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| Thursday, June 22, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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World’s second largest media group is born NEW DELHI, June 21 — The vast digital divide between developing and developed nations can be gauged from the fact that 20 of the world’s largest developing nations contribute only about 27 per cent to the global information technology market of $ 750 billion. Oil money props up Pak economy
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| E-voting plan for shareholders NEW DELHI, June 21 — The Department of Company Affairs is planning to incorporate electronic voting provision in the Companies Bill, giving shareholders the facility to have a say in key company decisions at the click of a mouse. 300 acres
for IT
A virus, not a joke
World’s second largest media group is born THE WORLD’S second largest media group was created yesterday as Vivendi of France revealed the planned $34bn acquisition of America’s Seagram, whose interests range from films and music to drinks. The deal will bring together Vivendi’s television, telecommunications and internet interests - including the Vizzavi internet joint venture with Vodafone AirTouch - with Seagram’s Universal films and music operation into a business to rival the recently announced AOL-Time Warner combination. The new company will also include part of pay-TV group Canal Plus of which Vivendi owns 49 per cent. The creation of Vivendi Universal, as the new media powerhouse will be known, provided even greater reason for discussions with media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s camp, Vivendi chairman Jean-Marie Messier said. The offer will bring in cash to the combined group through the sale of Seagram’s drinks business and the planned flotation of Vivendi’s utilities operations based around the original Generale des Eaux, the platform on to which Mr Messier grafted the burgeoning media business. Britain’s Allied Domecq is the front runner to acquire a drinks business valued at between $6bn and $8bn and which includes the Chivas Regal whisky and Absolut vodka brands, though Pernod Ricard might emerge as a rival bidder. The complex deal - structured to take account of any movements in the Vivendi share price - values Seagram shares at $77.35, a 46 per cent premium over the market price last week ahead of news of the deal. Vivendi will buy up the 51 per cent of Canal Plus it does not already own - though the pay-TV operator’s regulated business will have to retain a separate market listing. Seagram’s Universal music business is the world’s largest. Artists include Shania Twain, Andrea Bocelli, Sting and U2. Recent releases from Universal film studios include Gladiator and American Pie. Coupled with Canal Plus’s film library, the new entity will have a 9,000-strong catalogue plus European production facilities. Combining Vivendi and Canal Plus’s cable, satellite and internet distribution with Seagram products means Vivendi Universal will be able to offer film, television, music, sports and educational and professional packages. Yesterday Mr Messier said he wanted to “make the internet swing. The internet of tomorrow will not only be something faster and beautiful ... it will have more practical services and information, it will have more entertainment and content.’’ Vivendi - with 24.5 per cent of the British satellite broadcaster BSkyB - had sought to open a dialogue with Mr Murdoch after the AOL-Time Warner merger. Yesterday Mr Messier said: “As far as Rupert Murdoch is concerned I would just say the message is ... after this combination, it’s worth even more for us to discuss than it was previously’’, though he declined to elaborate. — By arrangement with The Guardian
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1.5 lakh become Internet users daily NEW DELHI, June 21 (PTI) — The vast digital divide between developing and developed nations can be gauged from the fact that 20 of the world’s largest developing nations contribute only about 27 per cent to the global information technology (IT) market of $ 750 billion. “The digital divide between developing and developed countries is massive and we must work towards bridging it,” Prof Emeritus Ryokichi Hirono of Seikei University, Japan said at the Regional Roundtable Conference of Escap (Economic & Social Commission for Asia & the Pacific) countries on IT and Development in the Capital today. Stressing the fact that IT helps economic development, creates a large number of jobs and ensures better governance Hirono said despite all these benefits, the actual number of Internet users is ridiculously low. “Less than 5 per cent of the world population is a participant in the currently spreading Internet revolution,” he said adding this was a serious cause for concern. Worldover, there are 300 million Internet users today with 1.5 lakh users being added daily; 220 million information technology devices are being used
globally today and another two lakh are added daily, Hiromo said. Again, on the Internet front, 1.8 billion web pages are on view in the world today and two million are being added to this number on a daily basis. In the two-day Regional Roundtable, the 60-member ESCAP meet is expected to discuss a host of issues for enabling better economic, social and developmental use of IT. In a background paper prepared for the conference, the members have proposed the formation of a national information index to measure the country’s preparedness in high technology areas like infotech and Internet. The commission has recommended systematic identification of issues in developing countries, including India, by publishing a single composite index of readiness for the digital era. The composite index will be the weighted average of the scores on identified parameter for evolving the country into a networked society, the UN commission has said. The other proposals include “assisting countries to identify the areas where action is required and to carry out the necessary interventions based on the scores on individual parameters”. Brick economy: “Brick
economy is essential for any click economy to survive. We can reap benefits of the IT revolution only if the two business models work together,” Mahajan said. He was addressing the two-day Regional Roundtable Conference of Escap (Economic & Social Commission for Asia & the Pacific) countries on IT and Development here. Mahajan said despite popular perceptions to the contrary, the government as well as United Nations agencies have a large role to play in this revolution, which had certain advantage.
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Oil money props up Pak economy NEW
DELHI: Visitors to Pakistan are somewhat taken aback by the sedate state of the Pakistan economy. There are no obvious shortages and, significantly, there are no cutbacks in the pay and perks enjoyed by Government employees. Some wonder where the money is coming from in these days of sanctions and isolationism. The answer lies in Chief Executive Officer Gen Pervez Musharraf’s foreign forays during which, in somewhat low key, he made a plea for financial support from the oil-rich sheikhdoms even as expatriate Pakistanis turned bearish on repatriation of finance in the face of military regime’s campaign to unearth ill-gotten wealth even as far afield as London. It is the convoluted nature of these transactions that are obliquely intended to bust the US imposed sanctions for the Chagai Hills nuclear bravado that will have long-term consequences for the region as a whole because of the elements of fundamentalism that are involved. The money is coming in the form of aid to Sunni madrassas and part of it is being siphoned off to keep disaffection with the regime at bay. A pointer to the undercurrent was the controversy over the announcement that it is intended to shut down institutions which were perceived to be fostering sectarian violence. This was with reference to the Sunni-Shia riots that are endemic in the whole of Pakistan. The very next day the Government had to categorically deny any such move, thereby underscoring a factor for long-term instability which the military government cannot afford to crack down upon. It would, in fact, be killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs in Pakistan. It also shows how petro-dollars are contributing to sectarian conflict within Pakistan and fuelling Sunni terrorism in the rest of the region. Bad as this may be, the situation becomes worse confounded when in spite of the support of some oil-rich nations in the region the Taliban in Afghanistan is using opium cultivation as a source of finance for its war effort against the Northern alliance led by Burhanuddin Rabbani and for the export of the revolution to the former Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union and eastwards into Kashmir. The injudicious use of petro-dollars combined with the drug nexus has created a cesspool on which Pakistani society is swimming like a creamy layer. It becomes aware of its predicament when confronted by drug addiction but it is unable to break out of the enclosing nexus because of the veneer of normalcy successive regimes have maintained. Pakistan is benefiting from the passage of drugs produced in Afghanistan at different levels of its society: At the official level when safe passage is provided to the consignments through Pakistani territory. One route that has been identified is the southern route from Kandahar through Quetta to Baluch shoreline where the new ports of Gwadar and Pasni are being used to tranship the drugs to vessels waiting offshore. Unofficially, both politicians and military personnel benefit from the freelance involvement in narcotics. For the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) drugs have been the source of finance for its clandestine activities ever since the CIA initiated it into this lucrative business during the war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The total extent of the drug-petrodollar nexus cannot be assessed because both have a network of freelance operators sometimes interconnected, sometimes disparate. The operation of these networks was briefly exposed when more than one
kilogram of heroin was found hidden in the aircraft in which Chief Executive Officer General Gen. Pervez Musharraf himself was to use in another of his trips abroad. The discovery is being presented as an active policy of curbing the drug network but it could be nothing but the tip-off from a rival cartel. In any event, it could not have left the CEO too satisfied with the state of affairs of his fiefdom. — Asia Defence News International.
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E-voting plan for shareholders NEW DELHI, June 21 (PTI) — The Department of Company Affairs (DCA) is planning to incorporate electronic voting provision in the Companies Bill, giving shareholders the facility to have a say in key company decisions at the click of a mouse. This along with other enabling provisions will be put forward to the government in the wake of passage of the Information Technology Bill in Parliament, DCA Secretary P.L. Sanjeev Reddy told PTI. As per the plan, information kiosks will be set up at various centres and a secrecy code will be given to the shareholders. They will be allowed to log-in his choice on various key resolutions, Reddy explained. DCA had suggested some key amendments for incorporation in the Company Bill and this included postal voting — the facility for the shareholders to vote without participating in the annual general meetings. Reddy said there were suggestions that postal voting may be very costly and allowing shareholders to vote through the Internet could be more economical and time-saving. Countries like the USA and Sweden have already experimented with e-voting facility and there was no reason why the same model could not be tried here in India. “We want to use a cost-effective, simple, user-friendly technology for e-voting,” he said adding that e-voting will bring in greater corporate democracy. According to Reddy, in the wake of the passage of the I.T Bill, the DCA wants to incorporate various enabling provisions in the Companies Bill so that the Indian corporates are not denied the emerging opportunities on the technology front. “We don’t want to approach Parliament every six months for various amendments,” Reddy said adding that the various enabling provisions put forward for incorporations will give greater flexibility to companies to expand and experiment. |
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300 acres
for IT CHANDIGARH, June 21 — The Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, has approved, in principle, allocation of 300 acres of land for IT industry. This was announced at Punjab Bhavan yesterday at a presentation on “Strategy for hi-tech foreign investment for Punjab”, which was chaired by the Chief Minister. The state was gearing itself to merge as one of the best high technology destination. The presentation was attended by Mr Balramji Das Tandon, Minister for Local Government, Labour and Employment, Dr Upinderjit Kaur, Minister for Housing and urban Development, Mr Raghbir Singh, Minister Transport, Mr Sikander Singh Maluka, Minister for Power and Mr R.S. Mann, Chief Secretary among other senior officers. |
co
A virus, not a joke NEW YORK: A virus masquerading as a joke about the stages of life may be the work of a secretive software writer living in Argentina who has taken credit for key virus developments of recent years. After several weeks, the once slow-growing virus dubbed “Stages” began spreading widely around the globe on Monday, infecting thousands of computers. Damage reports, however, were limited to temporary shutdowns of flooded computer networks. “Stages’’ is an e-mail-borne virus that targets users of Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer and is transmitted in similar fashion to the “love bug’’ and other recent viruses. Warnings were issued on Tuesday, including from the computer security firm ICSA. Net of Reston, Virginia, which said, “infection rate continues to increase. It may become as prevalent as the Melissa virus”. The new virus uses subject names like “funny,’’ “jokes,’’ and “life stages text’’ to entice users to open a software attachment. Once opened, the virus automatically e-mails a copy of itself to random entries in the user’s global address book as well as copying itself to computers linked to the PC via company networks. — Reuters Credit cards for Delhi staff NEW DELHI:
Delhi Government will provide “credit cards” to its over one lakh employees for availing housing and other loans from Delhi Co-operative Bank. Minister for Civil Supplies Yoganand Shastri told reporters on Wednesday that the card would help the employees to avoid all formalities attached to loans. Delhi is the first state to offer this scheme to its employees. The journalists accredited with the Delhi Government can also avail this facility.
— PTI A minister
as a victim NEW DELHI: Believe it or not but Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan has himself become a victim of website explosion in the country. “I have been told that someone has registered a website in my name... I have only two options either to ask the person responsible for it to wind up or fight him in court,” Mahajan told PTI. Pramodmahajan.com was registered by a resident of Mumbai on February 12 this year. The minister said that with the growing number of teenagers and college students getting hooked on to the net and registering websites the issue of cyber squatting is bound to come up for government’s consideration in future. Mahajan said even his daughter has registered a site under the name “amaratma” after a family discussion on the possibilities of hosting departed souls and give them “shradhanjali” (homage). Commenting on the complexities of getting the squatters vacated from sites, he referred to the case of Hollywood actress Julia Roberts where the squatter was forced out following a court judgement in the USA. The IT minister’s comments came amid recent reports of Dallas-based group of Internet users registering websites in the name of prominent Indian industrialists, including the Ambanis.
— PTI Online pooja
on payment MUMBAI: ICICI Bank has tied up with the Siddhivinayak Temple Trust to enable the bank’s Infinity (Internet banking) customers to order and pay for a pooja online, on the occasion of “Aangaraki Chaturthi’’. This scheme will allow customers to order a pooja directly on the siddhivinayak website and make payments through Infinity-ICICI Bank. An Infinity customer, who wishes to order a pooja will have to visit siddhivinayak temple’s web site, www.siddhivinayak.org http://www.Siddhivinayak.Org and opt for the ‘’order a pooja’’. — UNI
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Leading Edge name changed Wipro Peri ties up with Kilburn Cyberspace Infosys signs pact Ramsoft joins hand with Dutch co SAS Institute ties up with Wipro ICICI and Zee join hands |
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ICICI Bank Branch shifted STG centre Eicher outlet SBI meet HCL Infosys
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