My software startup caters mainly to the market outside India. Off late we are seeing a growing interest in our products and services from people in India. Now PayPal has been very good with us till now. The issue with PayPal is that one can not accept payment from people in India if the merchant also happens to be from India. Moreover PayPal does not accept payment in INR (Indian currency). Also on a more personal note and experience over the years we have found people in India will readily spend in rupees for a particular product but would be reluctant to spend an equivalent dollar amount.

Due to these reasons we started a search for reliable Payment Gateways services in India. Our first Google search landed us on Pluggd.in and StartupDunia. These are a bit dated but still relevant articles on payment gateways in India. In case you are looking to integrate payment gateways I would suggest you to check them and come back to check my experience and review of various payment gateways.

As per my research, some of the major e-payment gateways operating in India are

• ccAvenue
• EBS
• DirecPay
• HDFC
• ICICI Payseal

My search started with visiting websites for each of them (except ICICI. I normally desist from dealing with anything that starts or end with an abbreviation ICICI) and sending a query through their contact forms. In fact this is something standard that I always do to gauge the responsiveness of the support. In case pre-sales support is lousy, in all probability you won’t get a good after-sales support.

EBS folks were the quickest to respond with a personalized reply to my query, this was followed by ccAvenue and DirecPay canned replies. HDFC folks never responded. I ruled out DirecPay instantly, first because they do not accept American Express credit cards and second because they sent me a canned reply.
The impressive list of clientele and the fact that ccAvenue accepts almost all credit cards and almost all banks in India for payment through netbanking kept me hooked to ccAvenue. So in the end it was EBS vs ccAvenue. Though EBS also does not support AmEx cards but EBS folks were excellent on support and responsiveness while ccAvenue folks never responded to my follow-up query after a canned reply from them. When I had almost made up my mind to go with EBS, I thought of directly calling ccAvenue, to give them and myself a last chance.

Speaking over the phone was a much better experience, person was knowledgeable and provided me some good suggestions on how to get started. A primary concern I have seen from people who have applied for ccAvenue is that ccAvenue won’t easily enable your payment gateway for credit card transactions. (I guess this is for credit card fraud prevention). The person over the phone suggested to first apply through the website and make sure that the site gets approved by ccAvenue and then only proceed ahead with the one time non-refundable payment and other formalities. Fair enough.
I was told my application will be looked within 48 hrs. I waited for more than 96 working hours and there was no response. I decided again to call them up and within 20-25 mins of my call I got an approval email from the ccAvenue team. Learning? While dealing with ccAvenue always contact them through phone and not rely on email/contact form.

Now I am done with all documentation and have sent one time non-refundable fee to ccAvenue. I “ll keep you guys posted on further developments. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions, also let us know your experience with payment gateways of India.

Review of Payment Gateways in India is a post from ReviewOfWeb

Since the time Apple has introduced Iphone In India through two major carriers Vodafone and Airtel, this question is among the most frequently asked. After all who would like to pay Rs 32,000( ~$700) for what cost $199 in US.   

The short answer is Yes. Now, Iphone 3G can be unlocked using Yellowsn0w.

How can Iphone 3G be unlocked?

Gizmodo has outlined the procedure:

Yellowsn0w, the iPhone 3G unlock, runs as a small command line application that gets installed in any jailbroken iPhone 3G using Installer. It’s very easy to install:

1. First, update your iPhone 3G to the latest iPhone OS provided by Apple using the latest iTunes.
2. Then, use QuickPwn 2.2 to jailbreak and activate your iPhone 3G. If you have Mac OS X 10.5.6 installed, you should follow these instructions before doing it.
3. Use Installer or Cydia to install yellowsn0w, which is completely free. Here are the addresses you have to use to add yellowsn0w to your installer application:
   • For Cydia enter: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/
   • For Installer enter: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/
4. That’s it. There are some special SIM cards that give problems, but f you have a normal SIM card from any non-official carrier, you are fine.

You can find the detailed instructions on Gizmodo.

Is this unlocking successful?

There are mixed responses from people. The latest updates on the blog shows that the latest version 0.9.4 is working fine for some people.
yellowsn0w have set up a user comment system whereby its user from all over the world are pouring in with the success/fail report card. Check if your country and carrier is listed in this exhaustive list.

For India, there are 4 responses in total. One response reported success and other failure for Airtel. Similar was the fate for Vodafone.

Can Iphone 3G be unlocked in India? is a post from ReviewOfWeb

Indian parliament has passed a bill on 23/Dec that is going to make cyber laws more tough and is going to arm the cyber cops with more power. Here is what TOI has to say:

Transmitting material containing sexually explicit acts in electronic form would be punishable by imprisonment of upto five years along with a fine of upto Rs 10 lakh.

For those indulging in cyber terrorism, the new legislation provides for stiff penalty of life imprisonment. The bill also says that dishonestly receiving stolen computer resource, identity theft, cheating by personation by using computer resource and violation of privacy will result in imprisonment upto three years apart from fine between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

Given the rapid rise of incidents of cyber crime in India, I certainly welcome this move.  The only thing to be seen from the Indian cyber cops is the enforcement. Also, I wish that they do proper investigations in any case. Unfortunate incidents like these bring more fear than fearlessness in citizens.

Some more related news

*1 million = 10 lakh ; *1$ = ~ Rs 50

Stop forwarding dirty mails now. Indian cyber laws are getting stricter. is a post from ReviewOfWeb

It’s official now. Apple 3G Iphone is slated for a worldwide launch [for selected cities] on July 11 this year. Also there is good news for Indian buyers. After this launch Apple will shortly be introducing –anytime later this year— this latest 3G phone in India, most probably through Airtel.

The price of this new phone starts from $199 and they claim it to be twice as fast as its predecessor.

Source

Apple 3G Iphone coming to India is a post from ReviewOfWeb