GSPC strikes oil in well discarded by ONGC
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd (GSPC) has discovered a significant quantity of oil in the Tarapur block, which had been bagged by the Gujarat Government company in 2000.

The block was earlier abandoned by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). Later, it was allocated to GSPC, which carried out extensive geological and geophysical work, including analysis of 3D seismic data.

"A good quantity of oil has been recovered from 1,490 metres depth and it is estimated that this horizon may contain good quantity of oil. The initial recoverable reserves are in the region of 5-7 million barrels and experts say there could be more oil at a greater depth," Modi said.
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TDSAT holds Reliance Infocomm guilty
New Delhi: Telecom tribunal TDSAT has ruled that telecom major Reliance Infocomm was guilty of violating its licence agreement by re-routing international calls as domestic ones. Reliance Infocomm will now have to pay Rs150 crore for violating its licence conditions. The company said it would challenge the decision in the Supreme Court next week.

Rejecting the Reliance plea, the bench held," …It is clearly established that the petitioner deliberately changed the nature of the calls and the method Reliance Infocomm Ltd employed to camouflage an international call was certainly unprincipled and if we may say so unscrupulous. This was in total breach of the license conditions putting the security of the nation in jeopardy"

Although Reliance Infocomm sources admit the TDSAT judgement is a major setback, the company's lawyers had come prepared for the worst.

They have confirmed they will challenge the order in the Supreme Court. "We will take matter to Supreme Court at the earliest. We wanted sometime but court has declined to grant us time. So maybe on Monday we will approach the apex court," said Mukul Rohatgi, counsel, Reliance Infocomm.

Reliance Infocomm's bigger fight is with the two government-owned companies, MTNL and BSNL who claim the call re-routing robbed them of nearly Rs4,500 crore since Reliance Infocomm didn't pay the access deficit charge levied on all international calls.
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Renault considering compact cars for India
Geneva: Soon after announcing a 125 million Euro joint venture with utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra for the mid-size car 'Logan', French car major Renault has said it will be "studying possibilities" for bringing in a compact car in the Indian market, which would be manufactured locally.

"If we are successful and we believe we will be, then we are ready to study the possibilities of launching a small car in India," Luc Alexander Menard, Senior vice-president (International Operations), Renault, said during the ongoing 75th Geneva Motor Show here.

Asked if it would bring the compact car through the JV with M&M or through a separate route, including on its own, he said these things would be worked out later. The French carmaker's small car kitty comprises models like 'Twingo', which is a three-door car available in 1.2 and 1.4 litre capacity diesel engine. This costs about 9,000 Euro.

It has another model, 'Clio', which is available in both petrol and diesel engines, which vary from 1.2-2 litres. Its price ranges between 11,000 and 20,000 Euros. This is one of its best-selling car in the compact car segment and is the second most-selling car in its category in Europe, Menard said.
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Eicher CV sales up forty per cent in Feb.'05
New Delhi: Eicher Motors Ltd commercial vehicles sales have registered a forty per cent growth in February at 2,106 vehicles, against 1,508 units in the same month last year.

According to Rakesh Kalra, Chief Executive, Eicher Motors, "The most significant feature of Eicher Motors' performance has been the steady growth and increasing popularity of its HCV range."

From April 2004 to February, sales have grown by 45 per cent to 19,566 vehicles over 13,508 vehicles sold in the same period last year.
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DoT asks cell companies to explain LDD services
New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications has sent notice to cellular operators offering local direct dialling (LDD) services to explain the routing pattern of the service, availed by roaming customers.

The notice has been sent to Airtel, Hutch and BPL among others. The move is part of DoT's initiative to seek clarity on the procedure followed by operators while offering value-added services.

LDD service, launched by mobile operators, offered roaming services between two cities at much cheaper rates. For instance, if a Delhi subscriber was roaming in Mumbai then calls originating from Mumbai would be connected to his mobile as a local call. This meant that the caller would not have to fork out STD charges to make calls to the Delhi subscriber in Mumbai. This was done by keeping the call within Mumbai network instead of routing it through the roamers home network back in Delhi.

However, DoT has now asked the mobile operators to explain the legality of the service especially in the light of the access deficit charge, payable on long distance services by all operators.

The nature of LDD service could allow the operators to circumvent the payment.
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BSNL commissions one million GSM lines in west zone
Mumbai: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has commissioned an additional capacity of one-million GSM lines in the west zone.
While Maharashtra and Goa will get 4.5 lakh of the new additional lines, Gujarat will get 3.5 lakh, Madhya Pradesh 1.5 lakh, and Chhattisgarh 50,000.

With this, the Maharashtra circle's capacity will be 9.5 lakh lines.
The addition of the one million lines is part of the 15-million-line installation endeavour across the country during the year, said Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communications and IT, who also launched the additional capacity in Pune today.

ITI has supplied the equipment to BSNL.
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Hexaware bags $1.2 mn UK insurance deal
Mumbai: Hexaware Technologies Ltd, a global IT service provider, has won a $1.2-million contract with a global insurance company based in the UK. The insurance company required a partner who could support technical conversion suite and data enhancing activities, Hexaware told BSE.

This multiple deployment project will involve automated data conversion from the existing legacy system to the target system for various European countries. Hexaware has already deployed a large team of experts.
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