Dhruva, Pixxel, send satellites to space; Paytm asked to resubmit payments aggregator papers

The Reserve Bank of India has asked Paytm Payments Services Limited to resubmit the application to operate a payments aggregator business, barring it from adding online merchants while the approvals remain pending, Mint reports. Satellite ventures in India step up their efforts in India. Pixxel in Bengaluru and Dhruva in Hyderabad together sent three more satellites on an ISRO rocket last week, adding capabilities from amateur radio to hyperspectral earth imaging for climate change mitigation. Notes: The US is banning the sale of communications equipment made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE and restricting the use of some China-made video surveillance systems, citing an “unacceptable risk” to national security, Associated Press reports. The five-member Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to adopt new rules that will block the importation or sale of certain technology products that pose security risks to America’s critical infrastructure. Tesla is recalling more than 80,000 cars in China over software and seatbelt issues, CNBC reports, citing the Chinese market regulator. The recall of these models is due to a software issue that affects the battery management system of the cars. Tesla will upgrade the software on these vehicles free of charge. Amazon will shut down its food delivery business in India by the end of the year, leaving a $20 billion vertical it entered less than three years ago, TechCrunch reports. Amazon will shut down the food delivery business, called Amazon Food, on December 29 in India. It launched this service in India in May 2020 in parts of Bengaluru and later expanded it. The closure announcement is part of Amazon’s broader restructuring in India, according to TechCrunch. Amazon announced earlier this week that it will be shutting down its edtech service, Amazon Academy in the country next year. The Reserve Bank of India has asked Paytm Payments Services Limited to resubmit the application to operate a payments aggregator business, Mint reports. The banking regulator has barred Paytm from adding more online merchants while the approvals remain pending. One97 Communications, which operates under the Paytm brand, had proposed to transfer the payment aggregator services business undertaken by it to Paytm Payments Services in December 2020 to comply with payment aggregator guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India but the banking regulator rejected its application, according to Mint. Pixxel, a Bengaluru startup building an earth imaging satellite constellation, launched its hyperspectral imaging technology-demonstrator satellite, named Anand, on November 26 on a rocket made by the Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO. The PSLV C54 mission was launched from the Sriharikota Launch Complex in Andhra Pradesh. Anand has been built for earth observation applications, primarily in the agriculture, energy and climate sectors, Pixxel said in a press release. Two nanosatellites, built by Dhruva Space, called Thybolt-1 and Thybolt-2, were also sent to space onboard ISRO’s PSLV C54, Dhruva, a Hyderabad-based space tech venture, said in its press release. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds