The amount is almost double the Rs 220 crore (Rs 2.2 billion) that a consortium of Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank earned for its life insurance tie-up with the UK-based wealth and investment company, Legal & General Group (see table). The entry premium is a result of regulations that require foreign insurers to tie up with Indian partners. SBI will hold 74 per cent in the non-life insurance company and IAG the remaining 26 per cent.
Even as India's external affairs ministry has reportedly assured Canada that the Department of Telecommunications is trying to resolve the issue of a potential threat to India's security posed by BlackBerry phones, Research in Motion, the makers of the phones, said it is committed to addressing all aspects of the issue.
In the largest deal in the domestic information technology (IT) space, MindTree Consulting is set to acquire mid-tier outsourcing product development (OPD) and testing player, Aztecsoft, for around Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion). Both are Bangalore-based firms. Aztecsoft has over 2,200 employees and caters to the North American, European, Indian and Australian markets.
Hundreds of sellers of eBay have called for a global boycott of the online auction giant on May 1 over payment, pricing and feedback changes which they allege will hurt their profits. The sellers, for instance, are distressed that they can no longer give buyers negative feedback, and that eBay will increase the fees that are paid as a percentage of the final sales price. Their angst has spilled over social networking sites and forums like Myspace and Delphiforums too.
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) has fined 10 insurance companies, including both the insurance arms of the Bajaj Auto Group, Reliance General, United India, Iffco-Tokio, New India Assurance and Shriram Life for non-compliance with various guidelines. The violations varied from opening branch offices without seeking the regulator's permission to violation of advertisement guidelines and non-fulfilment of social sector obligations.
It's a $38-billion company with a touchingly simple ambition. Cisco wants to become a household name. Having sold over 80 million devices to consumers the world over, it no longer wants to be perceived as a boring company that only manufactures networking gear such as routers and switches. The ambition may sound soft but for Cisco, it is serious business.
The fourth quarter (January-March) is usually a weak quarter for the Indian IT companies due to the lesser number of billing days. This time, however, the good news is that the rupee has depreciated by about 1.3 per cent during the quarter. Every increase/decrease of a percentage point in the rupee lowers/adds to the operating (EBIDTA) margins by 30-50 basis points (bps).
Not a single Indian insurance company offers a comprehensive anti-cybercrime policy for the corporate sector. In India there are few takers for cybercrime insurance primarily because of the high cost vis-a-vis their exposure. These policies are of a high value and, on request from a few brokers, are customised for banks. Cybercrime policies in the US cover e-theft, denial or impairment of e-service, e-communication, e-vandalism, e-threat and fraudulent e-signatures.
The media and entertainment industry in 2007 grew by an estimated 17 per cent over the previous year to touch Rs 51,300 crore (Rs 513 billion), according to a recent Ficci-PwC 2008 report. However, this is 6 percentage points lower than the 23 per cent growth registered in 2006. All the major segments within the M&E industry, comprising TV, film and print, will see a year-on-year fall in their growth rates going by the report estimates for 2007.
Indian operators offering BlackBerry services, top executives of Canadian telco Research in Motion (RIM), the company that owns the brand, security agencies and officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are expected to meet on March 14 to answer the concerns of security agencies in a bid to prevent having BlackBerry services terminated after the March-end deadline.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs has been empowered to frame a scheme for preparation and filing of service tax returns through service tax return preparers, similar to the tax return preparer scheme for income tax introduced in 2006. The performance of the TRP scheme so far, however, indicates that it is in need of fine tuning - in terms of recruitment, training and remuneration - to become more effective and serve as a benchmark for the STRP scheme.
The Open Document Format (ODF) proponents are alleging that the Microsoft has "cajoled" Indian NGOs to write to the IT ministry and BIS, supporting OOXML as a standard.
Shorter durations and smaller-value transactions, analysts reason, allow businesses to spread operational risk and develop new relationships according to business demands.
From CCTV cameras to mobile jammers and perimeter protection equipment, the Indian electronic security market is worth over Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion).
Mobile banking will soon reach Indian villagers as state govts tie up with banks, telecom companies to provide this facility to them.
The Indian IT companies, which have been hitherto providing back office services (claims processing and others), are now planning to provide actuarial valuations. Genpact, one of the largest players in the property and casualty space has been in actuarial services since the last five years.
While the extent of Iran's isolation was unclear, many blogs alleged that the cable cuts and outages in West Asia were a ploy by an intelligence agency to disrupt Iranian commerce, targeting an emerging petroleum exchange that the country was shortly hoping to roll out.
Anti-virus and anti-spyware technologies, which are packaged as 'blacklist' solutions, are gradually giving way to what security experts claim is a far more effective IT security technology based on 'whitelist' solutions.
In less than a week's time, a fourth submarine cable was severed in West Asia, disrupting voice and telecommunication traffic between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Insurance funds will soon start flowing to special economic zone projects, agro-processing and infrastructure projects, domestic satellite services and social infrastructure like educational institutions and hospitals.
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