GAIL strikes oil in Cambay
New Delhi: GAIL (India) Ltd, in association with Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC), has struck oil in the Cambay basin (block CB-ONN-2000/1) in Gujarat. The recoverable reserves, based on initial test results, are estimated to be roughly 10 million barrels, with an upside potential of 50 million barrels.

GAIL and GSPC struck oil in the sixth well drilled in a 1,424-sq.-km block under a joint venture agreement. Tests have proven the well to be a prolific light crude oil producer. A detailed geo-scientific study is currently being carried out for appraisal and commercialisation of the reserves, a GAIL statement here said.

The company also signed two joint operating agreements (JOAs) on Thursday for exploration and production in the NELP-IV blocks. One pact was signed with Enpro Finance Pvt Ltd for the Tripura block in the Assam-Arakan basin in which GAIL has an 80 per cent participating interest. The other was signed for the Cauvery basin block in Tamil Nadu, where both Enpro and GSPC are the consortium partners and GAIL holds a 50 per cent participating interest.

The Tripura block is expected to yield gas while both oil and gas are expected in the Cauvery (on-shore) basin. Exploration activities are currently in progress in both blocks.

In a bid to further strengthen its position as an integrated gas major, GAIL is actively pursuing exploration and production (E&P) opportunities. It is actively involved in exploration activities over an acreage of more than 90,000 sq. km and plans to invest about Rs 600 crore in E&P over the next three years.

GAIL holds participating interest in 12 exploration blocks, comprising two NELP-I blocks, six NELP-II blocks, two NELP-IV blocks and two `farm-in' blocks. Of these, four are on-land blocks and eight are offshore.
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High Court allows Birla's sisters' plea on probate
Kolkata: Justice K.J. Sengupta of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday allowed the petition of two sisters of the late M.P. Birla, namely Laxmibai Newar and Radha Mohta, seeking court order to treat the probate petition of R.S. Lodha as contentious and to transfer the probate issue as suit proceedings.

The court also allowed the prayers of the sisters to the effect that the probate petition of Lodha shall be treated as plaint of the suit and the affidavit filed by two sisters as written statement. With this admission, the probate proceeding is likely to suffer delay.
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IDC survey: Tata Indicom best ISP
Mumbai: Tata Indicom has been ranked the best Internet connectivity provider in a survey conducted in top Indian cities by IDC, according to a news release from Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

VSNL's Tata Indicom service has got the PC Quest Users Choice Award, said the release. The service won from among eight brands in the Internet connectivity category; and was followed by Dishnet and Bharti.

Dishnet has now been acquired by VSNL but they were kept separate as the services were yet to be integrated at the time of the survey.
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Maran: Access deficit charges for two more years
New Delhi: The Communications and IT Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, has said that the Government was in favour of imposing Access Deficit Charges (ADC) for another two years to compensate Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd for setting up telephones in unviable areas.

Dismissing allegations made by cellular operators that BSNL was misusing funds from ADC to subsidise huge tariff cuts announced recently, Maran said if the private operators could reduce tariffs so could BSNL.

"How come private operators cut tariffs of their services. It must have been profitable for them to do so. It is the BSNL, which provides telecom services in rural areas. Private operators do not go to rural areas, except in some parts of Gujarat. '' said Mr Maran on the sidelines of a function organised by Telecommunications Consultants of India Ltd (TCIL).

Maran, however, said that the telecom regulator, which is in the process of finalising its recommendations on ADC, could recommend bringing down the quantum of the deficit. Currently, an ADC of around Rs 5,000 crore is paid to BSNL. The amount is collected as a levy imposed on every call that a subscriber makes. Private operators have been objecting to the concept of ADC on grounds that it was not required and because it was pushing up the call tariffs.

On the row over spectrum, Maran said that the national spectrum policy was on the anvil and the Government would make sure that proper justice is done to all operators. GSM and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology based operators are involved in a fierce battle over spectrum allocation with both sides claiming rights to the 1900 Mhz frequency.

On the much-awaited broadband policy, he said that announcements would be made by next week. While TRAI had recommended a number of steps such as permitting use of BSNL's copper network by other players and a number of tax sops, including exemption from payment of service tax for ISPs for five years for penetration of Internet and broadband usage in the country, various government departments had shot down most of these proposals.
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Skoda to launch diesel version of Elegance
Pune: Car manufacturer Skoda Auto India is gearing up to launch a diesel automatic version of the Skoda Elegance in the next few weeks and will follow this up with a spate of launches till 2009.

The company is also in the initial phase of setting up an R&D centre at its manufacturing facilities at Shendre at Aurangabad.
The company sold 4,500 cars last year of which the Elegance constituted 40 per cent, he added. The company is also right now in the planning stage for a research and development centre which will work towards adding value for its customers.

Meanwhile, the company is expecting the newly launched Skoda RS, to fuel growth with its distinctive positioning as the family rallying car. Being positioned as the fastest car in its segment with the country's first turbo petrol engine, the car promises a 0-100 kmph in 8.4 seconds.

The company has already sold close to 5,000 units of the car in the first eight months of the calendar year as against the 4,500 units sold in the whole of last year.

Skoda has four models in the country currently - the top-end Skoda L&K, the Elegance, the Ambiente, the Rider and the Superb which are distributed through a network of 34 dealerships.
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Karnataka clears Cipla plant in Bangalore
Bangalore: Pharmaceuticals major Cipla is setting up an Rs.85.5-crore bulk drugs plant here.

The Karnataka Government has formally cleared the proposal for the plant which is to come up on 30 acres of land at Bommasandra Industrial Area phase 5. The Cipla proposal is among 11 mega projects cleared by the high-level committee headed by the Chief Minister.

This will be the second southern plant after Goa for the Mumbai-based formulations and bulks major. The Rs.1,975-crore company proposes to make a range of bulks such as cisplatin, carboplatin, etoposide used in the treatment of cancer; amlodipine and felodipine for cardiac problems and quiniline antibiotics such as levofloxacin and mitoxantrone HCI.

Cipla's proposal says the new plant would have 150 employees and make bulk drugs of an annual production value of Rs.143.90 crore. It has had a formulations plant running here for some years
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Fortune Informatics tool for Reliance
Hyderabad: Fortune Informatics Ltd, a Hyderabad-based software services provider, has announced that the company has successfully implemented its K-Click Report Suite, an electronic document management system at Reliance Telecom.

The company, in a statement said, "With this implementation, Fortune has consolidated its position as a solutions provider for the telecom segment. Earlier, the company implemented this for BSNL and Aircel in the telecom sector and Commercial Bank of Kuwait and Arab National Bank in the banking sectorIt partners with Ricoh and Canon."
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Wipro IP cores licensed to Media Tek
Bangalore: Wipro Technologies has licensed its 1394 AV Link IP Cores and 1394 Software Stack to Media Tek Inc, Taiwan. These IP cores provide the Firewire interface on Mediatek's DVD recorder chip, according to a press release.

MediaTek, a fabless IC company in Taiwan focuses on the digital media IC industry. MediaTek has commenced production of its chip, which incorporates Wipro's IEEE 1394 IPs.
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Color Chips to invest Rs.10 crore in expansion plans
Hyderabad: Color Chips India, a 2D and 3D animation software services provider plans to invest about Rs.10 crore and induct a few hundred animators.

The said that the demand for animation had gone up but there was shortage of trained manpower. To address this issue, it is strengthening the education and training division, expand the Hyderabad centre, and possibly open another location in the country. ColorChips is launching a programme that would help it partner with schools and train children early as hobbyists and possibly attract them to this career option.
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Slash Support to set up third support facility
Chennai: Slash Support, a technology support company belonging to the San Jose-based Cybernet Software Systems (CSS) Group, has expanded its offshore technology support operations in India. The company has announced the setting up of a third offshore advanced tech support facility in India. It has two delivery facilities in Chennai and a redundancy centre in Singapore, a company release said.

The new 50,000 sq.ft. facility here has been fully funded from internal accruals and will house over 1,500 support engineers. Slash Support service offerings include enterprise technology application and product support, consumer technology application and product support and system management services.

The company ended last year with revenues of $8 million. It also announced earlier plans to hire 1,200 people to take its headcount to 2,000 by December this year, the release said.
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BodhTree launches ePaper for the publishing industry
Hyderabad: Bodh Tree Consulting, a Hyderabad-based software solutions provider, has announced a technology solution — ePaper — that targets newspapers and the publishing industry. It has partnered with a Malaysian and a Thai company to market this solution in the Asia-Pacific region.

ePaper enables a newspaper, magazine or any print publisher to instantly and automatically publish a digital replica of the original printed version online, while retaining its original look and feel. It also solves the problem of handling various formats including PDF or page images while providing for advanced search and readability options to online subscribers.

"In India, we have partnered with Hindustan Times, Deccan Chronicle, Nava Bharat and Central Chronicle, Hindi Milap and in Australia with Westender and plan to target the newspaper and publishing industry in the APAC region. The publisher needs to decide what option they would like to offer to their readers either through registrations or for free," the company said.

Currently, most newspapers deliver news to their online subscribers via a news portal Web site, which often fails to retain the original layout that subscribers identify the newspaper with. Moreover, high-value premium ads of print edition are not carried over to the online news portal thus scuttling the visibility and shelf life of print ads, translating into missed revenue opportunities.

"ePaper was developed with about 12 man years of effort for BodhTree and features two innovative support services and features. They include Geo Ads and Animated ads. In the case of Geo ads, a newspaper publisher in India can actually host separate advertisements for its NRI online reader as several of the local ads do not often make sense to him. In this way, both the paper and the advertiser gain. On the other hand, animated ads help online readers interface and provide window for opinion polls and more interactivity," he said.
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Blue Star Infotech bags Rs.2 crore order
Mumbai: Blue Star Infotech Ltd (BSIL) has bagged a Rs.2 crore order from a leading pharmaceutical company, according to a company notification to the BSE.

As per the deal, BSIL will develop an integration and management reporting system for the pharma firm. The project will be executed in a phased manner in 13 months. The rollout of the applications will be done at all the associate companies of the client.

The project comprises application integration using Biz Talk Server 2004, Data Warehouse (using SQL Analysis Services), Navision Financials, Application Enhancements and New Application development.
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Valtech to buy out Majoris
Bangalore: French software firm Valtech will buy Bangalore-based software exporter Majoris Systems for a base price of 4.8 million euros (about Rs.26. 68 crore). The buy-out pact includes a three-year earn-out that could add to a maximum of 3.6 million euros to the transaction price, Valtech said in a news release. Valtech will finance the entire transaction cost through its existing and future free cash flow. In addition, Valtech will invest up to 1 million euros over the next 12 months to build up the Indian delivery centre's infrastructure.

The acquisition of Majoris, which is subject to approval from regulatory authorities, will be consolidated from September 1.
Majoris reported revenues close to 5 million euros in 2003. The combined entity will initially service 18 clients across Europe and the US. Currently, Majoris serves 10 clients globally. The company currently offers services across retail, healthcare, banking and finance, manufacturing, telecommunications and high technology.

The French firm has forecast second half revenue of 41-43 million euros, which will include revenues from Majoris for the last four months of the current year. It reported revenue of 41 million euros in the first half with a net profit of 0.5 million euros.
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Talisma acquires US-based eAssist
Bangalore: Talisma, a provider of multi-channel CRM solutions, has announced the acquisition of the US-based eAssist, a provider of customer service, support, and marketing software, in an all-cash deal.

Talisma will incorporate eAssist's technology, intellectual property, and customer base into its operations, said a company release. The acquisition is expected to enhance Talisma's offerings and will allow it leverage opportunities in the customer interaction management (CIM) segment of the CRM market.

The CIM software market is estimated to grow from $400 million in 2004 to $1 billion in 2008, according to Gartner Research.
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VSNL is channel partner for Speedera Networks
Mumbai: Speedera Networks has announced that it is in a multi-year partnership with VSNL for Internet infrastructure services for the Indian market.

VSNL would deploy Speedera's technology in its data centres and market the Speed Suite family of services to its customers. Under the agreement with Speedera, VSNL has become a "Speedera Fusion'' partner, building its own large-scale Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructure in India, using Speedera's technology and seamlessly integrated with Speedera's global network.
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Anchor launches home automation system
Chennai: The Woods light control and home-automated system launched by Anchor hopes to target the commercial segment - business houses and office complexes, for its comprehensive electronic control of light and power systems in a household or an office.

Anchor Woods, a joint venture between Anchor, Gujarat, and British General, UK, is also launching the Woods range of switches that are designed to be an 'integral part of the interior dcor' rather than just boxy units behind the door. The range includes monobloc switches, wiring accessories, electronic sensors and anti-intrusion alarms.

The joint venture, in which Anchor holds 76 per cent and British General the balance, envisages an initial outlay of Rs.15 crore. The scope of the venture is much larger since British General is considering shifting its entire production to India.

Anchor is among the largest manufacturers of electrical switches and wiring accessories with more than four decades behind it.
With a Rs. 600 crore turnover, it has a presence in manufacturing and marketing electrical appliances and healthcare products also. British General has been in the business for about seven decades.
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LML signs up Shah Rukh Khan
New Delhi: LML Ltd has signed on leading bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan to endorse the LML Freedom range of bikes.
The company has also announced the launch of a variant called Freedom Topper. It comes with an 110cc Delta 4 engine and is equipped with features such as digital ignition system, rocker arm with bearings and the torpedo.
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