Dr Reddy's Foundation, the social arm of pharma major Dr Reddy's Laboratories, has set up its first Livelihood Advancement Business School (LABS) center outside India at the Vietnamese captal, Hanoi. LABS aims at providing access to jobs to unemployed youth from weaker backgrounds, to an official release stated on Tuesday. "We are very excited about the first international LABS training center. It is a significant milestone in our efforts to reach and empower unemployed youth across the world," Nalini Gangadharan of the Foundation, said. About 12,500 youth have been trained and employed under LABS, which operates in 14 centres including Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Bangalore, besides various towns across Andhra Pradesh, Gangadharan added.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 28, 2004

Back to Index

Dr Reddy's Launches Prostrate Treatment Drug

Dr Reddy's laboratories on Monday launched a new drug dutas for the treatment of enlarged prostate. In India, over 7.7 crore men over the age of 60 suffer from obstructive symptomatic enlarged prostate which worsens with age.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, April 27, 2004

Back to Index

If you are Indian and highly skilled in the specialised professions like IT and medicine then countries like the US, the UK and the rest of Europe are desperately on the look out for you. And why not? You bring much needed talent in sparsely supplied fields and high-end jobs also mean more money through taxes for the host countries. Now not only are Indians, engaged in new economy sectors, moving abroad but jobs are also moving to India The US and the UK have created special immigration schemes to attract Indians, apart from improvising on existing schemes that have existed for some years in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Germany, meanwhile, has brought about a new "green card" scheme to recruit foreign IT specialists and to train 2,50,000 domestic specialists by 2005. As is well-known, the Silicon Valley is much dependent on Indians for supplying entrepreneurs as well as workers. While much ink has been spilled over the rising trend of Indian professionals snatching away the jobs from their American and European counterparts in their country, nobody doubts that the skilled, English speaking, hardworking, tech-savvy, and of course much economical Indian professionals deserve them. he past decade has witnessed the entire world inching closer under the fold of globalisation. Countries have come closer and mutual inter-dependence in terms of trade and commerce have taken a huge northward leap. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the IT industry, especially in the Silicon Valley, is effectively manned by Indian software engineers.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 26, 2004

Back to Index

The Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), in association with its South Korean counterpart - International Co-operation Agency for Korea IT - is organising the India-South Korea ICT forum '04 in Delhi in May. Major Korean ICT companies including RND Tech, Kisan Telecom, Media Land, Network Cable, Wemade entertainment, Sinji Soft, Mark Any, NTG, Modern Phil Tech, Future Systems and CCR are expected to participate at the buyer -seller meet. At present, the Indian presence in this market is very insignificant. Executive director, ESC, DK Sareen said that in the coming days many avenues would emerge for India-South Korea partnerships in ICT segments. There are complementary elements that exist between the two countries in areas such as technology, skills and capabilities. "India has one of the largest skill bases in software technologies. South Korea has some of the most competitive industries like electronics, hardware and telecom industries. These industries require sophisticated software, strong R&D infrastructure, digital products and solutions. These are the areas where the two nations can co-operate, which can lead to a win-win situation," says Mr Sareen. This is the third buyer-seller meet of Indian and South Korean ICT companies being organised in India on an annual basis. This year, there would be at least 15 South Korean companies participating, an ESC press note said.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 26, 2004

Back to Index

Global chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) of the US has announced its plans to open an engineering design center in Bangalore. To start with, 40 chip design and development engineers will be hired, with the workforce going up to 120 by the end of 2005. AMD plans to invest $5 million over the next three years to establish the center and ramp up operations. The facility will occupy approximately 38,000 square-feet and will be located in the central business district of Bangalore. The engineers at the Indian centre will work in collaboration with AMD's teams in the US and will help define future microprocessor designs focused on meeting the evolving user needs in India and other high-growth markets.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 23, 2004

Back to Index

Broadband applications at Reliance Infocomm's WebWorld outlets are proving to be popular among corporates. In particular, its video-conferencing facilities, which have clocked more than 200 hours of usage ever since its launch in March. Leading healthcare company Johnson & Johnson for example, recently utilised the video-conferencing facilities to bring together nearly 200 orthopaedic surgeons across the country, to take part in a global webcasting event. The doctors witnessed a surgery taking place at the company's research and development centre at Writhington in the UK. A similar global event is being planned for a knee replacement surgery in the next few months. Other companies like Bharat Overseas and HLL are also using the facility. HLL for instance organises its sales meets across the country through video-conferencing. Reliance Infocomm's broadband applications run at speeds of 768 kilo bytes per second. With its broadband enterprise applications due to be launched within a week, Reliance Infocomm is utilising this opportunity to test the waters.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 23, 2004

Back to Index

Jayant Narlikar, Professor Emeritus and founder director of Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), has been awarded the prestigious Prix Janssen Gold Medal for 2004 by the Society Astronomique de France. The award is alternately given to a French astronomer (in odd years) and a foreign astronomer (even years) for significant contribution to astronomy. The award is named after French astronomer Pierre-Jules-C sar Janssen (1824-1907), who was the first to obtain evidence about the existence of helium on the sun and also discovered the chromosphere, a type of gaseous envelope surrounding the star.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, April 21, 2004

Back to Index

Ikanos Communications has launched its Fx fibre extension technology which will allow telecom service providers to offer voice, television and data over existing telephone lines. It claims to be the first company to extend broadband services to up to 100 Mbps (million bits per second) over a single telephone line. Mbps is a measurement of how fast data can move in one second. 100 Mbps, for example, would be a transfer rate of 100 million bits in each second. While service providers are keen to deliver broadband connectivity to their subscriber premises, the high cost of deploying fiber has prevented them from doing so.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 16, 2004

Back to Index

Indian nuclear scientists say they have unpeeled one of the great mysteries of the soft-drinks trade - how to extract juice from bananas cheaply and simply. The breakthrough could result in fizzy banana juice being marketed in cans and bottles, and banana nectar and banana wine being produced, the scientists say. Despite its 85 per cent water content, scientists have long struggled to extract juice from the fruit because it just turns to pulp when mashed. Costly and complicated techniques were developed to break down walls storing the moisture using enzymes. "In (our) process no external agent is added," says K.K. Surendranathan of the Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). The juice extracted from the banana has a very high sugar content of about 30-35 percent, which allows it to be stored for up to four months at a temperature below 15 degrees Celsius.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, April 15, 2004

Back to Index

It may not quite be Air Force One, the hi-tech US presidential jet, but it does have an American - albeit South American connection. For, India and Brazil have just concluded a special agreement to provide protective measures for the Embraer jet planes purchased for the Prime Minister and other VIPs in this age of terrorism. India has decided to buy five such Brazilian jets, a deal first cleared by the Cabinet Committee of Security and then signed for Rs 727 crore in September last year. Four of them will be with the Indian Air Force and one with the Border Security Force. All the aircraft will have "passive receiving" sensors that will pick up signals if a ground-to-air missile like the SAM or Stinger or even an air-to-air missile (from another aircraft) is fired at it. The special equipment will be fitted on the executive jets, with a capacity of 14-20, by the Brazilian manufacturers. The sensors are being made by Bharat Electronics. The jets, considered quite luxurious, will be used for travel within the country by the PM, the Deputy Prime Minister and a few other VIPs. For international travel, the IAF is buying three Boeing Business jets or BBJs. Negotiations are almost complete and the issue could be placed before the Cabinet Committee on Security after the Lok Sabha elections.

Courtesy: The Statesman, April 15, 2004

Back to Index

IIIT-H, along with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and a Korean manufacturer, Trigen, have taken up a mega project to bring out infotainment workstations. This project aims at making cost-effective infotainment workstations available at around $250 as against the current price of $3,000. This new integrated information and communication work machine (PCtvt-TV, PVR, videophone, IP phone and PC) combines the advantages of a PC with a capacity for video streaming, television, IP phone and movies, all rolled into one. According to Dr Raj Reddy, head of the Robotics Laboratory, CMU, and chairman of board of IIIT-H, the price reduction in new age PCs probably poses a challenge to the television industry. Students of IIIT-H and CMU are currently working on software that makes for a better human-machine interface. To make the rural connectivity project successful in a country like India, there is a need to address four Cs: connectivity at high speed, computer access, computer literacy and content. Since a common man in a remote area uses video interface, higher speed of connectivity is needed more in rural areas than by a professional working for an MNC. Another interesting project taken up by IIIT-H is participating in developing an online global library. The digital library set up at IIIT-H has already digitised about 60,000 books and plans to digitise about 10 lakh books by 2005. This world-class digital library would possibly match that of Harvard University, according to IIIT-H.

Courtesy: www.expresscomputeronline.com, April 14, 2004

Back to Index

Apart from providing quality IT education of global standards and housing a number of software schools set up by global IT majors, the International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad (IIIT-H) is working on multiple assignments. The institute is about to release a high-end robotics platform catering to the needs of space programmes and universities. The institute is also working on developing SILKy (speech, image, language, and knowledge) interfaces that are expected to overcome the present system of interface WIMPy (windows, icons, mouse and process). This project aims at making cost effective infotainment workstations available at around $250 as against the current price of $3,000 and is likely to impact both urban and rural markets. The effort is also aimed at building a rural user interface that could result in a low-cost PC by 2007. IIIT-H is developing a prototype of a high-end robotic platform for research activities in space and other key areas.

Courtesy: www.expresscomputeronline.com, April 14, 2004

Back to Index

MNC pharma companies are waking up to the potential of using India as a base for software development. Novartis and Pfizer are said to be looking at captive centres at their Indian subsidiaries for software development. Most of these companies are looking at developing and enhancing specific software applications developed in-house. Pharma major Novartis is planning to set up a software development unit in India. The company has already started a software development cell, which is doing projects on a pilot basis and this will be scaled up in the near future. The setting up of the software development unit is the second non-core initiative that Novartis Pharma, the parent company, is doing out of India. In '02, Novartis Pharma set up the Novartis International Clinical Development Centre India (NICCI) in Mumbai. NICCI is one of four such Novartis centres in the world and the first in Asia. Novartis Pharma has similar centres at Basel in Switzerland, UK and the US. India was short-listed after considering six Asian countries that include China, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. The reason was that India was cheaper, had plenty of English-speaking statisticians and adequate communication and information technology infrastructure.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 09, 2004

Back to Index

Chennai-based Shasun Chemicals & Drugs Ltd will start supplying the anti-TB drug cycloserine to the WHO's anti-TB treatment programmes shortly. A senior official at Shasun told ET that the technology for the manufacture of cycloserine has been transferred to the company and that the company will begin production of the drug in the near future. Last year, the US multinational Eli Lilly had entered into a technology transfer agreement with Shasun Chemical & Drugs for the manufacturing know-how of the anti-TB drug. Through the alliance, Shasun will produce cycloserine to meet Eli Lilly's global requirements of the drug. "Eli Lilly will outsource the manufacturing of the drug to Shasun completely," the official said. The agreement with Shasun is just one of the many partnerships that Eli Lilly has entered into as part of a $70-million global initiative to combat the spread of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in the country and other developing countries. The first validated production could occur within the next few months. The drugs produced by Shasun are expected to be shipped for disbursement to WHO-approved MDR-TB DOTS Plus programmes before the end of 2004. The company has also entered into a technology transfer agreement with the South African pharmaceutical company Aspen Pharmacare Holdings, Ltd and is negotiating a similar agreement in China with Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical Co, Ltd.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 09, 2004

Back to Index

Working with materials that are not visible to the naked eye is Meyya Meyyappan's specialty. In fact, the Indian American scientist and his three colleagues had convinced former President Bill Clinton and the US Congress to launch the National Nanotechnology Initiative when the technology was not even heard of. Now the initiative has some $1 billion earmarked every year, with Meyyappan and his team of 60 scientists working on making nanotechnology available for future space exploration. One nano is 10,000 times finer than the thickness of a human hair. A technology using such ultra fine material is thus an invaluable resource for innumerable applications . Which is why Meyyappan and scientists around the world are racing to be ahead. "There are some near-term opportunities but a lot of them are 10 to 15 years away," he cautions. Nanotechnology could be used for electronic devices, sensors, super-strong lightweight material and a variety of other fields. "Nanotechnology space application is just one of the many areas," Meyyappan says. "The larger benefits will be in health, medicine, transportation, computers - almost every sector of daily life."

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 09, 2004

Back to Index

Defying nay-sayers and pessimists, the first ever ''brand India'' computer is scoring home runs in the local and global market. A week after launch, the SIMple comPUTER, a.k.a. Simputer, has excited and enthralled nearly 20,000 potential customers, who are milling to the manufacturers with queries - and orders. '''The response has been tremendous ... not just from India - from all over the world,'' says Prof. Swami Manohar, CEO of PicoPeta, the firm behind the device, now known as Amida Simputer. ''Several corporates including VSNL, Reliance and Sify are evaluating the product and are in the process of placing orders. Demand has come from almost all states and more than 25 countries, in the very first week of launch,'' adds Manohar. As PicoPeta says, ''Not only was the vision behind the Simputer stunningly ambitious, it was also re-writing every rule associated with traditional computers.'' The functionalities includes multilingual support, handwriting recognition, free software, pocket-size, patent-freedom, internet compatability and a price tag ranging from Rs. 9,500 to Rs 17,000. ''The Simputer is technology neutral to the end user and useful to a wide cross section. It can be used by a farmer or by you and me,'' says Prof. Manohar, with a warning that it is a powerful yet simple device, not to be mistaken for a PDA. Though anyone can buy a Simputer license to manufacture one, this is the first one designed in the third world.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, April 07, 2004

Back to Index

Experts from various fields have called for promoting ayurveda in the world market to tap the immense potential for alternative system of medicine. Speaking at a seminar organised by Times Foundation, FICCI and VHERDS of Chennai here on Friday, representatives from the industry, media and traditional medicine suggested a new dialogue between ayurveda and modern medical science. Quoting President Abdul Kalam, they said that unless the patent battle was fought well, ayurvedic medicine would have to be imported from the West.

Courtesy: The Times of India, April 03, 2004