Strengthening its research activities in India, leading internet firm Yahoo! on Tuesday said it has launched a new research and development lab in Bangalore.

First of its kind in the country, 'Yahoo! Labs - Bangalore' would be a centre of excellence for next generation search and advertising technologies, focused on making the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers, the firm said in a statement.

The Internet firm is fighting a 44.6 billion-dollar takeover bid from software giant Microsoft since the beginning of February.

Interestingly, Yahoo! had recently announced plans to cut down its worldwide workforce by 1,000 employees, which was followed by about 40 people being told to quit at its India operations in Bangalore. The move was aimed at reducing its annual expenditure.

Meanwhile, founding director of Bell Labs India, Rajeev Rastogi has been appointed as Vice-President and head of the lab.

According to CEO of Yahoo! India R&D Sharad Sharma, the research activities in India contribute significantly to the success of the company, globally.

"We are excited to have a scientist of Rajeev Rastogi's stature establish Y! Labs - Bangalore, in India. Yahoo! India R&D contributes significantly to the success of Yahoo! globally and Y! Labs - Bangalore will further leverage this momentum in India. We believe Y! Labs - Bangalore will play a critical role in driving the next wave of innovation on the Internet," he said.

Meanwhile, Rajeev Rastogi said: "I'm delighted to be joining Yahoo! and plan to draw on my experiences in the areas of database systems, data mining and network management to help the team tackle some of the toughest problems on the Web."

He was a Bell Labs Fellow and Distinguished Member of its Technical Staff. Currently, Rastogi is on the editorial board of Communications for the Association for Computing Machinery (CACM).

He has also published over 125 papers on database systems and information storage and management and holds over 40 patents.

According to SVP and Head of Yahoo! Research Prabhakar Raghavan, Yahoo! Labs - Bangalore would build its world-class team, which would focus on delivering the most valuable insights and leading edge technologies.

He added that Rajeev's background and expertise in product development, as well as his experience in research would strengthen the company's leadership in international research and technology and leverage knowledge from across the region.