Pearl Organics bags contracts worth Rs.14 crore
Mumbai: Pearl Organics has bagged two export orders from the US and Europe markets worth Rs.14 crore.

While in the US, the order has been placed by Tor Pharma, a player in the US finished dosage drugs market, the European order comes from Europe's second largest drug manufacturing company, the Hexal Group. Hexal has doubled the existing annual contract for supply of Metformin from 75 tonnes to 150 tonnes in 2005.

Pearl's total produce of Metformin now goes up to 2,400 tonnes, the note said.
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DoT looking into BSNL complaint against Reliance
New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has said that it would penalise Reliance Infocomm if it is found that the company has violated licence norms in the manner in which it was routing international long distance calls.

Senior Government officials said DoT was examining the complaint of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) that Reliance was illegally routing ILD calls to escape from payment of access deficit charges.

According to DoT sources a notice had been sent to Reliance seeking clarification. The officials said that DoT and Reliance Infocomm had already held a round of discussion to resolve the complaint made by BSNL.

BSNL had served disconnection notices to Reliance Infocomm in at least 30 cities, including Chennai, Mumbai and Pune, for routing international long distance calls illegally. The state-owned company has asked Reliance to immediately pay the access deficit charges, amounting to about Rs.20 crore, on the illegal calls or face disconnection.
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Karnataka HC suspends CLB order on BPL Communications
Bangalore: The Karnataka High Court has suspended the Company Law Board's September 29 interim order on BPL Communications subject to the condition that the Board should decide whether it can entertain the dispute between the petitioners and the respondents.

The Court said that the Delhi CLB should decide whether it can entertain the dispute and said that the transfer of shares or any transactions in the shares shall be subject to the outcome of the proceedings of the Board.

On September 29, the CLB vacated its interim order passed on September 27 directing maintenance of status quo in the shareholding pattern of BPL Communications.
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Court issues summons to Lodha and others
Kolkata: Md. Mumtaz Khan, Chief Judicial Magistrate of South 24 Parganas, Alipore, issued summons against R.S. Lodha, S.N. Prasad, V. Gouri Shankar and S.K. Daga, all members of the M.P. Birla Trustee Board, following a petition filed for issuance of process against them Under Section 120B read with Sections 406, 420, 417, 467 and 204 of IPC for misappropriation of trust funds of over Rs.2,400 crore.

Ram Jethmalani and Mahesh Jethmalani, who appeared for R.P. Pansari, complainant, said that the accused persons conspired to revoke the trust deed, which M.P. Birla and his wife, Priyamvada Devi Birla, had made. It was alleged that M.P. Birla and his wife wanted that all the assets of their estates should have been vested in public charity through the Trust.

The names of the trusts are M.P Birla Trust, Priyamvada Birla Trust, Priyamvada Birla Fund, Priyamvada Birla Kosh and Priyamvada Birla Nidhi. The properties of these trusts have been vested in three charitable institutions, namely Hindustan Medical Institution, Eastern India Educational Institution and M.P. Birla Foundation.

Pansari, the complainant, told the court from the witness box that he was the Honorary Secretary of all three charitable institutions. He said R.S. Lodha was claiming that assets of M.P. Birla Estates have been bequeathed to himself by way of revoking all the trusts created by M.P. Birla.

He said that all the assets, which have already been vested to charity through the Trusts, have been taken away by Lodha through a criminal conspiracy and breach of trust. Jethmalani prayed for issuance of a general search warrant, as the original trusts documents are in custody of R.S. Lodha and said that in the probate petition pending before the Calcutta High Court, they have not disclosed anything about revocation of trust board.

The magistrate, however, refused to pass any order of general search warrant, but issued a show cause notice to the accused as to why a general search warrant shall not be issued against the accused persons.
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Concerto plans to invest $10 million at Bangalore centre
Bangalore: Concerto Software is planning to invest $10 million and ramp up headcount at its technology centre in Bangalore to 150 by mid-2005.

Concerto provides contact centre solutions that help companies manage customer interactions through voice, e-mail, the Web and fax. The company expects to clock a revenue of $250 million this fiscal, with India emerging as one of its largest markets, contributing about 40 per cent of revenues in the Asia Pacific market.

Concerto has a customer base of over 30 companies in India, including Citibank, Wipro and Standard Chartered.
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UK firm ties up with Cygnus for anti-terror tool
Hyderabad: Roisure Ltd, a UK-based company, has announced the launch of its flagship service — terrorSURE, an online diagnostic and solution system for threat and vulnerability assessment in India.

The UK company offers value-added knowledge inputs online to the global class of managers and organisations. The product comes three years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and amid the ongoing extremist violence in the North Eastern parts of the country.

To market it in the Indian subcontinent, ROIsure has tied up with Cygnus Business Consulting and Research (Cygnus), the Hyderabad-based global knowledge services organisation, and also to obtain knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) needs from the Indian company.

terrorSURE offers a customised online assessment tools driven by expert diagnostic questioning that generates automated online reports, which prioritise practical and comprehensive steps to protect people and commercial interests. terrorSURE delivers industry and country management reports developed by Cygnus with additional security and terrorist risk assessment contributions written by global terrorism experts at Hazard Management Solutions Ltd.

According to Cygnus the global market for information services currently stands at $300 billion, with over 10 per cent of high-value added segment consisting of business research and analysis.
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Sun Micro signs OEM pact with Nucleus Software
New Delhi: Sun Microsystems India has announced signing of an original equipment manufacturers (OEM) agreement with software products company Nucleus Software Exports Ltd for deploying Sun Java Enterprise System (JES) in existing and future products of Nucleus.

With this partnership, Nucleus aims to provide its customers enhanced value for the same transaction by offering wider solution footprint and lower `total cost of ownership' besides overcoming the complexities of dealing with multiple vendors.
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Timex renews deal with Brett Lee
Bangalore: Timex Watches has renewed the contract of Bret Lee, the Australian pace bowler, as a brand ambassador for the company's product. The Aussie, who had been signed last year, will promote Timex watches for one more year.

The extension comes coinciding with Timex's 150th anniversary this year, when Timex would be launching 150 styles of the time machines.

Bret Lee launched some of the new watches at a function held here on Tuesday.

Timex, which had positioned itself to be a `trendy, techie and fashion' watches, would be building upon the popularity of Bret Lee to consolidate its market share, which at 14 per cent was much above the industry average of four to five per cent.

Timex has introduced a steady stream of technologically advanced watches and plans to introduce a GPS enabled wrist-watch and a heart beat monitor in India soon to add to its Data Link and MP3 models.
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