Some among Kashmir’s seperatist leaders felt that Afzal Guru, convicted by the Supreme Court to death for his part in the Indian Parliament attack of 2001, should hang, but did not dare say so openly. In a private conversation after the Supreme Court confirmed Afzal’s death sentence in 2006, Goeffrey Pyatt, the in-charge at the […]
David Mulford, the US ambassador to India from 2004 to 2006, sent a piercing assessment of India’s political situation, including a description of the ‘sycophancy’ inside the Congress Party. The 2006 assessment was sent soon after the Supreme Court quashed a move by former Congress leader and then Bihar Governor Buta Singh to dismiss an […]
Fund flows from Foreign Institutional Investors reacting to global and local factors is largely behind the sharp fluctuation in the value of the Rupee over the last few days, Crisil Research has said. While predicting that the Indian currency will recover much of the ground lost over the past one month or so, the agency […]
The government has extended the deadline for electronics manufacturers and importers to get safety certifications for their products due to delays at the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The original deadline was July 3, after which products that did not meet the safety norms were not to be sold. “Department of Electronics and IT shall […]
Third-party datacenters will overtake captive datacentres in growth over the next three years, according to CyberMedia Research. In a new report, the agency also puts the size of the India Data Center Services at Rs 11,800 crore. Data centres are buldings that host thousands of computers that are used to process large amount of data […]
Important recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday. Reduce VAT on mobile handsets, increase duty on imported handsets Service providers to declare their carbon footprint half yearly, cap placed on power consumption of mobile towers Operators should reduce Carbon emissions by 8% by 2012-2013, 12% by 2014-2015, and 25% by 2018-2019 […]
IMD expects monsoon to be normal this year for June to September. It sees a very low probability of seasonal rainfall to be deficient. Rainfall, on an average will be 98% of long period average, from 91-2000. IMD said the cooler than normal summer or intermittent rainfall in North India has not been correlated with […]
Jairam Ramesh’s environment ministry has said that it will await the decision of the Bombay High Court before proceeding with the demolition of the Adarsh Society building in Mumbai. Responding to the decision by Bombay High Court on Wednesday to take more time to arrive at a judgement, the ministry said it too shall wait […]
After setting itself a modest target of growing its exports by just 15% to around $200 billion, India beat the target by a margin of 23%. In the end, the rising goods exports also helped bring down the trade deficit — the shortfall between exports and imports — to just $104.4 billion against the upper […]
Gartner, one of the world’s top two IT forecasters, warned of a slowdown in computer sales this year after disappointing data for the March quarter. Against an expected 3% growth (compared to March quarter of 2010,) it found a decline of 1.1% in the preliminary numbers this year. “Although the first quarter is traditionally a […]
Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrake Linux and one of the most user friendly flavors of the operating system, has released the second beta of its 2011 edition, the first after most of the development activity shifted to Brazil late last year. Mandriva’s parent company, which had been facing financial problems, moved to Brazil and shut […]
Cairn India, India’s biggest private oil producer, has sought government permission for increasing its capacity from 160,000 barrels to 350,000 barrels. The London-controlled firm, which approached the environment ministry for the nod, has been told to come back with the comments of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, under the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. […]
HCL Technologies, India’s fifth largest IT services provider, posted a moderate increase in revenues of 33.5% year on year and 5.8% quarter on quarter to $ 915 mn. Revenue growth has decelerated on a quarter on quarter basis, compared to the 9% jump exhibited in the September quarter. However, due to the same reasons of […]
The Indian economy is shifting into high gear, going by the four-fold increase in acquisitions and mergers reported by FT-owned Merger Markets. Value of mergers and acquisitions were up 271% in the three months ended March this year, hitting $18.3 billion. The value is second highest quarterly M&A size in Indian history, and second only […]
Mirroring the recovery in the enterprise software market, HCL was able to get a higher share of its income from ‘custom application services’ — creating software tailored to individual companies — compared to before. Against 29.9% contributed by this segment a year ago, it accounted for 32% during the March quarter. Custom application development is […]
Amidst allegations and counter-allegations, the Orissa government has accused anti-POSCO activists of forging documents to claim rights over the disputed land. In a report forwarded by the Orissa government to the environment minister Jairam Ramesh, Narayana Jena, collector of Jagatsinghpur district, question the integrity and character of the leaders of the protestors. “The Palli Sabha […]
Attrition at HCL Technologies jumped during March quarter, hitting nearly 8.8% during the quarter, or 35% on an annualized basis, raising concerns. The attrition levels have been around 25% (on an annualized basis) for most IT majors over the last several quarters. The company hired 7,534 employees during the quarter, but 6,381 employees left the […]
After coming under fire from transparency activists, including Anna Hazare, the Election Commission of India seems to have given in to the demand for paper-backed election instead of purely electronic recording of votes. The Election Commission had come under fire after Hari Prasad, an activist was arrested for securing an EVM from Mumbai in his […]
After two successive failures of the GSLV mission last year India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV_C16) has placed successfully a remote sensing satellite,Resourcesat-2 into orbit on Wednesday.The latest satellite will study and help in managing natural resources along with two nano satellites. ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organization) homegrown workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle placed in […]
The Centre government owned Pawan Hans Helicopters has abandoned plans for starting a sea-plane service due to “lack of interest” from the Union Territory government. Responding to a query by a Parliamentary Panel on the delays in starting the service, the ministry of Civil Aviation said the firm has put the plans on hold. “Despite […]
