BSNL to carry all STD cell calls
Mumbai: The telecom dispute settlement and appellate tribunal has extended the stay on Trai's directive of sharing default traffic on mobile-to-mobile STD calls between Bharti and BSNL till 5 July.

It has also asked the telecom regulator to expedite the consultative process on the matter.

During the course of the stay, all default STD calls on mobile phones would be routed through BSNL as against the earlier arrangement where it was to be distributed equally between Bharti and BSNL.

The case will next come up for hearing on 5 July.
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NIIT ties up with Europop
New Delhi: NIIT has partnered with Duesseldorf-based Europop whereby NIIT will co-develop the next version of Robopop, the flagship product of Europop, a middleware tool for the rapidly growing application software and Internet service provider markets in Germany.

Europop is a specialised high-technology company, focused on tools and products to support application software providers and Internet service providers.

The new version of Robopop will require portions of the product to undergo technical revamp so as to retain the leadership position in the market and to make the product more scaleable, reliable and provide better performance.
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Canal Plus to offer interactive TV solutions
New Delhi: Canal Plus Technologies is in talks with the Reliance group and Doordarshan to offer interactive television solutions. The company is also scouting for an Indian partner to manufacture digital set-top boxes in the country.

Canal Plus Technologies is an international provider of interactive TV software solutions, application software for cable operators, pay-TV systems, broadcast turnkey systems and fibre cable management.

Canal Plus, which already has an understanding with Zee Telefilms, is in talks with Indian companies mainly for its conditional access software, Mediaguard, and middleware, Mediahighway. A Mediahighway set-top box costs around $100.

The French company, which struck an understanding with Zee in 1999, will provide digital set-top boxes and other solutions for direct-to-home TV and interactive TV services.
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C-DAC plans supercomputer grid
Bangalore: Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) plans to build a nationwide grid of supercomputers for mammoth applications.

Such a grid would share or combine diverse computer memories and software in parallel processes to aid environmental modelling, fast analysis of satellite images, advanced chip design and simulation of heavy-duty equipment like turbines.

Supercomputers can also be used for complex crunching of capital market derivatives and data.

C-DAC has built four versions of its Param series of machines, putting India in an elite club of supercomputing nations like the US, Japan, Israel and China.
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Siemens plans $500m investments
New Delhi: Siemens AG, which holds its first ever board meeting in India, has decided to invest $ 500 million over the coming years to develop its Indian operations as one of the important hubs to source products and services to meet its global requirements.

Indian subsidiary of Siemens AG will be used to manufacture components for the end products being manufactured in other parts of the world.

The group will also increase export activities from India by its global sales network.
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Kotak Mahindra to start banking ops
New Delhi: Kotak Mahindra Group plans to start banking operations within 6-8 months with Rs 500 crore networth and has kept options open to rope in a foreign partner in its bank.

Kotak Mahindra Finance obtained RBI's permission a few months back to transform into a bank after meeting a host of stringent conditions. The bank is likely to be named 'Kotak Mahindra Bank'.

The Kotak Mahindra Group, which has ties with Goldman Sachs for investment banking and Old Mutual for life insurance business, has kept options open for including a foreign partner in the bank.
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Atlas Cycles to invest Rs 10 crore
New Delhi: Atlas Cycles will invest Rs 10 crore on expansion and upgradation of its manufacturing facility in Haryana.

Atlas, which has already forayed into physical fitness equipment like stepper, exercycle and rowing machine, is also planning to expand its product range.

The company is mulling entering into fitness apparel business.

The company is also undertaking a major automation drive at the production facility involving upgradation of existing plant and machinery to cut costs.
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Toyota plans 100% export unit
Bangalore: Toyota plans to set up a 100 per cent export oriented unit in Karnataka for manufacturing automotive transmission systems with an investment of Rs 480 crore.

The Karnataka government's high-power committee, at its meeting held here, approved two of the company's proposals to set up EOU units at Bidadi in Bangalore rural district and Jigani in Bangalore urban district, involving Rs 350 crore and Rs 130 crore investment respectively.

Toyota plans to commence commercial production from June 2004 and trial production from December 2003.

Toyota would export 1.68 lakh automotive transmission systems to Argentina,South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Venezula, Indonesia and other countries from here.
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GMs Rs 600-cr proposal gets FDI nod
New Delhi: A Rs 600-crore proposal of General Motors Corporation is among the 38 foreign direct investment proposals worth Rs 940 crore approved by the government on 6 March.

General Motors Coporations proposal seeks to increase authorised capital equity by Rs 400 crore while increasing the preference capital by Rs 200 crore in the company's Indian arm at Halol in Gujarat.

A Rs 151.56-crore proposal of Dutch-based Cooperative Centrale Raiffeisen Boerenleebank to enhance foreign equity from 75 per cent to 100 per cent in Rabo India Finance was also cleared.

A Rs 72.50 crore proposal of Japanese company Matushita Electronic Industrial, involving increase in foreign equity from 70 per cent to 90 per cent in its Indian arm at Tamil Nadu, was also approved by the government.
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Qualcomm to invest in CDMA development
New Delhi: San Diego-based wireless technology giant Qualcomm plans to focus its investments in India on development of software applications for advancing the spread of CDMA technology.

Qualcomm is on the look out for strategic investments for advancing developments in CDMA technology in the country. For this purpose, the company plans to take up equity positions in software application development firms that are involved in development of applications related to CDMA technology

Qualcomm had in January this year taken a 4 per cent stake in Reliance Infocom, the telecom and IT arm of Reliance group, for $200 million. Reliance Infocom plans to introduce mobile phone service across the country based on Qualcomms CDMA 2000 1X technology. The technology can transmit both voice and data and offer features comparable with 3G technology.
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IOC out of race for BPCL, HPCL
New Delhi: Petroleum minister Ram Naik has said that Indian Oil Corporation is out of the race for stakes in oil PSUs HPCL and BPCL.

As of now IOC will not be able to bid for HPCL and BPCL. But in a democracy every aggrieved person or entity was within their rights to appeal to government to reconsider its decision, Naik said.
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Aksh's fibre-to-home service from August
New Delhi: Optical fibre company Aksh Optifibre will commercially launch its fibre-to-home (FTH) service on a fully optical network in August this year in four metros.

Currently, the project is in the beta testing site of IIT Delhi and will be launched in August this year in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkota and Chennai.

Aksh is gearing up to offer video-on demand, cable TV, telephone, video conferencing and internet access immediately with future applications including telecommuting, security, personal video recording and online video gaming.

The company will be entering into tie-ups with builders and housing societies to offer FTH services.
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McDowell to repackage core brands
Mumbai: McDowell & Company is planning to repackage some of its core brands such as the Signature and Bagpiper brands in the premium and regular segment.

The company is talking to London-based design house, Claessens International, which has worked on McDowell's No1, for these two core brands.

The sales of McDowell's No1 was slated to cross four million cases in 2002 as against 3.6 million cases in the previous year.
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ING to start back office operations in India
Bangalore: The Dutch financial conglomerate ING plans to shift its back office operations to India.

Currently, the group has back office operations in every country they operate in - as it has at Bangalore in India and Atlanta in the US. In India, ING has three main service providers - Infosys Technologies, NIIT and Tata Consultancy.

ING Group has identified India as one of the 25 core markets in the world. The group has been operating in the country since 1994 and currently has a presence in all three of its core activities: insurance, banking and asset management. Its total assets here is worth Rs 4,000 crore.
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L&T plans foray into power transmission
Chennai: Larsen and Toubro is planning to make a foray into urban infrastructure projects and power transmission businesses.

L&T has already set up separate strategic business units within the company to take care of the new line of business.

L&T will be focussing on four new lines of businesses: water and effluent treatment, solid waste management, food storage and power transmission and distribution.

The company has invested about Rs 200 crore in its existing portfolio of infrastructure investment in the form of equity. It would be investing another Rs 150 crore in the new line of business in the coming months.
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Royal Dutch seeks to launch e-education
New Delhi: The Royal Dutch Shell Group of companies has firmed up plans to enter the Indian education sector in a big way.

The company proposes to invest approximately Rs 87.5 crore as part of the diversification of its Indian operations in this segment.

The company has applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for permission to undertake Internet-based training activities for primary school students in the country through the subsidiary route.

A new subsidiary company called Shell India eServices Private Ltd (SIePL) has already been incorporated.

The company proposes to be engaged in the development, marketing and delivery of an integrated Internet-based e-learning solution, which will include content, tools and equipment, catering to primary schools.

The company has also sought permission to undertake the business of data processing, software development, procurement and distribution, electronic data storage and business process outsourcing.
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GSK decides to merge two arms
Mumbai: GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals has decided to merge a wholly-owned subsidiary Croydon Chemical Works with itself.

GSK also plans to demerge the marketing undertaking of another fully-owned subsidiary Meghdoot Chemicals, and integrate this into its itself.

Croydon and Meghdoot are two of three companies of the erstwhile Biddle Sawyer group that was acquired by GSK way back in 1997-98.
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NTPC invites EOI for sourcing LNG
New Delhi: National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has invited expression of interest for sourcing five million tonne of liquefied natural gas fuel annually for its proposed gas-based power plants expected to commence from 2006.

The EOI has been invited for supply of LNG and/or regasified LNG and/or natural gas for setting up gas-based power plants at Kawas and Gandhar (in Gujarat), Anta (in Rajasthan) and Auraiya (in Uttar Pradesh) of 650 mw each.
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Century Textiles to close shipping division
Mumbai: The BK Birla flagship Century Textiles & Industries is closing down its shipping division.

Century Textiles has been selling ships for the past few months to exit the shipping business. The company has now only four ships in its fleet.

The move to exit the shipping business is a result of the restructuring that the company had undertaken in the recent past.
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Xansas development centre to go on stream
Chennai: Xansa Plc will set up its largest development centre in Chennai. The 27-acre facility would initially house about 500 professionals by March 2003 and has the capacity to accommodate 6,000 professionals.

The company, which posted half yearly sales of Rs 1,900 crore and has an order pipeline of Rs 3,300 crore, has chosen Chennai due to the high quality of human resources available in the city. The firm is also in the final stages of inking a memorandum of understanding with the Tamil Nadu government in order to create employment opportunities in the state and utilise the infrastructure in an efficient manner.

Xansa focuses on four areas -- business consultancy, information technology, outsourcing and business process management. It operates in the UK, North America, Continental Europe, India and Asia Pacific. Its clientele include several Fortune 500 companies.
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BSNL to be split into four business units
New Delhi: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd is being split into four separate business units as part of a massive restructuring exercise.

Each of the business units - for basic, national long-distance, cellular and value-added services - will be headed by a director who will report to the chairman and managing director.

BSNL operates telecom services in all the circles except Mumbai and Delhi and boasts of the largest telecom network in the country with an estimated 25.20 million direct exchange lines.
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Wockhardt sells IV fluid business to Baxter India
New Delhi: Wockhardt Life Sciences Ltd has divested its intravenous fluid business to Baxter India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Baxter Healthcare International Inc, US, for a consideration of Rs 195 crore.

Wockhardt Life Sciences is the market leader in the IV fluids segment in the country.

This acquisition catapults Baxter into a significant position in the critical care market in India.
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Reliance hikes polymer prices
Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd has increased polymer prices for March.

Polyvinyl chloride prices are up by Rs 3.05 per kg at Rs 36.10 per kg (Rs 33.05), while polypropylene prices are up at Rs 39.25 per kg (Rs 37.75 per kg). Polyethylene prices remain at Rs 39 per kg.

Polyester staple fibre prices are up marginally at Rs 43.25 per kg (Rs 42.75 per kg), while polyethylene terephthalate prices have been slashed by Rs 2 per kg to Rs 53 per kg (Rs 55). Partially-oriented yarn prices remain at Rs 53.55 per kg.
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Madison gets Essel account
Mumbai: Madison Media has bagged the entire Rs 100-crore, media planning and buying account of the Rs. 4,500-crore Essel group.

This includes the Super Lotto online lottery of Playwin Infravest.

Other companies of the Essel group that have also consolidated their media requirements with Madison Media are the Zee bouquet of 13 channels and Agrani Convergence Limited.

Essel group companies have separately also decided to place all outdoor business through MOMS, the independent outdoor unit of Madison.

Madison Media handles Coca-Cola, P&G, Godrej Consumer Products, Godrej Sara Lee, Kinetic, Maruti and BPL among others.
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Nocil Thane plant to resume production
Mumbai: National Organic Chemicals Industries (Nocil) has decided to resume production at its Thane plant after three months of closure.

The plant will re-start operations in a day or two. But it may take a week or so to get back to normal production.

The petrochemical plant of Nocil, shut down in November for annual maintenance, could not resume production, as its raw material supplier stopped delivery of naphtha due to non-payment of arrears.
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Crisil ties up with Getit
Chennai: Getit Infomediary Ltd, which publishes the Yellow Pages, has tied up with Crisil, the credit rating agency, to offer certification and verification service for businesses and the service industry.

Called TrustMe, the certification service will use certain criteria to certify businesses on their capabilities to provide services in specific categories. The verification service will authenticate the physical existence and location of the business entity.

The services will be available for a fee ranging from Rs 15,000 to Rs one lakh per year.
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Nestle India Q4 net up 134%
New Delhi: Nestle Indias October-December net profit surged 134 per cent from a year ago as a result of higher sales, lower input costs and a more efficient supply chain operations.

Nestles fourth-quarter net profit rose to Rs 362 million or Rs 3.75 per share, from Rs 155 million rupees or Rs 1.61 per share. Total income rose 7.2 per cent to Rs 4.76 billion.

For the full year, Nestle's net profit rose 46 per cent to Rs 1.73 billion, which the company said was mainly due to increased sales, lower commodity prices and improved asset rotation. Total income rose 14.7 per cent to Rs 19.37 billion.
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Sony to make only flat screen CTVs
Pune: Sony India will manufacture only flat screen CTVs. It will also import a greater range of products, including laptops, PDAs and mobile handsets from Japan.

The company will discontinue the manufacture of the curved screen CTVs at its plant in Haryana in the next three to four months. The flat screen sets are usually priced higher by about Rs. 2,000 than the curved screen ones.
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US seafood chain to enter India
New Delhi: Yorkshire Global Restaurants, the US-based seafood chain, is expected to make an entry into the domestic market soon.

The Yorkshire Global chain is in talks with the Deepak Ansal group for a tie-up to bring two of its flagship brands into India. The two likely restaurant brands are Long John Silver and A&W through a tie-up with the Delhi-based Ansal group.

The Ansal group has allocated an investment of close to Rs 60 crore for setting up YGR restaurants in pockets of northern and western parts of the country.

While A&W is a quick service franchise restaurant chain, Long John Silver is America's largest quick service seafood restaurant chain.
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