Govt Declares I‑T Portal Stable, Infosys Penalized for Delays

The government told the Lok Sabha that the Income-Tax e-filing portal is “largely stable and efficient,” but confirmed that Infosys has been penalized for repeated delays, outages, and failure to meet service-level agreements under the Integrated e-Filing and CPC 2.0 project.

Responding in writing to an unstarred question from Shyamkumar Daulat Barve, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary shared detailed figures on portal activity recorded between July 8 and 14, 2026, alongside comparative data from the same week in 2025. 

The Income-Tax e-filing portal was originally developed and operated by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) from 2012 until October 2020. Infosys was paid Rs 164.5 crore from January 2019 to June 2021, under the Integrated e‑Filing and CPC 2.0 project, and began work after Cabinet approval that month. The new portal was launched on June 7, 2021. 

Key Updates from Lok Sabha

• Portal Stability
  The I-T portal has handled record traffic in July 2026, with filings nearly tripling compared to last year. On July 14, 2026, 1.22 million returns were filed versus 409,000 a year earlier. Logins surged to 9.88 million in a single day, up from 6.76 million in 2025.
• Infosys Penalties
  Liquidated damages for failing to deliver the project on schedule in 2020. Penalties for missing service-level agreements across 12 quarters. Fines for application outages during FY26 peak filing season. Additional penalties when filing deadlines had to be extended due to Infosys-related issues.

Context on Penalties

• Faceless Penalty Scheme
  Under Section 274A of ITA 2025, penalties are now processed digitally, ensuring consistency and reducing discretion. Penalties for under-reporting can be 50% of tax, while misreporting attracts 200% of tax.
• Judicial Relief
  ITAT Bangalore has ruled that technical glitches cannot be grounds to deny penalty immunity under Section 270AA, protecting taxpayers from systemic failures.

Risks & Implications

• For Taxpayers
  While the portal is stable, transient delays may still occur during peak load. Filing deadlines could be extended if outages recur, but penalties on taxpayers for such glitches are legally contestable.
• For Infosys
  Repeated penalties highlight government dissatisfaction with delivery timelines and reliability. This could affect Infosys’s credibility in handling large-scale government IT projects.

Takeaway

• The I-T portal is functioning reliably for most users, but expect occasional slowdowns near deadlines.
• Infosys faces financial and reputational consequences for delays, reinforcing government accountability measures.
• If you’re covering this editorially, emphasize the contrast between rising taxpayer usage and Infosys’s repeated penalties — it’s a strong narrative on resilience vs. vendor accountability.

Summary Table

Aspect	Details
Portal Stability	Record filings and logins in July 2026; system largely efficient
Infosys Penalties	Damages for delays, SLA breaches, outages, deadline extensions
Taxpayer Impact	Delays contestable; deadlines may be extended during outages
Infosys Impact	Credibility risk in government IT projects

How to Choose the Right Website Designer for Your Business

Selecting the right website designer is one of the most important decisions for your business's online success. Your website serves as your digital headquarters, and the designer you choose will directly impact how effectively it represents your brand and converts visitors into customers.

What to Look for in a Professional Website Designer

Portfolio and Experience
Review their previous work to ensure their design style aligns with your vision. Look for diversity in their portfolio and evidence of successful projects in your industry.

Technical Expertise
A skilled website designer should be proficient in responsive design, SEO basics, and modern web technologies. They should understand both aesthetics and functionality.

Communication and Process
Clear communication throughout the project is essential. The right designer will have a structured process, provide regular updates, and be responsive to your feedback.

Key Questions to Ask Potential Designers

• Can you show examples of websites similar to what I need?
• What is your typical timeline and process?
• Do you provide ongoing support and maintenance?
• How do you ensure the website will be mobile-friendly and fast-loading?
• What's included in your web design package?

Red Flags to Avoid

Be cautious of designers who promise unrealistic timelines, refuse to show portfolios, or seem reluctant to explain their process. Quality web design takes time and collaboration.

When evaluating options, consider working with established professionals who have proven track records. A qualified website designer will not only create an attractive site but also ensure it performs well in search engines and provides excellent user experience across all devices.

Investment Considerations

While cost is a factor, remember that your website is a long-term investment in your business. Quality web design pays for itself through improved credibility, better user experience, and increased conversions.

Take time to research your options, ask the right questions, and choose a designer who understands your business goals and can deliver results that drive your success.

AI-powered Talent Marketplace FlexC Revamps Website, Offers All Hiring Solutions Under One Roof

The revamp will cater to the evolving needs of the industry with respect to talent acquisition

FlexC, an AI-Powered Talent Marketplace has recently revamped its website, making the user’s experience customizable and 3X efficient. The revamp has been made keeping in mind the evolving needs of the industry with respect to talent acquisition.

Their upgraded advanced technology ensures to impart information based on user- clear CTA- Call to Actions. In their renovated website, the work tech start-up has launched three avatars representing- Organisations, Professionals and HR Agencies. All the user has to do is click on a specific avatar, and their technology will ensure that the user receives an end-to-end customised browsing experience.

The website targets professionals looking for jobs, and companies looking for better resources to manage their hiring process. It's AI algorithms with Integrated Data Science and Machine Learning Engine provides data-driven insights to help companies find a perfect match every time they post a requirement for talent. It has curated resources to help HRs renovate their workforce from traditional to hybrid. Their seamless onboarding and management process will facilitate organisations transition faster towards the future of work. Organisations can browse relevant talent, HR agencies and individuals can browse available projects, even without signing up.

Speaking on the development, Girish Kukreja, Founder and CEO, FlexC said, “The objective behind the revamp of the website is to have our complete solutions simplified, alluded clearly and ensure the contextualised experience for our stakeholders. We want our platform’s AI capabilities to be used by organisations, professionals and HR agencies to save efforts, get better results and hence reduce the cycle time by at least 50%.”

FlexC offers a family of tools curated to upgrade your business performance. The platform has done diversification into four models-

FlexC Hire: Hire permanent employees for your workforce through FlexC’s AI- recommended profiles and through our recruiter network. Shortlist professionals, conduct interviews and onboard candidates seamlessly.

FlexC Contract: Onboard and manage the complete employment cycle of your contractors in a single streamlined flow.

FlexC Freelance: Access to finest professionals across 400+ skills and automate your complete process- from onboarding to final payments.

FlexC Force: An integrated SaaS platform curated for talent acquisition and management. Avoid time taking implementation cycles and customise FlexC as per your brand requirements.

IIT Hyderabad Launches ‘covid19tracker.in’ for One-Stop COVID Updates

• Daily updates on case numbers, vaccinations, and tests for each state of India
• Some of the critical updates are available in 10 Indian languages
• Predictions for cases (including the post-Omicron scenario) using the SUTRA model
• External link to the CoWIN dashboard for vaccination data
• External link to the INSACOG database of coronavirus variants
• Served over 18 million requests from a quarter-million visitors over the past 30 days

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck India in early 2020, it became imperative to have a single consolidated “go-to” website for relevant information at national, state-wise, and even district-wise levels. The website covid19india.org was started at this time and was the most popular website for such information, in addition to the Ministry website.

In August 2021, the creators of this website announced that they would no longer maintain up-to-date statistics after October 31, 2021. Knowing how crucial this information is to Indians of all hues (researchers, students, and the public), the Director of IIT Hyderabad authorized a team of developers at IITH to carry on the work beyond November 1, 2021The outcome of our efforts is the website covid19tracker.in, which is built using the public code base of covid19india.org website.

Expressing his delight on this milestone during the launch, Prof B S Murty, Director, IIT Hyderabad said, “IIT Hyderabad is delighted to host this website, which will be an important resource for everyone interested in data related to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Our site has attracted considerable traffic despite having been created so recently. In fact, we have noted with pleasure that the Worldometers website for India uses just two sources: our site, and that of MoHFW. I congratulate Prof Bheemarjuna Reddy Tamma and his team and Prof Vidyasagar for his mentorship for bringing up such an impressive site in such a short time. The Indian public can count on IIT Hyderabad to provide uninterrupted and up-to-date data on all aspects of the pandemic."

Speaking about the objective of the covid19tracker.in Prof M Vidyasagar FRS, Distinguished Professor at IITH said: “Currently, we have gone beyond the original website by including predictions for the future course of the pandemic, generated by the SUTRA Consortium of which IIT Hyderabad is a member. Most recently, we have included the projections for the post-Omicron scenario as well. In the future, we plan to enhance the website by including a search feature to highlight trends and raise alerts as and when required. If resources permit, we will monitor not just India but other countries as well. The emergence of the Omicron variant of concern shows that India cannot collect and monitor its data in isolation.”

Talking about the technical attribute of the portal, Prof Bheemarjuna Reddy Tamma, Chair, Computer Centre, IITH, said, “We are sourcing data mainly from state bulletins, official social handles, www.cowin.gov.in website, and www.mohfw.gov.in website while updating case numbers, vaccination doses administered, the number of tests conducted, etc. in our covid19tracker.in website. While the front-end of our website has the same user interface as that of the original website (covid19india.org), the back-end was developed in-house by a group of enthusiastic students of IIT Hyderabad and maintained by the staff members of Computer Center, IIT Hyderabad. The website has been hosted on a public cloud platform to make it highly scalable and responsive even when web traffic shoots up. As expected, the website has been attracting a lot of visitors. It has served over 18 million requests from a quarter-million visitors over the past 30 days.”

“I wish to place on record my sincere appreciation and gratitude to the following students/staff members of IIT Hyderabad for their unwavering commitment towards launching this new website on short notice and thereby keeping people informed about Covid-19 spread and vaccination status in the country: Anand Sai Dontu, Anurag Chandra Shukla, Imtiaz Ahmed, Karthik Reddy Puli, Krishnam Dhanush, Pradeepa Kumari N, Rahul Teja M, Rupa Bhavani Ponnuru, and Sharath Chandra Sheripally. If anyone has access to any data sources related to Covid-19 or wish to provide any feedback on the new website and APIs provided, please write to us at covid.tracker@iith.ac.in”, added Prof Reddy.

Link to the portal: https://covid19tracker.in/

Link to session recording: https://youtu.be/vwnofCPAZwM

Zee Digital is Striding towards the Top Position Amongst Internet Websites

Ranks 6th among top biggies, reaches 244 million unique visitors exhibiting excellence in digital content space grabbing 2nd position in (news/information category) ComScore

New Delhi, September 2, 2021: Zee Digital has started inching towards the top position amongst top internet websites like Amazon, google and Facebook by coming in the sixth position ahead of its several other Indian competitors. In the month of July 2021, India’s most diversified digital publishing group- Zee Digital achieved another milestone by reaching 244 million unique visitors maintaining its second position in the news and information category, as per Comscore.

Mr. Abhishek Nigam, Chief Operating Officer- Digital, Zee Media Corporation Limited said that the achievement is an affirmation of the quality content and the hard work put by the team at Zee Digital. “Every month we’re aiming for a new milestone. This would motivate our team further to keep pushing ourselves to achieve excellence. We would strive to better ourselves with content with widespread appeal and will continue to grow in the same manner,” He said.

Mr Nigam stated that overall the group has registered growth of 1.5 times between the months of January and July 2021. “The other digital assets of Zee Media, also have achieved extensive growth. India.com reported a Y-o-Y growth of 2.3 x, DNAIndia.com grew by 3.6x, Wionews.com grew by 3.7x and BollywoodLife.com grew by 2.9x contributing to Zee Digital’s growth,” he pointed out.

Further, in absolute terms, Zee News Hindi reached 75.8 million unique visitors, Zee News English reached 55.2 million, India.com reached 100.2 million and BollywwoodLife.com reached 27.1million mark.

Zee Digital comprises of 31 websites, 20 brands across 12 languages with viewers across digital replicas of the Zee Media’s 14 linear news channels along with websites such as India.com, BGR.in, BollywoodLife.com, TheHealthsite.com and CricketCountry.com

CREDAI Launches Two New Web Portals CREDAI365.com and CREDAIBuildMart365.com

From the Left - Mr.Sivagurunathan, Mr. Suresh Krishn, Thiru M.K Stalin, Mr. Padam Dugar, Mr. M.Arumugam, Mr. Abhishek Mehta and Ms. Angeline Fernandez at the launch event

Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Thiru MK Stalin launches web portals in an interactive session online

Chennai, July 30th 2021: The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) launched two new web portals, CREDAI365.com and CREDAI BuildMart365.com on Friday, July 30th 2021 at the residence of Honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Thiru. M.K. Stalin.

CREDAI365.com is a first of its kind portal in INDIA. It is a direct Whatsapp based portal to buy your dream home in Chennai. It connects the home buyer directly to CREDAI developers in Chennai.

To ensure hassle free home buying, CREDAIBuild Mart365.com helps to source a wide range of services from manufacturers, dealers, lawyers, auditors, design architects and is a One-Stop solution for every kind of real estate requirements.

CREDAIBuildMart365.com - It is a Rs15680 Cr online connect business opportunity in Chennai to support the MSME sector of construction material manufacturers, dealers, and services from lawyers, auditors to design architects and is a one-stop location to enhance online their business opportunity especially in this never ending pandemic of Covid 19 .

From left Mr. M Arumugam, Mr Sivagurunathan, Mr Padam Dugar & Ms. Angeline Fernadez

Both the web portals are Whatsapp encrypted which makes it efficient for customers to connect and get their queries answered in a jiffy .

Mr.Padam Dugar, President, CREDAI Chennai, speaking at the launch said, “As COVID 19 relief, CREDAI Chennai has contributed INR 4.5 Cr to the CM Public Relief fund & donated temporary 800 oxygen bed in air conditioned Tents at Kilpauk, Omandurar, Royapettah, Anna Nagar & Stanley Hospitals. We are proud to join the fight against the pandemic with Honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Thiru. M.K. Stalin. At the moment, the government of Tamil Nadu under the leadership of Honourable Chief Minister Thiru M.K. Stalin, believes in transparency. To follow his vision, we at CREDAI Chennai take immense pleasure in announcing the launch of our latest endeavors ‘CREDAI 365.com’ and ‘CREDAI Build Mart365.com’. Both these endeavors are steps towards transparency”.

At present, 7.5 Crore Sq.ft of construction projects are happening among CREDAI Developers and also out of every 100 homes made in Chennai, 88 are made by CREDAI developers.

About CREDAI

The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) is the apex body for the real estate industry of India. They work closely with all of its stakeholders: the Government, policy makers, investors, finance companies, real estate professionals and consumers in its endeavor to ensure that India’s real estate industry is increasingly methodical and thriving.

Zee Digital I TheHealthSite.com Summit Season 2 Concludes With a Grand Success

An initiative to help India emerge as a healthy nation and fight together against Covid-19

New Delhi, July 30, 2021: Zee Digital’s leading health information portal, TheHealthSite.com concludes TheHealthSite.com Summit Season 2 at a virtual event organized on July 30, 2021. Emerging with greater momentum and riding over the success of the first edition, the second season witnessed presence of highly reputed dignitaries from the healthcare fraternity such as Keynote Speaker Prof (Dr) Ashok Seth, Chairman, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute and Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS along with well known industry stalwarts as session speakers. Themed as ‘Covid-19 Resurgence’, this most coveted digital health summit had four sessions this year and was virtually conducted on TheHealthSite.com, India's no.1 health information site committed to providing unique, authentic, credible, well-researched, and timely information on topics related to physical and mental health. The event was sponsored by Coviself by My Lab Discovery Solution, State Bank Of India, Dell Technologies, Godrej Protekt and Mankind Pharma.

Understanding that health is a serious topic, the first panel discussion was around the topic, ‘Covid-19 – Dealing with the second wave’ by Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, Dr Sushila Kataria, Medanta and Dr Kamna Chibber, Head of Mental and Health Department and Behaviourial Sciences, Fortis Healthcare. In this session, eminent speakers covered different aspects of the pandemic like emerging variants, transmission, precautions, mental health and other fallouts of the pandemic.

Second session drove conversations around ‘ Preparing for the 3rd wave’. In this session, speakers Dr.P Baghel, Dr R Pandit, Fortis Hospitals, Mumbai and Dr S Budhiraja, Group Director, Max Healthcare addressed the questions related to vaccine production and shortage, side effects, vaccine’s effectiveness on variants, extent of protection etc. They also talked about the vaccination of the country and steps to follow to achieve a managed and paced vaccination drive along with measures that are needed to be taken on the vaccines front.

Focusing on remedies, the third session was on ‘Alternative therapies’. Kalyan Bannerji, Founder of Dr Kalyan Bannerji Clinic, Dr. Mahesh Vyas, Dean, AIIA Ayurveda, Ishi Khosla, Nutritionist and Rashi Rao, Yoga expert talked about Ayurveda and Homeopathy’s relevance during the pandemic. Many herbal and natural remedies are being used by people for prevention of infection and to boost immunity. Nutrition also plays an important role in fighting disease along with yoga therapy. Experts spoke about measures and remedies to boost overall health and prevent infection.

Being one of the most prominent, the fourth session shed light on the ‘Indian Healthcare Infrastructure’ and compared the healthcare scenario of India and the world. The discussion led by Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, Dr S Budhiraja, Group Medical Director, Max Healthcare and Mr. Kunal Kishore Dhawan, Co-Founder, Navia Life Care was a deep dive into the supply and production of vaccines, shortage and production of oxygen cylinders along with conversation on the present scenario of the countries and what the whole world needs to learn from each other.

Commenting on the initiative, Shridhar Mishra, SVP & Head of Digital Monetization, Zee Media Corporation Limited said, “The pandemic has disrupted lives and businesses across industries. We have seen the healthcare systems collapse as well as evolve with a much greater pace to deal with this unprecedented challenge worldwide. Through TheHealthSite.com Summit Season 2 our aim was to drive conversations on the issue at hand and come up with collective measures to safeguard our people, country and the future. We are overwhelmed with the phenomenal response that we have received from our users and the industry veteran."

The grand virtual event also streamed on social media platforms of India.com and TheHealthSite.com.

E-Filing 2.0: New Website of Income Tax Deptt Now Live, Know The Special Feature

For the ease of taxpayers, the Finance Ministry on Monday released a new portal of the Income Tax Department. This includes many new facilities for the taxpayers. Income Tax Department has introduced a new web site for income tax payers named http://incometax.gov.in . Earlier the address of the site was http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in.

The new portal has been designed with dedication, however, officials said that it may take some time for the website to be stable and taxpayers can easily take advantage of all its new features. prepared with. On its home page it is called e-filing 2.0. This is a completely new portal which makes e-filing easy for you. The objective of this portal is to provide a single window for Income Tax related services to the taxpayers and allied parties. The new portal went live from Monday. But the new tax payment system on this portal will start from June 18.

Let's know the special features of the new portal -

• Refund will be issued soon - The processing of Income Tax Return (ITR) will be done immediately in the new portal and refund will also be issued to the taxpayers soon.
• Pre-filled forms will be available - In this, necessary instructions for taxpayers and information about their pending cases will also be available. Also pre-filled forms (pre-filled forms) will also be available.
• Software with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) answers - Software has been integrated with Always Asked Questions (FAQs) answers to help taxpayers file ITR 1, ITR 4 (Online & Offline) and ITR 2 (Offline). The department has said in a statement issued in this regard that the facilities for ITR 3, 5, 6 and 7 will also be made available soon.
• Call center also planned -- A new call center is also planned for taxpayer assistance for quick response to taxpayers queries and the portal will also have detailed FAQs, user manuals, video and chatbot/live agents.
• Other facilities - The CBDT said that the facility of filing income tax forms, engaging tax professionals, responding to notices in faceless scrutiny or appeals will be available.

Smart and Automated Website Monetization Using AI-powered RevenueFlex

RevenueFlex is a smart monetization product offered by AdReact, a UK based advertising company. RevenueFlex offers a dynamic, flexible and AI based approach for ad placement and management. With a team with more than 6 years of experience in the field, RevenueFlex is designed specifically for most publishers' needs and requirements to monetize the site without negatively affecting user experience.

What exactly does RevenueFlex do?

RevenueFlex creates automatic ads for each page without affecting or slowing down the loading time of the site. This means that each page will have the appropriate number of ads and ad formats calculated for that page specifically and the algorithm will update continuously to ensure maximum revenue without negatively impacting user experience. Moreover, the tool has a built-in header bidding solution which not only provides a competitive approach to the ads showing on the site but also ensures the best fill rate possible with geo-targeted ads from several ad demand providers.

AdReact may offer you RevenueFlex through their own Google account in exchange for a pre-agreed commission rate or you may connect your AdSense account and take advantage of the tool without affecting your already installed ads. It will place additional ads when appropriate as well as making use of the alternative ads.

Here is the list of features offered by RevenueFlex in more details:

1. Automated ad placement: RevenueFlex provides a better approach for automatic ad placement with more ad density than other tools and without any negative effects to the website.
   
   
2. Alternative ad formats: which includes everything from in-read ads to alternative formats such as interstitial, anchor, scroller, footer as well as more varieties of ad sizes.
    
3. Server-side processing: all heavy work is done on the server-side which means no extra burden on the site or the visitors browser and this ensures the integrity and loading speed of the website.
   
   
4. Clean ads: RevenueFlex doesn't use intrusive ad types or formats and the service makes sure that all ads are free of adult or harmful content by only dealing with professional well-known demand partners.
   
   
5. AdSense compatible: Publishers with AdSense ads or Auto Adsense Ads on their site won't have to worry about compatibility with Google’s rules or guidelines since its fully compatible with these ads and the algorithm will recognize these ads and adjust accordingly, moreover, the tool can be used to manage publishers own AdSense and increase their revenue noticeably for free.

AdReact has been experimenting with this tool for months to see how effective and viable the tool is and the results were better than expected, as many sites saw an incremental revenue of more than 20% and reaching even more than 50% in some sites. Of course, this experience might be different from site to site but the beauty of it is that you won't have strings attached and you can use it or stop it at your convenience whenever you want.

New Website to Communicate Our Craftsmanship - Yamaha Motor

The new Yamaha Motor Craftsmanship website has been launched to show the world the finely honed techniques, eyes, hands and minds of the masters at work in Yamaha Motor’s manufacturing and production factories. The website introduces several areas where the “illogical yet invaluable” extra steps our craftsmen take help ensure we deliver the best product possible to our customers.

"Our Monozukuri worksites are based on the idea of pursuing production methods rooted in logic,” explains a chief manager at one of Yamaha’s motorcycle factories. “But at the same time—and this may seem contradictory—we have a valued tradition of taking illogical extra steps to give our products added value unique to Yamaha. In other words, these extra steps are what express the craftsmanship found at production and manufacturing sites across the Yamaha Motor group." 

What exactly are these “illogical yet invaluable” extra steps? One example is the atelier for hand-spraying paint in a paint shop where tasks are increasingly done automatically by robots. Others include the buffing process used to create the beautiful hairline finish on aluminum fuel tanks, the cell manufacturing area where a single craftsman assembles an entire engine, and the innovative measurement method devised for ensuring higher dimensional precision with casting molds. It is these extra touches in each stage of the production process that build in the pride and special sense of every specialist into our products. 

Further, we value our workplace culture that blends tradition with innovation, and see that our hard-won skills and proven technologies are handed down to the next generation. We revel in the challenge to create ever more beautiful and higher quality products as well as relish the search for real improvements and greater advances, as part of our unwavering dedication to our craftsmanship. Because delivering the best product possible to customers is at the heart of everything we do.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201207005008/en/

IIT Bombay Launches Self-Help Website to Enhance Emotional Wellbeing of Its Students

Union Minister of State for Education, Shri. Sanjay Dhotre launched a self-help website – Bandhu – for students of IIT Bombay today at 11 am in the presence of Director of IIT Bombay Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri.

Appreciating the efforts of alumni of IIT Bombay, the Minister said, “A good education institution is one in which every student feels welcomed and cared for, where a safe and stimulating learning environment exists, where a wide range of learning experiences are offered, and where good physical infrastructure and appropriate resources conducive to learning are available to all students. Students are the prime stakeholders in the education system. Vibrant campus life is essential for high-quality teaching-learning processes. Towards this end, students should be given plenty of opportunities for participation in sports, culture/arts clubs, eco-clubs, activity clubs, community service projects etc."

While talking about the significance of counselling systems in educational institutions, he mentioned that "National Education Policy 2020 says that in every education institution, there shall be counselling systems for handling stress and emotional adjustments. Furthermore, a systematized arrangement shall be created to provide the requisite support to students from rural backgrounds, including increasing hostel facilities as needed. All higher education institutions will ensure quality medical facilities for all students in their institutions." 

"I am sure that the academic leaders at IIT Bombay are looking into these aspects also, along with imparting top class education. I am sure the “BANDHU” initiative will help our students to travel on their respective chosen paths in a stress free manner, ensuring the emotional well being," he added.

Bandhu has been designed in conjunction with the counsellors at IIT Bombay along with external experts with support from Prof. T. Kundu, Dean (Student Affairs) and Prof. Suhas Joshi, Dean (Alumni and Corporate Relations). It addresses challenges ranging from adjustment to college life, academic stress, and mental health. Bandhu has curated reads, motivational alumni journeys, expert podcasts and tools for self-exploration. Project Bandhu was initiated by alumni of the Class of 1992, as a part of their silver jubilee reunion in 2017. They pledged to support IIT Bombay and help students enhance their emotional well-being. The self-help website is one of the first steps in this direction. They have been closely involved with execution of the project.“We live in a time where we are prone to stress. The students of IIT Bombay need to stay strong, both physically and emotionally to construct and pursue their dreams,” said Director of IIT Bombay Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri. “The pandemic has also increased stress in the lives of the students. We are happy to announce the timely launch of Bandhu at IIT Bombay,” he added.

“Many issues, when tackled effectively at the initial stages, can help students overcome challenges in a timely manner before a domino effect starts coming into play. Moreover, it will also point out when it could be time to seek help from the support structure available at IIT Bombay,” said Rekha

Koita, alumni of IIT Bombay from the Class of 1992.

Eminent film maker, Mr. Nitesh Tiwari who is also an IIT Bombay alumni was the Guest of Honour for this occasion.

Booking of Website Name in 9 Indian Languages to Open from Mar 16

The government from Monday will open booking of website names in nine Indian scripts including Sanskrit, Kashmiri, Kannada, Oriya, Sindhi and Malayalam.

The autonomous body National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) , under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, has invited applications under the sunrise period starting March 16 to book the entire website name in nine Indian scripts with Bharat as the top level domain which can also be written in the same scripts.

While this facility was already available for languages using Devanagari script, the booking has been opened for eight new languages. The other scripts are Assamese and Santhali in which the entire website name can be booked.

"The sunrise period will begin March 16 and ends on June 15. We will collect applications and check that there are no trademark or copyright issues. The allocation of dispute free domain will begin thereafter. Each domain applied during the sunrise period will have to be booked for a period of 5 years," a NIXI official, who did not wish to be named, told PTI.

The move to start website registration in regional languages is part of international internet body ICANN agenda to facilitate more people access internet by curbing language barrier.

"This makes India a global leader in the internationalized domain name space to have maximum IDNs in different languages. We are getting ready to launch email addresses in all the remaining languages. People with the Datamail app will be able to get email addresses in all 22 Indian languages," Ajay Data, Founder & CEO, Data Ingenious Global said. PTI PRS