Reliance, Qualcomm talks make no headway on royalty issue
New Delhi: Even though Qualcomm Inc has offered Reliance Communications sops like sharing marketing, advertising and promotional cost and slashing the cost of handsets based on volume commitments the latter has rejected all the offers saying its wants an upfront reduction in handset price. Reliance has demanded that Qualcomm reduce its royalty as it was coming in the way of cheaper handsets. While Qualcomm has maintained that a reduction in royalty would not impact handset prices, Reliance has hardened its position on the issue.

Reliance Group chairman, Anil Ambani, said he wanted a transparent and upfront handset price reduction as against the volume-led discount on cost elements, other than royalty, that was being offered by Qualcomm.

The Ministry of Communication had also asked Qualcomm to remove all bottlenecks hindering reduction in handset price. Sources said that an offer to share advertising and marketing cost is understood to have been given to the other CDMA player in the country - Tata Teleservices. Both Qualcomm and Reliance were not available for comment.

Qualcomm's share price has taken a huge beating at Nasdaq where the scrip has lost over $11 billion in market capitalisation over the last few weeks. Analysts said that the drop in Qualcomm's share price is probably due to Nokia's decision to pull out of CDMA handset business. Qualcomm's stock price has slipped from $47.05 on June 1 to $40.54 on June 29.
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Gillette shifts base to Mumbai
New Delhi: Gillette India is in the process of synergizing its operations with Procter and Gamble, which acquired Gillette globally last year. Though the acquisition is not leading to Gillette India's (GIL) merger with P&G India, Gillette is relocating its base from its Gurgaon office to move into P&G's headquarters in Mumbai. The company said that although its corporate office would be based out of Mumbai, its registered office will continue to remain in Bhiwadi in Haryana.

The company successfully integrated its business with that of P&G and while some people have been absorbed into P&G's operations in other countries such as Singapore, many others have found placements in other FMCG or telecom companies in India officials said. The company would be closing down its distribution outlets in a phased manner and would resort to utilising P&G's network.

Gillette is also offering a voluntary retirement scheme and other packages to some employees who face redundancy after the new structures and processes are put in place.
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Ranbaxy gets USFDA approval for Cefprozil
New Delhi: Ranbaxy Laboratories has received the US Food and Drug Administration's approval to manufacture and market Cefprozil for oral suspension USP, 125 mg/5ml and 250 mg/5ml. The Office of Generic Drugs, USFDA has determined the Ranbaxy formulations to be bio-equivalent and have the same therapeutic effect as that of the reference listed drug Cefzil for oral suspension by Bristol Myers Squibb Company Pharmaceutical Research Institute, a company release said. The total annual market sales for Cefprozil are estimated at $93 million.
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Honda June sales rise 23 per cent
New Delhi: Hero Honda Motors sold 278,660 motorcycles and scooters in June, 23.3 per cent more than the 226,073 units it sold in the same month last year. Sales for the month included 268,508 units in the domestic market and exports of 10,152 units, the company said in a release. Hero Honda sold 303,666 motorcycles and scooters in May.
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Xenitis to establish chip making facility at Fab City
Hyderabad: Kolkata-based technology company, Xenitis Infotech, is proposing to establish a Rs1,200-crore chip making facility in the Fab City near here. Xenitis manufactures personal computer and certain computer parts and has established an excellent long-term relationship with Taiwanese and Chinese hardware manufacturers and the move to set up a manufacturing base for chips for mobile phones would be a logical extension. The project would be taken up in three phases of Rs400 crore each, and part-funded through debt and equity.
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Honda Civic set to roll out off Noida plant
Chennai: The first Honda Civic will roll out of the Greater Noida plant on July 4. Takeo Fukui, CEO and President of Honda Motor Company, widely considered the father of the Civic, will flag the model off the line and symbolically launch it into the Indian market.

In 1973, Mr Fukui was 28 when, as a junior engineer in Honda, he helped develop the first Civic subcompact car with a revolutionary CVCC (controlled vortex combustion chamber) engine. This engine design and technology helped Honda design a car that met the stringent emission laws of that time in the US, even without the use of the expensive catalytic converter and unleaded fuel.
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Eurocopter to invest $1 bn in India
Mumbai: Eurocopter, the world's largest civil and military helicopter manufacturer, is planning to invest over $1 billion in India over the next two years.

A wholly owned subsidiary of European aerospace major EADS, the company has put in bids for over 500 helicopter manufacturing contracts for Indian defence. The company is planning to set up an Indian subsidiary, a helicopter training school, and a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) centre for helicopters in the country.

The company is bidding along with defence major Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) for light and 10-tonne helicopters for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Eurocopter is also planning to hire a qualified workforce for its India operations, based in Bangalore.

Eurocopter is bidding for 260 single-engine high-altitude light reconnaissance helicopters for the Army. The first 60 will be delivered by Eurocopter directly, while the remaining will be manufactured with HAL.

The company is also bidding for VIP helicopter contracts for the Indian Air Force and is also in talks with corporate houses for VIP travel and offshore transportation. Eurocopter is in the process of setting up a subsidiary, and a training school, that would serve as a hub for Asia and will take care of all requirements of flight engineering and repair.
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MS to give competition to BlackBerry in India
Mumbai: Microsoft is planning to take on BlackBerry in India. The US software powerhouse will begin supporting "push" e-mail in mobile devices like pocket-PCs and smartphones.

BlackBerry-enabled handsets automatically download email periodically enabling ease of mail access to their owners.

Microsoft, too, with its Windows Mobile 5.0 platform, will ensure that e-mail is automatically downloaded (termed "push" e-mail) on mobile devices, just as one get e-mail in one's Outlook inbox.

Microsoft's major Windows Mobile device-maker partners in India are iMate and HP, in addition to O2 and Eten. Microsoft officials, while not commenting on the names of the operators they would partner with for this service said they shortly planned to introduce the service in around 15 handset models, starting from around Rs15,000. (The BlackBerry 7100g, too, is priced at Rs15,000).

Research in Motion (RIM, the developer of the BlackBerry wireless platform) officials said, "RIM welcomes competition. The more users are informed about the benefits of mobile e-mail, the more popular it gets — which is good for us as the market leader.

BlackBerry is really beyond e-mail — our applications and solutions platform is driving more value and benefits for enterprise customers. RIM will continue to enable applications beyond e-mail for corporate, SMB, and individual customers in India."
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BSNL gets a rap over network congestion
Mumbai: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has said that private cellular operators are facing an "extremely high-level of congestion" on Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's (BSNL) network, causing serious inconvenience to mobile subscribers. Trai said the the congestion, which at certain places was at "alarming" degrees, was owing to a delay in provisioning of E1 circuits.

"As on April 2006, the degree of congestion in 404 point of interconnect (PoI) was greater than 5 per cent, in 264 PoIs the degree of congestion was more than 10 per cent and in 101 PoIs it was over 40 per cent," TRAI secretary Rajendra Singh wrote in a letter to BSNL chairman and managing director A K Sinha.

According to the letter the degree of congestion at some places was over 90 per cent and was greater than 100 per cent in eight places during peak hours.
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Navis Capital Partners acquires Nirula's
New Delhi: Malaysia-based private equity fund Navis Capital Partner has acquired Nirula's one of India's oldest fast food chain, for an undisclosed amount with effect from Saturday.

Navis is the majority stakeholoder in Nirula's while an Indian Samir Kuckreja also has a minority stake in the venture, a company spokesperson said.

Navis Capital Partners is a private equity fund based in Malaysia which currently manages 500 million dollar in capital commitments and has interests in various sectors including hospitality, food processing, car rental, outdoor media and others in eight countries across Asia.

Nirula's today is a diversified group having a chain of business hotels, casual dining restaurants, ice cream parlours and food processing plants in India. The chain with over 60 outlets operating in five states successfully caters to over 50,000 guests every day.

Kuckreja, a relative of Nirula's former owners Lalit and Deepak Nirula, has been appointed as the managing director by the new management.
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Indian companies slated to earn huge carbon credit benefits
New Delhi: Reliance Energy, Jindal steel, Gujarat Ambuja, Grasim Cement are in the race to earn emission reduction benefits. These companies have either registered or applied for the registration of projects, in which they will use technology to reduce their green house gas emission and sell the quantity of emissions reduced to developed countries, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

These emission reduction benefits can bring in annual flows of as much as $300 million into India.

Indian companies recorded the highest number of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects at 69 of the total 225 registered by developing countries so far, says the UNFCC.

According to the Kyoto Protocol, it is mandatory for developed countries to reduce their green house gas emissions to a certain level to counter global warming.

Companies from the developed countries can meet their green house gas emission reduction requirement by buying certain units of the emissions reduced, from developing countries who still now do not have any mandated level.

India claims to have earned more than Rs10,000 crore over the last two years through emissions trading. Emissions reduced or carbon credits are measured in units of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). Each CER is equivalent to one tonne carbon dioxide reduction. An estimate by the TERI says that if India can capture a 10 per cent share of the global CDM market, annual Certified Emission Trading (CER) revenues to the country could range from 100 million to 300 million dollars.
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