TCS enters into R&D pact with Stanford for data privacy
Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has entered into a five-year research and development collaboration with Stanford University of United States for research in the critical area of data privacy. According to the pact TCS and the computer science department of Stanford will work on joint projects focused on areas of data privacy.

As part of the collaboration, TCS would become an industrial partner on data privacy in the new 'Trust' initiative.
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Raymond to enter premium kids' wear segment
Mumbai: As part of its foray into the children's wear segment the Raymond group will open up twelve stores over the next one year across key metro cities. The company will launch children's wear brand 'ZAPP' and the first flagship Zapp store will come up at Mumbai by April 2006.

The brand would cover children's apparels and accessories and will be aimed at children between the age group 4 to 12 years.

The stores will outsource the merchandise in close association with its vendors and Raymond's in-house designers will design the merchandise.

The Zapp stores would be large format flagship stores estimated around 3,000-4,000 square feet and will be managed by the company.
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Glenmark to begin trials of anti-obesity drug
Mumbai: Glenmark Pharmaceuticals plans to file its new anti-obesity drug for Phase I trial in May 2006 and launch the drug by 2011. The GRC 10389 molecule, which is presently completing pre-clinical studies for obesity and its associated disorders, is the lead candidate in the company's Cannabinoid (CB-1) receptor antagonist programme according to the company.

According to the company, "The CB-1 receptor antagonists are being increasingly looked at for treating obesity and Glenmark is keen on being one of the early players in this category."
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GlaxoSmithKline Q4 net profit up 79.34 pc
Mumbai: GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals has registered a 79.34 per cent increase in net profit at Rs42.38 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005 as compared to Rs23.63 crore for the same quarter last fiscal.

Total income rose to Rs344.39 crore for the fourth quarter this fiscal from Rs299.24 crore during the year-ago period, up 15.08 per cent.

For the year ended December 31, 2005 the company reported a net profit of Rs502.08 crore as compared to Rs333.09 crore for the year ended December 31, 2004.

The total income increased to Rs1,550.94 crore for the year ended December 31, 2005 from Rs1,429.23 crore during last year.

Consolidated net profit of the Group was Rs507.14 crore for the year ended December 31, 2005 as against Rs337.67 crore last year.

The consolidated total income rose to Rs1,584.60 crore for the year ended December 31, 2005 from Rs1,462.97 crore during last fiscal.

The company's board has recommended a dividend of Rs14 per share for the year ended December 31, 2005. A special additional one-time dividend of Rs14 per share has also been proposed.
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Kavveri Telecom to buy Wi-Lan Inc. unit
Mumbai: Bangalore-based telecom technology Kavveri Telecom Products has signed an agreement to acquire Tiltek Antenna Division of the Canada-based Wi-Lan Inc, which has manufacturing facilities in Kemptville, Ontario.

The Ontario-based unit provides a complete line of base station and remote antennas in frequencies from 800 MHz to 5.8Ghz, with selected products from 300 MHz to 28GHz, it said.

TIL-TEK antenna applications include cellular, GSM, PCS WLL / WLAN and rural point - to - multipoint systems as well as special applications such as radar test targets and digital audio broadcast antennas.
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Telcos do a flip flop on lifetime tariffs
New Delhi: The 'Lifetime Incoming Free' offer has turned out to be too good to be true. Telecom operators have now sought TRAI's permission to change the tariffs under these schemes in accordance with revisions in regulatory terms and conditions.

TRAI had asked the operators about their tariffs if the traffic patterns and Interconnect Usages Charge (IUC) regime changed substantially. Operators have univocally sought review of these tariffs under a new Interconnect Usage regime if it comes.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has said that the tariff plans that have been introduced by the operators have been designed/structured keeping in view the prevalent licensing and regulatory regime, including the prevalent IUC regime. Any substantial change in the regime may necessitate a change in the tariff package offered by the service providers it said.

CDMA operators association AUSPI also said that any change in IUC Regime and/or licensing conditions will necessitate corresponding recalibration in the pricing to reflect the changed cost scenario.
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Lifetime validity scheme: consumer groups want fee refund, penalty
Bangalore: Consumer groups want Trai to impose a penalty on mobile operators if they change the terms of lifetime pre-paid card offers or withdraw them midway.

While mobile operators maintain that lifetime tariffs are viable they also say that the liability for any operator to keep a tariff package was for only six months, after which they can change or withdraw the package. They operators also said that they may not sustain the lifetime plan if there is any change in the regulatory environment.

Responding to the consultation paper issued by the telecom regulator on the validity of lifetime plans on offer from mobile operators, Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) said: "TRAI should not allow service providers to breach the contract they are getting into with consumers. Should this happen, the penalty should be strong enough to serve as deterrent to other service providers following the same path."

The Bangalore-based Consumer Care Society has said that while exit options must clearly be spelt out by service providers, there should be refund of full upfront amount within, say, 60 days for administrative processing.

Tata Teleservices has backed consumers concerns saying that while operators should be allowed to change the terms and conditions of the contract in the event of any change in regulation, consumers must get a full refund of the entire money collected upfront if an operator unilaterally withdraws the lifetime benefit without any reason within the first year of service.
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ADC collections cross Rs.8,000-cr
New Delhi: According to estimates by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the amount collected as Access Deficit Charge (ADC) may well have crossed Rs8,000 crore against an initial estimate of Rs5,000 crore.

According to the traffic data collected by the telecom regulator, the entire industry had contributed as much as Rs6,500 crore as early as September 2005. This has only gone up since then.

While the TRAI had earlier estimated an inflow of Rs2,562 crore from fixed line telephone operators, the ADC collected was in excess of Rs3,400 crore. While the mobile sector was expected to contribute around Rs1,100 crore during the entire year, in actual terms the amount had gone up to nearly Rs1,400 crore by the middle of last year. The amount collected from international long-distance has gone up to Rs1,450 crore compared to an estimate of Rs1,300 crore.

ADC is a levy imposed by the telecom regulator in order to subsidise telephone services in rural areas. Most part of the fund collected goes to BSNL. The charges are levied on a per minute basis on every call.

The TRAI had estimated that the total ADC collected would be around Rs5,000 crore. But a steep fall in tariffs has not only increased the subscriber base exponentially, but the volumes too.

Minutes of usage per subscriber have been going up over the last few months, leading to substantial increase in the ADC kitty. The increase in traffic will allow the telecom regulator to bring down the charges drastically.

The TRAI is very close to announcing the new ADC regime in which it proposes to change the way of collecting the charges as a percentage of the revenue earned by the operator rather than loading it on to every call made by the subscriber.
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Opto Circuits' subsidiary receives CE Mark
Mumbai: Opto Circuits India's, a Bangalore-based medical electronics company making oximeters, pulse oximeter probes, fluid warmers and cholesterol monitors, subsidiary Eurocor GmBH, has received the CE Mark of approval to market a device used for the treatment of coronary artery disease.

This will enable the company to market its device - Taxcor Paclitaxel-eluting coronary stent system - in 25 countries of the European Union as well as in Middle East, Latin America and Asia, Opto Circuits informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Taxcor Paclitaxel-eluting coronary stent system involves coating the outer surface of a metallic mesh like device with a thin polymer containing medication that can prevent the formation of scar tissue.
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Car sales rise 8 pc in Jan.
Mumbai: Maruti Udyog and Tata Motors led the way with car sales rising 8.3 per cent at 84,235 units for the month of January. Hyundai however saw a sharp 20 per cent decline in numbers.

According to figures released by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Maruti, Tata Motors, Ford and Honda pushed cars sales up, despite six carmakers seeing slackening demand. In fact, Hyundai's monthly sales fell from 14,540 units in January 2005 to 11,631 units last month .

In the ten months of this fiscal car sales stood at 707,901 units, a single-digit growth of 5.9 per cent over 668,382 units in the corresponding period last fiscal, SIAM said.

Led by Hero Honda and Bajaj Auto, two-wheelers and motorcycles continued their strong run in 2006 as sales jumped 14.6 per cent in January at 4, 99,333 units against 4, 35,665 units in the same month last year. Hero Honda saw a whopping 31 per cent growth in numbers.

Scooter sales, which rose 11.9 per cent in January at 78,933 units (70,490 units), were down 3.4 per cent in the ten months ending January 31, 2006 at 7,53,770 units.
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TV 18 unit acquires stake in Channel 7
Mumbai: Global Broadcast News, which runs the English language news channel CNN-IBN, a Television Eighteen group company, has announced plans of buying a stake in privately held Jagran TV, a Hindi language news broadcaster. The Jagran Group controls the Hindi language Channel 7. According to the deal, Global Broadcast News and Jagran Group will control equal stakes in Jagran TV.

Jagran TV also has a private equity investor, New Vernon Bharat, which holds a stake of about 26 per cent.

The Jagran group also publishes the top-ranked Hindi language daily newspaper, Dainik Jagran. Television Eighteen runs the CNBC TV 18 business news channel and a Hindi language lifestyle channel Awaaz.
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Bennett Coleman & Co. to acquire 6 per cent stake in Sahara India
Mumbai: The board of directors Sahara India Mass Communication has approved the plan to issue 11 lakh shares to Bennett Coleman & Company at Rs344 per share amounting to a six per cent stake in the company.

The shares would be issued to Bennett Coleman on a preferential basis. The company would get Rs37.84 crore in lieu of the preferential share allotment.

The company has scheduled an extraordinary general meeting on March 8 to accord the consent of shareholders to issue the equity shares to Bennett Coleman.
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GSK Pharma to focus on research, launch more products
Mumbai: Glaxosmithkline (GSK) Pharmaceuticals is planning to launch three of its own products, two vaccines and an asthma product in the country. Apart from this, the company has received a product licence from Roche.

The company is targeting a top line growth of between seven and nine per cent and a bottom-line growth between 10-15 per cent in 2006. The company has said that growth will be driven by priority products identified by GSK, not under price-control, and help provide the margins.

GSK will bring in two of its paediatric vaccines, Boostrix and Infanrix, this year and will also develope an "affordable range" of the globally available asthma drug, Seretide. The product is being developed with Zydus Cadila.

GSK also has an in-licensing agreement with Swiss-company Roche and will market locally Roche's cardiac product Carvedilol. GSK has also applied for registration in India of its bird-flu drug Relenza. GSK has posted a 79 per cent growth in net profit at Rs42.38 crore (Rs23.63 crore) for the fourth quarter ended December 2005.

Total income net of excise has increased to Rs344.39 crore (Rs299.24 crore).
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