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| Thursday, August 24, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Caffeine in colas promotes addiction:
study India still not
a digital economy New desktop
computer from IBM Hacker-proof
software launched |
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| Re depreciated least after Singapore dollar NEW DELHI, Aug 23 — The rupee is not the only currency to lose value against the dollar and all currencies have come under pressure in the recent past, the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, has said. Why bosses are paid so
much IITians who mix spirituality & business Forward scrips to
‘roll’ after November Paying taxes in Delhi
NEW DELHI, Aug 23 (PTI) — caffeine in colas makes no difference to a person’s taste buds but can be mildly addictive, warns a leading medical institute that has contested claims of soft drink
manufactures that they add caffeine to colas just for taste. The majority of people who drink colas can’t tell whether a soda contains caffeine or not, says a new study by Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in the
USA. The study on 25 adult cola drinkers was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It showed that only 8 per cent of adult cola drinkers could detect caffeine at a concentration of 0.1 milligram per millilitre, the concentration in leading popular brands. The rest could not taste the difference between caffeine-free and caffeine-containing colas until the levels were raised to much higher levels beyond those approved by the us Food and Drug Administration
(FDA). “They are adding a mildly addictive, mood-altering drug (caffeine), one which surely accounts for the fact that people drink far more sodas with caffeine than without,” a Johns Hopkins release quoting lead researcher Roland Griffths said. However, the National Soft Drink Association in the USA, representing a trade group of companies which market and distribute over 95 per cent of the soft drinks sold in the
USA, countered the Johns Hopkins findings saying, “too few people were tested, too little science was used and too much opinion was contained in its conclusion.” But the association did not explain why caffeine was added to the soft drinks. The Johns Hopkins study warns that adults and children can become physiologically and psychologically dependent on caffeine, experiencing withdrawal symptoms like headache and lethargy, if they stop. Though adults can cope with withdrawal symptoms, in children, whose soft drink consumption may be sporadic, the issue poses a bigger problem, according to the study published in this month’s issue of the journal “Archives of Family Medicine”. “Children may go in and out of withdrawal and have erratic periods of suboptimal feelings that could affect the way they function,” says Griffiths. Drawing parallels between
aggressive marketing of nicotine and caffeine, the study says both are psychoactive drugs. Until recently, cigarette companies denied that nicotine is addictive and said it was added merely as a flavour enhancer for cigarettes. “The same is being said for caffeine,” writes Griffiths. “Given that sodas are aggressively marketed to kids, manufacturers should openly say why the caffeine is there....” Griffith says. According to sources cited in the study, increased soda drinking in children displaces eating more nutritious foods, possibly increasing tooth decay, obesity and bone fracture. In the test sessions during the study, cola from a single production batch was used. The 25 people chosen for the study were regular cola drinkers who believed they preferred caffeinated colas because of taste. The scientists first made sure that the
subjects had reasonable taste sensitivity by distinguishing between diet versions of soft drinks and the regular ones. Caffeine has for long been added to colas. The industry countered objections on its use in soft drinks when the us government first raised the issue in 1920. Its use continued thereafter till in 1980 when the
FDA reviewed the issue to see if soft drinks maintained the “generally recognised as safe (GRAS)” status regarding caffeine. As little was known then about caffeine’s mood-altering or behavioural effects at low doses, the industry again countered objections with studies highlighting its importance to flavour, the release says. |
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India still not a digital economy WASHINGTON, (PTI): India needs to make substantial improvements in cyber connectivity and upgrade its human capital, e-leadership and the e-business climate to prepare itself for the ‘digital economy’, according to a report by an international consultancy firm. The report, prepared by McConnell International, studies 42 emerging economies including India, Pakistan, China and Russia, based on five key parameters — cyber connectivity, e-leadership, human capital, information security, and the e-business climate. India fares poorly in the first parameter — cyber connectivity, drawing a “red” implying a need for “substantial improvement”. It fares slightly better in the rest of the four areas, drawing an “amber” in each (meaning a need for “improvement”). India’s low teledensity and abysmal pc penetration also come in for criticism. “India... has one of the lowest tele-densities in the world... at approximately 1.5 lines per 100 persons. PC penetration is considerably lower, at approximately 0.2 per 100”, the report says. But the biggest surprise is the conclusion that India needs substantial improvement in human capital despite being a leading exporter of software professionals. The report, however, commends the efforts made by India to improve conditions and says: “Cyber laws as evidenced in India and Italy, are important steps towards effective information security”. None of the 42 economies merited “blue”, signifying readiness in the five areas selected. The Pakistani economy, in fact, fared abysmally in all the five areas, drawing a “red” for all of them. The report says that Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam have “yet to adequately address numerous investment obstacles”. China receives two “reds” — for connectivity and information security, while drawing “amber” for the rest. Russia, meanwhile, gets four “reds” — for connectivity, e-leadership, information security and e-business climate, and an “amber” for human capital.
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New desktop
computer from IBM CHENNAI, Aug 23 (PTI) — IBM India Ltd, today launched a new range of desktop computers in the ‘low price’ segment. The new product, NetVista A10, comes with a Celeron 533 MHZ microprocessor, 32 MB and 64 MB Ram memory and a ten GB Hard disk drive. It also comes bundled with a 14 inch colour monitor, lotus smart suite and
Norton anti-virus software, Shashi Mal, Country Manager, Personal Systems Group, told a news conference while launching the new product. The new product was being manufactured at the Pondicherry facility. Mal said the volume for commercial desk top computers in the country was expected to touch one million units this year. there was a 40 per cent growth over last year in this segment. The IBM’s contribution for commercial desk top computers in the first quarter of this year was 5.8 per cent and after the introduction of this new product, its market share was expected to touch 30 per cent, Mal
said. BEIJING, Aug 23 (PTI) — A Chinese information technology company has launched a new anti-hacker software called Sharks which cannot be detected by hackers. Launching the hacker-proof technological solution at the on-going World Computer Congress (WCC) here yesterday, an official from the Beijing Founder Electronic Co., Zou Wei, said that the new anti-hacker software does not have any address on the Internet as similar
software do. Therefore, it cannot be discovered by hackers, he said. The software also does not require any adjustment of computer setups once it is installed. The trademarked software has already been used on the website highlighting Beijing’s bid to host the 2008 Olympic games, Wei said. |
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Re depreciated least after Singapore dollar NEW DELHI, Aug 23 — The rupee is not the only currency to lose value against the dollar and all currencies have come under pressure in the recent past, the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, has said. The rupee depreciation was one of the least amongst the currencies of the region after capital started flowing to the West for higher returns in recent times and the Indian currency depreciated the least after the Singapore dollar in the region. The Minister was speaking here last night after receiving the “most innovative economic statesman award” instituted by the World Quality Council. On the rising international oil prices and its impact on the forex reserves, Sinha said: “There is absolutely nothing to worry. We have over $ 36 billion reserve which can pay full seven months of import bills.” Recalling his tenure at the North Block, Mr Sinha said there had not been a single dull ever since he became Finance Minister. |
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Why bosses are paid so
much WHILE the salaries of British company directors seem stratospheric to the average worker, the executives themselves look enviously at their US colleagues whose remuneration packages are in a different league. The world’s best paid Director, according to Forbes magazine is Charles Wang, chief executive of Computer Associates, who was paid $650m last year, mostly because of stock options. In the number two spot, Bobby Johnson from
telecom firm, Foundry Networks, pocketed $230m, again largely due to stock options. As is the case in Britain, US corporate salaries are rising much faster than average earnings. Business Week’s annual survey revealed that the average American chief executive made $12.4m last year, a 17 per cent rise on 1998. This means that executive pay packets are a staggering 475 times larger than the pay of the average American manufacturing employee. The pay gap between chief executives and workers is not as marked in Britain where bosses typically earn around 24 times the average manufacturing salary, according to remuneration experts Towers Perrin. The gap in Britain is the widest in Europe. In Germany, the average chief executive earns 15 times the average manufacturing workers’ pay, while in egalitarian Sweden executive pay is 13 times greater. The Guardian-Inbucon survey of UK boardroom rewards established that the most expensive board is Vodafone’s where directors’ salaries account for 27 per cent of the cost, not as high as the 40 per cent cost of the directors’ of Energis in comparison with their workforce. David Marsden, an industrial relations expert at the London School of Economics, says US-style pay packets are becoming more common on the continent, which will widen the gap between workers and their bosses. The driving force is the move by European companies to tap the global equity markets for cash rather than relying on bank finance. This in turn is exposing them to shareholder pressures to perform. The usual justification for the bonuses and stock options which boost US and British pay packets is that it keeps managers working in shareholders’ interests by rewarding them when the share price improves. In fact, Mr Marsden says the performance hurdles chief executives must meet are often set so low that they collect even in bad years. An alternative explanation sometimes advanced is that huge chief-executive pay packets exist simply to promote competition further down the corporate hierarchy. By striving to do well in order some day to become the boss, middle managers improve the performance of the whole company. Mr Marsden suggests that if this theory is correct it really does not matter what the chief executive does all day — he or she is just there to provide an illustration of the rewards of success.
— By arrangement with The Guardian |
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IITians who mix spirituality & business NEW YORK, Aug 23 — Sucheta Munjal Jain and Shailendra Jain started their company, Intelligent Information Systems (IIS), in 1992 from their home in Durham, North Carolina, but they envisioned it as a company built to last into the next century and beyond. “We did not want to get rich quick. We wanted to build a strong company that should live a hundred years or more,” Jain told IANS. Brave words for a company that is going through a phased expansion and been in existence for just eight years. It was not just about transforming legacy systems to modern technologies, which is what IIS does to butter its bread, but transforming management styles and human relationships within their own and their clients’ companies that inspired the two engineers. The company’s bread and butter comes from legacy systems technology and it has a market value of $100 million, revenues of $16 million and a profit of more than $2 million. The Jains have also taken on clients for transforming human relations management in places like the Compensation Bureaus of Minnesota and North Carolina, the Milwaukee Transit System, a major insurance company and a Wall Street firm. Jain and Sucheta began IIS with the intent of expressing their values of quality, integrity, innovation and longevity through the company, the firm’s information web site maintains. In fact, so bent on pursuing this angle are they that it is embedded in their web site name — renewal-IIS. The two, graduates of the IIT Delhi, place their trust in their employees. “The very building architecture of our offices in Durham, North Carolina, is going to reflect this ‘Town Hall’ concept,” Sucheta said. She is leading the effort with the input of 17 employees. “This is my style of managing — to get even junior level people involved in designing/planning various aspects of the company,” she added. Currently, the company has 120 employees in the USA and 70 in India. “As we expand in India, we don’t want to go to high-tech areas but rather to the second tier cities like Dehradun, to make the sense of community,” Jain said, adding, “It is an experiment.” “I believe by going to smaller cities like Dehra Dun, we can provide our employees a better quality of life,” Sucheta said. “We want to provide the best transformation services not just for IT but also for business processes. Our trademark is renewal,” Jain emphasised. The Jains came to the USA after graduating from IIT, Jain in 1977 and Sucheta in 1978. They worked at different software companies before branching out on their own. Jain is an electrical engineer by training but he says he was always interested in humanities subjects. “I took management very seriously, things like organisational behaviour. I was very frustrated with the lack of meaningfulness in my job,” he recalls, “spending too much time in politics and doing nothing for the community.” “The visibility we want to gain is for attracting like-minded people. We want to do business with like-minded people. Spirituality and business can go together.” Both the Jains have Masters in Computer Science from Villanova University. Sucheta also has a Masters in Chemistry. They have two daughters, Kriti, 15, and Vriti, 10. —
IANS |
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Forward scrips to ‘roll’ after November MUMBAI, Aug 23 (PTI) — The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is to bring specified scrips under rolling settlement with carry forward system (CFS) anytime after November, by when major stock exchanges are expected to be ready with the required software. At a meeting with SEBI here today, representatives of six major stock exchanges have agreed to the November-end deadline for ensuring that their systems are ready for CFS in rolling settlement, Executive Director Pratip Kar told reporters. Only 163 non-specified scrips were brought under rolling settlement so far, as they are not under CFS. Simultaneously, Automatic Lending Borrowing Mechanism (ALBM) in rolling settlement would be introduced on the NSE, in a phased manner, he said. The representatives of NSE, BSE, DSE, CSE, MSE and Ahmedabad Stock Exchange attended the meeting, he added. |
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Paying taxes in Delhi GURGAON, Aug 23 — The Haryana Government is reportedly concerned over a large number of income tax
payees, including industrialists, filing their returns in Delhi. Mr Shiv Nandan Prasad, Commissioner of Income Tax, Rohtak says, a large number of industrialists having businesses in Gurgaon, Faridabad, Rohtak and Bahadurgarh file their returns in the income tax offices in Delhi. In the last financial year the total income tax collected from Rohtak Charge was more than Rs 275 crore. The target for the current financial is Rs 392 crore. In the last financial year 1,74,081 (official figure) payees filed their returns in Rohtak Charge. |
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Me likes kisses: Furby CHENNAI: “Me likes kisses” “Sing me to sleep “ “I very hungry”, whispers Furby, the animated pet, the new entrant to the Indian toy market. Funskool, one of the largest toy manufacturers in the country set up by tyre giant MRF Ltd and Hasbro Inc, yesterday announced the launch of their interactive toy, Furby, which responds to light touch, sound and motion and will react to its environment. If it is scared or excited, its eyes will pop open and ears prick up, if it is happy and content its eyes open and close slowly and it wiggles its ears. Furby purrs, burps, and giggles and loves to dance and sing. Funskool Chief Executive R. Kuriyan told
reporters that Furby had already been introduced in the US and European market. He claimed that Furby would excite both children and adults. Funskool had the largest toy factory in the country and has earned the largest exporter of toy awards in the past three years. It had earned a net profit of Rs 2 crore in the financial year 1999-2000. Furby is for the upmarket kid as it is priced between Rs 590 and Rs 1,600 a piece.
— UNI Lost love revealed LONDON: She was the girl who loved him. A highly connected English rose who remained true to the creator of James Bond Ian Fleming despite his repeated, 007-like womanising exploits. For nine years, from the day she met him aged 21 until her death in 1944, Muriel Wright had a passionate affair with the rakish author who declared women to be ``like dogs’’. He finally tired of her, but when she was killed in an air raid in Belgravia the notorious arch-misogynist was distraught and wracked with guilt. The story of Fleming and his lost love has resurfaced with the forthcoming sale of a handful of sepia photographs unearthed in an Oxford antiques shop, in England. The albums, which hold pictures of her and of her brother, Fitzherbert, will be auctioned in London next month. Rupert Powell, a Director of Bloomsbury Book Auctions, in London, which is conducting the sale on September 7, said the estimated price was US$300 but the vogue for Ian Fleming meant this could be easily exceeded.
— The Guardian India flavour of season in Paris PARIS: All of a sudden, the French seem to be taken up with India and all things Indian. Walk into Zara’s twin outlets at Champs Elysees and the Spanish high fashion retailer has some attractive, bright coloured women’s salwar kameez sets occupying its prime display space. About 100 metres away in a shopping complex, the pride of place in many attractively designed windows is again taken by ‘salwar kameez,’ sarees and ‘ghaghra cholis’. Some say this craze has been building up for some time now. “I have been witnessing this fever for quite a while now. It is increasing in intensity now. You see a flood of Indian goods all over France suddenly. The last time such a craze had swept the French was nearly 30 years ago, during the Beatles days, when India, then a very exotic land in the average French mind, had become a hit with the youth,” recounts Mohanjeet Grewal, a reputed fashion designer who runs a chain of garment stores in Paris.
— IANS
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Online exchange for steel launched NEW DELHI, Aug 23 — Mr Arjun Bharathan, Chief Executive Officer of “clickforsteel Private Limited”, has launched India’s first international steel exchange web portal. This will be a B2B (buisness-to-business) Internet steel exchange, commonly referred to as a “vertical portal” or “vortal”. The site aims to redefine the steel trading business using the Internet as the backbone. Mr Bharathan told TNS that they have identified steel centres, including Mandi Gobindgarh, Ludhiana, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, UP and Haryana, which are currently online. In fact, to tell steel sellers and purchasers more about the benefits of the site, the company has opened cyber-cafes at Mandi Gobindgarh, to start with. The cyber-cafes are manned by the franchiees’ who tell the traders, producers and purchasers as to how to make the maximum use of the portal. They impress upon them that how the exchange will improve price efficiency by increased market demand-supply information, reduce back office costs, arbitrage middlemen spread, improve inventory management, avoid distress sales of surpluses and be a reference point for pricing. The exchange will concentrate on trades in and between the Indian subcontinent, West Asia, South-East Asia, Europe and Africa. This geographical space is not being currently addressed by any internet portal and is currently one of the largest and growing steel markets in the world. These target markets alone account for an annual steel trade of $130 billion. The Indian steel market itself accounts for Rs 40,000 crore per annum. With such large volumes of trading “clickforsteel.com” will easily be India’s largest B2B site, according to Mr Bharathan. A key feature of the Exchange is that it will be completely neutral and transparent without any affiliation to any steel body nor will it have any commercial interest in any of the material posted on the site. “clickforsteel.com” is one of the first e-commerce ventures in India to offer equity participation to its business partners who provide steel tonnage on the site. |
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Shahrukh ICICI
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