Breaking: A senior official said today that the Indian government has expressed its displeasure to Amazon, stating that it was unfair for the company's private labels or the brands it has invested in to appear first in its search results.

One quick thing: It's a triple whammy for ride-hailing platforms like Ola, Uber and Rapido! The Delhi Transport Department issued a public notice today instructing ride-hailing platforms' bike taxi services to cease operations immediately.

• This comes amid an ongoing legal tussle between the companies and various state governments, including Maharashtra and Karnataka, over the use of bike taxis

• If services continue, the Delhi transport department will fine companies Rs 1,00,000 under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988

In today’s newsletter:

• Wipro offers freshers half the salary 
• Meta, Twitter slug it out for subscribers
• Tata Motors, Uber sign largest EV partnership

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Onboarding delays are common among IT companies this fiscal year, with Wipro among the worst affected. However, the company now has a solution for those who have been waiting with offers of Rs 6.5 lakh per annum (LPA):

• Take a 46% pay cut and get onboarded in March: a sign of a demand slowdown about which companies have warned.

What happens if candidates don't opt for the lower pay?

They will continue to hold their offers, but the company cannot guarantee when they will be onboarded. If the candidate accepts the Rs 3.5 lakh offer, any other offers they hold will be void.

The move hasn't gone down well with candidates, who've been waiting for onboarding since June 2022. Candidates who were offered Rs 3.5 lakh chose to upskill themselves in order to advance to the Rs 6.5 lakh bracket.

Candidates are unhappy because they have turned down offers and are now faced with an option that they could have gotten from any other company nearly a year ago.

"Wipro has trapped us," says one candidate.

"In light of the changing macro environment and, as a result, our business needs, we had to adjust our onboarding plans," Wipro said.

This offer, the company said, is so that it can honour all outstanding offers it made, and that candidates can "start their careers, build their expertise and acquire new skills."

Go deeper

When Elon Musk announced plans to charge for account verification on Twitter last year, consumers were outraged. However, it appears that more companies are now following suit.

Meta, which is known to draw product inspiration from its rivals, has introduced a paid verification service for user profiles on Facebook and Instagram.

• The subscription service, called Meta Verified, will include features like account verification, impersonation protection, and increased visibility and reach, among others

Meta Verified will cost a monthly fee of $11.99 on the web and $14.99 on mobile and will be available in Australia and New Zealand this week, with plans to expand to other countries soon.

• Users can enroll their Facebook and Instagram accounts on Meta Verified, but each will require a separate subscription, which effectively means you'll need to pay at least $24 per month if you want blue verification badges on both platforms

Those who already have verified accounts on Facebook and Instagram will be able to keep them for free, unlike Twitter, which is completely abandoning its legacy verification system with the new Twitter Blue subscription service.

Through these offerings, social media firms hope to diversify their revenue streams and become less dependent on digital advertising, after they were hit hard by the sharp advertising slowdown in 2022 due to the rising inflation and the economic downturn.

What will be interesting to see is whether users will pay for these services. Early indications suggest that Twitter Blue is off to a slow start. Will Meta fare any better? We'll find out soon.

Also read our story on how Meta Verified stacks up against Twitter Blue

Next time you book an Uber cab and your driver anna informs you that he is charging the vehicle and will arrive shortly, don't be surprised! Soon, there will be more electric Uber cabs in the town.

Automobile manufacturer Tata Motors and ride-sharing app Uber have signed a deal to launch around 25,000 XPRES–T electric vehicles (EVs) into the latter's premium category service.

"This represents the largest EV partnership yet between an automaker and a ridesharing platform in India. It will supercharge the transition to zero emissions on the Uber platform as we work towards building a sustainable future," said Prabhjeet Singh, President, of Uber India and South Asia

Uber will launch EV premium cab service across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad in its first phase.

When will the ride-sharing business go green was the biggest question around the world, and it was transitioning several business models in the West, and now India is quickly adopting the same.

• In fact, Tata Motors signed an agreement with EV ride-hailing firm BluSmart Electric Mobility to deliver 10,000 XPRES-T electric vehicles in June last year

• Ola, a rival to Uber, has also announced plans to launch a fleet of 10,000 electric vehicles

Politicians and law enforcement officials repeatedly tout the numerous advantages of CCTV cameras and, more broadly, surveillance technology.

However, the hoarse cries of digital rights activists warning of the dangers these technologies can cause may now become a reality.

On February 16, Mohammed Khadeer, a 35-year-old daily wage worker from Medak town in Telangana, which is around 100 km from Hyderabad, passed away. He had alleged that he was subjected to custodial torture by the police.

• He was mistaken for a suspect and apprehended by police because his face resembled someone caught on CCTV camera in a chain-snatching case
  
  
• The quality of the CCTV footage was unclear and this contributed to the misidentification of the suspect, a police source told us

Go deeper!

On this day in 1947, the renowned British mathematician Alan Turing gave a lecture to the London Mathematical Society on the testing of artificial intelligence in chess. 

He argued that computers, like humans, should be trained before having their IQ tested. (Picture credit: Wikipedia)

• Voyager Digital's unsecured creditors' committee subpoenaed FTX and Alameda Research executives for remote deposition next week. FTX bankruptcy administrators subpoenaed Bankman-Fried and other executives last week.
  
  
• Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) published its virtual asset trading platform rules for public comment. The regulator is also seeking input on whether to allow licenced platforms to serve retail investors and under what investor protection measures.

As the world continues to grapple with economic uncertainties, one country appears to be bucking the trend: India. 

Despite all the talks of gloom, recent data from the Reserve Bank of India indicates that Indians are spending record amounts on overseas travel. In fact, in just the first nine months of this fiscal year, Indians have spent a staggering $10 billion on international travel, far surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

• Indians splurged $1,137 million on travel in December 2022 alone, as per the RBI data.

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