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INDIA
SURGES AHEAD NEWS
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September
2003
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VSNL
Pips Biggies, Ranked Third Best Asian ISP
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Mumbai:
UK-based network specialist Netconfigs has ranked
Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL) as the third best
internet service provider (ISP) in Asia and
29th in the world from among a total of 11,000
ISPs globally. The network specialist has ranked
VSNL third after Reach, a Hong Kong-based ISP
and Dacomnet, a Korean ISP, in an independent
survey conducted on efficiency, maintenance
and linkages with other networks, according
to Netconfigs' website.
The
Tata group firm is also ranked ahead of Singtel
and Telecom Italia, two prominent ISPs in the
world, according to the website. The ranking
also highlights VSNL's "better reach to the
various parts of the world," due to its reduced
dependency on any particular carrier. VSNL connects
to over 14 carriers and has route presence at
many places across the globe.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 29, 2003
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India
gets WHO Pat for TB Control Programme
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India's
tuberculosis (TB) control programme was praised
for "achieving the fastest expansion with quality
in the world" by a 40-member team of international
experts." In less than five years, there has
been exemplary progress and a random survey
of 20 TB centres across India showed that the
disease was being properly diagnosed, drugs
were available and the monitoring was good,"
said Dr Leopold Blanc, coordinator, TB Strategy
and Operations, World Health Organisation.
India's
Rs 680-crore Revised National Tuberculosis Control
Programme has adopted the Directly Observed
Treatment Strategy (DOTS) for the free treatment
of patients. Under the programme, DOTS centres
are set up where patients are made to take medicines
under supervision to increase compliance. The
programme has a 90 per cent cure rate. The government
has also involved the private sector through
medical associations and corporate hospitals.
Courtesy:
Hindustan Times, September 27, 2003
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BHEL
Bags Top Export Award
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New
Delhi: Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
(Bhel) has won the top exporter's award for
outstanding export performance amongst public
and private sector companies for the thirteenth
year in succession. Instituted by the Engineering
Export Promotion Council (EEPC), Bhel has bagged
the 'All India Trophy for Top Exporters' in
the category of 'project exports' for the year
2000-01. During fiscal 2000-01, Bhel successfully
completed three prestigious overseas projects
which included 3x30 MW Hubara gas turbine-based
turnkey power plant of Petroleum Development
Oman, 90 MW Rusail gas turbine-based turnkey
power plant of ministry of electricity and water,
Oman, and the 78.2 MVA hydro generator package
for Mingechaur hydro electric project in Azerbaijan.
The units have since been commissioned and are
performing well.
In
this period, continued thrust on enhancing physical
exports resulted in an export order booking
of Rs 715 crore. The momentum is continuing
and as a result of increased thrust on overseas
business, Bhel bagged the highest-ever export
orders worth Rs 1,455 crore during the last
fiscal 2002-03, a quantum jump of nearly 82
per cent over the previous year. This included
the single-largest overseas order received by
any major capital goods manufacturing company
in India, for setting up a 600 MW power station
in Libya, comprising four gas turbines.
Courtesy:
The Times of India, September 26, 2003
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Apollo
Travels to West Asia Looking for Medical Tourists
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Kolkata:
South-east Asia's biggest health-care player,
Apollo Hospitals Group, is now scouting West
Asian and African countries to attract medical
tourists from these 'potential' countries. While
the Apollo Group has already signed agreements
with a few medical insurance players, it is
also soon going to set-up telemedicine centres
at Oman, Dubai, Yemen, Sudan and Nigeria, followed
by the other places.
In
fact, the Apollo Group has also diversified
in non-core medical sectors like ayurveda and
health spa's and is fast extending these facilities
in their hospitals. Apollo has already identified
nine of its super-speciality units -- the ones
in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bilaspur, Hyderabad,
Chennai, Goa, Bangalore and Colombo. And the
major crowd-puller apart from oncology, cardiology
and orthopaedic replacement surgeries, would
be major micro-surgeries and plastic surgeries.
While the main drawback that West Asian nations
have is poor management of the health-care delivery
units despite good infrastructure, it's just
the opposite in case of the African nations.
"These drawbacks will make for a smooth way
for the patients to consider India as their
medical destination." "India has the highest
success rate in major surgeries.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 26, 2003
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Indian
Innovators Find Global Favour
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While
the unprecedented global popularity of the Indian
Diaspora is on a constant upswing, there is
more news to cheer. Eight young NRIs join an
impressive list of people responsible for innovating
anything from wireless networking to artificial
organs, by making it to the prestigious List
of World's 100 Top Young Innovators, complied
by Technology Review, the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology's (MIT), magazine of innovation.
Their works have been recognised for utterly
transforming our world in the years to come,
and will be honoured at a glittering ceremony
tonight.
The
TR100, chosen by the editors of Technology Review
and an elite panel of judges, consists of 100
individuals, under 35, whose innovative work
in technology has a profound impact on today's
world.
The
nanotechnology category had three Indian entries.
Krishna Kumar, Ravikanth Pappu and Balaji Narasimhan.
Kumar,
a Chemistry Professor at Tufts University, is
recognised for his work in the field of protein
design and engineering research, particularly
on decorating proteins with Teflon- like Materials.
This invention is a major breakthrough in helping
solve a lot of health-related problems. "
Ravikanth,
a principal at Thing Magic in Cambridge, has
devised a cheap and simple solution for card
identifiers, that will be highly difficult to
forge, by developing radio-frequency identification
technologies.
Reuben
Singh, the 27-yr-old from Manchester, who was
recently named the youngest rich in the world
by Fortune magazine, is nominated in the Internet
category. His innovation is AlldayPa.com, a
company that uses custom software that enables
a team of live personal assistants to handle
calls, manage calendars, type letters and perform
other tasks for business owners.
Sanjay
Parekh, of Digital Envoy has the other nomination.
Parekh developed a software that allows companies
tailor services to their customers' locations.
It also traces connections back through Internet
switching stations to the network nodes where
log-ins originate.
A
Delhi University drop out, Vipul Ved Pakash,
25, frequently encountered the scourge of spam,
and developed Vipul's Razor, a spam-fighting
software tool, and co-founded Cloud mark with
Napster's former Software chief, Jordan Ritter.
It was the development of a free and commercial
another software tool called SpamNet, that fights
spam, which has been honoured under the Computing
Category by TR.
It
was Sangeeta Bhatia's innovation of using microchip-manufacturing
tools to build artificial livers, that has been
recognised in the Biotechnology and Medicine
category.
Under
the same category, Nimmi Ramanujan and Ram Samudrala
were also named. While Nimmi has devised an
instrument that can guide a biopsy needle to
just the right spot, making diagnosing breast
and cervical cancer faster, Samudrala, a professor
with the University of Washington, wrote algorithms
that can predict the functions of proteins from
the sequence of a every protein encoded by an
organism's genome.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 25, 2003
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NetApp
of US Comes Calling to India
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Bangalore:
Yet another IT multinational is banking on the
Indian talent pool to develop engineering and
escalation support services. The California-based
Network Appliance (NetApp) has set up a development
centre in Bangalore, the first outside the US.
India
will be a part of four other high-end support
centres that NetApps has across the globe. The
Indian centre will be responsible for the future
software enhancements of NetCache - a product
line which improves content delivery by storing
content closer to end users, thereby eliminating
network and server bottlenecks.
Besides
the obvious cost advantage, the decision to
move NetCache's entire software engineering
activity may be attributed to the India's talent
pool that India offers.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 24, 2003
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DHL
to make India as South Asia Hub
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New
Delhi: DHL HAS identified India as one of
its four key growth markets in the Asia-Pacific
region. The company will soon start operations
at its first world-class courier terminal at
the Delhi international airport. The terminal,
which would have an independent custom-bonded
warehouse, would be soon replicated in Mumbai,
Chennai and Kolkata airports as part of plans
to make the country a "South Asia hub of choice",
DHL worldwide express India country manager
Chris Callen said. "This facility will be the
first of its kind in India and will be among
the best that DHL has built worldwide. We are
spending close to Rs 18 crore on this project
and have committed to go live by October 1,
2003," he said.
Courtesy:
The Pioneer, September 23, 2003
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Drug
Research to Meet Global Norms
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New
Delhi: India's emerging pre-eminence in
the area of drug research is set to be reinforced
with a clutch of regulatory interventions aimed
at upgrading Indian system to global standards.
India can not only reduce the cost of research,
but contribute enormously to the increasingly
multi-centric, multi-country clinical trials
of drug candidates sponsored by innovator drug
companies across the globe. In an exclusive
interview with ET, Mr D S Brar, the CEO of Ranbaxy
Laboratories, which has won the ET Company of
the Year Award, and Dr N K Ganguly, director-general,
ICMR said India's multifarious ethnic conditions
would offer a vast pool of generic material
for clinical drug research.
According
to Mr Brar, India could emerge as the top 10
destinations of the world for innovation in
pharma in the next 10-15 years. "Here I count
each member of the EU. "Even a country like
China, which is more populous than India, is
not as abundant in ethnic varieties as India.
Availability
of diverse and untapped genetic material is
of course a major consideration of clinical
trial sponsors, designers and investigators.
"India is unique in this context, with remote
unstudied populations. Until a few years ago,
Indian drug companies had been almost completely
alien to the prerequisites of making an investigational
new drug (IND) application. Now we receive as
many as 107 such applications from Indian companies
in single year for instance," says Dr Ganguly,
who heads the IND application clearance committee
attached to the office of the drugs controller
general of India (DCGI).
A
Rs 200-crore animal breeding facility being
planned in Hyderabad, to be owned by drug companies,
is expected to partly address the concerns on
availability of animals for research. The Andhra
government has already committed to give the
land free for the project, while a few leading
domestic drug companies are willing to fund
it. The domestic capacity building should, indeed,
encompass all areas - enhancing the skills and
knowledge of the investigators as well as evaluators
of the data, setting up of better labs and increasing
access to patient population as well as animal
subjects for trials. Although companies like
Ranbaxy or Dr Reddy's, who are excelling other
speciality generic companies in the drug master
file submissions with the US-FDA could be exceptions,
some Indian drug companies are only learning
to make the dossiers on drug research data,
according to Ganguly.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 22, 2003
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Ankara
gets a Road Named after Tagore
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September
18: It was a programme right after the Prime
Minister's heart; unveiling a bust in honour
of "one of India's greatest poet philosophers".
Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee got an opportunity to
wear another one of his hats - that of the chancellor
of Visva-Bharati University that the Indian
Prime Minister traditionally wears, when he
inaugurated the Rabindranath Tagore Avenue in
the Turkish capital this morning, "celebrating
another valuable strand of the Indo-Turkish
connection".
Mr
Vajpayee said like many generations of poets,
writers, scholars and reformers in India, Gurudev
Tagore was influenced by the great Turkish Sufi
mystic, Jalalettin Rumi, whose "message of peace
and tolerance, and a world without boundaries
found a deep echo in Tagore's consciousness".
"The Rabindranath Tagore Avenue in Ankara will
remain a symbol of the friendship between our
two peoples," the Prime Minister said, mirroring
the "strategically located Kemal Ataturk Marg
in central Delhi, which runs adjacent to the
official residence of the Prime Minister of
India, and guards the sole public access to
it".
Courtesy:
The Statesman, September 19, 2003
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Brand
IIT Going Global: To Set Up Campuses Abroad
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Mumbai:
Leveraging the almost gargantuan status that
the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have
been able to carve for themselves over the past
decade, the government now proposes use their
brand equity to market Indian education abroad.
A first step in this direction is a proposal
to set up campuses of the IITs overseas. This
follows growing demand from developing nations
including Sri Lanka, Singapore, Mauritius and
countries of West Asia and S-E Asia, said a
government release.
This
issue of casting the Indian educational net
overseas was considered at length at the recent
meeting of the council of IITs in New Delhi.
Most of these countries have a low-level of
science and technology activities and feel that
IITs would serve as stepping stones to give
a fillip to their scientific advancement.
Singapore,
a considerably well-developed country, recently
sent a proposal to facilitate the presence of
an IIT for post-graduate education and research
with industry linkages in Singapore. The meeting
felt that while the IITs could benefit by working
with these institutes, their presence would
also help in developing linkages with S-E Asia
and China, as well as support in promoting India's
economic and commercial interest in the Asia-Pacific
region.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 18, 2003
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Film
to Promote AIIMS Abroad
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After
47 years, the All India Institute of Medical
Sciences (AIIMS) is ready to take on the countries
considered to be the harbinger of medical sciences.
It has prepared a 20-minute-long film on its
feats and advancements, something which gives
the Institute an edge over its counterparts
across the globe.The film, also an attempt to
export health abroad, contains not only the
prowess of the AIIMS. It features Queen Elizabeth
and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, then Prime Minister
of India. The duo were witnessed to the opening
of what has become now one of the best centres
of medical services in the world.
A
number of AIIMS faculty members serve as Visiting
Professors across the globe, while many of them
are with the agencies like WHO and UNICEF as
consultants. In the recent past, the hospital
had delegates from Russia, Bulgaria, Canada,
Mozambique, United States and Poland."As an
institution, AIIMS is magnificent in more ways
than one, compared to any medical institutes
in the world. Our treatment matches not only
with the best in the world, but is also superb
in many other respects," Dr P Venugopal, director,
AIIMS, said. AIIMS is, perhaps, the only medical
institute in the world where over 800 research
papers are published every year.
At
the same time, AIIMS offers the cheapest treatment
in the world. "We provide the best treatment
at a very affordable rate. A bypass surgery
costs only US $ 1200 at AIIMS, while in other
countries like the US it costs more than $ 50,000,"
Dr Shakti Gupta, spokesperson, said. "In areas
like cardiac surgery, heart transplantation,
nuclear medicine and cancer surgery, we are
matchless" he added.
Being
the best referral hospital in the country, the
AIIMS gets a number of patients from foreign
countries including US every year. Other countries
from where the patients throng the AIIMS are
Nepal, Bangladesh, Kenya, Mauritius, Mayanmar,
Bhutan and Pakistan.
Courtesy:
The Pioneer, September 17, 2003
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Indian
Named Academic Chief of US University
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An
Indian American anthropologist has been appointed
to a top position at New York's New School University.
Arjun Appadurai, currently professor of international
studies at Yale University, will be its chief
academic officer, combining the functions of
provost and senior vice-president for academic
affairs.
University
president Bob Kerrey, announcing the appointment,
said: "Appadurai is an accomplished and well-known
scholar, who is highly-regarded in the fields
of international affairs, anthropology, sociology,
and political science." The appointment takes
effect from January 1, 2004.
The
Mumbai-born Appadurai, reacting to the announcement,
said he would be delighted to join Kerrey in
leading "an extraordinary university, in the
world's most vibrant city, as it brings its
mission to a globalising world."
Courtesy:
Hindustan Times, September 14, 2003
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Amity
Students Head for Florida
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New
Delhi September 13: Four students of Amity Law
School have cleared the domestic rounds for
the "International Moot Court Competition" on
"International Environment Law" to be held at
the Stetson University College of Law in Florida
on October 31.
Renowned
law schools from all over India participated
in the three-day domestic rounds conducted by
the Chennai Law College at Chennai. The four
teams which qualified for the semi-final rounds
to represent India include the Indian Law School
of Pune, NUJS of Kolkata, Kerala Law Academy
and the Amity Law School of Delhi.
The
Amity Law School students who will be flying
to Florida for the International rounds are
Himanshu Dodeja, Ashish Mohan, Deepika Bansal
and Karan S.Chandhiok.
Courtesy:
The Hindu, September 14, 2003
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Facts
to Make Every Indian Proud
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Q.
Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A.
Vinod Khosla
Q.
Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no
introduction as 90% of the today's computers
run on it)?
A.
Vinod Dahm
Q.
Who is the third richest man on the world?
A.
According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine,
it is AZIM PREMJI, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries.
The Sultan of Brunei is at 6th position now.
Q.
Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail
is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A.
Sabeer Bhatia
Q.
Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT
& T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages
such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A.
Arun Netravalli
Q.
Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
A.
Rajiv Gupta
Q.
Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director)
of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all
initial problems?
A.
Sanjay Tejwrika
Q.
Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey
& Stanchart?
A.
Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.
- We
Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic
groups in America, even faring better than
the whites and the natives. There are 3.22
millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population).
YET,
38%
of doctors in USA are Indians.
12%
scientists in USA are Indians.
36%
of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13%
of XEROX employees are Indians.
You
may know some of the following facts. These
facts were recently published in a German magazine,
which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT
INDIA.
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India never invaded any country in her last
1000 years of history.
-
India invented the Number system. Aryabhatta
invented 'zero.'
-
The world's first University was established
in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students
from all over the world studied more than
60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built
in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest
achievements of ancient India in the field
of education.
-
According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit
is the most suitable language for computer
software.
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Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine
known to humans.
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Although western media portray modern images
of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped
through political corruption, India was once
the richest empire on earth.
-
The art of navigation was born in the river
Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word "Navigation"
is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
-
The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana,
and he explained the concept of what is now
known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British
scholars have last year (1999) officially
published that Budhayan's works dates to the
6th Century, which is long before the European
mathematicians.
-
Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from
India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya
in the 11th Century; the largest numbers the
Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas
Indians used numbers as big as 1053.
-
According to the Gemmological Institute of
America, up until 1896, India was the only
source of diamonds to the world.
-
USA based IEEE has proved what has been a
century-old suspicion amongst academics that
the pioneer of wireless communication was
Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
-
The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation
was built in Saurashtra.
-
Chess was invented in India.
-
Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years
ago he and health scientists of his time conducted
surgeries like caesareans, cataract, fractures
and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was
well known in ancient India.
-
When many cultures in the world were only
nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago,
Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu
Valley (Indus Valley Civilisation).
-
The place value system, the decimal system
was developed in India in 100 BC.
Quotes
About India:
-
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us
how to count, without which no worthwhile
scientific discovery could have been made.
- Albert Einstein.
-
India is the cradle of the human race, the
birthplace of human speech, the mother of
history, the grandmother of legend and the
great grand mother of tradition. - Mark Twain.
-
If there is one place on the face of earth
where all dreams of living men have found
a home from the very earliest days when man
began the dream of existence, it is India.
- French Scholar Romain Rolland.
-
India conquered and dominated China culturally
for 20 centuries without ever having to send
a single soldier across her border. - Hu Suih.
(Former Chinese ambassador to USA).
All
of the above is just the tip of the iceberg,
the list could be endless. But, if we don't
see even a glimpse of that great India in the
India that we see today, it clearly means that
we are not working up to our potential; and
that if we do, we could once again be an ever
shining and inspiring country setting a bright
path for rest of the world to follow. I hope
you enjoyed it and work towards the welfare
of INDIA.
Say
proudly, I AM AN INDIAN.
Courtesy:
www.listserv.ait.ac.th, September 13, 2003
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Shourie
Launches WLL Service in Nepal
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Kathmandu:
Nepal's First private telecom operator United
Telecom Limited (UTI), launched its basic telephony
service based on WLL technology, marking the
end of three-decade long monopoly of the state-owned
Nepal Telecommunications Corporation (NTC).
Minister for Communications Arun Shourie launched
the service along with Nepal's Minister for
Information and Communication Kamal Thapa at
a function here on Wednesday evening. Thapa
said the long standing telephone needs of the
people in the capital would be met by the new
venture. UTL is a joint venture between India's
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., Videsh Sanchar
Nigam Ltd., Telecommunications Consultants India
and the local Nepal Ventures Private Ltd.
Courtesy:
The Pioneer, September 12, 2003
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Indian
Art Lights Up Global Canvas
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Kolkata:
Indian art seems to be coming up with different
strokes. While international auctions by Christie's,
Sotheby's and Bonham's are popularising contemporary
Indian art, a trend of commercial overseas shows
by individual galleries are silently catching
up.
There
were just a couple of exhibits abroad by galleries
3-4 years back, the number has risen to at least
half a dozen annually now.
"Awareness
and interest about Indian art is fast increasing
overseas. Galleries, together with auctioneers,
are now pushing boundaries. With the appreciation
in prices of contemporary Indian art, staging
commercial shows globally has become affordable,"
Dinesh Vazirani, director, Saffronart Gallery,
told ET.
Saffronart
unveiled six international exhibits in the last
three years, and have done three shows with
Mumbai's Pundole gallery in New York and one
in Los Angeles in association with Chennai's
Appa Rao Galleries.
"Banks,
both MNCs and Indian, are of late showing a
lot of interest in sponsoring art shows abroad.
One expects the number of exhibits to double
if they are backed by sponsorships."
Kolkata
could be a smaller market for Indian art than
Mumbai and Delhi. But, that has not prevented
the city's Gallerie 88, a leading art house,
from going overseas. It has mounted two shows
in London in the last couple of years.
"Indian
art is definitely on a high. Swelling prices
have made it easier to cover the hefty costs
involved in putting up a show overseas," he
said.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 11, 2003
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E-learning
Market in India Set to Grow at 25%
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New
Delhi: Standing against a projected global
revenue of $23 billion by 2005, e-learning market
in India stands at a meagre $5 million in 2002,
primarily due to poor demand, according to Nasscom.
The
e-learning market in India is in an infant stage
and in 2002 it was approximately $4-5 million
with an expected four year annual growth rate
of 20-25 per cent", a Nasscom study said, adding
the demand in Indian market is still low and
mainly from MNCs. E-learning is internet-enabled
learning that provides the tools to help companies
tackle the learning challenges.
Companies
such as Mcgraw-Hill, Digital Think, SkillSoft,
Mentergy are setting up operations in India
which is a positive sign for the e-learning
segment. Globally e-learning trend is towards
consolidation as clients are increasingly looking
at end-to-end solutions and system integraters
like IBM e-learning. NIIT is one of the top
e-learning players in the country.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 11, 2003
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India
Set to become Developing World's Voice at Cancun
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India
is again being looked upon to emerge as a strong
voice of developing countries at the WTO Ministerial
Meet starting Wednesday at the Mexican resort
of Cancun.At the Doha Ministerial in November
2001, India successfully withstood pressure
and managed to secure vital concessions for
the developing countries as in the matter of
access to affordable medicines in the final
Doha Development Agenda.
"India
is on a stronger footing this time with China
and Brazil having decided to support it in getting
concessions on agriculture subsidies and better
market access," director of the Institute of
Economic Growth BB Bhattacharya told IANS.
Along
with like-minded nations, India is expected
to take on the might of the US and European
Union on farm issues. Emerging as a major agriculture
exporting country, India has a strong stake
in ensuring that developing countries get better
market access.With 70 per cent of the country
dependent on agriculture, it will be an area
of major concern for India, which is also striving
to become a leading player in export of agriculture
goods.
Courtesy:
www.hindustantimes.com, September 09, 2003
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India
again Big in Silicon Valley
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Amidst
the bloodbath of US recession, the entrepreneurship
story in Silicon Valley has a new script. Indians
who have made their millions in the US tech
hub have driven philanthropic efforts back home.
Now, their India plans are more than just charity.
In fact, even as the big US tech players need
to include offshoring in their financial statements,
the Silicon Valley Indians obviously have an
advantage in leveraging India as the country
of their origin. From Hotmail founder Sabeer
Bhatia's Televoice Corporation, which offers
a two-way voice mailbox service to TiE founder
Kanwal Rekhi's Ensim Inc which is doing Internet
product development out of Pune for global markets,
the India connection has become central to the
Valley's business plans.
In
general, India is becoming more dynamic and
an attractive place to engage in while the US
is mired in recession, especially in the hi-tech
area. It is very clear now that any knowledge
intensive industry will have to integrate India
in its cost structure. This is especially true
for software where it is unimaginable to not
have an India connection.
For
the mature Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley,
the feeling of giving back to the country of
origin is much stronger than just the profits
to be gained from outsourcing. According to
those working in the valley doing something
in India that will give a technology edge to
people and society at large is not only about
business advantage. It's also about culture
and giving back to the country of origin.''
Brocade Technologies has recently entered a
tie-up with the National Informatics Centre
to set up a storage area network centre of excellence
to transfer technology and share best practices.
Deployment of cutting edge SAN technology will
help NIC in areas like disaster recovery.
Today,
for most IT companies, moving business activities
off-shore, especially to India, has become a
matter of survival. In any case, India is not
just a back-office anymore, but a potential
market for many products and services.
While
the slowdown in the US economy has increased
India's attractiveness as an investment destination.
But it is not the only factor contributing towards
the increased FDI that we are witnessing into
the Indian tech/biotechnology sector. This increased
VC interest in India has largely been driven
by the tremendous progress our economy has made
over the last decade and the fact that India's
IT services and BPO industry are amongst the
fastest growing sectors not only in India but
around the world.
Courtesy:
The Economic Times, September 08, 2003
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Indian
Woman Breaks Glass Ceiling in West
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London:
A 34-year-old ethnic Indian woman with a passion
for human rights and Harry Potter becomes the
unofficial keeper of Britain's conscience from
Tuesday, as lawyer Shami Chakrabarti takes control
of Liberty, one of western Europe's oldest civil
liberties organisations.
Chakrabarti,
a senior lawyer specialising in human rights
law, takes over as head of Liberty in a move
seen to chip the unofficial glass ceiling for
Indian women professionals in the West.
Chakrabarti's
rise means she joins yet another so-called 'bleeding
heart' ethnic Indian, on the frontline of British
liberal-humanitarian endeavour. Ghosh heads
Crisis, an organisation dedicated to combating
homelessness. She is proudly described by her
staff as formerly one of the British Home Office
officials responsible for the implementation
of the landmark Human Rights Act.
Courtesy:
The Times of India, September 03, 2003
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