Bharat Petroleum and Kochi Refineries to merge by April
New Delhi: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has said that the merger of Kochi Refineries Ltd. with itself will be completed by April. The company hoped that the Madhya Pradesh Government would `soon' grant concessions for setting up the Bina Refinery.

According to the company, the scheme of amalgamation is on and the merger of KRL with BPCL will be over by April. After the merger, KRL will be the second refinery to come under the BPCL fold. BPCL holds a 54.81 per cent stake in KRL.
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ESPN disconnects Asianet
Kochi: ESPN Star Sports has cut off its services to cable operator Asianet on the ground of huge outstanding dues even as the latter has accused Star Sports of resorting to arm-twisting tactics against cable operators.

ESPN has said in a statement that Asianet had refused to respond to all efforts made by ESPN to have the outstanding dues cleared and also not paid the routine monthly subscription fees since September. The company has pointed out that the annual service agreement between ESPN and Asianet expired on November 30. According to the company's statement, despite numerous attempts and meetings, it was now apparent that the cable operator was not serious about renewing the contract or showing ESPN channels.

If the matter was not resolved early enough by the cable operator, the statement said that viewers may end up missing the India- Bangladesh series, Pakistan-Australia series, and the ongoing English and Spanish Premium League football matches.

Asianet Satellite Communications in turn has charged ESPN Star Sports with resorting to arm-twisting tactics against cable operators. The company said that though the agreement between Asianet and ESPN Star had expired on November 30, negotiations were on for granting it extended validity. On its part, Asianet had suggested removing from the agreement some of the "one-sided clauses" that were inconsistent with Indian laws. It had demanded that parity be assured between rates charged by ESPN Star and those charged by other channel operators in Kerala and other parts of the country.

ESPN Star had blanked its signals without notice on a previous occasion when India was playing Australia in the away-tour, in a tactic typical of the rights-owning channel upping the ante on the eve of important sport events merely to extract a price it fancied, the spokesman said. Now it is the India-Bangladesh cricket series, which is due to commence on December 9.
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Philips Semiconductors to start hardware development group
Bangalore: Phillips Semiconductors plans to add a hardware development group to its software capabilities in India. The competency center of Philips Semiconductors in India currently has some 400 people and the company plans to double itsheadcount over the next two to three years, it said.

The centre is focussing on building competencies in the core areas of system on chip design, embedded software development, reusable hardware and software and design technology. Philips has identified India as a strategic center for the development of its next generation 65 nanometre chips, and is changing the focus of operations here from software programming to designing of chips.
The Bangalore centre will collaborate with other facilities across the globe to develop a prototype of a 65-nanometre chip that is expected to be rolled out in a year.

65 nanometres is roughly a thousandth of the width of a single human hair. The fastest chips today are made on the 90-nanometre manufacturing process.
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AirTel and eSeva to partner for utility services
Hyderabad: AIRTEL, the private telecom services provider, has announced that it has tied up with eSeva, the integrated citizen services centres, to enable customers to pay their utility bills through its mobile service.

To begin with, this service has been launched in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and will subsequently be rolled out in other parts of the State. Netxcell Limited is the technology partner for this initiative, which facilitates utility services covering payment of electricity bills, water and sewerage bills, telephone bills, property and sales tax.
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