Indian online education firm Simplilearn acquires US company for Rs. 63 cr

Simplilearn, a start-up, which provides professional certification courses, has acquired Silicon Valley-based digital marketing training company Market Motive for $10 million (Rs. 63 crore). Market Move was co-founded by Google’s digital marketing evangelist, Avinash Kaushik. The acquisition will help Simplilearn expand its presence in the U.S. and provide digital marketing courses to working professionals and…

IGNOU asked to restart e-Gyankosh programme

The HRD Ministry has asked IGNOU to restart the online education programme e-GyanKosh, which was stopped in 2013 allegedly by Vice Chancellor M Aslam who is now facing a probe into administrative irregularities and closing down of certain programmes. Asking the varsity to “reactive” the eGyanKosh repository, joint secretary in the Ministry S P Goyal…

E-Learning Portal Cakart Secures Funding

Bengaluru based online education marketplace Cakart.in, has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding led by Sunil Maheshwari (Co-Founder and CEO of Mango Technologies) and other unnamed investors. The proceeds will be utilize or geographical expansion and to scale up its education products. Founded in 2009 by IIT Mumbai alumnus Puru Mishra and NIT gold…

Online education platform EduKart raises $1M from Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan, 500 Startups & others

Delhi-based Earth Education Valley Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates the online education platform EduKart.com, has raised $1 million from United Finsec, Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan Ventures and early stage fund 500 Startups. EduKart will use the funds to further upgrade its marketplace by increasing the portfolio of courses available online, the company said in a…

Emergency as seen through the eyes of India’s youth

How many young people have heard of the Emergency? Unfortunately, not many – if conversations with smartly-dressed 20-somethings in south Delhi’s posh Hauz Khas village are to be believed. Reactions range from absolute bewilderment and drawling “I’m not interested in politics” to superficial condemnation and “It was bad” declarations when asked about the blackest hour…

Freedom & fairplay in a brave, Net world

WHAT started out as a telecom company’s mistimed introduction of a new Internet package is now a full-fledged war over the way we access the Internet. Trouble in the net-sphere began when Airtel offered subscribers free Internet access to a chosen group of websites. Nothing wrong with that per se because companies do offer different…

US report highlights ‘widespread corruption’ in India

Even as it praised India for holding “the largest democratic elections in history”, the US on Thursday highlighted “police and security force abuses” and “widespread corruption” among its “most significant human rights problems”. “India’s parliamentary contest in April 2014 was one of the largest elections in history,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in his…