India today signed its biggest-ever defence deal with Russia for the purchase of the aircraft-carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, along with the deck-based MiG-29K fighter aircraft and other systems, including torpedo tubes, missile systems and artillery units. The visiting Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, put the value of the contract at $1.5 billion (over Rs. 7,000 crores).

Gorshkov will replace India's only aircraft carrier, INS Viraat. Its induction in 2008 will ensure that the Navy does not lose its expertise in handling aircraft carriers. The agreement marks yet another milestone in Indo-Russian defence cooperation. Both countries are now implementing multi-thousand crore deals for advanced fighter aircraft, tanks and naval frigates. Both Defence Ministers said talks were on to take the buyer-seller relationship to a higher plane that will include joint research and development of military hardware. The two sides have already made a beginning in this direction with the joint development of the supersonic missile, Brahmos.

Courtesy: The Hindu, January 21, 2004

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After making its mark in the US mission to Mars, Indian robotic expertise will make its presence felt back home, rigging up a mobile robot platform that could be put to use when India sends its first mission to the moon in '10. Researchers at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT) are working on the platform. The IIIT has collaborated with CMU to design a low-cost and versatile mobile robot platform that will help robots to navigate through rough space. The robot, equipped with a stereo camera, sonars, laser range finders and inertial sensors, will appear at NASA's RoboCamp in California during July '04.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, January 21, 2004

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India's Computer Emergency response Team (CERT-In) was formally dedicated to the nation by Communications and Information Technology Minister Arun Shourie. Mr Shourie said the CERT-In would play a crucial role in preserving national security in an increasingly networked, technology-dependent age. "In the event of a cyber war, if terrorists or anyone else shuts down any information system, the nation could be demoralised and the economy affected. The CERT-In will respond to control such emergency situations," Mr Shourie said. He said that India was entering a situation in which different sectors are getting electronically linked. Areas like power, aviation, telecommunications and others were also becoming integrated with each other. Any disruptions in one network, or in parts of a network, could affect the entire country, its security and the national economy, the minister added. "It is the the CERT-In's task to avoid such eventualities and to ensure that the entire information highway is not disrupted by any threat," he added. The CERT-In will also respond to virus threats and post regular updates of new viruses released around the globe and in India. This will ensure that the use of the Internet is not disrupted at any point. It is the CERT-In's task to ensure that Internet users effectively use the World Wide Web at all times, he said. The Cert-In will also alert the cyber community on latest security threats through advisories, vulnerability notes and incident notes.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, January 20, 2004

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India has crossed yet another milestone in its efforts to become self-reliant in Defence technologies and systems when the first-ever indigenously built Integrated Electronic Warfare system was handed over by the President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam to the Chief of Army Staff Gen N C Vij. The first block of the stem comprises of 26 state-of-the-art vehicles equipped with cutting edge electronic warfare technology. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam urged Defence scientists and research institutions to bring about a synchronisation of action among the electronic warfare systems of the armed forces to ensure that no special warheads of the enemy is able to enter the nation's airspace. Hailing teams of scientists and the partnership between the public and private sector in successfully developing the software intensive program, Dr Kalam said the development and production of super components by 40 small companies under the code program, enabled the country to overcome the denial of technology by other countries." What you have done shows not only the success of the scientists, engineers of the DLRL, BEL DRDO and technical arm of the army indicates India's success, said the President.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, January 20, 2004

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The tiny state of Kerala boasts of India's first "fully e-literate'' district. Residents of Malappuram, a once-backward district, have found out that the keyboard and mouse can change their daily lives and are thanking the Kerala government's Akshaya project for it. Under the project, Kerala opened about 620 e-parlours or kiosks all over the district. These kiosks have made at least one person in each of the district's 6.5 lakh families computer literate. They can now surf the net and send/receive emails in Malayalam. Besides training people to use a computer, the kiosks double as centres for e-governance and a medium through which residents of the district can avail of government services. "Malappuram has shown the country the way. We have proved nothing is impossible," a beaming IT secretary said.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, January 20, 2004

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Ravi Arimilli is patently the king of inventions and innovations in the world of high-tech research. The Indian-born techie was awarded a whopping 53 patents in 2003 - nearly one every week - to add to the nearly 200 patents he has won for IBM, including a record 78 last year. For the 11th year running, the US Patent Office last week declared IBM to be undisputed leader among companies undertaking patent producing research worldwide, awarding the company popularly known as Big Blue a record 3,415 patents in 2003. Within Big Blue itself, Arimilli, a technocrat-engineer at its Austin facility, remained king.

Over the past decade, IBM has won over 25,000 patents, nearly triple the total of any US tech competitor. Engineers and researchers of Indian origin have fueled the company's surge. IBM's patent portfolio is said to generate an average of more than $1 billion in intellectual-property royalties annually. Ravi Arimilli's patent run began in 1998, when he was awarded 18 patents and named the company's Inventor of the Year, a title he has retained each subsequent year. The Eluru, Andhra Pradesh born techie also developed the electronics for Pacific Blue, the advanced version of IBM's Deep Blue computer that worsted Garry Kasparov in a chess series.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.com, January 19, 2004

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Relations between India and the United States took a transformational turn with Washington agreeing to give New Delhi access to hitherto denied civilian nuclear and space technologies and hi-tech products. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the agreement in a statement, hours after President George W Bush made an identical statement at a Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico. "The expanded cooperation launched today is an important milestone in transforming the relationship between India and the United States of America," Vajpayee said. The statement said the two countries had agreed to expand cooperation in civilian nuclear activities, civilian space programmes and high technology trade and also to expand dialogue on missile defence. "Cooperation in these areas will deepen the ties of commerce and friendship between our two nations and will increase stability in Asia and beyond," it said. The agreement is the result of nearly two years of painstaking and delicate negotiations between officials and strategic experts of the two countries and is expected to boost bilateral trade. The agreement on cooperation in hi-tech trade will give access to India to high technology products in the US, including those with dual-use technology that have both civilian and military applications which had till now been denied to it due to proliferation concerns. It said India-US relations were based increasingly on "common values and common interests" and added the two countries were working together to promote global peace and prosperity. Vajpayee recalled that in November 2001, he and President Bush had committed their countries to a strategic partnership. "Since then, our two countries have strengthened bilateral cooperation significantly in several areas," the statement said and added this announcement was the "next step in implementing our shared vision."

Courtesy: The Times of India, January 14, 2004

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India is going to be a world hub for research and development in software and hardware sectors if the recent upsurge in investment by world-renowned companies is anything to go by. According to a rough estimate, more than 20 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have set up their R&D centres in India, and the number is increasing every day, said senior officers of the information technology ministry.

"Perhaps there is no other country that has witnessed such positive changes in the R&D sector, particularly in software," the officer said. Research centres of more than 100 Fortune 500 companies are already functional. Most of these centres came up in the past five years, the officer said. Research and development in the software sector has been the major thrust area in the past few years. Out of the total $16 billion revenue from software and IT enabled services, $13 billion alone came from the export of software.

Courtesy: The Statesman, January 13, 2004

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Indian-American computer engineer Kanna Rajan led a team of scientists to develop software that enabled America 's Spirit rover to land on the red planet. As soon as the Mars Exploration Rovers leave their landers, they will be confronted with completing hundreds of manoeuvres and scientific tasks. The order in which they do these tasks will be decided by computer software developed by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) team, led by Rajan. Rajan is a 1990 University of Texas computer science and engineering master's graduate and now a principal investigator and senior scientist at Nasa Ames Research Centre. Spirit, the first of the rovers, is already on Mars and should be deployed in a few days. When it is, Rajan and a subset of his team will be in the main control room preparing to command the rover with their software, according to the University of Texas, (UTA) Arlington College of Engineering. The software examines the items and decides the order and placement of items to achieve the best collection, based on scientific importance, location and time and resources available.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, January 12, 2004

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Qualcomm will open a research and development centre in India to write software for CDMA-based technology. Qualcomm holds patient for CDMA technology. "India is going to be a major source of research and development for Qualcomm and we will have a centre here this year where developers will write software for CDMA-based technology," Irwin Mark Jacobs, chairman and CEO, Qualcomm, told newspersons here. Pointing out there will be significant investments as and when the centre opens this year, Mr Jacob said the company was looking at various places and has not yet finalised on any particular area. With the Code Division Multiple Technology (CDMA)-based phones having made strong inroads into the Indian market through operators like Reliance and Tatas, Qualcomm is upbeat on its growth here. "In India, we are anticipating CDMA-based telephone usage to be over 20m by the year-end, said Mr Jacob. Currently, India has close to 7m CDMA phone subscribers.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, January 12, 2004

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Infosys, the largest listed domestic software exporter, wants to emerge as the ' next generation IT services company ', putting competitive pressure on incumbents. The rules of the game are changing. People have accepted the value of the IT services model, he said. Infosys is getting a bigger share of the clients' wallet, said company officials, as is apparent from the company getting two $50-million clients for the first time. 130 of its clients are in $1-million bracket, with its largest client contributing 5.5 per cent to revenues. In the first nine months of the current fiscal, the company saw a six per cent price decline. With growth in volumes coming and the US economy picking up steam, Infosys made a record hiring in Q3, adding 3,666 people taking its total headcount to 23,209 by end December 2003. Though the company has a forward cover of $107 million at Rs 45.93 to the dollar, rupee appreciation is a key factor of concern, the other being wage hike, according to CFO TV Mohandas Pai. With business picking up and offshoring becoming mainstream, Infosys anticipates wage pressure to occur and competition for talent intensify.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, January 10, 2004

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Bhishma, the first indigenously assembled main battle tank of the Russian T 90S, rolled out of the heavy vehicles factory at suburban Avadi here on Wednesday. Named after the legendary warrior and father-figure in Mahabharata, known for his courage, resilience and invincibility, the battle tank Bhishma will be a great asset for the Indian Army, being highly versatile, having lethal firepower, the capability to launch surprise hit at first sight, besides remarkable self-protection measures. Unveiling the Bhishma at the HVF, Union minister of state for defence O. Rajagopal said Arjun, the country's indigenous MBT, would also be launched in a few months.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, January 08, 2004

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Indian scientists claimed to have developed a drug as a "cure" to diabetes from a plant found in West Bengal's Purulia hills. The drug - 'ICB201' - has been derived from a plant after it was noticed that people in Purulia hills had been using it for diabetic problems," Dr S. Bhattacharya of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, whose team developed the drug, told the science congress here on Tuesday. Delivering the B.C. Guha memorial award lecture on "Confronting Diabetic Type II: A Global Epidemic", Bhattacharya claimed: "Probably, the answer to 'type-II' diabetes has been found." Asserting that earlier there was "practically no drug to treat the type II diabetes", he said 'ICB201' acts by lowering the fatty acid levels in blood. Higher levels of fatty acids in blood diminish activity of insulin which causes diabetes.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, January 08, 2004

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The most advanced battle tank T-90S 'Bhishma', having tremendous night fighting capability and missle firing facility, was rolled out from the Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF), Avadi about 30 km from here, today. The first tank was handed out to Chief of Army Staff Gen. N C Vij by Minister of State for Defence O Rajagopal at the HVF premises in the presence of Director General of Ordnance Factories and Chairman of Ordnance Factory Board P K Misra, Additional Director of Ordnance Factories (Armoured Vehicles) A K Lamba and HVF General Manager B S Bhatia. The biggest advantage of T-90, when compared to T-72 tank was that it had tremendous night fighting capability and could fire missile to a range of 4000 m. The T-90 had undergone all trials and had proved its capability. The highly versatile and state-of-the-art battle tanks, having the capability to attack enemy targets precisely during night time, was assembled here with parts imported from Russia and was aimed at meeting the needs of the Indian Army in the coming decades.

Courtesy: The Hindu, January 07, 2004

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The cellular club has added 177 lakh subscribers - more than three times the subscribers added in '02 - during '03. As a result, the total mobile population of the country stood at 281.8 lakh as of December '03 as against 104.8 lakh on December '02. Additions for '03 include both GSM and CDMA users, now that limited mobility subscribers have been re-classified as fully mobile players under the unified access service licence. Of this, GSM operators added 115 lakh subscribers while CDMA companies roped in 61 lakh users. In '02, the cellular additions were a little over 50 lakh, mainly comprising GSM players. Around 17 lakh people went mobile in December alone. The total GSM subscriber base stood at 220 lakh as against 207 lakh in November-end, an increase of 13 lakh. The CDMA subscriber base stood at 62 lakh, reporting a net addition of four lakh over November's figure of 58 lakh. Reliance continues to be the largest mobile player with a subscriber base of 62.4 lakh (55.7 lakh CDMA and 6.7 lakh GSM), followed by Bharti at 55 lakh (GSM only), BSNL (48 lakh) and Hutch (41 lakh).

Courtesy: The Economic Times, January 07, 2004

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The Cabinet on Wednesday approved construction of strategic oil storage facilities at three locations on east and west coast at an estimated cost of over Rs 1600 crore. Strategic crude oil storage facilities will be built at Mangalore in Karnataka and Vizag in Andhra Pradesh. The third location is in Karnataka, further south of Mangalore, official sources said. "The three locations will stockpile 5 million tonnes of crude oil reserves, enough to meet the country's requirement for 15 days," they said. State-run Indian Oil Corp will float a new company which would build, import and maintain the crude oil stocks. Currently, the total crude oil storage capacity with domestic refineries is 19 days (5.7 million tonne). Besides, the country at present has tankages to provide for 45 days' cover of petroleum products. Of the proposed tankage, 1.5 million tonnes will be built at Mangalore and one million tonnes at Vizag. The location south of Mangalore will have storage capacity of 2.5 million tonnes.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, January 07, 2004

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To make sure Indian alternative medicinal forms remain the country's heritage, the Ministry of Health has decided to transcript all Unani medicine formulations in four European languages and Japanese. The Rs 3.5-crore project has been undertaken by the Ministry's Department of AYUSH (an acronym for Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In its first phase, the project aims to transcript about 75,000 Unani formulations in English, German, Spanish, French and Japanese. Grants have been allotted for two-and-a-half years. The second phase would transcript an equal number of formulations. About 35,000 Ayurvedic formulations have been put out in patented form by the Health Ministry. After Unani, the focus will be on Siddha - the South Indian form of alternative medicine. ''We are a country with rich medicinal heritage and the steps have been taken to ensure our traditions are safe,'' the official said.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, January 06, 2004

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The inevitable has happened. Bangalore, which grew under the shadow of America 's Silicon Valley over the last two decades, has finally overtaken its parent. Today, Bangalore stands ahead of Bay Area, San Francisco and California, with a lead of 20,000 techies, while employing a total number of 1.5 lakh engineers. Bangalore, which commenced its R&D activities in 1986 when Texas Instruments set up its product engineering centre here, is currently home to the who's who of the global tech fraternity . The recent recession in the US also forced most corporates there to move thousands of jobs to India in addition to tech giants such as Cisco, Intel, IBM, Oracle and i2 relocating some of their Indian-origin employees from the US centres to Bangalore. Bangalore happened at lightning speed because of the Y2K problem, where America chose to depend on India as it was thought to be a one-off situation. And, Indians learned a lot about the applications they were helping to fix." Moreover, it is found out that the Americans are shying away from the challenges of math and science. A recent National Science Foundation Study reveals a 5 per cent decline in the overall doctoral candidates in the US over the last five years. The India side story: India produces 3.1 million college graduates a year, which is expected to be doubled by 2010. The number of engineering colleges is slated to grow 50 per cent, to nearly 1,600, over the next four years.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, January 06, 2004

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In a breakthrough, scientists at Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, have developed an ATM (automated teller machine) that costs just about Rs. 40,000 against the ones available now that cost about Rs. 9 lakhs. Disclosing this at the plenary session of the Indian Science Congress, now on here, Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a member of the telecom research team at IIT, Chennai, said that as a first step, prototypes would be installed in select villages in Tamil Nadu next month. The ATMs, dispensing small denomination notes, would be connected to a kiosk with an internet line, Dr. Jhunjhunwala said. The ATMs would have web cameras and using finger-prints to identify the customers. The IIT team would soon file for patents for the technology. The IIT had set up a small company that would commercialise the technology, he said. Apart from the rural ATM, Dr. Jhunjhunwala also plans to launch a satellite-based rural connectivity programme within the next four months in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation. Called Sparse Area communication, the technology will involve satellites to provide telephone and internet connectivity to villages within a 50-km radius.

Courtesy: The Hindu, January 04, 2004

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Sample this - the Intel team in Bangalore is developing microprocessor chips for high-speed broadband wireless technology, to be launched in 2006; at GE's John F Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore, engineers are developing new ideas for aircraft engines, transport system and plastics. It's the Year of the Idea, and the newest and busiest hub for innovations and intellectual property is India. Indians are parenting patents like never before in 200 R&D labs. "India is the new hub for patents, and soon, the world will be outsourcing R&D from India," says P Gopalakrishnan, director, IBM India Research Lab, IIT. Here's a list of patents passed in India: a moulded toothbrush with flexible bristles; a process for preparing a cell culture composition; a safety device for motorised two-wheelers with shock absorption; a process for isolation and purification of protein P17 for HIV. Intel, Bangalore has photographs of company engineers who have applied for patents hanging on the wall of fame.

Courtesy: The Times of India, January 04, 2004

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The Telecommunication and Computer Network (TeNet) Group, the result of informal chats among three professors - all IIT alumni and US returns - is better known for incubating Midas Communications and its corDECT wireless in local loop technology with US chip manufacturer Analog Devices. Midas started by coaxing nine IIT alumni to chuck well paying jobs for this business risk. ''In 1994, Midas was a dream, today it's on autopilot.'' ''The simplest technology is more challenging in India than in the US because it has a huge impact.'' Today TeNet has incubated 14 companies totalling over 1,000 engineers. TeNet's latest incorporation is n-Logue Communications to take telephones and the Internet (multimedia, webcam, video conferencing software, the works) to villages at the cost of Rs 50,000 a kiosk - Rs 40,000 as bank loan. Promised returns: Rs 3,500 a month and 500 to 1,000 subscribers in a 25 sq km radius.n-Logue's agenda is to stay off cities, with a target of 2,500 rural access centres and one million subscribers over three years. Kiosks are springing up across Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, some already raking in Rs 13,000-14,000 income monthly. Coming up next from the group is a planned February launch of a rural ATM by Vortex. The cost: Rs 30-35,000 instead of the usual budget of several lakh. No pin numbers for this money vending machine, just stick your thumb on the webcam for a good old fingerprint.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, January 04, 2004

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She's made it big by sorting out the waste in e-mails. Pavni Diwanji's latest software is a boon for those grappling with junk mail. A few years ago, she sold her software Kendara, an advanced search engine, for $1.2 million. The anti-spam software www.mailfrontier.com, designed by this 31-year-old entrepreneur, is in demand as junk mails flood e-mail accounts all over the world. The software filters e-mail accounts, lists mails in order of priority and deletes junk mail. ''All over the world, IT professionals, MNCs and even individuals have to tackle the nuisance of junk e-mail on a daily basis,'' says Pavni Diwanji, founder and COO of Mail Frontier. Diwanji, who hails from Ahmedabad, did her schooling from Gujarat Law Society and obtained a Bachelors degree from LD Engineering College in 1990. She then left for the US to complete her Masters degree at Stanford, after which Pavni joined Sun Microsystems in California. ''Indians are respected and considered very hard working individuals. They have carved a niche for themselves in the US,'' says Pavni, who admits to learning her enterprising skills from her father, N. Diwanji, and mother, Toral.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, January 04, 2004

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India will test the indigenously-designed and produced Agni-III ballistic missile in 2004. The induction of Agni-I and Agni-II into the Armed Forces has already began, chief of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRD0) V K Atre said here on Wednesday. Capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads, Agni-III can strike a target at about 3,000 kms. Agni-I has a strike range of 700 kms and Agni-II has a range of 1,500 to 2,000 kms. Highlighting the achievements of the DRDO in 2003, he listed the steady progress of the LCA christened Tejas by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee early this year and successful trials of the multi-barrel rocket launcher Pinaka as pluses. He said the LCA would be completing 200 hours of test flying by March and cross the barrier of 1.4 Mach. The successful trials of Pinaka rocket launchers and its likely induction into two regiments of the army was an achievement for the DRDO. Similarly, the supersonic cruise missile Brahmos, jointly developed by India and Russia, underwent several successful flight trials and the performance of the system was very encouraging.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, January 01, 2004