TCS launches e-clear settlement for developing markets
Mumbai: After having developed significant expertise in solutions for international securities trading, clearing and settlement, through the Swiss SECOM, TCS has now come out with its own product, e-Clear Settlement, which is suitable for the developing markets.

TCS, which has already introduced this product in a few emerging markets, is looking at new markets like the Philippines.

TCS gained significant experience in this sector during its on-going 15-year partnership with the SIS (SIS Swiss Financial Services Group AG). It was in 1989 that SIS awarded the end-to-end implementation for the Swiss financial community, called SECOM, for clearing and settlement of trades contracted in the domestic and international markets. Being the single largest implementation taken up by TCS at that time, the company carried out the development in Zurich and Chennai, using offshore methodology.

By now SECOM has successfully completed 11 years of live operations providing real-time gross settlement service with Deliver Versus Payment (DVP) settlement for national and international securities trades.

While TCS continues to support the SECOM system in terms of production support, continuous enhancement and maintenance, it has come out with a similar solution that is cheaper and hence, suitable for developing markets. The company said that this solution does not have the entire features of a product like SECOM and accordingly requires comparatively lesser investments for implementation.
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ONGC told to link up with Statoil for deep sea drilling
New Delhi: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is set to dump Transocean and Dolphin Drilling and may team up with Statoil of Norway in its hunt for oil and gas in the deep-sea, where the exploration giant has drawn a blank despite spending millions of dollars.

"Norway is willing to share technology with us. We will be working towards forging a relationship with Statoil," Union Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar said at a seminar on oil and gas exploration here on Monday.

In 2002, ONGC came close to hiring Norway's deep sea drill rig West Navion (now the West Navigator), owned by Statoil and Smedvig, on a nomination basis, but the then NDA government asked it to launch an international bidding process through which the exploration firm hired Transocean and Dolphin for its deep-sea campaign.

Despite paying Transocean's Discoverer Seven Seas and Dolphin Drilling's Belford Dolphin $336,906 and $361,762 dollars per day respectively, ONGC has failed to make a single hydrocarbon discovery in more than half a dozen wells the two drill-ships have drilled so far. Norway is a leader in deep-sea exploration technology.

ONGC has drilled 11 wells so far, employing Transocean's Discoverer Seven Seas and Dolphin Drilling's Belford Dolphin and its own rig Sagar Vijay, without any success other than one small gas find by Sagar Vijay.

Ministry officials have said Norway's Statoil was still interested in forging a deep-water alliance with ONGC and the issue was discussed during a meeting between Aiyar and his Norwegian counterpart, Thorhild Widvey, during the recent OPEC meeting in Vienna.
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Satluj Jal to provide consultancy for Udhampur-Baramulla rail link
New Delhi: Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd (SJVNL), a joint-sector hydel generation company, has entered into an agreement with the Konkan Railways to provide consultancy services for the railway-tunnelling project between Katra and Laole on the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramula rail link in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to SJVNL officials, the mandate for the company includes imparting training to Konkan Railways in preparation and supply of construction drawings of excavation and details of tunnels in different kinds of soil and rock strata.

SJVNL - a joint venture between the Union Government and the Himachal Pradesh Government - has already commissioned the 1,500 MW Nathpa Jhakri Hydro-electric project in Himachal Pradesh. The company is also providing consultancy services to other players in the hydroelectric power generation business, besides assisting the preparation of pre-feasibility reports, detailed project reports and construction of dams, tunnels and underground powerhouses.
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Dhirubhai's three C's gets an addition from the brothers - controversy
Mumbai: The Ambani controversy added another e-mail to the list with Anil addressing the employees of Reliance Industries Ltd, which apparently emphasises the brothers' equal status in the corporate group.

"I am personally saddened like all of you, at the developments of the last two weeks, and I thought I would share with you some of my feelings," said his e-mail. Referring to his brother and himself, he said their journey was "marked by successive milestones of togetherness. We became Executive Directors, Joint Managing Directors and Managing Directors at the same time."

Anil Ambani recalled himself saying: "We are not inheritors. We have built this company along with our father." And, according to him, Mukesh concurred and said: "We are his (Dhirubhai Ambani's) partners. It has almost been like a joint venture."

When Dhirubhai Ambani passed away, "... . I had the privilege to propose Mukesh's name as Chairman and Managing Director of RIL, and I received his support to be appointed as Vice-Chairman and Managing Director," writes Anil Ambani.

"As already communicated, I will not comment on any issues at this stage, and may do so only at an appropriate time, if necessary," said his e-mail. It ended saying: "I am confident of your support to Mukesh and to me, and to the entire organisation, and I look forward to receiving your valuable inputs and guidance at -------- (his e-mail address)."

This email to his employees also recalls Dhirubhai Ambani's reaction to complex management jargon. "Dhirubhai would say, "just watch out for the 3Cs - chamchas, chelas and cronies!" This is the third email to the employees from the Ambani brothers.

The first one was from Mukesh Ambani last week, telling his employees that the Chairman and Managing Director (who is himself) is the final authority at Reliance.

The brothers have now successfully added a fourth 'C' to Dhirubhai's list - controversy!
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Reliance Energy board to meet today
Mumbai: Reliance Energy Ltd's board of directors will meet here on Tuesday to consider the resignations of six of its directors and related issues, the company told stock exchanges on Monday.

The directors had resigned last Thursday amid the ongoing feud between the Ambani brothers over ownership of Reliance Industries (RIL), which holds 50.2 per cent stake in Reliance Energy (REL).

The meeting, is considered as one of the most crucial in the company's history. Anil Ambani had earlier requested the directors to continue on the REL board. Mukesh Ambani, RIL's Chairman and Managing Director, had attended the last REL board meeting as an invitee.

The six directors believed to be close to Anil Ambani - Satish Seth, Executive Vice-Chairman, S.C. Gupta, J.P. Chalasani, K.H. Mankad, Prof. J Ramachandran, an independent Director and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala - resigned last week. No reasons were cited for their resignations.
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Ranbaxy wins lawsuit against Abbott in the UK
New Delhi: Following a favourable ruling by a court in the UK against a lawsuit filed by the US-based Abbott Laboratories, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd has launched clarithromycin in the UK market.

Abbott had gone to court seeking to prevent the Indian pharma company from launching the drug. The drug was covered by a first generation patent, which expired in the UK on November 19, 2004. Abbott also had a second-generation patent, which claimed, amongst other things, solvent-free clarithromycin Form II.

"In making its ruling in favour of Ranbaxy's arguments that the asserted patent was invalid on various grounds, the court agreed that the specific patent claims asserted by Abbott were invalid and characterised it as 'a weak patent.' Abbott was refused leave to appeal," said a Ranbaxy statement.

Clarithromycin is an antibiotic used in the treatment of common bacterial infections such as upper and lower respiratory tract and skin or skin structure infections. The market size for the drug is estimated to be £13.5 million in the UK.
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Airtel unveils new facilities in Kerala
Kochi: Airtel has announced the launch of EDGE (enhanced data rate for global evolution) services in the State.

With data transfer speeds between 100-200 kbps, customers will be able to experience the rich multimedia content, including live TV, live camera applications and multi-player games on their EDGE enabled mobile handsets. The content will also include music and file transfer, picture downloadand email download with attachments.
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Infovision to go in for Rs.100 crore expansion
Kolkata: Infovision Software Pvt Ltd, eastern India's largest medical transcription company, has unveiled expansion plans that would entail an investment of Rs100 crore in phases.

The company's expansion plans include the setting up of a IT hub in Kolkata, which would comprise healthcare BPO services such as medical transcription, medical billing and coding, claim processing and customer care.

The company already has over 500 employees on its payroll. Of these 325 were medical transcriptionists and editors who were engaged in Kolkata and Mumbai. The company, which has its medical transcription units in Kolkata and Mumbai, hopes to have a workforce of around 2,000 skilled workers in its Kolkata operations alone by 2007.

In medical transcription, Infovision has a capacity of 2,00,000 lines per day. Besides direct clients, the company has forged tie-ups with the top five medical transcription companies in the world, including Medscribe, Spheris, Medquist, Healthscribe and C-Bay.
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MindTree to invest $100 million for Hyderabad centre
Hyderabad: Mindtree Consulting, a software applications development and R&D services provider, has announced plans to invest about $100 million (about Rs450 crore) in its Hyderabad centre, which will see the addition of about 3,000 people over the next three-four year time-frame here.

According to the company, the Hyderabad development centre will have 250 employees by March 2005 and its strength would go up to 500 over the next twelve months.

The $100-million investment over the next few years in the Hyderabad centre would be partly towards (about $25 million) infrastructure creation and $75 million towards staff expenses.

The company said that it's current revenues were in the range of $50 million and last year saw a growth of about 60 per cent. It expects to repeat it this year as well.
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Linux Bangalore 2004 to be held this week
Bangalore: Linux Bangalore 2004, India's largest annual free and open source software (FOSS) event, will be held from Wednesday to Friday. It will feature speakers from the Indian industry, the US, Europe and Australia.

The event this year is the fourth in the series and is now rated among the top technical events in India and Asia. Last year, more than 2000 delegates participated, while this year, it is expected that close to 3000 will attend the event.

The conference topics cover a diverse spectrum of FOSS-related technologies, including technical tracks (kernel programming, desktop applications, Web-based applications, embedded development and enterprise applications), community tracks (FOSS projects and FOSS user groups) and business tracks.
About 80 talks are scheduled.

The event also features an expo, showcasing the latest FOSS trends and products. These include the KDE desktop project, and the IndLinux Project, and other FOSS projects,as well as and a number of leading IT vendors that offer products and services that run on FOSS platforms such as Linux. Hewlett Packard, Infosys Technologies and Encore Software have sponsored the event.
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