Following the ban on social media usage for children below the age of 16, Australia has now introduced a new legislation on April 1st, named the Unfair Trading Practices Bill 2026, which aims to put an end to subscription traps and drip pricing practices.

Read more about the update below.

Unfair Trading Practices Bill 2026 – Introduced (Australia)

As mentioned, the Unfair Trading Practices Bill 2026 has been introduced in the Australian Parliament and is expected to be passed by May, with its implementation likely to begin from July this year. The legislation mainly targets companies that offer easy sign-up processes, but make it difficult for users to cancel their subscriptions. It also addresses “drip pricing”, where the initial price shown to consumers increases at checkout after adding taxes and other charges.

Speaking about this, Assistant Competition Minister Andrew Leigh stated that the new measures will be actively monitored by Australia’s consumer watchdog, along with state and territory regulators. In a statement given to reporters in Canberra, he said, “There will be a lot of cops on the beat making sure that firms are doing the right thing,” and further added, “The expectation starts from today that firms will be complying with these new rules.”

A subscription shouldn’t be a trap.

That’s why we’re banning subscriptions that lock you in because they’re too hard to cancel. pic.twitter.com/dn7AirZpiq

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) April 7, 2026

The legislation also includes provisions for strict penalties, with fines of up to AUD 100 million for businesses found violating consumer and competition laws. Adding to this, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shared in a statement on X that “A subscription shouldn’t be a trap. That’s why we’re banning subscriptions that lock you in because they’re too hard to cancel.”

What Will Be Affected?

It should be noted that the legislation does not ban any specific subscription service, but instead focuses on unfair “subscription traps” that make cancellations intentionally difficult. This includes practices such as complicated cancellation processes, hidden opt-out options, and automatic renewals without clear notice. Once implemented, the rules will apply across various sectors including gyms, streaming platforms, mobile applications, and other subscription-based services across the country.

Does India have anything similar to this?

While Australia is currently passing new laws, India already has enforceable rules under the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In November 2023, the CCPA, acting under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, announced the ban on “dark patterns”—deceptive designs in which companies make cancellation a “complex and lengthy process,” hide the cancellation button, or force you to provide payment details for a “free” trial. Additionally, drip pricing is also banned in India.

Apart from this, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has also issued directives under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. As of October 2021, an early 24-hour pre-debit notification is required, which should also give a way to cancel or stop a subscription. As of 2025, transactions up to ₹15,000 (General) or ₹1 Lakh (Specific Categories: Mutual Funds, Insurance, Credit Card Bills) do not need an OTP; your pre-authorisation is more than sufficient.

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Yesterday, Anthropic announced that it has signed a new agreement with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity that is expected to come online starting in 2027.

We've signed an agreement with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity, coming online starting in 2027, to train and serve frontier Claude models.

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) April 6, 2026

“This groundbreaking partnership with Google and Broadcom is a continuation of our disciplined approach to scaling infrastructure: we are building the capacity necessary to serve the exponential growth we have seen in our customer base while also enabling Claude to define the frontier of AI development,” said Krishna Rao, CFO of Anthropic. “We are making our most significant compute commitment to date to keep pace with our unprecedented growth.”

This significant expansion of Anthropic’s compute infrastructure will power its frontier Claude models and help them serve extraordinary demand from customers worldwide.

While announcing this partnership, the company revealed that demand from Claude customers has accelerated in 2026. The run-rate revenue has surpassed $30 billion, up from approximately $9 billion at the end of 2025. When the company announced its Series G Fundraising in February, it was revealed that over 500 business customers were each spending over $1 million on an annualised basis. This number has now exceeded 1,000, doubling in less than 2 months.

This partnership also deepens Anthropic’s existing work with Google Cloud, building on the increased TPU capacity, and also deepens its relationship with Broadcom.

Claude is trained and runs on a range of AI hardware- AWS Trainium, Google TPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. Meanwhile, Claude remains the only frontier AI model available to customers on all three of the world’s largest cloud platforms: Amazon Web Services (Bedrock), Google Cloud (Vertex AI), and Microsoft Azure (Foundry).

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Tuesday morning arrived with bad news for a few of the Oracle employees. Reportedly, the company has laid off 20,000-30,000 employees globally (approximately 12,000 Indian employees), roughly 18% of its global workforce. The employees were informed about the termination via a single 6 AM EST email on Tuesday, with no prior intimation, no call from HR, and no manager loop-in. The email was sent by Oracle Leadership.

As per the email, the roles were being terminated as part of a broader organisational change. Once the employees sign their termination paperwork sent via DocuSign, they will be eligible to receive a severance package, subject to the terms and conditions of the severance plan. Employees are also asked to update their personal email addresses to receive follow-up information, including FAQs and separation details.

Further, the affected employees are also warned that their access to company systems, email, voicemail, and files will be revoked soon, and they will be unable to log into their computers.

Online reports reveal that the teams most affected by this decision include:

• RHS (Revenue and Health Sciences)- employees described a reduction in force of at least 30%, with 16 or more engineers from individual business units cut in a single action.
• SVOS (SaaS and Virtual Operations Services)- similarly reported a 30% or greater reduction, with manager-level roles included in the sweep.
• NetSuite’s India Development Centre (IDC)- cuts spanned project management, individual contributor, and manager roles across multiple seniority levels.

It is said that in India, the severance is expected to follow the standard N+2 formula- N being the number of years worked, paid out in months. Meanwhile, unvested RSUs are forfeited entirely.

Via 1, 2

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Big shocker for Chinese video surveillance brands like Hikvision, Dahua Technology and TP-Link! According to a report by ET Telecom, India is preparing to bar the above companies from selling internet-connected CCTV cameras and other video surveillance products from April 1.

Back in April 2024, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) introduced the essential requirements (ER) norms for CCTV cameras, giving the industry a two-year transition window to certify each product under the STQC (Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification) regime at certified labs.

The norms require CCTV camera manufacturers to declare the country of origin of critical components, such as SoC and the devices tested against vulnerabilities that could allow unauthorised remote access to accredited labs.

Citing industry executives, it is revealed that the government is explicitly refusing to certify products made by Hikvision, Dahua Technology and TP-Link, and those using Chinese chipsets, effectively shutting them out of the market.

Now, with new certifying rules coming into effect from 1^st April, the sale of uncertified CCTVs and other video surveillance products will be barred.

It is revealed that till last year, Chinese brands accounted for one-third of all CCTV sales in India, but with these new rules, domestic brands like CP Plus, Qubo, Prama, Matrix and Sparsh are expected to cater to the market share, as they have shifted their supply chains to rely on Taiwanese chipsets and localised firmware.

The Chinese companies are pushed to either alter their supply chains or exit the market completely. According to Counterpoint Research, the CCTV market, once dominated by Chinese brands, is now controlled by Indian brands by over 80% as of February. Though the US-brands like Bosch and Honeywell have still captured the high-end portion of the market.

This move by the Indian government gave a lot of advantages to the domestic brands in the country, but moving away from Chinese suppliers, however, has increased the overall prices of CCTV cameras.

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Update on March 31stat 13:04 IST – Nokia said in a written statement to us.

“Any regional headcount reductions are part of Nokia’s global cost-savings program, which the company announced in 2023. As stated in the past, the target for this program is to make between EUR 800m-1.2bn cost savings by reducing headcount globally between 9,000-14,000 by the end of 2026. Nokia has not announced any specific regional guidance in India on headcount reductions. India continues to be an important hub for Nokia.”

Previous story continues below.

Nokia, a Finnish tech company, is reportedly aiming to cut down up to 20% of its global workforce, which amounts to around 14,000 jobs.

Read more about this below.

Nokia to lay off 20% of its workforce

As per media reports, Nokia is set to reduce around 20% of its 74,000 workforce globally, which would result in 14,000 layoffs globally. The report also mentions that the India unit is also likely to take a hit of a similar nature. Currently, in India alone, Nokia has around 17,000 employees. If we do the maths, then 20% of the 17,000 jobs, which amounts to 3,400, are likely to be affected by these layoffs.

One of the reasons behind restructuring, as quoted by the publication, is that back in 2023, Nokia announced the merger of Cloud and Network Services (CNS) and Mobile Networks (MN) business units. Because of this, there may have been some overlapping roles that were created, which the business is now reducing.

In related news, Nokia India reported a drop in net sales in Q4, 2025, to 393 million euros (Rs 4,324.96 crore). Comparing it with last year’s Net sales of 463 million in the same quarter, this amounts to a drop of 15%.

Along with the layoffs, the company is reportedly bringing major leadership changes. Tarun Chhabra, who was appointed as the India Country Head and Senior Vice President of Mobile Networks at Nokia in April 2024, has reportedly exited from the company. Furthermore, Samar Mittal has been appointed as the India Country Business Leader, who will oversee the entire customer portfolio. Adding more to this, Vibha Mehra has been appointed as India Country Manager, whose role will focus on government relations and communications. Both will take charge effective April 1st 2026.

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Some rumours had earlier suggested that OnePlus could soon be shutting down its operations in global markets. Amid these claims, reports regarding OnePlus India CEO Robin Liu’s resignation have emerged.

Read more about it below.

OnePlus Global Exit Rumours Surface Again

Back in January 2026, rumours started circulating that OnePlus was shutting down its global operations. At that time, OnePlus India CEO Robin Liu had stated that there would be no changes to the India operations and that these were merely rumours. And yesterday, tipster Yogesh Brar again shared that OnePlus is planning to shut down its operations across several global markets, including the US, UK, and EU. For India, however, he added that the brand will continue its operations and may focus more on the budget and mid-range smartphone segments.

However, new reports have started emerging that OnePlus India CEO Robin Liu has resigned from his position and has moved back to China. Confirming this development, OnePlus India issued a statement saying, “We thank Robin for his contributions to OnePlus India. He moves on to pursue his personal passions, and we wish him the very best for his future endeavours.” It further added, “OnePlus India operations continue with local strategy and business continuity ensured.”

Speaking more about the brand’s position in the market. OnePlus once had a strong presence in the premium smartphone segment. However, with rising competition from brands like Samsung and Vivo, it has been losing ground. In 2024, OnePlus held around 3.5% market share in India, which reportedly declined to about 2.7% in 2025.

As of now, there is no official update as to who will lead the India operations going forward. However, it is expected that the brand may soon announce a successor. In the meantime, the current team is likely to oversee operations in the meantime.

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For a long time, Telegram was basically free to use, and because of this, the company did not make any significant revenue as such. In 2021, Telegram introduced Telegram Premium and Telegram Ads as new ways to generate revenue. Along with this, the company had also issued five-year convertible dollar bonds. These bonds offered an annual yield of 7%, amounting to a total of $2.35 billion. Additionally, the bonds allowed investors to convert them into Telegram shares at a 10% discount to the nominal price in the event of an IPO.

By 2024, Telegram’s total revenue had exceeded $1 billion, and this was also the year when the company became profitable. In the same year, Pavel Durov had revealed that the $2 billion debt was mostly paid at that time. Further, in May 2025, Telegram again issued convertible bonds worth $1.7 billion. Out of this, approximately $955 million was used to buy back bonds from 2021. The remaining $745 million was used as “fresh” money for daily operations.

🎉 Telegram has fully repaid the bonds we issued 5 years ago.

💰 Since 2021, we’ve built an innovative monetization strategy and reached profitability in 2024. As a result, our new bond issuance last year was oversubscribed. 💪

🙏 Thank you for your support!

— Pavel Durov (@durov) March 23, 2026

As per what has now been shared by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov via a post on X, the platform has fully repaid the bonds that it had issued about five years ago. These bonds were essentially IOUs to investors. He further added, “Since 2021, we’ve built an innovative monetisation strategy and reached profitability in 2024. As a result, our new bond issuance last year was oversubscribed.”

Talking about revenue sources, Telegram currently generates its income from multiple segments. Telegram Premium offers users additional features through monthly subscriptions. The Ad Platform runs privacy-focused advertisements within large public channels. Fragment enables the buying and selling of usernames as well as virtual items. In addition to this, Business Features provide tools that allow companies to interact with customers directly on the platform.

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Previously, a rumour had claimed that OnePlus is shutting down in global markets. However, it was soon turned down by OnePlus India CEO Robin Liu and was also called inaccurate by several OnePlus regional teams. Now, the same rumour is being pushed again by a tipster, claiming that OnePlus could shut down in select global markets.

Here is more to it.

Tipster claims OnePlus is shutting down in Select Global Markets

This time, the claim has been shared by a tipster named Yogesh Brar. As per his post on X, while OnePlus may be winding up its business in select global markets, the brand will continue its operations in the Chinese market as usual.

Speaking more about the markets where OnePlus may wind up its business, the tipster mentions the US, UK, and EU regions. For India, however, it is being claimed that the brand will only launch budget and mid-range smartphones going forward. This also suggests that flagship devices may not be introduced in the Indian market.

When these rumours first surfaced, OnePlus’ senior leadership, along with its regional teams, had refuted such claims. With this new detail revealed by the tipster, the rumours have once again started circulating. However, it should be noted that OnePlus has not officially confirmed any of this, and since the information shared by the tipster remains unconfirmed, it is better to take it with a pinch of salt.

Stay tuned for more updates.

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To strengthen India’s digital payments and advance financial inclusion in the country, Jio Financial Services subsidiary Jio Payments Bank Limited (JPBL) has introduced UPI-based cash withdrawal through its Business Correspondent (BC) touchpoints.

Cash withdrawal via UPI

This feature enables customers, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, to conveniently withdraw cash by scanning the UPI QR code and authorising the transaction through their UPI application, eliminating the need for debit cards or access to traditional ATM infrastructure.

By enabling cashless card withdrawals at BC touchpoints, this new service bridges the gap between digital payments and physical cash access, while providing first-time digital users with an assisted and secure way to experience UPI transactions.

With this cash withdrawal service via UPI, JPBL continues to leverage the digital payments infrastructure and its last-mile BC network to expand accessible banking services, strengthen UPI’s reach among cash-dependent segments, and also enhance financial inclusion across rural and semi-urban India. This move will also accelerate digital payment adoption.

Stay tuned with The Tech Outlook for the latest tech updates.

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Due to the ongoing geopolitical tensions in West Asia, there have been supply chain disruptions and higher logistics costs in India’s passenger vehicle industry. It was assumed that these reasons could affect the sales of cars in the Indian market.

A recent report by The Economic Times reveals that the car sales in India are projected to reach 4.7 million units this fiscal year (FY26), fueled by robust domestic demand. It is said that volumes could have been higher if freight bottlenecks and higher transportation costs had not constrained dispatches from factories in the closing month of FY26.

According to dealers across India, there have been strong bookings ahead of the fiscal year-end, though the inventories have tightened due to slower dispatches from automobile manufacturers. But amid these restrictions, with domestic demand holding firm and supply conditions expected to stabilise, the industry is assumed to cross the 5 million annual sales mark in FY27.

As per an automobile manufacturer, if the freight rates and logistics costs remain high, wholesale could see some dip even though retail demand remains intact. Meanwhile, as per a dealer, a steady supply is becoming a challenge as this month the supply from manufacturers is down by about 10-15%.

In such situations, the companies say that the strength of domestic demand remains the industry’s primary growth driver.

The report further mentioned that Maruti Suzuki recently revealed that it is closely tracking developments in the Middle East, Mahindra & Mahindra saw an increase in domestic SUV sales in February (reflecting sustained demand for sport-utility vehicles), and Tata Motors also reported strong momentum in passenger vehicle sales driven by demand for SUV and electric vehicle portfolio.

Via

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