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Budget: Customs duty on imported STBs doubled
NEW DELHI: The government has decided to double the customs duty on imported set-top boxes (STBs) to ten per cent, a move set to encourage domestic manufacturers but to have immediate consequences on prices and possibly hurt multi-system operators (MSOs) and DTH companies.
The government feels that domestic production of STBs would get a stimulus even as implementation of digitisation spreads across the country.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in his Budget speech for 2013-14 that the aim was also at value addition in the sector.
With the first phase of digitisation having commenced in the metros (barring Chennai where it is held up by a court case) on 1 November last year and the second phase of switch-off of analogue signals scheduled for 31 March, the country is facing acute shortage of standardised STBs and has to depend on imported boxes.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had last month urged the Finance Ministry to remove the anomaly between imported and indigenous STBs.
Countdown had commenced in late November for the second phase covering 38 cities in 15 states.
The Ministry had issued a notification on 11 November 2011 notifying Phase-wise digitisation of Analogue Cable Television Networks in India.
The aim is to digitize the cable sector in the country by 31 December 2014. The target date for completely digitising cable sector in cities with population of more than one million is 30 March 2013, all urban areas by 30 September 2014, and the whole country by 31 December 2014.
For the second phase, the 38 specific cities and areas which have been listed in the notification are – Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Surat, Kanpur, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Patna, Indore, Bhopal, Thane, Ludhiana, Agra, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Vadodara, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Rajkot, Meerut, Kalyan-Dombivali, Varanasi, amrtisar, Navi Mumbai, Aurangabad, Solapur, Allahabad, Jabalpur, Srinagar, Visakhapatnam, Ranchi, Howrah, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Mysore and Jodhpur.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
