loss narrowed to Rs 340 crore, compared to Rs 562 crore a year ago.
The company attributed its revenue growth to its insurance marketplace InsuranceDekho and fintech platform Rupyy.
Also Read: Used car startups seek new routes as revenue tanks
Rivals: Rival Spinny reported a 14% on-year increase in operating revenue to Rs 3,725 crore for FY24. It also narrowed its net loss in FY24 to Rs 590 crore. Meanwhile, Cars24 recorded a 25% growth in operating revenue at Rs 6,917 crore in FY24.
Oxyzo chief executive Ruchi Kalra
Oxyzo Financial Services: The non-banking financial company (NBFC) backed by OfBusiness, Oxyzo has reported a total operational revenue of Rs 274 crore in the September quarter, up 8.3% from Rs 253 crore a year ago. Its net profit stood at Rs 82 crore for the September quarter compared to Rs 72 crore in Q2 FY23.
The company’s loan book climbed to Rs 6,850 crore by the end of Q2, compared to Rs 6,600 crore at the end of the March quarter.
Also Read: Zodius exits OfBusiness with $100 million; Z47 may part-sell shares too
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Nitish Mittersain, CEO, Nazara Technologies
Nazara completes Rs 855 crore fundraise: Online gaming company Nazara Technologies has raised Rs 855 crore ($100 million) through a preferential issue of over 8.9 million fully paid equity shares to a group of investors.
Honasa Consumer elevates Vipul Maheshwari to lead product, data analytics: Honasa Consumer, the parent of beauty and personal care brand Mamaearth, on Thursday said it has elevated Vipul Maheshwari to senior vice president of product and data analytics.
ISRO to launch ESA’s Proba-3 mission to study sun’s corona: The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) cost-effective launch solutions and proven capabilities have earned it the opportunity to launch the European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission, which will perform a unique phenomenon of creating artificial eclipses to study the sun’s corona, the outermost and hottest layer of its atmosphere.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ The legal battle against explicit AI deepfakes (FT)
■ India banned a Chinese app four years ago. Government agencies are still using it (Rest of World)
■ This startup is getting closer to bringing next-generation nuclear to the grid (MIT Technology Review)
