Govt orders more tests on colas as CSE ups ante, threatens court action against cola majors
New Delhi: The Central Government in an initiative has asked more tests to be conducted on Coca Cola and Pepsi while accepting the report given by Ms Sunita Rao director Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
Meanwhile CSE has upped the ante and has threatened to take legal action against Coca Cola India and PepsiCo India for questioning its' credibility.

CSE said that the data provided by the two companies pertains to bottled water brands, Kinley and Aquafina, and not aerated drinks while the present controversy relates to levels of pesticide in aerated or soft drinks and not bottled water.

However a Coke spokesperson said that the company did not us different kinds of waters for its cold drinks and bottled water. The same ground water is used for both bottled water and aerated drinks.

As regards CSE allegation of Coke bottles not being tested at Vimta labs, the spokesperson refuted the charge as baseless.

Meanwhile four more states apart from Maharashtra and New Delhi, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh — as well as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation have begun testing the two colas for contaminants and, if found guilty, strictures may be imposed on the two companies.
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Fast-food chains solidly behind cola cos
New Delhi: Fast-food chains are ensuring that consumers can safely continue to wash down burgers and pizzas with a Coke or Pepsi.

US fast food chain McDonald's India, which has an exclusive long-standing tie-up with Coca-Cola India to serve the latter's soft drinks at all its outlets has begun a reassurance campaign to tell its customers that the cold beverages served at McDonald's are prepared by "state-of-the-art" equipment and technology. The company is assuring its customers that the process of blending syrup and carbonated water is done at its own outlets and says that the water at McDonald's is filtered and purified by state-of-the-art equipment using reverse osmosis technology and UV-ray treatment.

It is also very likely that the tie-up between Yum!'s Pizza Hut chain of restaurants and Pepsi Foods will continue.

Domino's Pizza also said it was was confident of the quality of Coca-Cola's soft drinks.
The home-grown Pizza Corner India (P) Ltd, too, is not having a rethink about its tie-up with Coca-Cola to serve the soft drink company's products at its outlets.
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HPCL enters into ATF deal with Chevron
Mumbai: Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) has entered into a strategic alliance with global oil giant ChevronTexaco for the aviation turbine fuel (ATF) business.

Under the alliance ChevronTexaco Global Aviation will help HPCL upgrade and overhaul its infrastructure and train manpower. HPCL has also made supply of ATF a strategic business unit.

The aviation arm of ChevronTexaco has agreed not only to upgrade the equipment, but also to train HPCL manpower by taking them to its various locations across the globe.

ChevronTexaco is also in the running for picking up the 34 per cent in HPCL being divested by the government. HPCL at present has 10 facilities which meet the refuelling requirements of both domestic and international airlines.

HPCL's move comes at a time when new players such as the Reliance group are planning to enter the ATF business in a major way.
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Corel Corp to set up operations by 2004
New Delhi: Canadian software giant, Corel Corporation, is setting up operations in India and by early 2004, Corel will have completed the process. The company already the development partner of Wipro and has a relation with distributors in the country. At present, the company is in talks with various institutions and has signed up with NIFT, for the use of CorelDraw, and with NIIT, as their training partner. To capture the student market, Corel will introduce special low priced Student Productivity Packs, which would include Corel Draw, photopaint, Rave, Painter, Bryce, and Word Perfect Office priced almost 90 percent less than the normal commercial price.
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Chateau Indage to introduce wine coolers
Mumbai: Chateau Indage, the largest manufacturer of wines in the country, will soon launch wine coolers, a lightly sparkling ready-to-drink beverage. The company has tied up with a German firm to develop wine cooler flavours and will manufacture the new beverage at the company's existing vinery in Narayangaon near Pune. The project will involve an investment of less than Rs 2 crore.

Wine cooler will be available in five flavours initially, orange, lime n lemon, tropical fruit, blackcurrant and cranberry, four other flavours will be introduced later.

Priced at Rs 36 for a 330 ml bottle, the drink will be launched in September. The new offering will contain 5 per cent alcohol.
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Birlasoft inaugurates new software centre in Chennai
Chennai: Birlasoft Ltd, group company of the $1.5 billion C K Birla Group, has announced the launch of a new software development centre in Chennai at a cost of $5 million and with a seating capacity of 600.

The company plans to recruit 100 people by next month for the new centre and proposes to increase this to 600 in the next four months.

Birlasoft's has at present two development centres one in Melbourne, Australia and the second in Noida. The company officials said, two more development centres are in the pipeline.

The company plans to invest $15 million in the next two years in multiple development centres. The fourth centre is planned to be set up in Delhi and will have a capacity of over 1500 people.
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Cadbury gives Dairy Milk master brand status
Mumbai: Cadbury India has relaunched its flagship brand, Cadbury Dairy Milk on a global scale and the relaunch campaign has been kicked off in India.

The company intends to make the Cadbury Dairy Milk brand a master brand and leverage it across its entire moulded chocolates portfolio. Hence brands like Fruit N Nut, Crackle and Chunky are being brought under the CDM fold as part of this initiative.

Cadbury Diary Milk contributes about 30 percent to Cadbury India's turnover, with a volume share of 26.7 percent in the urban market and a value share of 30.7 percent.
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Gartner study puts TCS as top offshore service unit
New Delhi: In a study conducted by global IT research and consultancy firm Gartner, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has achieved the distinction of being rated the top Indian offshore service provider followed by Infosys Technologies and Wipro Technologies.

The fourth spot goes to Satyam Computers followed by HCL Technologies, Patni Computer Systems, Covansys Corporation, Cognizant Technology solutions and Syntel.

The rating has been on the basis of parameters like strategy, organisation, products, technology, marketing financials and support.
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Star News likely to get temporary uplinking permit again
New Delhi: The ministry of information and broadcasting has again given temporary uplinking permission to Star News. The reason being the likelihood of an extension for a longer period, till the inter-ministerial group and the group of ministers, take a final view.

I&B ministry sources say weekly extensions were being given to Star News so far was to get the company to answer each and every query raised. Now that the government has all the information it needs to take a decision, it may decide to free itself of repeated extensions and deliberate on the final course of action.

The minister for information and broadcasting, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Entire application of Star News/MCCS was under examination including complaints that certain aspects of the guidelines had been bypassed." He said, as on date, the government has permitted 33 companies to uplink 92 channels from India.
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Kinetic launches four new bikes
New Delhi: Kinetic engineering has launched four new very competitively priced motorcycles and targets to sell 1 lakh motorcycles this fiscal.

The models straddle all the four product segments — entry level, deluxe, performance and sports.

The 115cc 'Boss' will be positioned in the high-volume economy segment, while the 115cc 'Velocity' has been positioned in the deluxe-commuter segment. Others are 'GF170' and 170cc 'GF Laser' which are high performance bikes. While 170cc 'GF Laser' has been positioned as a sports bike with a price tag of around Rs 40,000 the latter carries a price tag of Rs 50,383.

During '02-03, Kinetic recorded a 29.4 percent growth by selling 55,120 motorcycles in the domestic market.
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HP to focus on service
Bangalore: Helwett-Packard (HP) is focusing on selling its services instead of its desktop the strategy being to increase the number of computer it sells to business on the back of its service.

HP's new service is called 'Desktop life cycle services and solutions (DLCS)' which gives customers a menu of PC maintenance and support services to choose from along with HP desktops customised for their needs. Companies who buy new computers or upgrade their existing ones can through this service reduce the complexity of owning and managing desktops.

The service allows customers to fix a timeframe for upgrading or replacing their desktops. They can also buy back the used PC from HP.

According to IT research firm IDC, HP India during January-December 2002 sold over 1.21 lakh commercial desktops. Total sales during this period being over 14 lakh. In the first quarter of current financial year of the 4.42 lakh commercial desktops sold, HP India's share was 33,655.
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Ford to launch new model; pushes Mondeo with zero interest schemes
Hyderabad: Ford India's intends to launch another new model this year and hopes to get into the volumes game with the new launch.

The company said the new models would be totally made in India and would be unique in their category to stand out in the already crowded market. While speculations are on that the new model launch would be Ford's seven-seater sports utility vehicle (SUV) 'Everest' in the price range of Rs 13 lakh - Rs 15 lakh by September this year to be followed by the pick-up 'Ford Ranger' in a lower price category early next year. Everest — positioned in the premium C++ segment of the market — will compete against Suzuki's 'Grand Vitara', the 'Chevrolet Forester', and the Honda 'CR-V'.

Ford is also pushing the Mondeo model with a number of financing and discount schemes. While the company is offering discounts for outright purchases, the better bargains and surprises are for the financing schemes.

Ford Credit, the financing arm of Ford India, has waived interest on those buying the car through the installment schemes while dealers are offering freebies on the purchase of the Ford D segment car.

If the amount financed is 75 per cent of the ex-show room price (for Bangalore) of Rs 16 lakh, which works out to Rs 12 lakh, Ford Credit will simply divide the amount by 36 months and offer it to you at a monthly instalment of Rs 33,333. This does not include the interest rate, which any financier normally charges for offering a car loan. Ford Credit takes the hit of not charging interest rate on itself and makes it an irresistible offer to lure customers.

Disappointingly such discounting has not brought in the rush as expected as in February, Ford sold 27 Mondeos and by June, the sales had dropped to 12 units. For the first six months of 2003, Ford sold a total of 100 Mondeos and as per the projections it is unlikely to come anywhere near the numbers Ford sold in 2002, which was around 760.
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Madura Garments reshuffles top management
Bangalore: Madura Garments, owned by the AV Birla group, has overhauled its management structure with restructuring of duties and creation of new domains for strategic initiatives.

The restructuring has resulted in the group executive president of Indian Rayon, Mr Vikram Rao, sharing the overall functions of the company with existing president, Mr Prakash Nedungadi.

The latter will now look after the company's core business pertaining to the main apparel brands, while Mr Rao, who reports into Mr Kumar Managalm Birla, will attend to functions such as contract exports, product development, suits, denim business (SF Jeans), licensing and other incubating projects.

Also, the company's main portfolio of brands has been divided into two - popular brands and fashion brands - under separate heads.

Mr Vasant Kumar has been given the designation of vice-president and has been put in charge of looking after the sales and marketing of popular brands, notably Peter England.

Mr Shoaib Farooqui will be the vice-president in charge of fashion brands like Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and retail brands such as Planet Fashion and Trouser Town. Individual brand heads in turn will support Mr Kumar and Mr Farooqui.
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BHEL bags Rs 188-cr order from Tata Power
New Delhi: Tata Power has given a Rs 188-crore order to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) for the supply of generating equipment for setting up a 120 MW thermal power plant at Jojobera near Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. The plant will cater to the captive power requirement of Tata Steel.

BHEL in a statement said that the unit would be commissioned in a tight schedule of 27 months following which the power station's installed generating capacity will be enhanced to 427.5 MW. BHEL had earlier set up two units of 120 MW each and one unit of 67.5 MW at Jojobera, besides a 30 MW captive power plant at Jamshedpur.
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Acordis makes open offer to acquire stake in Century Enka
Acordis BV, a Dutch company, along with associate Acordis Overseas Investment BV has made an open offer to acquire 20 per cent of the paid-up share capital of Century Enka at Rs 43.58 per share payable in cash. The Century Enka scrip quoted at Rs 93.40, up 1.3 per cent, on the BSE.

The company will also pay an interest of 15 per cent per annum for the period beginning November 28, 1999 and ending December 5, 2003, according to a communiqué to the BSE. JM Morgan Stanley has been appointed the issue manager.
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