Wipro picks up mPower for US$28mn
Mumbai: Announcing yet another acquisition, Bangalore-based Wipro Ltd has said that it has bought US-based mPower Inc, a company operating in the payment space, for US$28mn (around Rs126 crore).

The Princeton-based company has revenues of US$18mn and runs a development centre in Chennai. Through this deal, Wipro has also entered into a strategic engagement with MasterCard International, by acquiring 100 per cent stake in MPACT, a Chennai-based joint venture of MasterCard and mPower.

The acquisition will be carried out through Wipro Technologies, the IT services business of Wipro Ltd.

"Through this acquisition, Wipro Technologies adds on a 300-member strong team and deep domain expertise in the payment space which will enable it to expand its addressable market in the financial solutions business," the company said in a release.

As part of the agreement, Wipro will provide MasterCard and other clients in the payment space, a wide range of services that could include application development and maintenance, infrastructure services, package implementation, BPO and testing.
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Motorola's launches sub-$40 mobile in the Indian market
New Delhi: The first sub-$40 mobile phone, with 40 per cent local fabrication, was launched on Thursday as Motorola Inc's first mass-market offering tailored for the Indian markets.

Communications minister Dayanidhi Maran launched the Motorola C-115. Unaffordable handsets are one of the reasons why tele-density has not reached the 1 per cent mark in rural India, according to the government and industry.

''In India, 98 per cent of demand is for voice, only 2 per cent for data and other services,'' Maran said at the launch. He pointed out that teledensity has grown 25 per cent to reach 125 million subscriptions since April 2005. Over 2.5 million subscribrs are being added every month on an average.

The C-115 starts shipping immediately, with Motorola eyeing a lion's share of the government's target to have 250 million phones within two years. With the first-mover advantage, the company expects to lead the segment. In the coming months, Motorola Inc is expected to work on an under-$30 phone as well.
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Reliance demerger on Jan. 25
Mumbai: Reliance Industries has fixed January 25, 2006, as the record date for its demerger scheme. The date has been fixed for reckoning the names of the members of the company, who are entitled to receive shares of each of the resulting companies.

In accordance with the demerger scheme, Reliance Energy Ventures, Global Fuel Management Services, Reliance Capital Ventures and Reliance Communication Ventures would allot equity share to the eligible members on the appointed record date, the company said.
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BHEL bags ICWAI National Award
New Delhi: State-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has received the ICWAI national award for Excellence in Cost Management 2005.

Despite competitive pressure on prices, the company was able to manage its cost by taking measures like enahanced operational efficiency, prudent financial management and benchmarking against international standards, according to a release from BHEL.

It said that in line with its vision-committed enhancing shareholder value, BHEL recorded a surge in Economic Value Addition, which catapulted to Rs504 crore in 2004-05 from Rs366 crore in the year before.
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Liberty to set up unit in HP
Mumbai: Liberty Shoes has decided to set up a unit in the tax incentive area of Himachal Pradesh in order to expand its operations.

The company has also inducted independent directors on its board.
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Mahavir Spinning announces expansion plans
Mumbai: Ludhiana based textile company Mahavir Spinning Mills is investing Rs1,600 crore for its expansion-cum-modernisation plan. The company also plans to double its capacities in fabric processing, the company informed the stock exchanges.

The implementation of these projects will be in phases and is expected to extend up to 2007-08, it said.

The company plans to expand and modernise its existing capacities of spinning, weaving and fabric processing at Himachal Pradesh and Punjab with a capex of around Rs540 crore, the company said. Mahavir Spinning also plans to double its capacities in its fabric processing units with appropriate capital investments in spinning and weaving by setting up of additional facilities in Madhya Pradesh, involving a capital expenditure of around Rs1,075 crore.
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Red Hat Q3 net income up by 114 per cent
Mumbai: Red Hat, the open source solutions provider, has reported a 114 per cent increase in net income for the quarter ended November 30, 2005 at US$23.2mn compared to US$10.8mn in the corresponding quarter last year.

Total revenue for the quarter increased by 44 per cent at US$73.1mn from US$50.9mn during the same period last year, the company said in a release here.
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Abhishek Ind. begins production at terry towel unit
Mumbai: Trident Group-owned company, Abhishek Industries, said it has commenced commercial production on 60 air jet looms under phase-II of an expansion project of terry towels unit.

Abhishek Industries is mainly involved in producing cotton and blended yarn. The company's plants are located in Barnala (Punjab).

The commercial production commenced with the completion of the second phase of expansion, the informed the stock exchanges.

The total capacity of terry towel division of the company has been increased to 268 looms with completion of this expansion phase, it said.
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Oil PSUs revenue loss to double
New Delhi: Public sector firms retailing petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene below their production cost are likely to see their revenue loss double to Rs38,154 crore this fiscal, the Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday.

"The estimated under-recoveries (on sale of fuel) was Rs9,274 crore for 2003-04 and Rs20,146 crore for 2004-05, which is projected to rise to Rs38,154 crore during the current year," petroleum minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar said.

Aiyar said Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp - have modulated the price increase in petrol diesel and maintained the prices of subsidised domestic LPG and PDS kerosene despite the steep rise in international prices. This has resulted in huge revenue loss on sale of all these products.

Aiyar said, "The burden should be equitably shared by consumers, the government and the oil companies. Accordingly, from 2003-04 onwards, the government has introduced the subsidy sharing mechanism in which, after taking into account the subsidy provided for the fiscal budget, the balance is shared by the upstream (ONGC and GAIL) and the downstream companies (IOC, BPCL and HPCL) equitably," he said.

"In order to compensate the public sector oil marketing companies on account of mounting under-recoveries suffered by them over and above the amount allowed as subsidy through the Budget, the government has decided to issue oil bonds. The Ministry of Finance has made provision to issue bonds of the face value of Rs 5,750 crore during the current financial year," he said.
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Gail to invest over Rs 11,600 cr in gas cracker units
New Delhi: GAIL (India) is investing Rs11,600 crore in gas cracker projects in the country, the petroleum minister informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

GAIL has proposed an investment of Rs5,460.61 crore in Assam Gas Cracker project near Dibrugarh (Assam) and hopes to complete it in 60 months from the date of approval of the Government, petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said in a written reply to a question.

The company plans to invest Rs6,210 crore in building a petrochemical complex at Ambalamugal near Kochi, Kerala. The project would be completed in 48 months from the date of appointment of the project management consultant after approval by the board of directors of GAIL, he said.
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Shipping Corp. looks at acquiring more ships
New Delhi: Shipping Corporation of India has asked for government approval to acquire more ships at an approximate cost of Rs 3,200 crore according to the government.

SCI has sought approval for 2 Capesize Bulk Carrier, 6 Handymax Bulk Carriers, 2 container vessels of 4,300 TEU and 6 LR -1 size product tankers. The estimated cost of these proposals is about Rs3,200 crore, minister of shipping, road transport and highways T R Baalu.

To another query, he said a cruise shipping policy is under formulation and is likely to be finalised by March 2006.

He said it is proposed to widen 6,500 km of National Highways to six lanes on Build-Operate and Transfer basis under National Highway Developement (Project-V).

This will include the entire length of 586 km of Golden Quadrilateral and some other stretches to be selected and the details are under discussion with Planning Commission, Baalu said.
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Sasken opens new center in Mexico
Mumbai: Telecom solution service provider Sasken has opened an international development and support center in Mexico to cater to the needs of its customers in the American continent.

The company has just established a wholly-owned subsidiary in Mexico and has begun the process of hiring the required number of engineers. The facility would be operational by the end of the first quarter of 2006, the company said in a release.

The new centre would focus primarily on embedded system software development, it said.
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Mayur Suitings gets into nano tech
Mumbai: Mayur Suitings, the flagship brand of Rajasthan Spinning & Weaving Mills has made its foray into nano-technology and has launched its new collection `Glazano' based on the technology.

Nano technology uses chemicals manufactured at a nano level, a size as small as a billionth of a meter.

The company had said it has gone into the process of R&D, and its product has been accredited by Clariant.

Clariant is a global major in speciality chemicals.
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Polaris Software ties up with Interwoven
Mumbai: Polaris Software Lab has entered into an agreement with Interwoven, a provider of content management solutions, to organize a round table on 'Enterprise Content Management'.

The round table will focus on the manufacturing sector and will create a greater impact of the business value that content management can bring about in larger enterprises, the Chennai-based IT company said.
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Karur Vysya Bank adopts security product
Chennai: Karur Vysya Bank has adopted Snorkel-TX, a banking software developed by Odyssey Technologies, a city-based major producer of information security products to ensure security in transactions.

Snorkel-TX, a 64-bit 'trust and security gateway', delivers enterprise class security for online banking applications, Odyssey Technologies said in a release on Thursday. The company claims it would provide two-factor authentication, digital signatures and privacy of transactions to the bank's internet banking customers.

The software would also help banks to access their Internet services through a 'public key technology', the release added.
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IDFC, Feedback Ventures enter into deal
Mumbai: Infrastructure Development Finance Company has entered into an alliance with Feedback Ventures, an infrastructure advisory, engineering and project development company.

Under the agreement, the company would initially invest 19.4 per cent in the equity of Feedback Ventures and nominate two directors on the board of the company, it said.

IDFC would also invest Rs10 crore in optionally convertible preference shares of the New Delhi based company, which would be convertible into equity shares at the end of three years, it said.
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New computer virus detected
Chennai: A new "Trojan" e-mail named "TROJ_SAMX.A", has been detected by TrendLabs of Trend Micro, a leader in network anti-virus. The company has advised net users to check whether their virus programme has been updated to prevent it from getting into their computers.

The virus contained an attachment named "MERRY CHRISTMASI.rar" and had been spammed through e-mail, a Trend Micro release said on Thursday.

TROJ_SAMX.A runs on Windows98, ME, NT, 2000 XP, and Server 2003 and it compromised system security by acting as a proxy server, "which acts as an intermediary between a user and a server."

This "Trojan" is rated as a low risk threat, but because it compromised security of infected computers, the damage could be "greater as the computer will be in the hands of the writer of this malicious piece of software," it said.

Users should, therefore, check that their virus programmes were updated to prevent this Trojan from ever getting into their computer, especially during this happy holiday season, it added.
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Reliance launches `Cine Ulagam'
Chennai: Reliance Infocomm has created `Cine Ulagam' (cinema world) a special zone devoted to Kollywood blockbuster based mobile content.

Whereas the first movie based mobile content, Showtime, provided trailers of latest releases only through Reliance mobile, Cine Ulagam will provide information on all blockbusters that will be modeled on television show on films, said circle CEO of Reliance Infocomm, V G Somasekhar.

" For the first time special mobile content modelled on television show on films will be developed exclusively for Reliance India Mobile. We have also adopted Tamil nomenclature for each section of Cine Ulagam to give it the local flavour," Somasekhar said.
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Vista pharma to produce and sell 2 ANDA drugs
New Delhi: Vista Pharmaceuticals (VPL) plans to start commercial production and export of Sulpamethoxazole and Trimethoprim, drugs that are intended for use in treatment of HIV/AIDS and urine infections respectively.

The business plan for commercial production and export of the two Abbreviated New Drug Application drugs have been approved by the Board of Directors of the company, VPL informed the Bombay Stock Exchange. The Board of Directors has also approved the business plan to manufacture of products to World Foundation Organisation in Florida (USA), it said.
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