Tata Indicom's submarine cable link with Singapore goes live
Singapore: The Tata Group has launched a submarine cable link between Singapore and Chennai. The fiber-optic connection, the first to be fully under Indian control on this fast-track communications route, has gone `live' under the auspices of a new private-sector firm - the Tata Indicom Cable (TIC), which is totally owned, operated and maintained by the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL).

VSNL has said that the new connection 'is expected to provide much-needed diversity to telecom operators and enterprises which are dramatically increasing their presence in India'.

The Tata Group Chairman, Ratan N. Tata, said that the new cable was laid in less than a year's time. He noted that the intention now was to `leverage the total capabilities of the Tata Group in the information technology and telecom space' here.
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HCL to buy out BT's stake in Belfast center
Chennai: HCL BPO, the business process outsourcing arm of HCL Technologies, plans to make its contact centre at Belfast, Northern Ireland a hub for European operations. HCL recently added 250 employees at the Belfast centre and plans to add another 400 jobs there, according to company officials.

HCL will acquire British Telecom's (BT) 10 per cent stake in the Belfast centre, before the end of this year, after which it will become fully owned by HCL. Thencompany said that discussions with BT are on over the price.

The Belfast centre was set up by BT, in which HCL bought a 90 per cent stake in December 2001. The agreement then specified that HCL would buy BT's residual 10 per cent stake at the end of three years, company officials said.

Revenues from the Belfast centre are expected to grow from £16 million (about Rs132 crore) for the year ended June 30, 2004 to about £20 million (about Rs166 crore) for this year.

HCL BPO's revenues are expected to increase from $55 million (about Rs250 crore) to $100 million (Rs455 crore) this year.

The Belfast centre has a multi-lingual capability and provides services in six European languages. The wage cost in Belfast is 15 per cent lower than in the rest of the UK, and 30 per cent lower than in countries such as Belgium and Holland.

Barry Gardiner, Minister for Economy and Education, Northern Ireland, who is leading a delegation to seek investments in Northern Ireland, held a meeting with HCL BPO officials in Chennai.
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Satyam launches Budapest center
Hyderabad: Satyam Computer has announced the opening of its global development centre and office in Budapest, Hungary targeting near shore services and plans to recruit locally to meet requirements.

The Satyam Hungary Development Centre (SHDC) is located on a 6,000 sq ft facility within the InfoPark campus in Budapest and will initially house up to 60 IT professionals with the option of recruiting several hundred more. This centre is equipped with secure high speed connectivity to its client hosts as well as with the other 19 development centres that Satyam operates across the globe.

Kalman Kovacs, the Hungarian IT Minister, and Manbir Singh, the Indian Ambassador to Hungary, joined Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam, to celebrate the launch of this new centre.
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Asia-Pacific mobile operators form alliance
New Delhi: Bharti Tele-Ventures along with six other mobile operators in the South-East Asian region have formed a joint venture company called Bridge Mobile Pte Ltd with an aim to create a common regional cellular infrastructure.

The mobile alliance, which comprises of Globe Telecom of the Philippines, Maxis of Malaysia, Optus of Australia, Singapore Telecommunications, Taiwan Cellular Corp and Telkomsel of Indonesia, will also undertake joint development of products and services.

The seven operators will each subscribe for an equal number of shares and hold one permanent board seat in the joint venture company. The Bridge Mobile Alliance will invest up to $40 million over three years.

"Based in Singapore, it will be the largest mobile joint venture in the Asia-Pacific market and is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2005," a statement from Bharti said. Other mobile operators as well as strategic partners such as technology and applications vendors will be offered membership in the alliance.

To begin with, Bridge will build a shared regional infrastructure to enable service provisioning on a regional basis, provide a suite of mobile services including improved voice and data roaming services and other joint product development initiatives.

Bridge will also promote common mobile applications and standards across the partners' markets.
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Serum Institute to launch pentavalent vaccine
Chennai: Serum Institute aims to launch a single vaccine for five indications (pentavalent vaccine) in September-October 2005. Currently, the vaccine is being put through clinical trials.

The company has said that the pentavalent vaccine would provide protection against Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus (DPT), Hepatitis-B and Haemophilus Influenza type B (HIB).

A single vaccine that covers more than one indication reduces the number of shots children have to take. Serum Institute would also introduce a vaccine to cover four indications (DPT and Hepatitis-B) next year.

Serum Institute also formally launched its new rabies vaccine, Rabivax, in Chennai. Rabivax is a Human Diploid Cell (HDC) vaccine that has been priced at Rs293 a dose.
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HLL to hive off Sewri facility
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever Ltd has announced plans to hive off its Sewri facility in Mumbai, which manufactures soap and soap intermediates, to a subsidiary.

It also plans to dispose of its functionalised biopolymers business including manufacturing facilities at Pondicherry. The Sewri plant, seen as a cost-intensive facility within the HLL fold, has an employee strength of 1,174.

This facility is at a considerable cost disadvantage, according to HLL officials. "There is a high incidence of octroi on raw materials, high water cess, power tariff, lease rentals and other infrastructure costs. The wage bill is also high," an official said. The Sewri facility stands on land leased from the Bombay Port Trust.

HLL believes that hiving off this facility to a subsidiary would result in better focus in reducing cost and improve efficiencies.
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Carborundum Universal to set up refractories unit
Ahmedabad: Carborundum Universal Ltd (CUMI), part of the Rs5,266-crore Murugappa group, will set up a castable refractories unit at Okha, close to the company's bauxite mines in Gujarat. The investment in the new unit will be "small" at about Rs 1 crore, but it is expected to generate annual revenues of nearly Rs10 crore.

The refractory materials will be supplied to industrial units close to Okha in south Gujarat. CUMI, which gets nearly 65 per cent of its turnover from different types of abrasives, plans to tap the Chinese and West Asian markets in the near future. The company already has a presence in the US, Australia and Europe.
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FrameFlow to invest $5 million in Chennai unit
Chennai: Frameflow India Ltd will spend $1 million (Rs4.5 crore) in setting up a visual special effects production facility in Chennai, which will undertake jobs from Hollywood filmmakers.

Over the next 18 months, the company will spend $5 million on expansion of the facility. It is expected that the Chennai-based Shriram group will pick up a stake in FrameFlow.

FrameFlow India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of FrameFlow, LLC, a computer graphics animation and visual effects production company based in Atlanta, USA.
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Nicholas Piramal into two custom manufacturing contracts
Mumbai: Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL) has inked two new custom manufacturing agreements that would add $30 million per annum to NPIL's kitty from the financial year 2007.

The first agreement is for the manufacture and supply of a set of pharmaceutical products from India, to a drug major who is among the top Fortune 500 Companies in the world, for sale in the US market.

The second agreement is with Allergan Inc USA for the manufacture of two eye-related, anti-glaucoma active pharmaceutical ingredients (API).

NPIL will cater to Allergan's worldwide requirements of Levobunolol (used in Betagan formulation) and Brimonidine (used in Alphagan and Alphagan - P formulation).

Allergan's sales from the mentioned formulation exceed $300 million per year.
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Vizag Steel plant posts forty five percent increase in sales
Visakhapatnam: The Visakhapatnam steel plant has achieved sales of Rs655 crore this October against Rs452.6 crore during October, 2003, a growth of 45 per cent.

In a press release issued here on Wednesday, the authorities said the plant had produced 3,32,040 tonnes of hot metal, 2,76,097 tonnes of liquid steel and 2,12,086 tonnes of saleable steel during the month. The production of 70,732 tonnes of bar products was also the best ever during the month.

The plant also bagged the Insann Organisational Excellence Award for 2004. It would be presented in Mumbai in December, the release added.
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