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Grant 3-year tax holiday for digital headend, STBs: CII
NEW DELHI: The cable television sector should be given the status of ‘information infrastructure’ for smoother transition from analogue to digital technology and foreign direct investment in the cable TV distribution sector should be increased from 49 per cent to 74 per cent, the Confederation of Indian Industry has said.
In its demands relating to cable TV digitisation, CII said giving the new status to the sector would bring the cable TV sector on parity with other infrastructure sectors in the way taxes are levied and bank credit dispersed. It noted that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had already accepted the need to raise the FDI.
India‘s cable TV infrastructure is set for complete digitisation by the end of December 2014 and the four Indian metros (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata) by 30 June this year.
The industry body said an estimated Rs 250 billion has to be invested by the cable distribution sector to digitise 90 million cable homes in the next three years. There are over 40 million direct-to-home TV homes in the country.
CII strongly recommends certain measures to be undertaken by the government to enable the transition and said these had been accepted by Trai.
All service providers who set up a digital addressable distribution system before the sunset date to be notified in stages over a three-year period should be treated at par with Telecom Service Providers and be eligible for income tax holiday from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2019.
The basic customs duty on digital head-end and set-top boxes should be reduced to zero for three years to give boost to digital conversion.
The double charge of service tax and entertainment tax should be subsumed in GST in due course.
It noted that the cable TV industry was nervous as over 10 million cable TV homes in the four metros have to shift to the digital medium by buying a set-top-box in the next 135 days and key decisions are pending before the government.
“It is very critical to extend financial incentives and tax holidays to the cable TV distribution and DTH sector,’’ said CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee.
“There has been a consensus for digitisation and everyone in the value chain – the government, broadcaster, multi system operator, local cable operator and consumer – will benefit from this. It is a big challenge and if executed properly it will transform the broadcast sector, bring transparency and give freedom to consumers.”
Maintaining that digitisation will boost broadband penetration in the country, CII said that government should accelerate pending decisions to stop ‘murmurs in the industry’ for extension of timelines for cable TV digitisation. CII feels that if India misses digitisation execution now, it may not be possible to do this for a long time.
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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.
