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Reliance eyes 26% stake in FortisReliance Industries may foray into the healthcare sector by buying a 26 percent stake in hospital chain Fortis Healthcare, the Financial Express reported on Thursday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 8:29 am Uflex targets to double revenue in 3 yearsIn an interview with CNBCTV18, RK Jain, PresidentFinance, Uflex, speaks about the latest happenings in his company and sector.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 8:08 am Mukesh Ambani\'s AGM speechRead the entire speech of RIL\'s chairman Mukesh Ambani\'s in the 36th AGM.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 8:04 am PSA developing two extra models for emerging mktsFrench carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen is working on two new models for emerging countries as it seeks to break out of its dependence on mature markets.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 7:57 am Subbarao: Will keep to calibrated policy exitIndia\'s inflation is getting more generalised and demandside pressures are building, but a calibrated exit from loose monetary policy remains the Reserve Bank\'s stance for now, Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said on Friday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 7:57 am Punj Lloyd Group wins contract worth Rs 1394 crorePunj Lloyd Group subsidiary, Sembawang Engineers and Constructors (Sembawang), one of the leading engineering and construction companies in Southeast Asia and MENA (Middle East North Africa) region has clinched a major contract worth Rs 1394 crore (S$419 million) from Singapores landmark integrated resort Resorts World Sentosa.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 7:43 am LT bags new orders worth Rs 1440 croreLarsen Toubros (LT) Buildings Factories Operating company part of its Construction Division has secured orders ggregating to Rs. 1440 crore for the construction of residential towers, township and factory buildings.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 7:35 am Reliance chief seeks constructive ties with Anil\'s firmMukesh Ambani, chairman of Indian energy major Reliance Industries, said the firm is ready to provide gas to power plants controlled by his brother Anil Ambani\'s Reliance ADAG and looks forward to a \"harmonious and constructive\" relationship with the company.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 6:41 am Reliance seeks constructive ties with ADAGMukesh Ambani, chairman of Indian energy major Reliance Industries, said the firm is ready to provide gas to power plants controlled by his brother Anil Ambani\'s Reliance ADAGSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 6:34 am JP Fertilisers buys 50% stake in Duncans\' fertiliser unitJaypee Fertilisers has bought 50% in closed fertiliser unit of Duncans Industries. In an exclusive interview with CNBCTV18, GP Goenka, Chairman, Duncans Industries, gives more details.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 6:05 am Bhopal: Carbide plant saw 3 mishaps before gas tragedy - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:05 am High excitement at RIL's AGM ebbs as Anil fails to turn up - NDTV.com
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:43 am Sony CEO Howard Stringer gets $4.5 mln in annual payUnder new regulations, Japanese companies this year are being forced to reveal what they pay executives who earn more than 100 million yen annually.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:41 am Motorola to buy back debt, pump cash into spinoffAbout $3 billion to $4 billion is expected to be given to the new company to be called Motorola Solutions, which will be free of pension liabilities and most other obligations.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:39 am Excitement at RIL's annual general meeting ebbs as Anil Ambani fails to turn upThe packed-to-capacity hall burst out in cheer and applause when Mukesh announced that he was looking forward to a 'harmonious and constructive relationship' with his Anil Ambani's group.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:36 am Sensex lacklustre; Reliance, RCom, Rel Infra down - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:25 am Reliance Industries to bid for ultra-mega power projectsMUMBAI (Reuters) - Energy major Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said the company will bid for so-called ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) as it makes a push into the power sector.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:21 am New tax slabs after receiving inputs from people: FM - NDTV.com
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:14 am Orbit Corp board OKs raising 10 bln rupees via QIPMUMBAI (Reuters) - Orbit Corporation said on Friday its board approved raising funds of up to 10 billion rupees through qualified institutional placement and other measn.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:11 am Abused for 6 years, Delhi woman says husband must pay for his crimes - NDTV.com
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:05 am ITC board recommends 1:1 bonus share - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am ‘India may spend $80 bn in 5 yrs on defence acquisitions’New Delhi: India is estimated to spend about $80 billion in the next five years on defence acquisitions, making it one of the most attractive markets for global defence firms, an industry study has said. The CII-Deloitte report on ‘Prospects for Global Defence Industry in Indian Defence Market’ said the defence capital expenditure budget was expected to achieve a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10% from 2011 to 2015. Total indigenous production between 2011 and 2015 would need to expand from about $30 billion to more than $70 billion in the span of five years to be able to achieve 70% indigenisation by 2015, the report, released during the Eurosatory-2010 defence exhibition in Paris, said. It noted that the defence industry would need to expand by an average of 30% a year over the next 5 years. The report, released by Defence Production secretary R K Singh, provides information to global investor firms to understand the Indian defence requirements and domestic industry capabilities and opportunities in four key domains -- maritime, land, aerospace and electronics. Singh, in his address, said the ‘Buy and Make (Indian)’ category in the Defence Procurement Policy of 2009 was an opportunity for foreign players to partner with the Indian Defence industry. He further said the new category would enhance the formation of joint ventures and technology partnership between the Indian and foreign defence industry. Responding to a query, Singh clarified that the defence Ministry was in favour of continuing with the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limit of 26%. “Over the past decade, the Indian Ministry of Defence has put into motion plans for an unprecedented modernisation program of its defence capabilities. “In this context, India has embarked on a major defence acquisition program, aimed at increasing the size, capability and self-reliance of its armed forces,” it said. The report said the aerospace and defence sector was growing at an unprecedented rate and emerging as a key participant in the Asia Pacific region. It also provided an indicative list of the Indian defence acquisition plans. In the 2010-11 budget, the government had earmarked $32.03 billion (Rs 1,47,344 crore) for defence. “More than $42 billion in total defence expenditure is targeted by 2015, of which approximately $19.20 billion would be expected to be spent on capital equipment for the armed forces,” the report said. CII director General Chandrajit Banerjee said while it was clear that India was seeking a high level of self sufficiency in delivering its ambitious defence re-equipment and expansion program, it was also evident that there would be a much reliance on overseas interests to supply the necessary technology in a number of areas. “Foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers are now looking at India as a critical market as well as a potential manufacturing partner,” he said. CII deputy director general Gurpal Singh said India was gradually becoming a key outsourcing hub for the global defence industry. The continuous revisions of the defence procurement procedures in the recent past suggested the intent of the Indian government to streamline the procedures and make the system more transparent and speedier, he added. Deloitte director (Aerospace and Defence) Nidhi Goyal, on the release of the report, said India was considered as the next destination of manufacturing, given the country’s strengths like wider supplier base, low cost manufacturing, persistent focus on infrastructure development, huge pool of skilled workforce and increased penchant for enhancing competitiveness by the respective domestic firms. She said the current offset contracts were still not sufficient for Indian industry growth and hopefully the target for offset contracts at $10 billion by 2011 would give a further boost to the industry. “The sheer volume of planned expenditure is expected to create new opportunities for foreign firms, as total spending will grow in absolute terms. India is also host to a mature manufacturing sector, which means it will often be able to offer more cost-competitive terms for large platform builds,” she added. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am New VP for Boeing Military Aircraft in IndiaBob Gower, a F/A-18 fighter plane expert, has been named as vice president of Boeing Military Aircraft division in India.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:58 am Reliance unveils big push into power sectorMumbai: Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, unfettered by a pact that banned it from competing with his brother’s firms, announced an aggressive push into the power business but was short on specifics during a hotly anticipated shareholders meeting. The elder Ambani has unveiled deals since the long-estranged brothers called a truce last month in their feud, and said the end of the non-competition agreement opens up possibilities in a power sector that he said provides “unbounded opportunity.” Investors were disappointed, however, that Ambani, the world’s fourth-richest man, did not unveil more specific plans, and that his younger brother Anil was not in attendance. “People had built unrealistic expectations that there would be big-bang announcements at the meeting,” said Tejas Doshi, head of research at Sushil Finance in Mumbai. “The disappointment is showing in the stock price of the companies led by both Ambani brothers,” he said. Reliance shares, which had gained as much as 1.7% early on Friday, were down by 0.41% after the meeting, while Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd also skidded. Ambani said the company had entered a new era of growth. Reliance recently made a dramatic return to the telecom business with a deal to pay $1 billion for Infotel Broadband, the only company to win a nationwide licence of broadband wireless spectrum in a government auction. Reliance is also keen to enter the financial and health sectors, according to newspaper reports. Ambani unveiled plans to build its presence in the shale gas business in the United States and build a coke gasification facility in India, and an expansion of its retail business. “It took three decades for Reliance to create an enterprise value of over $80 billion. However, I feel hopeful and confident that Reliance can accomplish value creation of a similar magnitude in less than a decade,” he said. Exactly five years ago, the two brothers split the business empire founded by their father Dhirubhai Ambani in a deal brokered by their mother after disagreements over ownership. The non-compete pact had been a source of acrimony between the two. The two were not on speaking terms, even though they live with their mother in the same building. Mukesh Ambani, however, is building a $1 billion, 27-floor home in Mumbai. Brotherly harmony, but no investment Ambani said he looked forward to a constructive relationship with his brother’s Reliance ADAG group, and was ready to provide it natural gas after prevailing in May in a Supreme Court dispute over the terms of a gas supply agreement. Shares in Anil Ambani’s Reliance Natural Resources lost more than 7% after Mukesh Ambani did not provide details on a renegotiated gas supply deal, which is due this week. Anil Ambani’s debt-strapped Reliance Communications, which is trying to sell a 26% stake in itself as well as spin-off its tower business, were down about 2% after the meeting. On Friday, a newspaper reported that Reliance was in advanced talks to buy the fibre optic cables and telecoms tower business from Reliance Communications. Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of equity at SMC Capitals, said Reliance was entering a period of heavy investment. Reliance has nearly Rs21,900 crore ($4.7 billion) in cash. “I expect them to do a series of treasury share sales in the next six to eight months. So easily you are talking about $7 billion to $7.5 billion in ammunition,” Thunuguntla said. India is chronically short of power, and scrapping the non-compete pact means Reliance is now free to build electricity generation except for merchant power based on natural gas. “We are drawing up specific plans for mega investments in the sector with clean coal-based power generation projects, hydel projects and also in nuclear power as and when it is opened up,” Ambani said. The Indian power sector, beset by a peak power deficit of 12%, has struggled to attract foreign investment. “We are also focused on alternative energy domains with priority on solar power,” Ambani told shareholders after arriving at the meeting with his wife Nita and mother Kokilaben. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:57 am Rupee off 1-month high as stocks dip; dlr eyedMUMBAI (Reuters) - The rupee was slightly off a one-month high in afternoon trade on Friday as local shares gave up early gains, and traders said they would watch the performance of the U.S. dollar overseas for further cues.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:53 am India gold edges lower; traders await further fallsMUMBAI (Reuters) - India gold edged lower on Friday afternoon tailing overseas markets, while traders sought price declines to strike deals in a seasonally slack period, with a stronger rupee acting in support, dealers said.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:51 am Reliance Industries to have partners in telecomsReliance Industries will follow an "asset light" approach in telecoms and collaborate with partners, chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Friday.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:50 am Second strike hits China Toyota supplierBEIJING (Reuters) - A parts supplier for Japan's Toyota Motor Corp said on Friday it was dealing with its second strike this week, the latest in a rash of factory labour disputes spreading across China.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:49 am Reliance eyes 26% stake in Fortis: ReportReliance has "sent feelers" to Indian billionaire brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, who own Fortis.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:45 am Reliance Ind sets out new agenda for growthMUMBAI (Reuters) - Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, set out a new agenda of cooperation with younger brother Anil Ambani's ADAG Group and forecast more opportunities for his company in the power sector on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:39 am World stocks gain for 9th straight dayLONDON (Reuters) - World stocks rose for a ninth day running on Friday, extending a modest rally that has seen U.S. and European shares regain all their losses for the year as the worst fears about euro zone sovereign debt have eased.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:36 am Reliance unveils big push into power sectorMUMBAI (Reuters) - Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries , unfettered by a pact that banned it from competing with his brother's firms, announced an aggressive push into the power business but was short on specifics during a hotly anticipated shareholders meeting.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:33 am Seoul shares hit fresh six-week closing highSeoul shares rose to hit a fresh six-week closing high on Friday, fueled by defensive issues such as cosmetics maker Amorepacific.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:23 am Nikkei books biggest weekly gain in 3 monthsJapan's Nikkei average closed flat on Friday but posted a gain of 3 per cent on the week, its biggest weekly rise in three months, with foreign investors starting to tiptoe back into the market.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:16 am Subbarao: Will keep to calibrated policy exitHYDERABAD (Reuters) - Inflation is getting more generalised and demand-side pressures are building, and the Reserve Bank will continue its calibrated exit from loose monetary policy, Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:14 am Investor lobby groups slam Tesco over executive payTesco, the world's No.3 retailer, could face a revolt over executive pay after investor lobby groups urged shareholders to vote against the company's remuneration report at its July 2 annual meeting.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:02 am Reliance Natural shares fall more than 7%Reliance Natural shares were trading down 7.2% at 62.95 rupees at 12:16 pm (0646 GMT), while the main index was down 0.14%.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:01 am Reliance chief seeks constructive ties with Anil's firmIn May, Mukesh Ambani won a Supreme Court ruling in a gas pricing dispute with Anil that had embroiled New Delhi and ultimately brought the long-estranged brothers to the negotiating table.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:58 am Reliance Industries to have partners in telecomsReliance Industries, which has agreed to buy Infotel, the only company to win a nationwide licence in India's wireless broadband auction, will follow an "asset light" approach in telecoms and collaborate with partners, Chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Friday.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:58 am Pipavav Shipyard hits 52-week high on stake sale reportsPipavav Shipyard today rose nearly five per cent to hit an year-high on BSE in morning trade amid media reports that country's most valued company Reliance Industries may pick up a 26 per cent stake in it.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:56 am Oil falls toward $76 on signs US economy slowingSingapore: U.S. crude futures extended losses on Friday as sluggish economic indicators raised doubts about the sustainability of a recent acceleration in demand growth by top oil consumer the United States. Investors also focused on China, the No. 2 oil consumer, where economic growth is expected to slow in the second half of this year and double-digit growth for the full year seems unlikely, central bank adviser Xia Bin said on Friday. Jobless claims in the US unexpectedly increased last week as the manufacturing, construction and education sectors shed workers, a report showed on Thursday. Factory activity growth braked to its slowest pace in 10 months in the US Mid-Atlantic region in June, raising concerns that an anemic US economic recovery is faltering. Front-month West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell for a second day, shedding 57 cents to $76.22 at 0644 GMT on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). That is 13% lower than an early-May 19-month peak above $87, although prices were headed for a second straight week of gains, having recovered 18 percent from below $65 on 20 May. “There is still an element of caution,” said David Moore, an analyst at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “US economic data is quite uneven and that’s raised doubts about the robustness of the economic recovery. Fundamentally, the market is not tight. Inventories are high and there is surplus capacity,” Moore said. But ICE Brent futures weathered the weak US economic statistics better, supported by easing concern about Spain’s sovereign debt woes. August Brent slipped 21 cents on Friday to $78.47 after rising on Thursday. Spain’s Treasury does not need to sell any more bonds to deal with a 24 billion euro ($29.43 billion) bout of debt repayments in July, an economy ministry source said on Thursday. Japanese stocks posted their biggest weekly rise in three months after the government on Friday upgraded its economic assessment for the first time in three months. US stocks rose in a late rally on Thursday, while European shares and the euro gained on reassuring demand for Spanish government bonds. Overall oil product demand in the US advanced by 1.9% in the past four weeks from a year earlier, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Distillate use jumped almost 14% in the same period. But brimming crude stockpiles at the Cushing, Oklahoma, pricing point for WTI, which rose 200,000 barrels to 37.6 million barrels last week according to the EIA, put additional pressure on US crude prices relative to European benchmark Brent, analysts including Moore said. Comparing August contracts, WTI was trading about 90 cents lower than Brent on Friday. The front-month July WTI contract is likely to behave more erratically as it nears expiry on 22 June. “Often these things occur when there are high levels of liquidity at Cushing,” Moore said. “WTI expiry is getting close and you normally get some changes in positions.” US lawmakers accused BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward of evasion and ducking responsibility for the worst oil spill in U.S. history when he appeared before them on Thursday to answer charges his company cut corners on its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well. The US has banned deepwater drilling for six months, raising some concern that oil production growth in the Gulf will slow. But the US may also introduce legislation to curb fuel consumption as response to the environmental disaster caused by the spill. Prices of long-dated WTI, including contracts for delivery in December 2018, the farthest available, have remained relatively steady around $95 since BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion on 20 April. In the meantime, the front of the forward curve has declined from almost $82 to less than $78. “It’s always the case that the longer-dated prices are more stable that then short term, because they are affected by long-term expectations,” Moore said. “In ten years time, we are not necessarily assuming that cyclic conditions are going to prevail. I don’t think it’s just related to the BP oil spill.” Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:49 am Monsoon inches forward in East, lingers on over west coast - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:48 am Arvind plans Rs200 crore textiles expansionMumbai: Textiles maker Arvind Ltd will spend about Rs200 crore in FY11 to raise textile capacity in denims and shirting, a senior official said on Friday. “We would be adding about 10% in capacity both in denim and shirting fabrics. Shirting would be slightly higher,” chief financial officer Jayesh Shah told Reuters in an interview. The capex would be funded mostly through internal accruals. Ahmedabad-based Arvind, the third largest maker of denim globally, counts Levi Strauss, Gap Inc and VF Corp as clients. The firm is expecting a growth of at least 15% in consolidated sales helped by a robust brand and retail business, Shah said. It had reported a consolidated revenue of Rs3,280 crore for the year ended 31 March, a 19% rise over the previous fiscal. “Demand is looking good. Our brand and retail business is growing at a significantly higher pace than the textile business right now,” Shah said. “We think this will grow at 30-35% this year.” The company’s brand and retail business contributed about 17% in FY10. Shah expects the contribution from this business to rise to 21% in FY11. Arvind’s profit margins, like many of its peers, will be under pressure due to rising input costs, particularly of cotton, the main raw material for the industry. “There is one negative that the textile industry is facing, the cotton and yarn prices,” he said. Cotton prices have risen about 10% since 21 May when India allowed exports of cotton after a one-month halt. Cotton prices are upto 34% higher than those prevailing previous year, prompting textile firms to increase product prices. “To the extent possible every textile company is trying to pass on the cost push. Through the value chain… all of us are going to take some hit in margins. I don’t think customers are going to pay more,” Shah said. Arvind had reported a consolidated net profit of about Rs500 million in FY10 compared with a net loss of Rs994 million a year ago. Shah expects profits to continue growing this fiscal as higher sales and price increases partially offset the impact of raw material costs. The firm is also planning to unlock value by developing a part of its 1,000-acre land bank situated in and around the city of Ahmedabad. “We are looking at how best to use this to realise the maximum value. One of the thought process would be to develop some of it, to create higher valuation,” Shah said. Many major textile firms are tapping into realty to diversify and grow its revenues. Bombay Dyeing & Manufacturing, Century Textiles & Industries, Provogue India and Alok Industries are some of the other firms intent on developing or selling valuable land parcels to boost cash flow and cut debt. Shares in Arvind were trading down 0.78% at Rs31.75 in a weak Mumbai market. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:46 am World Bank sees no wage-price spiral in ChinaBEIJING (Reuters) - China's economic prospects remain good despite the frailty of the global recovery, while a spate of big pay increases is unlikely to touch off a wage-price spiral, the World Bank said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:39 am May exports up 35% YoY: Trade secy - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:34 am JAL in negative net worth of over $11 bn, up from $9.55 bnTokyo: Struggling Japan Airlines Corp’s negative net worth is around $11.013 billion (1 trillion yen), swelling from $9.551 billion revealed in January, informed sources said on 18 June. JAL will consider seeking an additional $1.101 billion in support from its main banks and the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation of Japan, which is overseeing the former flag carrier’s rehabilitation, they said. The airline expects it could include the additional support in its rehabilitation program to be submitted to the Tokyo District Court at the end of August. However, the lenders are expected to raise objections to the plan, the sources said. The enlargement of the negative net worth has been caused by expansion of expenditures for restructuring, including large-scale early retirements, according to the sources. President Masaru Onishi said earlier this month he expects JAL to move into the black on a consolidated operating basis in the current fiscal year ending next March, a year earlier than initially planned. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:18 am JAL in negative net worth of over $11 bn, up from $9.55 bnTokyo: Struggling Japan Airlines Corp’s negative net worth is around $11.013 billion (1 trillion yen), swelling from $9.551 billion revealed in January, informed sources said on 18 June. JAL will consider seeking an additional $1.101 billion in support from its main banks and the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation of Japan, which is overseeing the former flag carrier’s rehabilitation, they said. The airline expects it could include the additional support in its rehabilitation program to be submitted to the Tokyo District Court at the end of August. However, the lenders are expected to raise objections to the plan, the sources said. The enlargement of the negative net worth has been caused by expansion of expenditures for restructuring, including large-scale early retirements, according to the sources. President Masaru Onishi said earlier this month he expects JAL to move into the black on a consolidated operating basis in the current fiscal year ending next March, a year earlier than initially planned. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:18 am Reliance Natural shares fall more than 7 pcShares in Reliance Natural Resources Ltd, part of the Anil Ambani-owned ADAG Group, fell more than 7 per cent on Friday morning as Reliance Industries did not provide any details about at its reconciliation with ADAG.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:14 am Japan to cut corporate tax, create 5 million jobs in decadeTokyo: Japan unveiled a growth strategy for the next decade featuring plans to cut corporate tax to the level of other major nations, while creating more than $1353 billion in demand and 5 million jobs in sectors as healthcare and clean energy. The government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan hopes that the plans will yield an average 2% real economic growth over the 10 years, but stopped short of presenting how to secure funds to implement them. The strategy calls on the Bank of Japan to make “utmost efforts” to help the government end price falls possibly by March 2012, while stating that “excessive appreciation of the yen” should be averted through efforts to ensure stable inflation. The mapping-out of the strategy was the first major task for Kan, who has been in office for only 10 days, and will be followed by mid- and long-term fiscal reform policies to be unveiled next week ahead of his trip to Canada to attend a set of summit meetings later this month and 11 July upper house election. Even before assuming the premiership, former finance minister Kan had pressed for greater fiscal discipline amid a ballooning state debt and suggested that the 5 per cent sales tax be raised to 10%, while also calling for continued efforts to stimulate the economy, which has been emerging from its deepest postwar slump. To boost Japanese companies’ international competitiveness, the government says it will gradually reduce the corporate tax rate from some 40% to the average level among other major economies, which is around 25%, although it did not specify a timeframe. Japan will promote the export of its infrastructure technologies such as nuclear power generation and high-speed railways to mainly emerging Asian countries together with private-sector firms to help grow the market to $2168.08 billion, while aiming to create a free trade zone in the Asia-Pacific region. It plans to expand combined research and development investment in the public and private sectors to 4% or more of gross domestic product through regulatory reforms and tax breaks. Capitalizing on the popularity of Japanese animation, fashion and culture, it plans to earn more than $11 billion (1 trillion yen) through related output. The government, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, seeks to create a market of more than $550.304 million and 1.4 million jobs in the green energy sector and establish a market worth more than $110 billion (10 trillion yen) for renewable energies by nurturing venture firms. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:45 am Japan to cut corporate tax, create 5 million jobs in decadeTokyo: Japan unveiled a growth strategy for the next decade featuring plans to cut corporate tax to the level of other major nations, while creating more than $1353 billion in demand and 5 million jobs in sectors as healthcare and clean energy. The government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan hopes that the plans will yield an average 2% real economic growth over the 10 years, but stopped short of presenting how to secure funds to implement them. The strategy calls on the Bank of Japan to make “utmost efforts” to help the government end price falls possibly by March 2012, while stating that “excessive appreciation of the yen” should be averted through efforts to ensure stable inflation. The mapping-out of the strategy was the first major task for Kan, who has been in office for only 10 days, and will be followed by mid- and long-term fiscal reform policies to be unveiled next week ahead of his trip to Canada to attend a set of summit meetings later this month and 11 July upper house election. Even before assuming the premiership, former finance minister Kan had pressed for greater fiscal discipline amid a ballooning state debt and suggested that the 5 per cent sales tax be raised to 10%, while also calling for continued efforts to stimulate the economy, which has been emerging from its deepest postwar slump. To boost Japanese companies’ international competitiveness, the government says it will gradually reduce the corporate tax rate from some 40% to the average level among other major economies, which is around 25%, although it did not specify a timeframe. Japan will promote the export of its infrastructure technologies such as nuclear power generation and high-speed railways to mainly emerging Asian countries together with private-sector firms to help grow the market to $2168.08 billion, while aiming to create a free trade zone in the Asia-Pacific region. It plans to expand combined research and development investment in the public and private sectors to 4% or more of gross domestic product through regulatory reforms and tax breaks. Capitalizing on the popularity of Japanese animation, fashion and culture, it plans to earn more than $11 billion (1 trillion yen) through related output. The government, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, seeks to create a market of more than $550.304 million and 1.4 million jobs in the green energy sector and establish a market worth more than $110 billion (10 trillion yen) for renewable energies by nurturing venture firms. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:45 am Asian stocks set best week in 6 months; euro upSeoul: Asian stocks on Friday ended their best week in six months as investors regained an appetite for risk and brushed aside European debt concerns, while the euro hovered near three-week highs against the dollar. European stock index futures pointed to a higher open with stocks poised an eighth session of gains. Higher shares in Asia following Thursday’s modest gains on Wall Street boosted investor hopes of further gains. US crude futures extended losses as weak US economic indicators raised doubts about the sustainability of an acceleration in demand growth by top oil consumer, the US. “Emerging Asian economies were not at the centre of the financial crisis, as were the United States and more recently southern Europe,” Clemens Kang, a strategist at Woori Investment & Securities in Seoul. “Their distance from troubled regions helped them recover as fast as they did. Also these economies’ comparatively robust rate of economic growth attracted investors.” MSCI’s index of Asian shares outside Japan rose 3.6% during the week as of 11:30am, the biggest weekly percentage rise since the first week of December last year, after a 0.4 percent gain the previous week. On Friday, the index rose as much as 0.9% to hit a one-month intraday high of 394.94 points before settling back slightly. Hong Kong, Australian and South Korean stocks rose, while Taiwanese and Chinese shares lost. While global markets have moved off lows seen in May and some technical chart patterns look more positive, analysts are unsure if stocks can stage a convincing recovery in coming months as worries about Europe and the U.S. economy linger. Volumes have been thin, indicating investors are not confident yet that shares can gain much traction. EPFR Global said in a report on Friday the Global Emerging Markets Equity Funds took in $1.78 billion, an 11-week high, while Asia ex-Japan Equity Funds snapped a five-week outflow streak and EMEA Equity Funds posted a second consecutive week of inflows. US stocks had ended slightly higher as investors bought defensive shares, but important indexes were lower for much of the day, weighed by weak manufacturing and jobless claims data. Though most economists do not expect the U.S. economy to slide back into recession, investors fear second half growth may be tepid, curbing corporate profits. The euro hit a new three-week high of $1.2416 and held firm at $1.2392 by late afternoon, as investors liquidated short positions after Spanish bond auctions drew robust demand. Madrid had to pay a hefty premium to sell the bonds compared with previous issues, indicating investors remain concerned about whether euro zone countries with shaky finances will be able to meet their debt obligations. While the euro has turned higher after months of turmoil, analysts polled by Reuters see little end in sight for its slide against the dollar, which could put fresh pressure on riskier assets from shares to crude oil and drive more investors into safer havens such as bonds. Median predictions from a survey of more than 50 foreign exchange strategists released on Thursday showed the single currency falling to $1.175 in a year’s time, a level last seen in December 2005. Economists see a one-in-five chance that it could hit parity with the dollar this year. Despite the robust Asian markets, the West Texas Intermediate crude for July delivery fell 36 cents to $76.42 a barrel after losing 88 cents overnight. Oil prices have jumped more than 15% from a trough below $65 on May 20, but are still down more than 10% from early May levels. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:42 am JP Fertilisers buys 50% stake in Duncans' fertiliser unit - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:40 am May exports up 35%New Delhi: India’s May exports rose an annual 35% to $16.1 billion, flattered by low year-ago numbers, the trade secretary said on Friday. Imports for the month were at $27.4 billion, Rahul Khullar said, widening the country’s trade deficit to $11.3 billion. Asia’s third-largest economy is targeting close to 15% export growth in the current fiscal year, following an annual drop of 4.7% in the 2009-10 fiscal year as the global slowdown crimped demand. “It is a huge base effect kicking in,” said Khullar. India has exported $33 billion worth of goods in April and May, the first two months of the current fiscal year, he said. April exports had risen 36% to $16.9 billion as demand picked up for India’s gems and textiles, while imports rose 43% from a year earlier to $27.3 billion and the trade deficit stood at $10.4 billion. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:38 am RIL plans mega foray into power; to supply gas to ADAGRIL chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said the company was ready for a "big surge forward",Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:34 am Rupee gains 9 paise against dollar in early tradeThe rupee gained 9 paise to 46.21 a dollar in early trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market today on increased capital inflows by foreign funds into equities.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:29 am Banking honcho Madhabi Puri-Buch makes CEOs walk the rampBanking honcho Madhabi Puri-Buch talks about a big project that she has in mind and being in a long-distance marriageSource: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:23 am RIL rises 1 pc on BSE ahead of shareholders' meetShare of Reliance Industries (RIL) rose by 1 per cent in the morning trade on the BSE, ahead of an annual general meeting where it is expected to announce mega investment plans, possibly in the power and telecom sectors.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:13 am Sony CEO’s $4.5 mn pay stirs shareholdersTokyo: Sony Corp said its CEO Howard Stringer took home $4.5 million plus stock options in the past financial year -- when the electronics giant lost close to $450 million -- making him one of the highest paid executives at a Japanese company. Under new regulations, Japanese companies must reveal what they pay executives earning over 100 million yen ($1.1 million) a year. Non-Japanese executiveucs sh as Stringer and Nissan Motor Co’s Carlos Ghosn are thought to make much more than their Japanese counterparts. Welsh-born Stringer was voted back in as chairman and chief executive at the annual shareholders’ meeting in Tokyo on 18 June, despite having struggled to significantly improve Sony’s competitiveness since he took the top job in 2005. Sony posted a net loss of 40.8 billion yen in the last business year and continues to play catch-up with rivals such as Samsung Electronics in TVs and Apple Inc in portable music. Shareholders said they welcomed the new openness on executive pay, but some were unhappy with the amount Stringer received. “When you’re making a loss, you need to tighten your own belt a bit,” said 72-year-old Katsuhiko Koyanagi, a shareholder and former Sony employee. “That’s the Japanese way, but maybe he doesn’t understand it.” Stringer received 410 million yen in fixed and performance-related pay in the year to March. He was also given 500,000 stock options. Sony shares were down 0.9% at 2,542 yen each on 18 June, and have dropped almost 30% since early April, knocking around $12 billion off the company’s market value. The new rules on declaring pay will affect a tiny percentage of executives. Just 1.4% of directors and 8.3%of CEOs at listed companies in Japan took home more than 100 million yen in the year to March, according to a PriceWaterhouse Coopers survey. Vice chairman Ryoji Chubachi received 150 million yen in annual pay, plus 80,000 stock options, Sony said. The payments were decided on the basis of global comparisons, taking into account the company’s 7 trillion yen in revenues, the number of employees and the degree of complexity of the business, external director Sakie Fukushima told shareholders. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:12 am Savings bank deposit rates may be freedDeregulation of savings bank deposit rate, the only rate that is currently fully administered, is on theSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Cement sector hit by excess capacityThe sharp fall in demand on the back of excess capacity and onset of south-west monsoon may hamper the profitability of cement manufactures for the next fewSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Nothing to beat value of goldWhen there is global turmoil and countries move away from price stability, gold is the last refuge. The unprecedented, synchronised opening up of the monetary spigots by a large number of countries will, sooner or later, result in a frighteningSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am SpiceJet may become Sun AirwaysThis follows the Sun TV Network's chief, Mr Kalanithi Maran, acquiring a 37.75 per cent stake in the airline lastSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Food, fuel inflation downThe annual food and fuel price inflation, based on the Wholesale Price Index, eased in early June, with items such as vegetables and cereals showing a year-on-yearSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Day Trading GuideFresh long position can be initiated only if DLF exceeds above Rs 288 levels with stiffSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am SRF (Rs 234.4): BuyInvestors with short-term perspective can consider buying the stock of SRF. It is seen from the charts of the stock that it has been on a steady intermediate-term uptrend. The stock has been forming higher peaks and higher trough from itsSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Tata Motors charts green drive for JLRTata Motors is charting a strategy for a 25 per cent carbon dioxide reduction in its Jaguar and Land RoverSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Blanchflower shocks ‘Establishment'That, in effect, is the theme of Prof David Blanchflower, an economics academic and ex-member of the high-powered Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank ofSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Most public sector banks make higher advance tax payouts; auto cos too shineThe healthy rise in advance tax payouts of public sector banks (PSBs) for the June 15 instalment is indicative of these banks riding the economic reboundSource: Business Line - Home Page | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am RIL to supply gas to ADAG plants when ready: MukeshConfirming truce with brother Anil Ambani, billionaire Mukesh Ambani today said his firm Reliance Industries will supply natural gas to Anil Ambani Group's power plants as and when they are ready to receive the gas. See specialSource: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:58 pm Markets turn negative; RIL up 0.7%Mumbai: Indian shares turned negative late on Friday morning. At 11:28am, the 30-share BSE index was down 0.02% at 17,613.54 points, with 17 of its components declining. The main index had gained as much as 0.6% earlier in the session. The 50-share NSE index was up 0.03% at 5,276.35. Reliance Industries, which has the heaviest weight in the main index, erased some of its early gains and was up 0.7%. The energy conglomerate’s annual general meeting of shareholders began at 11:00am. Mukesh Ambani, chairman of the firm said it is ready to provide gas to power plants controlled by his brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance ADAG. At the annual general meeting, he said the company looks forward to a “harmonious and constructive” relationship with ADAG. The Times of India said on Friday No. 2 mobile firm Reliance Communications, controlled by Anil, was in advanced talks to sell fibre optic cables and telecoms tower business to Reliance Industries. The Economic Times reported that Reliance Industries may buy a 26% stake in shipbuilder Pipavav Shipyard, citing market sources. By 10:04am, the 30-share BSE index was trading up 0.44% at 17,693.65 after hitting 17,721.99, its highest since 27 April. Eighteen of its components were trading in the green. The 50-share NSE index was up 0.4% to 5,294.25. The benchmark has risen 3.7% so far this week, and is on course for an eighth day of gains. “I do not rule out profit booking at current levels,” said Nagpal. “But a steep downside is not likely. There is still a lot of money waiting on the sidelines.” A report from EPFR Global showed investors set aside sovereign debt fears and shifted their money to higher-returning assets in mid-June, with emerging market assets and US equities among the recipients of fresh cash. Foreign funds have bought around $773 million of India equities so far this month, and helped lift the benchmark index up 4.4%. Reliance Industries was up 1.2% at Rs1,084.40, while Reliance Communications gained 1.8%. Software majors advanced on hopes a global recovery will boost outsourcing orders. Tata Consultancy Services rose 0.8% and Infosys climbed 0.4%. Engineering major Larsen & Toubro climbed 1.7%, extending gains from the previous session after provisional data showed its June quarter tax payment rose 18% from a year earlier, indicating stronger profits. In the broader market, gainers led losers in a ratio of 1.6:1 on volume of 68 million shares. STOCKS Shipbuilder Pipavav Shipyard rose 2.3% to Rs102.55 after the newspaper report that Reliance Industries may buy 26% stake in the company. Non-ferrous metals producer Sterlite Industries fell 0.9% to Rs688.45, as Shanghai copper fell more than half a%, following a 3.1% tumble in London prices. Cairn India, an unit of UK’s Cairn Energy, dropped 0.5% to Rs305 as crude oil prices eased. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:50 pm Reliance shares up ahead of meeting on expansion hopesMumbai: Shares in Reliance Industries rose as much as 1.7% on Friday morning, as investors bet the Indian energy major would unveil a slew of diversification and expansion plans to boost growth. Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire chairman of Reliance, is scheduled to address the annual shareholders meeting that is set to start at 11 a.m. Investors were also keeping a close eye on whether long-estranged brother Anil Ambani appears at the meeting after the two called a truce last month. Also Read Reliance served a shocker by DGH Reliance shares, which have the highest weighting in the main index, were up 1.3% at Rs1,085 by 10.30 a.m., in a Mumbai market that was up 0.4%. The stock had risen as much as 1.7% in early trade. Expectations that Reliance will enter sectors as diverse as power, telecoms, and healthcare have been rampant since Mukesh Ambani last month ended an agreement with Anil that prevented them from competing on each others’ turf. Exactly five years ago, the two brothers split the business empire founded by their father after disagreements over ownership, and the non-compete agreement had been a source of acrimony between the two. The Times of India reported on Friday that Reliance was in advanced talks to buy fibre optic cables and telecoms tower business from mobile operator Reliance Communications, controlled by Anil. Reliance may also buy a 26% stake in shipbuilder Pipavav Shipyard, the Economic Times reported on Friday. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:52 pm OECD praises Spain steps, says situation manageable'Spain has adopted a very courageous package of fiscal measures and now it has also presented labour market reforms which are important,' Pier Carlo Padoan told.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:40 pm Rupee at 1-month high as shares rise; dollar eyedMumbai: The Indian rupee strengthened to its highest in a month on Friday tracking local shares, and traders said they would watch the performance of the US dollar overseas in the wake of an expected sell-off. At 9:55am, the partially convertible rupee was at 46.11/12 per dollar, its strongest since 19 May. It had closed at Rs46.30/31 on Thursday. “The boost is because of stocks today. But resistance is seen at around 46 levels and the rupee is not expected to strengthen beyond that,” said a senior trader at a foreign bank, adding that he does not expect the rupee to get weaker than Rs46.25 on Friday. The index of the dollar against six major currencies was down 0.19 percent, and Indian shares were trading 0.42 percent higher on course for an eighth straight day of rise. Foreign fund flows into and out of the sharemarket influence the rupee’s fortunes. So far in June, foreigners have bought a net $590 million worth of shares, after pulling out around $2 billion in May. They are net buyers of $5.2 billion in 2010. The euro held steady near three-week highs on Friday, on track for its second straight week of gains, while the dollar appeared vulnerable to further losses after falling below a key chart level. In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX were both at Rs46.1625. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:04 pm US stocks drop after weak economic dataNew York: US stocks fell on Thursday after worse-than-expected unemployment and tame inflation data raised concerns about the strength of the economic recovery. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 50.49 points (0.49%) to 10,358.97 at 1636 GMT. The tech-rich Nasdaq index shed 7.71 points (0.33%) at 2,298.22 and the broad-market S&P 500 index slid 4.70 points (0.42%) to 1,109.91. Wall Street bias had been on the upside after a successful Spanish bond auction that eased fears the eurozone country was heading for a Greek-style debt crisis, Briefing.com analysts said. But the market optimism proved short-lived after official US economic data disappointed. “The initial verdict wasn’t a good one,” the Briefing.com analysts said in a note to clients. New claims for jobless insurance benefits rose for the second straight week, the Labour Department reported, dashing analyst expectations they would fall. Claims climbed to 472,000 in the week to 12 June, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 460,000, it said. “These numbers do not reveal a strengthening labour market. Instead they suggest that businesses remain cautious about future consumer demand. Furthermore, the claims data fit the view that the recovery in the labour market will be a protracted one,” the Briefing.com analysts said. In a separate report, the Labour Department said consumer prices fell for the second straight month in May, by 0.2%, due to falling energy prices. The average analyst forecast was for a 0.1% decline. A Federal Reserve report on manufacturing in the Philadelphia region also missed market expectations. The Philadelphia Fed’s index plunged sharply in June, far more than analysts expected. “The headline index had been running well above most of the component indices for several months, and June’s correction brings it more in line with the new orders index,” said Nicholas Tenev of Barclays Capital Research. Among stocks in focus, BP extended gains from the prior day as its chief executive Tony Hayward testified before lawmakers about the company’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Shares in the beleagured British oil giant that are traded in New York climbed 0.78% to $32.10. On Wednesday they gained 1.43% after BP said it would pay $20 billion into an escrow fund to compensate spill victims and suspended its dividend this year. Northrop Grumman rose 0.38% to $61.31. The leading defense contractor announced a $2 billion share buyback program, representing about 11% of the firm’s capitalization. Internet firm AOL slipped 0.49% to $22.17. Private US investment fund Criterion Capital Partners confirmed it was buying AOL’s social networking site Bebo, without disclosing financial details. Several US media reports on Wednesday said the sale was in the works, and Bebo would be sold for a fraction of what AOL paid for it two years ago. The action came after a nearly flat session Wednesday. The Dow rose 0.05%, the Nasdaq was virtually unchanged and the S&P 500 dipped 0.06%. Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond dropped to 3.185% from 3.282% on Wednesday, while that on the 30-year Treasury bond fell to 4.115% from 4.20%. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:31 pm Food inflation dips .62% to 16.12%, but pressure on RBI stays - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:36 pm Why this man is ready to take on the worldBangalore: The top floor of Xcyton Diagnostics Ltd at Peenya industrial estate in Bangalore houses the biological safety level, or BSL-3, labs—advanced research centres where some very infectious pathogens are scrutinized. Once commissioned, the lab will aid development of diagnostics for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.  Roller-coaster ride: B.V. Ravi Kumar at his lab in Bangalore. Kumar set up Xcyton after pooling Rs51 lakh from friends and acquaintances, including three professors from IISc, where he got his doctoral degree. Hemant Mishra/Mint “The government agencies then considered the private sector evil. Venture capitalists (VCs), on the other hand, were scared of product companies,” reminisces Kumar. He says one of the early VCs in Mumbai had told him that his idea of using tissue culture for growing skin for burn transplants looked convincing when he presented his business plan, but called it fiction once he returned to Bangalore. That observation, in a sense, guided his entrepreneurial direction—from skin to advanced molecular diagnostics. By then, he had already developed the world’s first diagnostic kit for neurocysticercosis (an infection of the central nervous system), while working at Astra Research Centre India, which later morphed into AstraZeneca Plc, the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company. It later gifted the neurocysticercosis patent to Xcyton. Pooling Rs51 lakh from 38 friends and acquaintances, including three professors from Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc) from where Kumar got his doctoral degree after an MBBS from the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) in Puducherry, he set up Xcyton. In its maiden life sciences funding, the Small Industries Development Bank of India lent him Rs1 crore. Lost cause That was in 1995. A year later, he completed product testing of an HIV kit and was raring to go at some AIDS control programmes, only to realize that the bureaucracy of Nirman Bhawan in New Delhi wasn’t easy to deal with. Also Read More articles in the series “The stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen can make or break a company,” he says, recalling his relentless visits to convince officials to look at scientific data and not the age of his company or his caste. He fought for over four years with HIV and hepatitis kits in tow, even pushing reforms in the World Bank tendering process so small Indian companies wouldn’t lose out. Some legislators even raised questions in Parliament on “the injustice done to Xcyton”, Kumar said. But ultimately it was a losing battle for an entrepreneur, especially when the signs were clear that the margins for such products would not be attractive. In 2002, Xcyton sold its product marketing rights to GlaxoSmithKline Plc, which, in turn, sold them to Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. In 2003, disillusioned with the public health system, Kumar decided to switch to niche, critical care diagnostics. “In the intensive care unit, nobody asks for the price (of a diagnostic test), they only want to save life,” he says matter-of-factly. Xcyton’s struggle doesn’t surprise many entrepreneurs. “If you ask me if there’s an investment climate for this (advanced molecular diagnostics), my answer is no,” says Suri Venkatachalam, chief executive and co-founder of Connexios Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd, a drug discovery company that recently spun off a diagnostics start-up Achira Labs Pvt. Ltd. The saga continues Twice funded by the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) programme of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India’s largest public-funded research agency, Xcyton has novel molecular tests for brain and eye infections in the market, including one for endophthalmitis, an infection that occurs in 5% of cataract surgeries but has only been treated empirically so far. If the infection is not diagnosed and treated within 24 hours, the eye loses partial or complete vision. Though Xcyton’s products would commonly be understood as DNA chip-based diagnostics, Kumar likes to call his technology platform a syndrome evaluation system, or SES. In ophthalmology, he is commercializing an SES that combines 14 different PCRs, or polymerase chain reactions—a type of DNA amplification, with tests developed by several hospitals and research centres, including Sankara Nethralaya in Chennai, LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, and RP Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi. Similarly, SES’ therapy for acute encephalitis and septicemia (a deadly condition in which infection from any part of the body gets into the blood stream) along with antibiotic resistance tests and a few other diagnostics are in advanced stages of development. With a product that is technician-driven and for which hospitals need not make additional investment, Xcyton began offering services in July. It has signed up 25 hospitals in four cities since. “We have shown that this model works,” says Kumar, conceding that he now needs money to ramp up revenue, to set up labs in major parts of the country so that the samples are collected and results delivered within 24 hours. Market access Suri says the odds are doubly stacked against the diagnostics—it’s not only a new product that needs to be validated but it also requires an enormous marketing push. Kumar understands this well. “Launching a new healthcare product is highly expensive today…big pharmaceutical companies have set the trend of lavish conferences and junkets, which a small company cannot afford,” he rues. In a country set to grow at faster than 8%, there still are low-hanging fruit to be picked and cost arbitrage to be milked, say experts. “It’s the (Café) Coffee Days of diagnostics, the Fortises and the Piramals of the industry that will rule the business,” notes Suri. Kumar has heard this “high volume, low margin” refrain before—from the investors, that is. By increasing volumes to do greater than 50,000 tests a year, the price can be reduced by about 50%, but market access is expensive, he argues. For instance, the current meningitis test costs Rs2,500 but has only 8% sensitivity, whereas Xcyton’s tests cost double but have 60% sensitivity. The services model will work in India but “productization” of technology is another way to make the business model foolproof, suggests Suri. For that, says Kumar, he has the technical road map ready but it will need Rs25-30 crore. “I can then automate the whole system and make it a closed loop.” If he manages to do that, he would face stiff competition from none other than the leader in the field, Roche Diagnostics, which is likely to enter the market with similar tests for septicemia in 2012. But Xcyton’s system would be at one-eighth the cost of what Roche could offer, Kumar says. Fund infusion Xcyton’s more than decade-long innovation-to-commercialization travails raise notable questions for the innovation-led growth that the country’s decision makers are talking today. And as Suri says, India needs a few success stories to end the chicken-and-egg situation. Hari Buggana, managing director of InvAscent, the investment adviser of private equity firm Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund, thinks likewise. Buggana says he is excited about diagnostics but is “frustrated at not finding good, large enough companies to invest in.” By definition, private equity funds cannot make small, early-stage investments, but, he says, “VCs should fund such (Xcyton’s) technologies if they see a business model with an exit for themselves.” “After all, healthcare services are the fastest-growing segment in the global economy,” he says. To that end, Xcyton has been approached by healthcare companies in West Asia and Southeast Asian countries for partnerships. But it still needs a funding infusion if it has to be in the septicemia kit race of 2012. Kumar’s disappointment is apparent: “Nobody, in my opinion, is looking at a 10-year horizon and looking at creating a culture of product-oriented innovation. Such a KPI (key performance indicator) is difficult to quantify and get a pat on the back before you retire.” The government could be the saviour, especially the new Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme (BIPP) of the department of biotechnology, or DBT. “The fact that we started something like BIPP, in a decade you will see great inventions,” Kumar says. “I hope the next guy in the seat at DBT is patient enough to wait for the result instead of terminating the programme prematurely.” Xcyton Diagnostics Started operations (in India) in 1995 Made in India: HIV and hepatitis kits; advanced molecular tests for brain, eye infections and a host of other conditions, offered as services at 25 hospitals and counting. Potential to compete with world leader in septicemia diagnostics at one-eighth the cost. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:45 pm Ready for ‘doosra’Chennai: Almost all days of the week Narayanan Lakshmanan is at his office, a two-storeyed building just across the road from his home in Tambaram, 30km from Chennai. This is where he comes up with creations such as a chair that will show the occupant’s height, weight and blood pressure, a remote-controlled firecracker trigger and an automated garland maker.  Seeking funds: Cardiac surgeon Janardhana Reddy the brain behind the dual-screen computer, and a colleague use the machine to discuss a patient’s medical status at Vijaya Hospital in Chennai. Ganesh / Mint At the end of the year, his company Silicon Labs Pvt. Ltd will take his five-year-old creation—a laptop with a screen on both sides—commercial. The computer with back-to-back screens displaying the same content was the brainchild of Lakshmanan’s friend Janardhana Reddy, a cardiac surgeon. Reddy visualized the dual-screen laptop as a tool to help doctors discuss their diagnosis with patients. But five years after the first prototype was created and the patent was applied for, the product is yet to ring in sales or profits. Also Read More stories in the series “It has been delayed for too long and I am really afraid that with technology moving at such high speed, in another three or four years the whole laptop technology itself may not be there,” says Narayanan, who runs Silicon Labs with nearly 25 employees to assemble medical devices such as a pulse oximeter—a device to assess a patient’s need for supplemental oxygen. Elusive funding Lakshmanan and Reddy’s trials are common for innovators in the computer hardware field in India who find it difficult to plug into a funding lifeline either from the government or the angel investors. The economic downturn saw early-stage investment plummet to $564 million (around Rs2,620 crore) in 2009 from $890 million in 2008, according to Chennai-based Venture Intelligence, a research group that focuses on private equity and mergers. And while the government’s department of science and technology has incubation programmes with a corpus of around Rs2,000 crore this year to offer as seed capital for path-breaking research, Silicon Labs has not been able to qualify for those grants. Lakshmanan says that while the government is comfortable supporting academia and institutions, it is extremely sceptical about individuals applying for such funds. “I don’t know what is preventing the government from supporting such ventures. I think it is the myopia, the short sightedness. It is the inability to see the power of ideas,” says Anil Gupta, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, (IIM-A) and founder of the Honey Bee Network that support grass-roots-level innovation. Gupta, who invited Narayanan and Reddy to an innovation workshop at IIM-A four years ago after reading about their patent application for the dual-screen laptop, owns one of the machines. He uses it for some presentations in his office and voluntarily promotes the product by using it in industry conferences. “The problem is that the ecosystem we have in this country is not empathetic towards innovation,” Gupta says. “People should have sleepless nights to see that this product goes to the world market and we should take pride to see something like that happen.” While funding remains a hurdle and most of it continues to come from Reddy and Lakshmanan’s pockets, the delay in getting the innovation patented poses another roadblock. Patent delays The delays most likely stem from the patent office being understaffed after losing a quarter of its examiners in recent years as private companies, looking to strengthen their intellectual property capabilities, attract them with promises of a better work environment and higher salaries. Usually, patents that are followed up closely can be granted within three years but can take as much as six years. “The patent is probably taking longer because they may have found some competing technologies,” says Harkesh Kumar Mittal, head of the government’s National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board. “The process of getting a government grant is very competitive and naturally, the best ideas that have potential will get it first.” The 25 dual screen laptop prototypes that the company has made so far have been circulated to prospective customers in India and overseas over the last five years. A US distributor who has one of the sample versions has been pushing Lakshmanan to modify the prototype so that the screens can switch between showing content that’s identical as well as different. The existing version displays the same content on both screens. Lakshmanan was unable to meet the customer’s deadline on several occasions due to financial year-end pressures as well as a shortage of staff. Only in early April did he manage to meet the distributor’s demand for a prototype of the variant. Currently, separate dual screens are largely used with desktops used by the financial community that has to deal with multiple data feeds related to the markets. Bloomberg terminals, for instance, typically have a four-screen display. Reddy, a cardiac surgeon at Vijaya Hospital in Chennai, expects the back-to-back screen to become a key source of communication with patients and as a teaching tool for medical interns. More simply, he sees it as a tool to enhance conversation in a world devoid of eye contact. “It brings down the communication time by 50%,” says Reddy, who uses one of the prototypes in his hospital to communicate with patients about their heart problems as well as to assist colleagues in diagnosing problems and discussing operative procedures. “If the screen was only on one side, then the whole structure of the room would have to change.” Marketing support There are design hurdles that Silicon Labs has to overcome. With two screens riding on the laptop, the battery runs down quickly, besides which the dual-screen laptop ends up being a bulkier, oversized accessory. “If you are an early stage company, things will always go wrong and almost never happen on plan,” says Saurabh Srivastava of Indian Angel Network, a group of affluent individuals that funds start-ups. “If you are a smart guy then you will find a way to overcome the problem or change the plan. So we focus on people and on products that have a potentially large market. I don’t know how much this dual-screen laptop will sell for, but it is probably going to be a niche market.” Lakshmanan has planned a trip to Taiwan to source components to assemble at least 100 dual-screened laptops that will first be sold via the Internet at about Rs60,000 a piece to interested customers such as healthcare professionals. In another part of Tambaram, Lakshmanan is converting a property to house an assembly set-up with the capacity to make around 200 laptops every month. He is also in talks with a few information technology companies that sell custom-made laptops, to market the product and provide after-sales service. Marketing will be the key differentiator, says technology research firm Gartner Inc.’s Diptarup Chakraborti. “If I say India doesn’t stand a chance in the area of hardware innovation, I would be making a sweeping statement, but it is bordering on that,” says Chakraborti. “Even if it is an innovative product in computer hardware, many of them falter because of a lack of marketing support.” anupama.c@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:45 pm How we’re creating the new, new IndiaNew Delhi: Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress.” It is appropriate that Theodore Levitt, an American economist who popularized the term globalization, provided the best single-line perspective on the primary fuel for the 21st century’s flat world. Innovation is that ephemeral, ancient human ability to spark change. It really began two million years ago when an ancestor of man called Homo habilis started fashioning implements from stone. It continues today in dramatically more complex form as we fashion computer circuits from sand, electricity from water and endless opportunities from thin air. Ceaseless innovation so became a part of the first-world business ethos that it led to a Western domination of the world economy. That is changing—faster than we realize. As the new century rolled in, a new India, symbolized by information technology and its possibilities, began the transition from back office to the front. We still have software coolies, but we are, now, also much more than that. Whether in automobiles, chemicals or telecom, a new, new India is emerging with a palette of more colours, stronger and more vibrant. As innovation rapidly settles in as a business concept, it’s allowing previously timorous Indian firms to go global, and it’s persuading previously imperious global firms to move into India. This special edition marks an intense joint editorial effort, the first between Mint and our sister publication, Hindustan Times, to bring you stories of innovation from the new, new India. Over the last four months, reporters from both newspapers scoured the nation’s technology hubs, tapped the best business brains and sifted through hundreds of companies before arriving at a list of those that best represent India’s new approach to innovation. These are the untold stories of people and companies silently giving India a steely new cutting edge. We’ll take you into laboratories, offices and minds to understand how the emerging India works, from its ever-expanding ambitions to the personal dreams of those who make it happen. This is just the start. The stories will continue every Friday for the next six months in both newspapers. “Made in India” also has a website with additional content such as interviews, podcasts, videos and slideshows. Let’s begin our journey. feedback@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:45 pm New chips on the blockAs the world grows fatter and richer, cardiovascular diseases will kill more than one third of all people by 2030, predicts 37-year-old Balasubramanian L. A beleaguered, hypercompetitive global automotive industry will not tolerate a failure rate of more than two parts per million, explains Prem Kumar Arora, 28.  Chip magic: (left) Rajesh and his team see the wireless-controlled toy car in action; and (right) Rajeev Mehtani, Cypress senior vice-president, India operations, in the R&D centre. Photos: Hemant Mishra / Mint Mukul Ojha, 31, discusses the lighting options urgently needed for 65 million Indian households that light homes with kerosene. It’s a balmy, breezy Bangalore day outside. Here in the air-conditioned meeting room—higher than the tops of the old rain trees on the edge of a technology park—it’s hard to think of common ground for such diverse data. Try semiconductor devices, computer chips laced with silicon: nerve centres of the electronic devices that run our world, from steel factories to cellphones, from cars to healthcare instruments. Also Read More articles in the series All the bright, young people in this room have degrees from the Indian Institutes of Technology or the Indian Institutes of Management, or both. Vice-presidents may be in their early 40s, directors in their late 30s, and in this rare Indian tech story, many in this building run global divisions for their company, 28-year-old Cypress Semiconductor Corp. As demanding customers squeeze profits, demands for new technologies spiral, and markets move east, Cypress is moving critical functions from California to India.  Problem solver: After a 13-year career as a government clerk and cashier, software expert Narayana Swamy M.K. (extreme right) now manages a Cypress team and travels to the US, Germany and Japan to work with customers. Hemant Mishra / Mint Bangalore is now home to not just half of Cypress’ global chip-design resources but also marketing, global business development and the company’s largest test facilities. Global strategy and mergers and acquisitions are run out of Chennai. “We’ve got a lot of control and ownership,” says Sumeet Shantanu, who, at 33, heads global business development for the memory business out of India. “I can solve any problem in India, not go to San Jose.” Arora, senior product marketing engineer for automotive semiconductors, explains how his team works on 50 projects across the US, Germany and Japan, nimbly tailoring products to customer needs. For 12 years they sold memory devices that controlled unsexy stuff like fuel-air mixtures. Today, Arora smiles as a control panel destined for a car’s navigation map or air-conditioning control reacts to a wave of his hand. “The entire automotive human-machine interaction strategy was conceived in India,” says Arora. The idea evolved in 2004, production began in 2006, but Cypress expects first returns only by 2011. Cheaper, faster, smaller The semiconductor industry lives, and dies, by a simple motto: cheaper, faster, smaller. “Thanks in large part to fierce competition and to new technologies that lower the cost of production per chip, within a matter of months, the price of a new chip can fall by 50%,” notes a semiconductor industry analysis by Forbes Online. Falling prices can actually mean growing costs for semiconductor companies. Apart from customer pressure pushing up research and development expenses, it costs $5 billion (Rs23,250 crore) to set up a chip-making factory or fabrication unit, a “fab” in industry parlance. So, cameras, cars and cellphones may change every six months, but for semiconductor companies, the first dollar on a new product can take up to three years. “If you want to be profitable today, you need a 50% gross margin (to survive),” says Cypress’ senior vice-president, India operations, Rajeev Mehtani. That’s 50 profit cents on a dollar. “Right now, we’re coming out of the industry’s worst recession since 2001,” he says. The downturn sent the industry’s annual growth rate from 12-15% to 3%, so there’s very little room for error. Ten years ago, a cellphone had 273 components. Today, it has 99 or less. All this is possible because of a law first postulated in 1965 by Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon Moore, who said transistors—building blocks of modern electronic devices, used to route and amplify signals—squeezed onto a chip would double every 18 months. The average cellphone today has more computing power than Apollo 13, the US spaceship that first put man on the moon in 1969. The leading edge today is 40 nanometres. That’s an electronic circuit less than one-thousandth the width of a human hair, packed with one million transistors. Thanks to the explosion of computing power, semiconductors are, at heart, a commodities business, like pepper or iron ore. Unlike commodities, getting the chips to market isn’t the challenge. It’s what you do with them. Of the world’s 200-odd semiconductor companies, only two now have “fabs”, Intel and Samsung. The others have moved to “fabless manufacture”, or outsourced chip production. Most companies such as Cypress use transistor-packed, disc-shaped silicon wafers from third-party “fabs” as raw material to create integrated circuits. These brawny circuits power the global economy—and pose a new challenge. “The rate at which we’re putting transistors on a chip is much faster than designers filling those spaces,” explains Mehtani. “We’re wondering what the hell to do with all the real estate on a chip.” At 46, Mehtani is a 23-year veteran of the profession and very much the elder statesman in his office. He seeks to push Cypress into a host of new applications and markets, using a philosophy called more-than-Moore—instead of simply cramming more transistors on a chip, evolve clever uses for chips by lacing them together and telling them what to do. At Cypress, one-fourth of all engineers are software experts, figuring out smart, new uses for semiconductors. India may have rebounded from the global downturn, but in the semiconductor world, things are grim. So, Cypress uses the energy of these young Indians, throwing them off the deep end into a thrilling ride where they get to steer. “The challenge is what we get here,” says Surya Koneru, 40, analogue design engineering director, who drives Cypress’ 60% global market share in touch-phone technology. Half of Cypress’ 300 engineers are now in Bangalore, its largest technology centre, travelling the world in a relentless search for customers. Putting these young men and women in charge has led to the industry’s lowest attrition rate: 5%. “Nowhere else do we get this kind of exposure,” says Koneru. “Nowhere else.” “We did it in this building” A floor below the meeting room, it’s four degrees cooler than the building’s 24 degree Celsius. Over furrowed brow and broad grin, Cypress’ engineers and technicians tackle technological demands and those wafer-thin margins as they ponder innovations for new—and as yet tiny and unprofitable—markets. “This is where the rubber hits the road,” says Karthikeyan Madathil, 38, business development director, recalling a Chinese customer who wanted an image sensor for a foodgrain-sorting machine. Since prices of foodgrains such as rice and peanuts are based on colour, shape and size, the machine’s electronic sensor needed to be “very, very, very fast”. Last year, says Madathil with pride, “people in this building completed the job”. It’s a phrase you commonly hear. While they are part of a multinational operation, Cypress’ young team takes distinct pride in their achievements as Indians. Silicon absorbs light in pretty much the same way as a human eye. That allows Cypress’ engineers to create electronic eyes for a variety of uses, from satellite sensors and security systems to the latest movie cameras. “Some of the best digital movie cameras in the world have sensors designed right here,” says Madathil, “in this building”. There’s also evidence of gambling in this building—on new products for emerging markets. Senior product marketing manager Balasubramanian heads a Cypress project for one such device for India: a single-chip machine that can measure temperature, blood pressure, blood oxygen and heart rate. With its burgeoning prosperity and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, India is ground zero of a global surge in cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. An all-in-one apparatus could have a huge market. “It is definitely doable,” says Balasubramanian, who follows a plan—increasingly adopted by semiconductor multinationals in India—of seeding technology and courses in semiconductors into colleges and later reaping the expertise. So far Cypress has set up 19 laboratories in Indian colleges; semiconductor companies have set up more than 530 labs across the country, mostly in the south. Cypress’ target for this year is 30 new labs and 50 research projects. About 10km east of Cypress India, Aravind Sitaraman,47, vice-president and managing director at Cisco, a $36 billion US tech multinational, also believes India operations must change gears. “There is nothing like working with a customer and co-creating a product, then replicating it across the world,” he says, and sees energy, education and healthcare as the next opportunities. “In IT we have an excellent business model, but is that the endgame? I don’t think so. We have to develop unique products across the world, take risks. That is coming in, very slowly.” Cypress’ faith in local talent does not guarantee success, even if it follows a progression that benefits India. What helps companies like Cypress even in a downturn is the ability to hedge bets as electronics spreads deeper into daily life. “With employment of 0.5% or less even among mature developed economies, the (semiconductor) sector’s direct contribution to GDP (gross domestic product) is limited,” says a March 2010 study from the McKinsey Global Institute. “But ongoing innovations in the sector have contributed to the IT adoption that has improved business process and boosted productivity in many other sectors—and therefore made a difference for economy-wide growth.” Cypress Semiconductor Started operations (in India): 1995 Made in India: iPod wheel, human-car interface; most complex logic chip with 100 million transistors; 60 patents feedback@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:45 pm The TimeOut-Mint PlannerBANGALORE Music Fête de la Musique 18-21 June  8pm. Alliance Française de Bangalore, Thimmaiah Road, 108, Vasanth Nagar (41231340). Art Cinéma Vérité Redux 18 June-30 July This group show curated by the Berlin-based writer Shaheen Merali features the works of Attila Richard Lukacs and Marina Roy (both from Vancouver, Canada), Charly Nijensohn, Parvathi Nayar, Prasad Raghavan, Ravikumar Kashi and Subba Ghosh. Lukacs is showing Game, a series of oil on wood portraits; Roy is presenting a video piece named Apartment. Nijensohn, a Berlin-based video artist and photographer, is showing his video installation Dead Forest #5 alongside Chennai-based artist Nayar’s collection of black and white drawings. Raghavan, a Delhi-based artist and film-maker, is showing a series of inkjet prints titled Decalogue. Delhi-based Ghosh’s work consists of cut-out paintings on canvas stretched on wood. Bangalore-based artist Kashi’s installation Gandhi I found... completes the show. 10.30am-6pm, Sunday closed. Gallery Sumukha, 24/10, BTS Depot Road, Wilson Garden (22292230). The Calcutta Vignettes Series Till 25 June Gallerie Pablo hosts an exhibition of watercolour paintings by Kolkata-based artist Shubhashish Mandal. The solo show is a fluent tapestry of muted colours and shades, capturing the surreal ethos of the Kolkatan spirit and joie de vivre of this ageing but serenely beautiful metropolis. The juxtaposition of the ubiquitous rickshaw-puller, the fish market energy, the majestic but historical colonial edifices, the twilight settling on the City of Joy are elements that speak of the absolute Kolkatan motif. Mandal lends an almost lyrical twist to the drab and mundane, while the moving masses in the many expressions in grey, golden brown and black have a story of their own. The Calcutta Vignettes Series is an eclectic collection of 30 works which are on display. 11am-7pm. Gallerie Pablo, 18, JRV Court, Second floor, Queens Road, next to Hotel Gold Star. For details, call Kiran Bagade at 9880872875 or 41512950. Escape Till 26 June A solo show by British fine art photographer Tim Hall, who specializes in travel, landscape and portraiture. His work for the last 20 years has been influenced by lessons in art history that he picked up at Manchester University. Hall’s portraitures have included musicians Miles Davis and Prince, and he prefers shooting in film, with a Hasselblad, and “a particular film that has a muted tone and a nice grain structure”, he says. His prints are on watercolour paper using pigment inks, which “add to the art feel of the works”. The show will include selections from three previous series, titled Desert, Coast and Mountain. 10am-7pm, Sunday closed. Tasveer, Sua House, 26/1, Kasturba Cross Road (22128358). Around town Dim Sum Festival at Ping Till 30 June The restaurant is celebrating a Dim Sum Festival, on till the end of the month. Their special menu will offer an assortment of around 40 freshly prepared vegetarian and non-vegetarian kinds of dim sum, including green peas and corn dim sum, corn and curry dim sum, fish and coriander wontons, and prawn and water chestnut har gau. Noon-3.30pm and 7-11.30pm. 130, 1st Cross, Koramangala, 5th Block (41521773). Charges, Rs700 plus taxes, for a meal for two. Komic Sutra by Nitin Mirani 18 June Nitin has been on the stand-up comedy circuit for almost five years, making light of everything from the recession to swine flu, Hollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, BlackBerrys, Facebook, relationships, other cultures and anything else he fancies dissing. 8pm. Opus, 4, 1st Main, off Palace Cross Road, Chakravarthy Layout (23442580). Tickets, Rs730 (including Rs230 as cover charge). For details, call 9844030198. Dance Rashmi Ravishankar 19 June Rashmi Ravishankar, a student of B. Bhanumathi and Sheela Chandrashekar, will present a traditional Bharatanatyam recital. Ravishankar will begin with a pushpanjali, an invocatory piece, and end with a tillana, a pure dance sequence. The varnam Rama Neeve Ae Na Rakshakudanvani, the central histrionic piece, is composed by Swathi Thirunal. In it, a devotee speaks of Ram as the protector. Another highlight of the show will be a piece titled Snake Dance, showcasing the flexibility of the dancer as she mimics the movements of a snake. 5.30pm. Shivaratheshwara Centre, 8th Block, Jaya Nagar (26644540). Nrithyantara 19 June This is the first edition of the festival started by Sanjay Shantaram and Shama Sanjay of the Shivapriya School of Dance. The organizers are attempting to provide a platform for group presentations, as well as honour dancers who have made contributions to the field. This edition will see the Bharatanatyam duo Sridhar and Anuradha Sridhar paying obeisance to Mridula Bhaskar, a Bharatanatyam and Kathak exponent. Also, the Shivapriya Dance Ensemble will present three items from the traditional margam of Bharatanatyam. 6pm. Seva Sadan, 14th Cross, West Park Road, opposite MLA School, Malleswaram (23347830). Film Colours Till 27 June This festival of films is being hosted in association with the Bangalore Film Society, at the (167-seater) auditorium of the sprawling NGMA campus. The festival opened with Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1956 film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) earlier this month. On 19 June, there is also a screening of Dong, Jia Zhangke’s documentary which follows modern realist Chinese painter Liu Xiaodong to locations in the Three Gorges Dam area, where he paints a quintych (five large murals) before moving to Bangkok, to create another multitych painting. Palettes: From Duchamp to Pop Art, to be screened on 20 June, is part of the Palettes Collection, a series of films about great works in the history of painting, unravelling the secrets behind pieces such as Andy Warhol’s Ten Lizes, Yves Klein’s Anthropométrie de l’époque bleue and Marcel Duchamps’ Nu descendant l’escalier with the use of state-of-the-art video animation techniques. 3pm on Saturdays & 11.30am on Sundays (weekends only). The National Gallery of Modern Art, Manikyavelu Mansion, 49, Palace Road (22201027). For the full schedule, call the Bangalore Film Society at 25292781. Theatre Elling 20 June Mummy’s boy Elling and his roommate, the uncouth Kjell Bjarne, are the Odd Couple of Oslo, a pair of confused souls taking their first steps in the outside world after years of isolated, institutional life. Given a flat in the city by the social services department, they must re-assimilate themselves into society or face a return to the asylum. So it’s simply a question of convincing their social worker that they are really normal—even if it does feel safer sleeping in the wardrobe. Elling is based on the cult Norwegian novel by Ingvar Ambjørnsen and was also made into an Oscar nominated film. 3.30pm and 7.30pm. Ranga Shankara, 36/2, 8th Cross, 2nd Phase, JP Nagar (26592777). Ticket, Rs150. MUMBAI Music Bob Sinclar 19 June 10pm. Hard Rock Café, Bombay Dyeing Mills Compound, Pandurang Budhkar Marg, Worli (24382888). Entry, Rs3,000 (stag), Rs5,000 (couple). Owen Clarke 18 June Owen Clarke was in his early teens in the 1980s when he made his first compilation. That was when the stark electronic sounds of acid House music—which originated in Chicago—began making waves across the US and eventually reached Britain’s underground scene. The British deejay, whose experience behind the console now spans almost two decades, shot to fame in 2008, when he teamed up with Lindsey John Taylor to form 2 Good Souls. The duo have since burned dance floors across the world with their vibrant, fast-paced edgy tunes. Now Clarke makes his first trip to India, with his dub-meets-disco sound. 10pm. Privé, 41/44, Monrepos, behind Radio Club, Colaba (22028700). Call the venue for entry charges. Metal Awards 20 June Get ready for a hellraising night at the metal awards organized by the Rolling Stones, where popular metal band Scribe will play the opening act for Mumbai’s Demonic Resurrection and Delhi’s Undying Inc. 9.30pm. Blue Frog, New Mahalaxmi Silk Mills, Mathuradas Mills Compound, opposite Kamala Mills, Tulsi Pipe Road, Lower Parel (40332300). Entry charges, Rs150. Maciej Pikulski 24 June Hear a solo recital by acclaimed pianist Maciej Pikulski, who teaches at the Superior Conservatory of Music in San Sebastian, Spain, and has performed with French, Belgian, English and Romanian orchestras. 7pm. Experimental Theatre, National Centre for Performing Arts, NCPA Marg, near Hilton Towers, Nariman Point (66223737). Tickets, Rs100 and Rs200. Theatre Improv Night 21 June No plot, no rehearsal, no cues but lots of fun. Students of American professional improviser Adam Dow will perform at this event. Dow, who worked in improvisational theatre for over a decade in Seattle in the US before moving to Mumbai last year, has run intensive improvisation classes for youth theatre festival Thespo and theatre company Theatre Professionals. 10pm. Café Goa Bistro & Grill, Agnelo House, off St John the Baptist Road, near Mount Mary Steps, Bandra-West (65299167). Dirty Talk 22-24 June Comprising four witty short stories about what’s considered “dirty”, this play examines what is right or wrong and who makes these rules. When Nayantara Roy and her cast of eight devised the play for the international youth theatre festival Contacting the World, they weren’t thinking of four-letter words. Contact, the Manchester theatre company behind the festival, picked 12 groups around the world, then got them to pair up and produce 12 plays reflecting influences from the sister cities. Roy’s theatre group Working Title 2.0 was matched with Manchester-based 10p Mix Up, a collaboration that got the 25-year-old writer-director to think hard about colonialism and censorship. Dirty Talk premieres in Mumbai before travelling to Manchester for the week-long festival in July. 9pm. Prithvi Theatre, Janki Kutir, Juhu Church Road, Vile Parle-West (26149546). Tickets, Rs80, available at the venue. DELHI Art Art in Public Space Ongoing “Bengal has a lot of rain because it’s coastal, and all the time during the rainy season I could see lots of ants in the house, everywhere, all the time. I realized as a child that they’re very disciplined; they move in a systematic way, one after another, in a very beautiful formation,” Maity said about his inspiration for the installations. “And in Calcutta, where I studied, they have the highest number of protests and demonstrations, and there people are all also going in rows, in lines.” A keen traveller, Maity was attracted to the Bullet motorcycle sound and vintage shape. He adds, “So I was thinking one day that the shape of an ant looks like the Bullet petrol tank; and the upper part of the ant looks like another tank, and the head looks like the headlight.” And so, an army of art was born. 11am-8pm. Select Citywalk, A-3 District Centre, Saket (42114211). Crossing Over Till 25 June Triveni Kala Sangam presents a two-man show of works by Delhi-based artist Amitesh Verma and California-based artist Andrew Connelly, inspired by Verma’s three-month residency in France and Connelly’s experiences in India. The works of both artists address issues such as the transition from traditional ways of living to industrialization and the labyrinthine Indian bureaucracy. 10am-7pm, Sunday closed. Triveni Kala Sangam, 305, Tansen Marg, Mandi House (23718833). Music Sarod recital 20 June A Hindustani classical sarod recital by Mukesh Sharma, disciple of sarangi maestro Pandit Ram Narayan, Kathak dancer Pandit Birju Maharaj and sarod legend Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. 7pm. India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (43663333). World Music Day: The Handshake Concert 21 June On the occasion of Fête de la Musique, or World Music Day as Anglophiles know it, the Rattle & Hum Music Society of Nagaland presents The Handshake Concert. Last year, a similar concert had been organized with great success. This time, the artists include Grammy Award-winner Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, the inventor of the mohan veena, and Grammy nominee Lama Tashi, who is a former head chant master of the Dalai Lama’s Drepung Loseling monastery. Tashi has performed with such luminaries as Philip Glass, Michael Stipe of REM, Patti Smith and Sheryl Crow. Other performers include the Shillong blues band Soulmate, Mumbai electro rockers Medusa and a host of musicians from Nagaland—Cultural Vibrants, a trio of sisters who perform traditional Naga music; OFF, or Original Fire Factor, an alt-rock band; soprano singer Asin and classical pianist Nise. The event has been organized by the music magazine Rolling Stone and the Nagaland University. 7pm. India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (43663333). Theatre Amar Singh Rathore 18 June A traditional folk tale involving Rajasthani prince Amar Singh Rathore is brought to life with puppets. The puppeteers are members of the recently concluded Kathputli Workshop conducted by Puran Bhatt, the director. 6.30-8pm. India International Centre, 40, Max Mueller Marg, Lodhi Estate, (24619431). For details, call 9871057010. CHENNAI Around Town Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness Till 30 June 11am-6pm. AFM Gallery, 24, College Road, Nungambakkam (28279803, 28271477). Sri Lankan Food Festival Till 28 June The Raintree will host a dinner buffet of Sri Lankan delicacies including kribath (milk and rice), a variety of spicy sambols, lamprais (rice boiled in stock with a special curry), frikkadels (meatballs), and hoppers with lunu miris (a mix of red onions and spices). The desserts on offer include specialities such as kavun (a deep-fried cake made with rice flour and treacle), kiri pani (buffalo milk curd and treacle), wattalappam (egg pudding with jaggery) and kalu dodul (a pudding of jaggery, cashew nuts and coconut milk). 7pm onwards. Hotel Taj Connemara, 2, Binny Road (66000000) Price, Rs850 (plus taxes) per person, excluding tax. Silk Thread Jewellery Workshop 19 June The Madras Craft Foundation is conducting a workshop where you can learn the art of making intricately designed jewellery—such as earrings, bangles and anklets—using silk threads in bright colours. 10am-6pm. DakshinaChitra, Muttukadu, East Coast Road (9841777779). Price, Rs650, inclusive of material and conveyance between DakshinaChitra and the foundation. Prior registration mandatory (call venue to register). Bazaar Trail 19 June Join Story Trails, an organization that conducts creative outings and alternative tours, as it takes you through the crowded streets of a bazaar in the city. Learn about the history and architecture of the neighbourhood through the facilitators’ interesting bazaar tales. This trail begins at the high court and will end there too. 4:30-7pm. No. 34, North Usman Road, T Nagar (9940040215). Registration, Rs795 per person. Theatre Cut 19-20 June Chennai-based theatre group Evam is back with its annual theatre workshop. Over two days, this workshop will introduce you to acting, voice techniques, movements and dramatic text through activities, games and exercises, giving you a glimpse into the fascinating world of theatre. 9am-7pm. Image College of Arts, Animation and Technology, 153, Santhome High Road, Mylapore (9840222315, 9940438669). Fee, Rs3,500 (includes lunch, tea and snacks). Art Green paintings 18 June Celebrating World Environment Day all this month, Ascendas, a city-based international tech park, presents an exhibition of paintings by Paris-based Mohan Kumar. This environmental activist’s collection revolves around nature and women. 11am-6pm. 7 & 8, Pinnacle Building, International Tech Park Chennai, Taramani Road (4225 6000). A Tribute to Amaravati Glory Till 20 June This exhibition of paintings by Regulla Mallikarjuna Rao traces the essence of the sculpture fragments of Amravati and the fertile literature of Buddhism. Amaravati’s carvings depict incidents from the life of Buddha, using symbols and images drawn chiefly from exotic motifs of western Asiatic origin, which the artist aims to capture. 11am-7pm. Gallery Sri Parvati, #28/160, Eldams Road (24353341). Music Osher Moosica 21 June This city-based band with Latin, Latin Rock, Afro-Cuban and Arabic influences will perform some of its best compositions. Known for its synchronized renditions, this band’s fan base has grown immensely in the past few years. 8-11pm. Zara Tapas Bar, 74, Cathedral Road (28111462). Entry by invitation, call venue for passes. By Karuna Amarnath and Varuni Khosla KOLKATA Around town Funny and Funnier 18 June Funny and Funnier: Stories by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, a Scholastic 6pm. Oxford Book Store, 17, Park Street (9831110300). The book is priced at Rs120. For details, call 40634036. Sicilian Wine Dinner 19 June Sicilian food is the focus of this dinner at the Hyatt Regency’s Italian restaurant La Cucina. Chef Mitele Sbardellini from Park Hyatt Goa will give guests a taste of food from the region. The four-course dinner will be accompanied by three wines from the region—Corte Giara Pagus, Zonin and Nero d’ Avola. The dinner menu comprises items such as grilled prawns wrapped in chicken bacon and served in a cannellini cream sauce and rosemary oil, cream of roasted pumpkin with goat cheese garnished with comfit garlic and thyme essence cream with spring onion, polenta filled with Taleggio cheese served with morels and cherry tomato sauce and fine lemon tart with basil-flavoured lemon sherbet. 7pm-midnight. La Cucina, Hyatt Regency, JA-1, Sector III, Salt Lake City (23351234). Charges, Rs2,000, plus taxes, per person. Khao Gali @ The Street Till 30 June This event celebrates famous food streets across the world. Khao Gali, also known as Mohammed Ali Road, in Mumbai, is known for its patthar gosht, vada pav, pao bhaji, Bombay sandwich and other fare which will be available at The Street as part of the menu. The concept of celebrating food streets started last month when El Centroin in Sevilla in Spain was celebrated through a tapas festival. 12.30pm onwards. The Street, The Park, 17, Park Street (22499000, 40049000). Prices for dishes range from Rs100-250. Music Fête de la Musique 20-21 June The Alliance Française du Bengale celebrates World Music Day with performances by amateur and professional musicians on Sunday at the institute. The finale will be by the institute’s new music group, A+. But before that there will be French renditions of Rabindrasangeet and local songs. The next day’s programme, a collaboration with the Calcutta School of Music (CSM), will be at the school’s Sunny Park address. There, the Calcutta Chamber Orchestra will present a set of Western classical recitals, followed by the junior choir and an Indian classical selection. A+ will perform covers of popular French songs from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as traditional folk, besides their originals at the end of the show on both days. The 21 June event also includes an audio-visual tribute to French singer Édith Piaf and Rabindranath Tagore, with a documentary screening and a medley of their popular works. 5-7pm. 20 June, Alliance Française du Bengale, Khaleel Manzil, 217, AJC Bose Road (22836807, 9836212666); 21 June, Calcutta School of Music, 6B, Sunny Park, Ballygunge (9804241836). Theatre Achalayatan 19 June Local theatre group Natadha adds yet another play to its repertoire, this time starring young thespians. Achalayatan, first published in 1912, recounts the tale of Panchak, a young boy held captive by the fortress of a repetitive learning system far removed from the real world. In breaking down the walls—literally and figuratively—the resolution of Achalayatan advocates the need for a well-ventilated classroom (reminiscent of Tagore’s own Santiniketan ideal) and a receptive, positive and creative learning environment that fosters fraternity and equality. 6.30pm. Ramgopal Mancha, P-14, Biplabi Harendranath Ghosh Sarani, opposite Howrah Girls’ College (26415448). Tickets, Rs10 and Rs20. For details, call Natadha at 9836419579. Art Tejas Summer Show 2010 Till 30 June Tejas Gallery’s annual summer show of mixed art features artists such as Dhiren Sasmal, Saikat Maity, Ujjwal Debnath, Dhananjoy Saha, Tanay Kumar Paul, Viraag Desai, Subhash Pal, Sambhu Saha, Subrata Sen, Sujit Kumar Ghosh and Nitya Kundu. The artists have adapted their medium to offset or complement their theme, in order to produce works that speak both through their images and their execution. 12.30-7.30pm, except Sundays and public holidays. Tejas Gallery, 11, Mayfair Road (9830049825). By Indranil Bhoumik and Promita Mukherjee Content provided by Time-Out Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:45 pm Will the Ambani brothers tango for synergy?Will they, wont they? Will Brothers Ambani make a joint appearance at the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) annual general meeting (AGM) tomorrow in Mumbai? That's the question on every shareholder's mind as RIL convenes for its first AGM after the famous rapprochement between the brothers.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:28 pm After the National Population Register, India to get a National Business RegisterThe sixth economic census, set to take off next year, will provide the country with a National Business Register (NBR) for the first time, containing the details of every business establishment in the country.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:25 pm RBI favours freeing savings ratesRangarajan urges it to act on inflation.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:23 pm Market declines on weak economic signsNew York: US stocks declined on Thursday as data on regional factory activity and jobless claims underscored worries about the pace of the economic recovery. Shares of manufacturers fell, including 3M, which was down 0.8% at $80.27, while the consumer discretionary sector also dragged on the S&P 500. The S&P retail index declined 1.8%. The day’s economic data included a report by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, which said its June business activity index fell to 8.0, its slowest pace in 10 months, from 21.4 in May. Another report showed the number of people filing for unemployment insurance unexpectedly increased in the latest week. A downward trend in the number of first-time applicants for unemployment benefits has halted, Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon, said. “It’s sending a minor message that the pace of the recovery may be slowing down a little bit,” Dickson said. Homebuilder stocks also lost ground a day after luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc said a decline in consumer confidence has led to fewer people looking to buy a home. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 54.12 points, or 0.52%, at 10,355.34. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 5.54 points, or 0.50%, at 1,109.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 9.54 points, or 0.41%, at 2,296.39. Bucking the weak trend, shares of Apple Inc touched a lifetime high at $272.90. Apple said on Wednesday it sold more than 600,000 units of its new iPhone, a record for a single day of preorders. Its shares were last up 1.3% at $270.73. Toll Brothers released intra-quarter activity data on home buying before executives spoke at the Reuters Global Real Estate and Infrastructure Summit on Thursday. Its shares declined 3.9% to $18.05 while KB Home fell 2.9% to $12.55. The Morgan Stanley housing index dropped 2%. Dickson said volatility could increase because of options and futures expirations later on Thursday and on Friday. The quadruple witching period, as it’s called, refers to the quarterly settlement and expiration of four different types of June equity futures and options contracts. The S&P 500 was trading near its 200-day moving average at around 1,110. “That’s going to be a critical test as we go through the day,” Dickson said. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:35 pm Reliance served a shocker by DGHNew Delhi: The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has recommended to the petroleum ministry that Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) surrender a deep-water block in the Krishna-Godavari basin. To be sure, this isn’t the company’s famed D6 block, where one of India’s largest gas finds was made, but the KG-OSN-2001/1 one. But the move, if it goes through, could be a setback to RIL, which has spent some money prospecting in the block. The DGH decision came because RIL missed the deadline of 19 November to declare the block commercially viable. Instead, it did so only on 12 February. Interestingly, RIL had written to the government in March 2008 seeking an extension in the deadline, but the latter hasn’t responded to that request. Mint couldn’t ascertain when DGH made its recommendation on the surrender to the ministry. However, Mint has reviewed a 19 March letter from RIL to the ministry, stating why the block should not be taken away from it. DGH is a government body that manages the country’s petroleum resources and falls under the purview of the ministry of petroleum, which has the powers to overturn the directorate’s decisions or ignore its recommendations. The ministry is yet to take a decision on this matter. “We have already recommended the relinquishment of the block to the ministry. RIL has made certain representations to the ministry. The ministry has to take a decision,” said a senior DGH official, who did not want to be identified. A spokesperson for RIL declined to comment on the issue as did the joint secretary in charge of exploration at the ministry, D.N. Narasimha Raju. Once a company makes a discovery in a block, it assesses whether the find is commercially viable. After this it submits a so-called “notice of declaration of commerciality” to DGH, which, after conducting its own tests, can either accept or reject the claim. Subsequently, if the claim is accepted, the company prepares a development plan detailing development costs. According to production sharing contracts (PSCs) that all operators (or company’s exploring blocks) sign at the time they are awarded the blocks, the government’s share from the hydrocarbon block, also known as profit petroleum, typically comes only after the company recovers all its costs. Commercial production begins only after the development plan is approved by a management committee, comprising representatives from the government, DGH and the operator. RIL, in its representation addressed to Raju, has cited the clause in the PSC under which a company can seek an extension in the exploration period by 30 months. The company had made a request to the government for the same on 10 March 2008, which according to the production sharing contract should have been extended till 17 September 2010. However, it received no confirmation regarding this. In its 19 March communication, RIL said: “...with our having conducted the appraisal program within the 30 months period, it is in our view unfair and unjust that the DGH, who has been silent all along on our various requests for grant of extension and who has continuously been informed of the conduct of the appraisal program, should require us to relinquish the block.” An expert said RIL had a case. “The final outcome needs to be decided by the petroleum ministry keeping in mind that every situation that will evolve in an exploration programme can’t have a pre-decided framework in the PSC. (However) if the ministry decides that RIL has to relinquish the block, it will certainly impact RIL,” said Gokul Chaudhri, partner at audit and consulting firm BMR Advisors. BLOCK DEADLINE • Production sharing contract for the block came into effect on 3 April 2003 • First exploration phase ended on 17 March 2008 • No. of discoveries made during the first exploration phase: 3 • Notice of declaration of commerciality submitted by RIL: 12 February 2010 • Last date of notice of declaration of commerciality as per the production sharing contract: 19 November 2009 Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:16 pm Putting India on the mapBangalore: Lalit Katragadda, a software engineer, and Dimple Batra, a product manager, relax in the cafeteria on the third floor of the Google India research and development headquarters in Bangalore.  Making an impact: A Google India team compares virtual maps with the hard copy at the company’s R&D headquarters in Bangalore. Lalit Katragadda (not in the picture), who leads the team, has invented Google Mapmaker, a programme that allows users to add landmarks to the ubiquitous Google Maps. Hemant Mishra/Mint Katragadda is in the limelight himself right now, having made an impact on the tightly knit world of “Googlers” (his slang for local Google employees) with the invention of Google Mapmaker, a programme that allows users to add roads and landmarks to the ubiquitous Google Maps. The programme was born in India, but Katragadda says it was always intended for the whole world. “In late 2004, a little after we moved to India, we realized that only 15% of the world is mapped,” says the 40-year-old. “We wanted to build a product that was globally useful.” Over the course of two years, Katragadda and his team created Google Mapmaker, a programme that would allow the company to get accurate maps of India without paying for the maps data. Also Read More articles in the series While Google Maps takes existing map data and makes it interactive, allowing users to look up landmarks and directions on the Internet, Mapmaker allows users to add their own landmarks, buildings and even streets—creating, in effect, their own maps, which they can then share with others. “The most difficult part was not the coding, but the structure,” he says. “After all, how do you know which users to trust?” As anyone who has asked for directions on the street knows, not everyone can make maps. So the Google India team invented a software solution that treats each new edit like a separate page. Over time, the machine learns which users are trustworthy. When a user has reliably labelled enough points, he graduates from the system and can moderate other users’ map making too. Google initially launched the programme outside India, in Vietnam, the Philippines and a few other developing countries. It launched in India in September 2006. “Within two months, the top 10 cities were largely mapped,” says Batra, 36. The programme got an unexpected boost in January. A devastating earthquake hit Haiti, an island nation in the Caribbean and one of the world’s least-developed countries. Aid workers on the ground in Haiti used Mapmaker to label collapsed bridges, broken roads and makeshift hospitals, data that shifted every minute. Google recently gave Mapmaker-created maps for 46 countries to the United Nations, which released them to its disaster relief offices. Mapmaker is now in 180 countries, but development is still under way. “We want to create more features that let users interact with each other,” says Batra. “We want every nook and cranny of the world mapped.” A lucky break Mapmaker is one of the luckier programmes. At Google India, about 90% of new applications don’t make it through the development process. “When you’re on the cutting edge, you’re going to bleed,” says Katragadda. “But we don’t want to design just for ‘California Indians’.” Katragadda uses this phrase frequently and with fond frustration. A glance around the employee café, where salads and dals come with calorie labels, shows the type of person he’s talking about—Net-savvy, cosmopolitan, wealthy. People like Katragadda and Batra, both transplants from the US, and Prasad Ram, 44, the former head of Google India’s R&D arm, who recently moved back to the US. People like Vinay Goel, country head for products, who stops by the table with a casual directive to “try the sweet dish”. The big challenge for Google is to find a way to keep creating products that can serve both the elite—whom they have taken by storm—and everyone else. The offices in India could be the answer. Google’s India labs are already at the forefront of designing for the next generation of users—a generation that will demand that all its information be accessible online all the time. The irony, though, is that Google’s Indian R&D operations started out as a joke. It was 2003 and Katragadda, a lanky engineer who still has more than a whiff of the nerd about him, was then developing software at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. “All my ideas for applications came from looking at the problems around me there,” says Katragadda, who still describes himself as a “Bombay boy”. “I knew we couldn’t design products for India unless we were based in India, facing Indian problems on a daily basis.” So he and a group of his Indian colleagues got together and, “just for fun”, put down their vision for a Google India research centre. A few weeks later, Katragadda got a call saying his “just-for-fun” design doc had been approved by the management, and he and three friends, along with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were scheduled to fly to Bangalore to begin setting up an India R&D centre. Today, Katragadda’s design doc has grown into a 300-strong software engineering force based at two offices, in Hyderabad and Bangalore, creating programmes for cloud computing and mobile navigation, two of the hottest areas in software development. True to the original vision, Google’s relatively new team designs solutions for Net users in India and, by extension, markets beyond the US. An uphill battle Talking to Google India’s engineers and executives shows a company that is still struggling to learn how to cater to markets beyond its core, developed-world demographic. The growth of Orkut, Google’s social network, now lags behind rival Facebook in India. Yahoo is giving Google stiff competition in the search market. And one of Google India’s first products—Indic language transliteration, which converted English text into Hindi characters, allowing users to blog and email in their mother tongue—never really took off. “We think it suffered a discoverability problem,” says Goel, the country head for products. Although Indic language transliteration does have its diehard users, Goel admits that the main growth is in English. “Maybe it will always be that way,” he says, making it a lesson that Google India has learned the hard way. Asked how much competition factors into Google’s R&D, Katragadda’s answer is circumspect, but revealing. “I used to say Google would never build a phone,” he says, “but then we built a phone.” Redefining Google In many ways, Google Inc. is in the midst of a worldwide identity shift. The company’s decision to release both a smartphone—the Nexus One—and an operating system, Android, have led to antitrust allegations in Europe and similar whispers in America, besides public spats. The company has aggressive ambitions that extend far beyond its core search business. Many of these new initiatives, says Goel, will be incubated at the Indian labs. Google recently announced that it plans to focus its creative energies on designing programmes for mobiles, rather than computers. In Bangalore, mobiles have been the focus from the start. These labs recently developed an SMS (short message service) channels programme that delivers targeted information through phones, and a new voice search feature. Both programmes have done well, although another SMS-based feature, tied into Orkut, failed. Asked about the company’s strategic R&D initiatives, Goel picks two. The first is designing more services, especially location services such as Mapmaker, for cellphones. The other is cloud computing, the storage and transfer of files entirely through the Internet. Engineers at Google’s Hyderabad office are working on a cloud computing platform for businesses that will launch sometime next month. India: the place to be If Google is in the midst of an identity crisis, there’s no better place for it than here, the country with one of the world’s most fluid identities. “The software scene has never been this vibrant,” says Vengat Krishnaraj, a manager and leader of the technology research group at Mape Advisory Group. “We’re still not a Silicon Valley, but I think a lot of the key challenges are getting addressed.” A few multinational companies have set up software development offices in India in the past few years, inspired by the growing talent pool and their recent success with business process outsourcing firms. Indian technology start-ups, many of which focus on delivering mobile and cloud services, are also on the increase. Venture capital investors, for many years absent in India, have poured money into these efforts. In early April, the Indian branch of Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s biggest private equity funds, invested $5 million (Rs23 crore today) in an Indian firm that creates software for corporate laptops. “Quite a few startups are building applications on the mobile side too,” says Krishnaraj. The pressure on the Google India team to deliver is intense. And in order to deliver, they will have to understand what the Indian market wants, an understanding that multinational companies have historically struggled with. “The most difficult thing for me when I shifted back to India was the visceral realization that there are hundreds of Indians,” says Katragadda. There are few other countries where the company can simultaneously test a cutting-edge technology product such as enterprise cloud computing and a hyper-local product such as Maps navigation via local landmarks. (Landmarks navigation is a feature launched first in India earlier this year, drawn from the large volume of Mapmaker data submitted by Indian users.) “India is a huge strategic market for us. And we plan to be R&D-driven,” Goel says. If Google India’s R&D can figure out how to design for all these Indians, it will be several steps closer to serving the world. Google Started operations in India: Late 2003 Products: Google Mapmaker, Indic language transliteration, voice search for mobiles, SMS channels R&D spend: According to public filings, Google spent $2.8 billion on R&D in 2009, making it one of the world’s top R&D spenders. The company will not disclose how much of that went to India. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:25 am
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