BSNL slashes STD and mobile tariffs
New Delhi: Adding fuel to the ongoing tariff war, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has announced major tariff cuts for its 40 million subscribers, which include a 33 per cent reduction in STD charges. The company has also reduced local call tariffs for its mobile users by almost 60 per cent, making it the cheapest cellular service in the country.

While private cellular companies recently announced a tariff reduction for pre-paid consumers only, the state-owned company has taken a step ahead and reduced tariff even for its post-paid users by nearly 40 per cent.

With this, BSNL's charges for domestic long distance calls above 200 kilometres will be uniform at Rs.2.40 per minute for both mobile and fixed line subscribers. The move is aimed to stem the outflow of STD traffic from fixed line to cellular.

The BSNL Chairman and Managing Director, V.P. Sinha, said that there was scope for reducing the tariffs further and, at the same time, make profits. Indian operators were getting higher income compared to operators around the world.

The new tariff will be effective from September 10 and will be applicable to calls made to any network from a BSNL phone.
STD charges for short distances have also been cut. A fixed line subscriber in Meerut who used to pay Rs 1.80 per minute to call another fixed line user in Delhi will now pay Rs 1.20 a minute.

For BSNL's pre-paid cellular subscriber, the same call to another cellular user will cost Rs.2 per minute instead of Rs.2.40 paid currently. Local call tariffs for pre-paid mobile users have been dropped to as low as 90 paise a minute compared to 99 paise announced by competitors.

For post-paid mobile subscribers, BSNL has reduced local calls rates from Rs.1.40 a minute to 80 paise a minute. Other cellular operators are expected to follow suit and slash prices for their post-paid users. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, the state-owned operator in Delhi and Mumbai, is also likely to revise its tariffs.

BSNL has also introduced a 15-second pulse rate for the post-paid subscriber. This means that if a subscriber makes a 10-second call, he will pay only 20 paise and not for the entire minute.
To meet the surge in demand, the company is rolling out 12 million cellular lines across the country.
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Tata Indicom launches wi-fi services at Delhi airports
Mumbai: Tata Indicom has commercially launched its Wi-Fi services at both the domestic and international airports in New Delhi, a news release from Tata Teleservices Ltd said. These airports will also be the first in the country to offer the service, it said.

TTSL has entered into an agreement with Airports Authority of India (AAI) to provide Wi-Fi services for the latter so that travellers can access the Net while in transit.

Wi-Fi enables travellers to access the Internet on their laptops and palmtops without having to physically wire up these devices
At the airport, the major hotspots are the Jet, Sahara and Air India lounges and hotel lounges of Sahara, ITC Sheraton, and the Taj Lounge.
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Dataquest survey: TCS is India's top IT employer
New Delhi: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has emerged as the Indian IT industry's best employer, followed by Infosys, according to a Dataquest survey.

"TCS is a surprise winner of the 'Indian IT Best Employer survey' while Infosys is a close second, followed by IBM India," according to Dataquest. The fourth and the fifth slots went to Cadence Design System and Philips Software respectively.

The top three reasons for joining a company were growth opportunities, brand/image and job content, the release said. According to the analysis, overall employee satisfaction has been on decline for the third successive year.
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Hutch extends new tariffs to post-paid plans
Mumbai: Taking the mobile price war a step further, Hutch today extended its 'flat rate' tariff structure from its pre-paid service to its post-paid service on its Talk 150 plan. Hutch, has now introduced a post-paid rate of 99 paise per minute to any mobile (numbers starting with 9) on its Talk 150 plan, and an STD rate of Rs.2.25 per minute to any phone in the country.

All existing and new Hutch post-paid users on the Talk 150 plan can subscribe to the new tariffs, at a monthly fee of Rs.25 for each subscription.

Hutch users not opting for this promotion will anyway pay a lower rate of Rs.1.69 for all local calls, said a company release.
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Sify announces new tariff for Net telephony service
Chennai: Sify Limited, an Internet, network and eCommerce services company, has announced that its Net telephony service is available for Rs.7 per minute from anywhere in India to Jeddah and Riyadh, and calls to other regions within the Gulf will vary between Rs.9 and Rs.13, as compared to prevailing BSNL rates of Rs.19.40 a minute, says a Sify press release. The new tariff is applicable with immediate effect. Calls to the Gulf countries comprise about 40 per cent of all international calls from India.
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Sun Micro and AMD initiative for ISVs
New Delhi: SUN Microsystems and AMD today announced a special programme for independent software vendors (ISVs) to enable them to migrate or develop applications in a 64-bit computing environment.

Sun and AMD will jointly form an iForce Partner Program for ISVs and developers creating and porting applications to the Solaris operating system. This new program will include engineering and support from both companies, a seed unit program for ISVs as well as a Sun/AMD Developer Resource Kit.

As part of its AMD Opteron processor-based solutions, Sun has also announced a range of servers and workstations including Sun Fire V40z server, Sun Java Workstation W1100z and Sun Java Workstation W2100z, and Sun Fire V20z server configurations ranging between Rs.1 lakh and Rs.5 lakh.
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Tata Motors bags training award
Bangalore: The HR-training division of Tata Motors has bagged the prestigious and internationally recognised "Golden Peacock National Training Award" in the category of 'Large Employer'. The Golden Peacock Award has been instituted by the 'Institute of Directors'. States
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Blue Star split A/Cs for small offices and showrooms
Chennai: Blue Star Ltd has introduced a new range of mega split air-conditioners for the light commercial market such as small offices and showrooms. The three-tonne air-conditioner is priced at Rs.47,000.

The air-conditioner market in India is estimated at Rs.3,800 crore with central air-conditioners accounting for Rs.1,600 crore and room air-conditioners for Rs.2,200 crore, and growing at a rate of 30 per cent.

Information technology and IT-enabled services are driving growth in the commercial air-conditioning industry. The other service sectors such as healthcare, hospitality, entertainment, telecom and banking have also contributed to the growth.

The company expects to increase its market share in the light commercial market with this new product. The company has also initiated a programme to commission around 100 product display areas across major cities. The first 50 of these centres will be ready by March next year and the rest during the course of next year. These centres will be co-funded by the company and the respective dealers, he said.
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Kudremukh Iron Ore pays Rs.44 crore dividend
Bangalore: Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd (KIOCL), a 100-per cent export oriented unit, which had been conferred with a Golden Star Trading House Status, has paid Rs.43.97 crore as dividend for the fiscal 2003-04 to the Government.

The dividend cheque was handed by the KIOCL Chairman and Managing Director, P. Ganesan, to the Union Minister for Steel, Ram Vilas Paswan, on Thursday in Delhi.

The public sector unit had a turnover of Rs.1,029 crore during the year, crossing the Rs.1,000-crore mark for the first time.
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Supreme Court restores tax exemption for Tata Steel's CR mill
Mumbai: Tata Steel has said that a Supreme Court order dated August 25 has restored the sales tax exemption granted to its cold rolling mill.

The Joint Commissioner, Commercial Taxes, initially granted the exemption through an order in December 2000. But the Commissioner, Commercial Taxes on April 3, 2001, under its suo moto revisional powers, set this order aside.

The judgement has helped the company notionally as it would not have to pay sales tax on its CR sales over a period of eight years.
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