Other Briefings
India to increase domestic oil and gas production by 40 percent
Sept. 22 – Reliance Industries, India's largest privately held company will start pumping oil and natural gas off India's East Coast from early next year. Although pulling oil from 2,400 metres beneath the cyclone-prone, choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal will be a technological feat for Reliance Industries, the company claims that this is India's ticket to energy independence and Reliance's entry into the club of global energy majors.
Within 18 months, oil and gas production from block D6 of the Krishna Godavari basin will increase India's domestic production by 40 per cent, potentially shaving about US$20 billion from the nation's US$77 billion oil import bill, Reliance officials told the Canadian Press. Canada's Niko Resources Ltd.has a 10 per cent stake in the project. A total investment of US$8.7 billion was spent in developing the block.
The First Made in India Microprocessor – Launched
Sept. 17 – India launced its first made in India microprocessor for servers, through the world’s largest chipmaker, Intel. The microprocessor was manufactured entirely by a team of 300 Indian's based in Intel's Bangalore research and development centre. This is the first time that work on the 45 nanometre technology was taken up by the company outside its US home base, and was completed in a record wo years.
India’s IT spending to hit US$110 by 2010
Sept. 12 – India's star industry, the Information Technology sector is predicted to double its spending by 2012 from 2007, reaching US$110 billion as companies and state-run organisations boost efficiency, a Gartner report said. The sectors CAGR is 14.8 per cent.
IT spending in 2008 is on track to reach US$64.7 billion, a 17.2 percent increase from US$55.2 billion in 2007, the research and advisory firm said.
India Sources Bidders for Worlds largest Telecom Tender
Sept. 11 – India is the world's second-largest mobile market, with nearly 300 million wireless users in July and more than 8 million users signing up each month. So when the country's largest public sector telecom company plans to expand, 25 million lines each in north, west and south of the country, and 18 million lines in the east,it causes a great stir amongst the world's telecom company's. The state owned telecom service provider said bidders can win a maximum of 46.5 million lines, half of the tender.
Reuters reported that Telecoms equipment makers Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks are competing with four other firms in a tender potentially worth US$9 billion to provide wireless infrastructure to India's Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). Bidders in the tender for a total of 93 million GSM lines, the world's largest such order, also include China based Huawei Technologies and Alcatel-Lucent networks.
Worlds Best and Biggest Woo India
Sept. 3 – This is probably the Golden era of India's auto sector. The world's crème de la crème of the global automobile industry are now in India.
Following luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rovers arrival in India Mercedes-Benz announced their foray into the Luxury Coach business in India, Audi has already been recieving a favorable response from India's monied millions. Meanwhile Japanese car maker's Indian joint venture – maruti Suzuki, said it wants to shift the bulk of its research and development work on cars with engine capacity of 1200cc or lower to India.
However, the hottest news came from General Motors, which already has a long association in India. The U.S. car company made a "clear commitment to India" by opening a second plant in western India, nearly tripling its annual output in the country to 225,000 vehicles a year.
Tata’s run into Mega Labor Problems
Sept. 2 – India has a tough choice to make – Industrialize and attract more foreign Direct Investment or give in to the needs of its farmers to sustain a more sociological state. The recent Tata Motors factory controversy has brought this issue to the threshold.Will India decide to give the land in Singur, North east India to Tata to manufacture his US$2,500 Tata Nana, or will it favor the farmers who claim the land and with it their livlihood has been usurped?
Who wins the fight over the Tata factory is likely to have wide-ranging impacts on India's push to complete a China-like economic transformation that the country's leaders say is needed to lift hundreds of millions of its 1.1 billion people out of poverty, reported The International Herald Tribune.
Kingfisher’s Spreading its Wings
Aug. 27 – Business tycoon and Indian Richard Branson Vijay Mallya has recieved the green signal from the ministry of Aviation to fly his recently acquired Deccan Air internationally. This marks India's third International flight service, following Air India and Jet Airways.
Kingfisher Airlines will to fly to Thailand, Singapore, San Francisco, London and the UAE, amongst other destinations. The airlines is expected to launch their service from Banglore to London, Heathrow on the 3rd of September, the Economic Times reported.
Lets Realize Our Tryst with Destiny
Aug. 15 – "At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance….. We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again" – These were the first words India's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru delivered to the people of India from New Delhi's Red Fort, 61 years ago, today, on Indian Independance Day.
