June 26 - Ending months of speculation, concluding in one of India's largest telecom deals, A V Birla controlled Idea Cellular acquired a 40.8% in Spice Communications Ltd for Rs 2,720 crore (US$636 million).

The mobile-phone operator will add Spice's 4.5 million subscribers to its current base of 26.14 million users, taking it close to the No. 4 -- state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. -- in India's telecom market.

June 16 - In order to stop India's Information Technology and Outsourcing companies from losing their global cost advantage to Vietnam or the Philippines, and to develop Indias rural areas, the Indian government has decided to build 43 IT cities in India's rural areas the Times of India reported.

The initiative will curb high inflation and attrition rates in urban areas while creating infrastructure and jobs in the rural areas.

According to the plan, each IT city will be set up in an area of more than 500 hectare. The cities will altogether generate employment for around 3.5 million people by 2018.

The proposal is to create self-contained satellite townships with commercial space for renting and a commensurate increase in residential accommodation, education, healthcare, retail and recreational facilities.

 April 24 - India's tea will soon be auctioned digitally. The Indian tea board, the government regulator on Tea, plans to replace the gravel with the mouse in order to prevent planters who have been hit hard by low tea prices in the last decade. Going digital is expected to regin in an era of fair prices and lower transaction costs.

The latest exchange is being designed by NSE-IT, a branch of India’s national stock exchange that specializes in designing trading platforms. The Tea Board plans to roll out the system in Calcutta, where the first Indian tea auctions began, by December, with the software being introduced to other auction centers over the following three months.

Infosys Technologies Ltd. Chief Executive Officer K. Gopalakrishnan, center, flanked by Chief Operating Officer S. D. Shibulal, right, and Chief Financial Officer V. Balakrishnan

April 16 - The U.S. recession might not affect the bouyant Indian economy, but India's IT services industry which sources a majority of its work from the west is showing signs of being hit.

On Tuesday, the Indian IT industrys' bellwether company, Bangalore based Infosys posted a lower than expected forth quarter profit.  Net profit rose 9.2 percent to 12.49 billion rupees (315.04 million dollars) in the fourth quarter ended March, from 11.45 billion rupees. The profit missed analyst estimates of 12.6 billion rupees.

April. 3 - After Ratan Tata’s ambitious buy-out of Ford’s Jaguar and Land Rover for US$2.3 billion last week, its time for another ambitious Indian entrepreneur to take center stage. Venugopal Dhoot, Videocon’s 54 year old Chairman who bought French owned Thomson’s picture tube business for US$291 million has emerged as the front runner in bidding for ailing Motorola’s handset unit.

Videocon, an Indian homegrown brand, manufactures appliances and electronics and also has interests in real estate, oil, and power. While they haven’t revealed how much they bid, the company did confirm to Indian media that they had contacted Motorola for the buy-out. "We learnt from a reliable source that they will be selling it and when they do we are sending an expression of interest," Venugopal Dhoot told Reuters. "Motorola's handset business dovetails well with my telecom plans," he says. 

Mar. 25 - Come April and India will surpass the United States to become the second largest subscriber base in mobile telephony. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday announced that on an average, India with 250 million subscribers adds eight-nine million subscribers per month, while the United States which has 256 million subscribers adds two-three million subscribers per month, at this rate, India will for the first time surpass the United States by the begining of April.