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| Thursday, August 17, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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VSNL becomes first PSU to IIT honeymoon with IBM
over SSIs face gloomy future Protest at STD decision Nothing ‘undesirable’ on cable TV |
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NEW YORK, Aug 16 — Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), India’s monopolistic international phone service provider, has listed its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), becoming the first state-owned company from the country to list on the bourse. VSNL Chairman and Managing Director Mr Shailendra Kumar Gupta was joined by other VSNL officials, Consul General Shashi Tripathi and Richard Grasso, NYSE chairman and CEO, as he rang the opening bell coinciding the company’s listing with India’s Independence Day. Outside the bourse, above the main entrance fluttered India’s Tricolour and another flag announcing VSNL’s listing on the NYSE. The government of India owns almost 53 per cent of the company. VSNL, a statement said, was also the first Indian public sector company to raise capital through Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) in 1997. VSNL’s ADRs listed on the NYSE at $11. The ADRs were converted from the company’s GDRs which were trading on the London Stock Exchange. Two ADRs will equal to one local VSNL share, and the company’s 57 million ADRs will represent about 30 per cent of VSNL’s total share capital, company officials said. The move, company officials said, is intended to improve the sentiment of investors toward the stock and get it actively traded. “We decided to list our shares on the NYSE as part of our strategic vision of being a leading telecom service provider in the international telecommunications segment,” Gupta said at a media briefing following the opening bell. The bourse, he said, also gave the company better liquidity, better focus and coverage. VSNL’s listing on the NYSE comes at a time when the government is considering ending the company’s monopoly on carrying international calls. The company, also the country’s largest Internet service provider (ISP) with more than 400,000 subscribers in six cities, is believed to be looking at new markets. VSNL shares, which hit a 52-week high of Rs. 3,250 in February, are down almost 60 per cent for the year due to fear of the impact of its likely loss of monopoly on carrying overseas phone calls. Company officials said VSNL was eyeing the domestic long distance market, for which guidelines were unveiled during the weekend. “We expect to be major player in the domestic sector,” Gupta said. The company earns nearly 90 per cent of its revenue from international telephony. Services such as dial-up and high speed Internet access account for the rest. Over the last four years, VSNL’s net profit increased by 350 per cent, growth in gross revenue has been 160.74 per cent from Rs. 20.27 billion to Rs.52.85 billion, according to company figures. Outlining VSNL’s strategy in a deregulated economy, Gupta said the company was expected to maintain its revenue and keep its record of a zero-debt company. Even if its monopoly in international telephony were to be ended, the company expected a viable revenue-sharing compensation package from the government. With regard to expanding its Internet services, he said “we are in the process of investing in infrastructure and increasing our bandwidth on regular intervals.” With competition increasing in ISPs, VSNL is also considering to apply for licences to provide Internet services in other cities as well, making it a national ISP. This, he said, could be another major revenue generator for VSNL, especially with penetration of personal computers projected to grow exponentially and Internet usage expected to touch 17.5 million by 2004 from one million in 1999. “With our kind of infrastructure we want to
compete with the best in the industry,” Gupta said at the briefing. — IANS |
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NEW DELHI, Aug 16 (PTI) — International Business Machine (IBM), corporation, whose presence on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) here has been a source of irritation for most of the faculty members, may have to move out of the campus following a decision taken by the Institute Senate on August 8. Three years ago, the American computer giant had located its eighth research centre on the IIT campus amidst great fanfare and promise of technology collaboration with the Institute faculty. One of the Professors said the honeymoon is now over. In a far reaching move, the Senate decided not to allow IBM or any company operating from within the campus of the institute. Besides IBM, four other companies, all in the area of information technology, which are currently having their establishments on the campus, will have to vacate. The senate decision is the culmination of a year-long battle between the Faculty Forum and the institute’s former Director V.S Raju who brought national and multinational companies into the campus as a means of generating funds for running the institute and for creating IIT-industry “synergy.” IBM alone paid a ground rent of Rs 20 million annually to the institute and the other four companies together paid about Rs 5 million. But the IIT faculty forum argued that while the income from the companies was hardly 2 per cent of the Institute budget, the presence of the companies put heavy demands on the infrastructure and vitiated the academic atmosphere without promoting the anticipated industry-academic “synergy.” At its crucial meeting on November 18, 1999, two-thirds of the faculty members opposed the presence of corporate businesses inside the campus. The recent senate decision is a fallout of this meeting. IIT Acting Director Prem Vrat told PTI that the Senate has constituted a small committee to work out the modalities of future collaboration with industry. The institute welcomed collaborations which were participatory in nature and mutually beneficial for which industries need not be physically located on the campus. The IBM research centre, according to the Faculty Forum, was mostly interested in exploiting the brightest IIT students and did not want to work on joint projects with professors. The company’s industrial culture did not allow mingling of its staff with institute faculty, according to an official of the Forum who said that the Institute did not gain much from IBM’s presence on the campus. The committee constituted by the senate will explore other avenues of revenue generation, including donations from rich. |
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SSIs face gloomy future NEW DELHI, Aug 16 — The small scale industry sector in the country faces a gloomy future with the opening up of the Indian economy and placing of several items in the OGL under the garb of WTO commitments. “If the SSIs are neglected they will be de-stabilised and as a consequence India’s economy will suffer
irretrievably,” said the national president of Laghu Udyog Bharati, Mr Sudarshan Sareen. The Small Scale Industries and tiny sector provides for employment to 1.72 crore people in registered 31.20 lakh of units and two crore in unregistered units. SSI accounts for 60 per cent of India’s total exports, with 35 per cent direct and 25 per cent being indirect. Mr Sareen said a memorandum highlighting the measures that needs to be taken to save this vital sector has been submitted to the Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, who is the Chairman of the group of ministers, who will take decisions on the SSIs. The government set up a study group under the chairmanship of Mr S P Gupta, Member Planning Commission. The group of ministers are studying the recommendations made by Mr Gupta. Mr Sareen said the recommendations of the study groups have certain recommendations which sounds “death knell” to the SSIs and urged Mr Advani not to take any policy decision without hearing the views of the SSIs. The Laghu Udyog Bharati national president said the medium sized industries should not be tagged with the SSIs, their investments should not exceed Rs one crore, and the policy of reserved items for SSIs should continue. “The inclusion of units having Rs 10 crore investments in the SSI list, will distort and destroy the identity of SSIs,” he said. Criticising the government’s placing of 714 items (mainly consumer goods) in the OGL, he said there are provisions in the WTO that if certain items are reserved for industries in a country and if due to imports the industries are in danger, then that country can impose restriction on imports. Mr Sareen said the government has not used these provisions to safeguard the interest of the indigenous industry and has placed 714 items in OGL list, thus opened the flood-gates of foreign goods. The SSI units have been at the receiving end for the past few years and many committees have looked into the problems facing them but few recommendations have been implemented. Seven years ago Nayak committee report recommended working capital loan should be increased from 8 per cent to 20 per cent of the turn over of a unit. Though this recommendation has not been implemented in the case of SSIs, the loan amount has been reduced below 8 per cent. The 1991 industrial policy, announced “new policy measures for small, tiny and village enterprises”. The financial support package for tiny units has not been implemented. The Limited Partnership Act and Delayed Payment Act, which were promised to be extended to this sector has not seen the light of the day. Abid Hussain Committee, which made some good recommendations for the SSIs. They were never implemented, but the recommendation to deserve 15 items was carried out immediately, he added. |
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Protest at STD decision NEW DELHI, Aug 16 (PTI) — The announcement of opening up the long distance telephony to private operators today created a furore in the Lok Sabha with opposition members protesting that the government had violated Parliamentary practice by making policy announcements outside when the House was in session. Rejecting the members’ contention, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan said Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had merely announced guidelines for private operators on Sunday and recalled that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had announced the decision at a conference of the Information Technology Ministers on July 15 before the monsoon session of Parliament began. Mr Mahajan said that even the announcement of opening up the STD to the private sector could not be described as a policy statement. Regarding the announcement of the Cabinet decisions to the Press, Mr Mahajan said it was better to communicate these to the media to avoid all kinds of speculation in the Press the following day. Asserting that the government had not announced any policy decision outside the House, Mr Mahajan said that recently the Union Cabinet had cleared the agricultural policy and it was announced in the House. While announcing that STD would be opened to the private sector, Mr Vajpayee had stated that the government would announce guidelines for it before August 15 and Paswan accordingly made them public.
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Nothing ‘undesirable’ on cable TV NEW DELHI, Aug 16 — There has been no instance of any cable operator receiving a notice from a District Magistrate for contravention of any law intended to avoid undesirable programmes, according to a study conducted in the past two months. Only 10 per cent of Cable TV operators in the Hindi belt have upgraded or replaced equipment, including cables, in the last couple of years despite the provision to that effect in the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995. Most cable operators are reluctant to include three Doordarshan channels, including DD I and DD II, in their bouquet of channels in view of the poor technical quality of signals of the channels. The field study was conducted by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) in the Hindi belt between June and July in 12 different clusters spread across six Hindi speaking states and covered 140 cable TV operators. Zee TV, Sony TV, Discovery and Star Plus, in that order, are what by and large cable TV operators of Hindi belt consider as more reliable channels technically and viewership point of view. In fact, these are the very channels which are “sought after” or favoured by subscribers locally. To cable TV operators, Sony TV and Zee TV channels are considered as “most (entertaining) channels. Jain TV is mentioned by operators as one of the channels they may drop if they have to accommodate a new one. Despite the recent proliferation of TV channels, there is scope to add another 15 ro 25 satellite channels being distributed by cable TV operators as the total channels available to subscribers of cable TV can go up to 45 to 55. About 10 per cent of operators now have capability of offer 50 or more new channels with existing infrastructure. At present cable TV operators are offering 30 to 40 channels in all, about one-third of them are pay channels. On an average cable TV operators in the Hindi belt are offering 10 to 15 pay TV channels, mostly bundled and with a “packed pricing” arrangement. A few are offering 20 or more channels as pay TV. To cope with increasing number of pay TV channels, the subscription rates for cable TV have been increased anywhere between Rs 20 and 50 per month in the last one year. Subscription rates are expected to go further in 2001 by another 10 to 15 per cent easily. Those operators capable of withstanding big corporate multi-satellite operators (MSOs) are hoping to continue their local operation, no matter what else happens, including on the DTH front. They are however apprehensive of DTH. Hardly 20 per cent of cable TV operators in the Hindi belt have a computer or a fax or Internet facility. Most cable TV operators now know that cable TV has potential to offer telephony and Internet and they are waiting for an opportunity to offer these services as well to their subscribers.
— UNI |
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Pankaj Udhas’s horror NEW DELHI, Aug 16 (PTI) — In the days of mushrooming websites, the Internet has witnessed a unique portal on “horror”, promoted by none other than Pankaj Udhas who has entertained millions through his soothing gazals. “After a lot of survey and studies we found that in the field of entertainment, apart from music and cinema, horror is a very popular subject,” Pankaj Udhas told PTI here. “The site `www.horrorunlimited.com’, launched recently, has been designed to entertain people in a different way”, Udhas said, adding that he was also negotiating with several dotcom companies for a strategic alliance for his portal. The website has several sections like horrormaze, chat, blackmagic, share your fears, murder mysteries, horroscope, vampires and contest. It also features reviews of famous horror movies such as “The Excorcist” besides comments on horror books and their authors. College renamed
after Indian NEW YORK:
A state-funded university in Ohio has renamed its college of business to honour an Indian American entrepreneur, who the university said was instrumental in shaping the region’s economy. The Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University (WSU) in Dayton, Ohio, is a culmination of the long relationship between Delhi-born Soin and the university, which was founded in 1963. The university boasts of a highly competitive master of business administration (MBA) programme. This is the first time, the university said, that it had named a college in honour of an individual. Soin (53), who the university said has donated millions of dollars to the college of business, heads Dayton-headquartered MTC International, a group of manufacturing and consultancy companies with sales exceeding $100 million and employing more than 1,000 workers in 18 U.S. states.
— IANS |
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Now surf Net at no charge NEW DELHI, Aug 16 — A clutch of Internet service providers (ISPs) are trying to tap the vast potential of the World Wide Web in India by dangling free subscriptions before potential new Netizens. Increasingly, as free ISPs catch on, the days when a user had to queue up and pay a hefty price for an Internet connection are on their way out. Now a connection is available for a small one-time price. Users can then surf the Net free for a lifetime. “There is tremendous potential in the market for the free ISPs with the increasing penetration of computers in Indian homes and businesses,” Dewang Mehta, president of Nasscom, said Free Net connections can be collected in the form of a compact disc (CD) from a neighbouring retail store or a company dealer. All that a subscriber needs to do is download the software, follow instructions to register on-line and get a permanent user ID and password. Calcutta-based Caltiger.com kicked off India’s maiden free Internet service last November. The ISP now has a customer base of 230,000, second only to VSNL with a subscriber base of 450,000. New ISPs like New Delhi-based Freedialin.com, the Internet services arm of the Jain Television group, and BharatConnect.com have also moved the Caltiger way. Others are planning launches in the next three to six months. Most of them grant free Net access in exchange for getting a chance to display advertising banners that remain on the monitor screen throughout the browsing session. — IANS Infy ties up with Nigerian bank BANGALORE, Aug 16 (UNI) — Infosys Technologies has established a strategic technology tie-up with First Atlantic Bank, erstwhile Comet Merchant Bank of Nigeria. The bank proposes to bring in new generation software solutions from Infosys Finacle, Bankaway and Bancsremote, according to a press release here today. First Atlantic Bank will make use of Finacle, the web enabled new generation enterprise banking solution for its retail and trade finance requirements. Infosys has recently re-launched its flagship product, Bancs 2000 as Finacle. The bank will also utilise Bancsremote, the mobile banking application that will enable the bank to offer its customers banking services at their door-step. To enable their customers to transact in the e-age, First Atlantic Bank will deploy Bankaway, the powerful e-commerce platform from Infosys. Bankaway will enable the bank to offer Internet banking services to both its retail and corporate customers. Mastek stock MUMBAI, Aug 16 (PTI) — The Board of Directors of Mastek have proposed a stock split in the ratio of two shares for every one share held, thereby reducing the par value of the share from Rs 10 to Rs 5. “The stock split will go a long way towards increasing liquidity levels,” ‘CMD’ of Mastek, Ashank Desai said here today. The board, which met on August 12, has also recommended a 10 per cent final dividend, which takes the total dividend for the year in 40 per cent. Tata Steel page
& Tata Sons site CALCUTTA, Aug 16 (PTI) — Tata Steel today launched a customer page on its website www.Tatasteel.com to enable its 150 regular clients access online information on status of their orders. Meanwhile,
Tata Sons, the owners of the Tata Group website, has re-launched ‘www.tata.com’ on Tuesday. The site has been designed by the Information Company Pvt Ltd. The portal was relaunched for driving traffic to their websites, where over time, business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions would be possible. Optical mouse MUMBAI, Aug 16 (PTI) — Logitech International Inc of the USA will launch its Internet services, a new range of optical mice, gaming devices and video camera used for video mailing in the next couple of months in India. “We will launch products under three themes — desktop leadership, beyond PC and internet services, in India”, company Vice-President Asia Pacific sales and marketing Gavin Wu told reporters here today. Since February 1999, Logitech introduced branded mice, cable-free desktops, key boards, multimedia speakers and interactive gaming devices in India, he added. |
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PNB rates UCO Bank Sugar ceiling Booxop.com Fusegear Allahabad Bank CS results PaisaPower |
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