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| Friday, January 19, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Chandigarh-born girl heads US IT firm
Wipro expected to double profit
Growing digital divide worries govt Microtek to raise
monitors’ output Lend more to small units, says
Chautala |
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Spice roaming
facility for Haryana Digital net shoots up
by 188 pc
Back pain from work is
real They pay $8,000 to save bullock Hold-up a child’s play
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Chandigarh-born girl heads US IT
firm NEW YORK, Jan 18 — The Board of Directors of Cyber group Network Corp., an information technology (IT) securities equipment start-up based in San Bernadino, California, has unanimously approved the selection of Indian American Nisha Kapoor as President, effective immediately. Chandigarh-born Kapoor, 24, will be responsible for all operations and financial matters for the company. Kapoor, who came to this country with her parents as a four-year old, said though she is the youngest employee, that would lead to “no pressure at all”. “I am very confident of the company and the direction it is headed,” Kapoor told IANS. The Cyber group currently employs 13 persons. The company is coming to market with electronic switching devices that are currently being developed. Kapoor replaces Thomas Hobson, who has resigned for personal reasons. Hobson will, however, continue to serve on the Board and, along with other members, oversee, advise and assist Kapoor. A graduate of La Verne University in La Verne, California, Kapoor is currently pursuing an MBA-finance degree from the same university. She joined the Cyber group in 2000 as Director of Public and Investor Relations, responsible for delivering communication in support of the company’s strategic goals and marketing plans. Since then, her responsibilities have extended into strategic business and product development, promotion and marketing strategies for the company. “Kapoor is a successful, strategic leader that gets impressive results,” the Board of Directors said in a statement, adding, “she brings to our company organisation proven operations ability and, most importantly, leadership, dedication and initiative.” “Our biggest goal is getting our tracking device out and working with partners and distributors,” Kapoor said. “I am pleased with the board’s recognition of my proven leadership ability in the past and total confidence in my capability as a leader for the company. I plan to do my very best...helping the company realise its full potential while building maximum shareholder value.” “We are ready to enter the market with our product by the first quarter of 2001,” she said. “Of course, there are hurdles for every start-up. But having very supportive staff and the ability to set up strategy and partnerships is a big plus.” Among the products the company is developing the
Big Target, a meta-search engine, the electronic snitching device that can track missing or stolen computers within five feet of its location globally as well as retrieve and destroy information from the hard drive. Several versions of e-snitch are expected to be released throughout the next year. It has also developed a division, Cyber Crime Corporation, comprising specialists in the areas of ex-computer hacking, hi-tech theft, private investigating and law enforcement that will be committed to educating, informing and assisting consumers, businesses and organisations on how to detect, prevent and defend systems against hi-tech hustlers. Another site,
CGN Comics.com, will display 24 volumes of real life events from America’s most notorious computer hackers, hi-tech thieves and industrial spies. “Tales of a Hi-Tech Hustler” will feature at all comic book locations and will also be available as an online subscription based publication. Before joining the Cyber group, Kapoor worked at the law offices of Linda Battram and with the publicly traded company USS Logistics. She said she thought her legal background and her confidence in the company and herself have brought her to this position.
— IANS
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Wipro expected to double profit BANGALORE, Jan 18 (Reuters) — Indian tech giant Wipro is expected to report profit for the October-December quarter nearly doubled from a year earlier, boosted by soaring earnings from its software services business. The diversified information technology outfit, India's largest company by market value, is forecast to report a 96 per cent surge in the net profit to 1.64 billion rupees ($35 million), according to a Reuters poll of brokerages. "This quarter will again be the story of Wipro being able to improve its operating margins," said Chetan Shah, software analyst at DBS Securities. He said Wipro continued to increase billing rates at its software unit in the October-December quarter. Wipro, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange in October, also makes computer hardware, soaps, vegetable oils and electric bulbs. Yet over 90 percent of its profit comes from its software services business. The company will announce its third-quarter results on Friday. At the Bombay Stock Exchange, Wipro share's on Wednesday fell 8.75 rupees or 0.3 percent to 2,518.60 rupees. The stock is down 74.24 percent from a high of 9,800 rupees reached last February but has gained 71.23 percent from a subsequent low of 1,474 rupees touched in May. In the past six months, Wipro's shares have fallen nearly 11 percent. Its American Depositary Receipts (ADR) have on the other hand gained 16 percent to $57 on Wednesday from its closing price on October 19 when it listed at a small premium on the NYSE. Wipro's software clients include Nortel Networks Corp, the world's top supplier of fibre-optic network equipment, networking giant Cisco Systems Inc, Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp and UK travel operator Thomas Cook. A Reuters poll released earlier this month forecast Wipro's sales to increase by 34 percent to 7.65 billion rupees in the third quarter from 5.70 billion a year ago. "Wipro has in the last few quarters been focusing more on its technology business than (software) applications," said Sandeep Dhingra, analyst at J.P. Morgan Chase.
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Growing digital divide worries govt NEW DELHI, Jan 18 — The information technology revolution may lead to a digital divide in society similar to the industrial revolution of the 18th century which created new class structures and brought about social conflicts between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. With India projected to emerge as a knowledge super power in the 21st century, the government faces an immense challenge of converging the needs of the masses with those of the knowledge managers. The caste and class divided India faces yet another daunting challenge of bifurcating the society at a time, when the IT revolutions provides an immense economic opportunity to leap frog several stages of development. The government too appears to have woken up to the dangerous signals appearing of over the country’s horizon with a regional digital divide becoming more and more discernible. “The revolution brought in by the new information and communication technologies has made it possible to radically change the way in which the government functions and the manner in which it interacts with its citizens. At the same time, there is a danger that the divisions in our society could deepen into the digital ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’,” said the National Advisory Committee, set up by the Union Ministry of Information Technology. The committee members include Infosys head, N.R. Narayanamurthy, Wipro chief Azim Premji, NIIT chairman R.S. Pawar, Satyam CEO, B. Ramalinga Raju, and Nasscom president, Dewang Mehta. The committee expressed concern at the growing division in the society and the new social transformation could prove to be an anti-thesis to the very development paradigm. “Private industry can have a decisive impact .... only if this is ensured would e-governance spread and ‘digital unite’ become a reality,” the committee observed. Nasscom currently has 545 members registered on its rolls and they represent as much as 95 per cent of the revenue of the software industry in India. However, the issue concerning the industry experts and sociologists is that of the concentration of internet-driven business in only a few pockets of the country. Of the 545 Nasscom members, more that 85 per cent are located in the six cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai. Calcutta is the only metropolis in eastern region where there is any contribution of software business (4.8 per cent). Of these cities, India’s commercial capital Mumbai has had the largest chunk of the cake with more than 24 per cent of the total Internet driven business in the country being operated from its shores, with the national capital, New Delhi being a close second with 22 per cent. The indigenously developed Silicon Valley of Bangalore comes third with approximately 20 per cent followed by Chennai (10 per cent) and Hyderabad (9.9 per cent). The five cities and Calcutta house more than 90 per cent of the entire Internet driven business, with the rest of the country together having to settle down for less than 10 per cent of the pie. The North Indian states vying with one another to attract investment in the IT sector is an indication of the growing realisation even among the political leadership to narrow the regional divide and prevent social conflict. Suggesting a way out for the North Indian states to catch up with their southern counterparts, Mr Dewang Mehta said: “these states need to keep working towards further enhancement of its infrastructural and other physical requirements to attract MNCs and other IT players towards their state.” “They need to introduce policies and incentives which encourage and attract IT companies not only from India but as well as international players. The North Indian states shall probably be counted amongst the top five IT states savvy states of India if they work towards making their state IT friendly”, he added. The writing, therefore, is on the wall: carry the whole nation together or run the risk of creating tiny digitised islands within a sea of non-digitised societies. What this would result in may be an interesting sociological study, but for those who have to experience it, it would certainly be a nightmare.
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Microtek to raise
monitors’ output NEW DELHI, Jan 18 — Microtek International, a front-runner in the monitor market, is going in for major expansion by increasing its existing production capacity for monitors. Microtek is the only major player having comprehensive indigenous manufacturing and research development facilities of its own and that too with the ISO 9002 certification. Talking to TNS, Mr Rajesh Gupta, Chief Executive Officer of Microtek International, said the recent upsurge in e-commerce applications and proliferation of the Internet into every nook and corner of the country has boosted the demand for computer hardware and brought a cheering effect to the computer hardware industry as well as the IT peripherals industry. The sales of computers along with their peripherals like monitors, modems and uninterrupted power supplies are seeing a healthy growth. “Last year the offtake of colour monitors alone was to the tune of 1 million units. The offtake of monitors this year is expected to increase by over 70 per cent, making manufacturing of colour and mono monitors extremely competitive”, Mr Gupta said. Microtek is manufacturing all its colour monitors, mono monitors, external modems, internal modems, UPS and other products through its five manufacturing plants — two at Parwanoo in Himachal Pradesh, two at Delhi and one at Kundli in Haryana. With the demand rising, Microtek has gone in for increasing its existing production capacity for monitors. The plants in Kundli and Parwanoo already have a production capacity of 1 million monitors per annum. Microtek is investing Rs 7 crore in its Kundli plant and adding an additional 1 million monitor manufacturing capacity. It is also investing Rs 6 crore in setting up a state of the art injection moulding facility at its Kundli plant. According to Mr Gupta, the company recently introduced its range of ‘Smart Modems’ using world’s best Conexant-Rockwell, USA, chipset which have several unique features for providing fastest uninterrupted surfing on the Internet. The company has also set up a motherboard manufacturing plant in Delhi. It has invested Rs 6 crore in installing the world’s latest SMT equipment for this plant. The company has a vast network of 25 service centres in the country, covering most of the major towns and cities. The company has set itself target of doubling this number to 50 by the end of this year. |
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Lend more to small units, says
Chautala CHANDIGARH, Jan 18 — Banks in Haryana need to accelerate the progress of the state by lending more finance to the agricultural sector and small scale units. As many as 1,785 new small scale units have come up in the state as compared to 29 big units, thus reflecting the need to give priority to the small units since these are the ones that help generating maximum employment. This was stated by Mr Om Prakash Chautala, while addressing the 75th meeting of the State Level Bankers’ Committee, Haryana, here today. The meeting was convened by Punjab National Bank. Various issues relating to the state economy and policies and the performance of banks in the state were discussed in the SLBC meeting. Mr S.S. Kohli, Chairman and Managing Director, PNB, who presided, emphasised the need to ensure better recovery of bank dues. “Though the recovery position of banks in the state has improved from 69 per cent in June ’99 to 72 per cent in June, 2000, and the recovery under various schemes also witnessed a decline but the percentage of recovery still varies between 25 and 45 per cent”, he said. While speaking about the performance of the banks he said the number of branches of commercial and regional rural banks has increased to 1,491 in September, 2000, as against 1,475 in September, 1999. The deposits of the banks have shown an increase of 15.9 per cent whereas the advances have increased by 18.7 per cent during this period. The areas that have shown encouraging performance include credit support to women beneficiaries and crop loans to farmers. Mr Sampat Singh, Finance Minister, said special efforts were required to lower the gap of credit deposit ratio. Mr L.M. Goyal, Chief Secretary, Haryana, Mr S.Y. Quarashi, Principal Secretary to the CM, Mr A.N. Mathur, Financial Commissioner & Secretary (Finance), Mr A Ramanathan, CGM NABARD, Mr K.K. Sharaf, DGM, RBI, New Delhi, and officials from various banks and institutions also attended the meeting. |
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Spice roaming
facility for Haryana CHANDIGARH, Jan 18—Spice Communications will extend the restricted roaming facility to its subscribers in Haryana. This facility was earlier offered in Himachal Pradesh only. With this, the post-paid subscriber will be able to receive all incoming calls in Haryana as he receives in Punjab on his mobile. He would also be able to make outgoing calls within Haryana, Delhi and selected stations in Punjab. The existing limited roaming subscribers will not have to pay anything but customers wanting to subscribe to this facility will be required to make an additional deposit of Rs. 1,000 apart from the local call security deposit. A surcharge of 20 per cent will be levied on the total call amount. However, Spice will continue with its existing rates of surcharge of 15 per cent till the end of this month. The company has also dropped its tariff charges for the subscribers who endorse “Quicky Regular” or “Spice Sixer “ package. The mobile user, now will have to pay only Re.1 per billing pulse for the incoming calls. A night slab has also been introduced .
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Digital net shoots up
by 188 pc BANGALORE, Jan 18 (UNI) — Digital Equipment India today reported a record 145 per cent increase in revenue and 188 per cent in profits after tax for the third quarter of the current fiscal ending December 31. In a release here, the company said the revenue for the third quarter was Rs 56.15 crore as against Rs 22.96 crore for the October-December period 1999-2000. The net profit after tax was Rs 16.58 crore compared to Rs 5.75 crore previous year. Commenting on the performance, President and Chief Executive Officer said the company had made substantial progress in new business development across all regions both with Compaq and independent clients. Digital India Chairman Jeff Lynn said the company had created core infrastructure that gave it an edge in capturing business opportunities. “The financial performance in this quarter endorses our view and we are confident that this trend will continue in the foreseeable future”, he added. While 79 per cent of the revenue came from the US operations, Europe contributed 17 per cent during the quarter and the Asia Pacific region 4 per cent.
SONEPAT, Jan 18 — Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has claimed that the new industrial policy has attracted foreign investment of Rs 20,000 crore in the industrial sector alone. He was inaugurating a tempering glass plant set up by Gold Plus Toughened Glass Limited at Liwaspur village, 12 km from here, last evening. Earlier, Mr Subhash Tyagi, Managing Director of the unit, gave away details of the new plant set up with the Dubai-based Al-Shafar group at a cost of Rs 20 crore.
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Vidyut, Maruti win trophies CHANDIGARH, Jan 18 — The “Vidyut” quality circle from Indian Sugar & General Engineering Corporation, Yamunanagar, today won the 13th Regional Quality Circle Competition organised by CII (Northern region) at New Delhi. Maruti Udyog, Gurgaon and the “Ujala” quality circle from Indian Sugar & General Engineering Corporation won the first and second runners-up trophies respectively. Spinning mills face closure PANIPAT, Jan 18 — Like blanket factories owners, the Spinning Mill Association has also planned to close down spinning mills as about 70 per cent business of these mills has been reportedly reduced following months-old labour unrest in blanket factories here.
Several rounds of negotiations between representatives of labour unions and the Blanket Manufacturing Association with the officers of the Labour Department have failed to bring any settlement over the workers’ demands. |
co
Back pain from work is
real WASHINGTON: Back, shoulder and arm pain is no phantom worker’s complaint but can be caused by duties ranging from heavy lifting to running a cash register. And it costs industry billions, report by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies of Science, finds. “There is no doubt that musculoskeletal disorders of the low back and upper extremities are an important and costly national health problem,” the report said. “Each year, these disorders affect about 1 million workers and cost the nation between $45 billion and $54 billion in compensation expenditures, lost wages, and decreased productivity,” the Academies, which do independent research but often advise the government, added in a statement. The problems examined in the report, which was commissioned by Congress, include lower and upper back pain, tendinitis, nonspecific wrist complaints, and carpal tunnel syndrome. The last two are commonly called repetitive stress injuries (RSI). “For women, the highest-risk jobs are in nursing or nursing support, and in domestic or commercial cleaning and janitorial work,” it added. “But musculoskeletal disorders are a problem in many industries — from agriculture, manufacturing, and mining to finance, the service sector, and transportation.” Factors do not simply include hard physical labour. “A rapid work pace, monotonous work, low job satisfaction, little decision-making power, and high levels of job stress also are associated with back disorders,” the report said. “Such psychosocial factors affect not only how workers view themselves in relation to the workplace, but also the physical, organisational, and social aspects of their jobs.” Other contributors include repetitious movements, vibration, highly demanding jobs and stress, the panel of 19 experts, headed by Dr. Jeremiah Barondess, President of the New York Academy of Medicine, found. The group read all scientific reports it could find on the subject of back pain, heard from outside experts and visited two Ford Motor Co. plants as part of its research.
— Reuters DUBLIN: A British couple who fell in love with a bullock while on holiday in Ireland have paid more than 7,000 Irish pounds ($8,340) to save the animal's life and give him a new home in Britain, Irish media reported on Thursday. Phyllis Brunsden, 79, and her husband William, 74, became friendly with the Friesian when they first saw him in a field next to their rented holiday bungalow in the western county of Kerry in 1998, reports said. They fed him cabbage leaves, stroked him on the nose, and nicknamed him Ferdinand. But when they returned home to Nottingham in the English midlands, the Brunsdens found they could not bear the thought of Ferdinand's demise. "When we got home I kept thinking of Ferdinand and the prospect of him being killed just to be turned into burgers," Phyllis Brunsden was quoted as saying. The couple telephoned the farmer who owned the bullock and arranged to buy the animal, due to be slaughtered the following April. The Brunsdens paid 900 pounds for Ferdinand and laid out more than 1,000 pounds to pay for two years of his upkeep. But last month they decided to give the beast a brand new life and arranged for him to be shipped to an animal sanctuary in England, cashing in a pensioners' bond of 5,000 pounds to pay for his transport and care for the rest of his life. The couple, who belong to 20 animal charities, also gave up eating beef out of respect for their bovine pal, reports said.
— Reuters SINGAPORE:
A Singapore pensioner made child's play out of holding up a money changer. William Keh's weapons of choice were a toy pistol, two plastic bottles of liquid masquerading as acid and a box of matches, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday. "He had borrowed $12,000 (US$6,900) from his wife. His wife had been nagging him for the repayment," the spokeswoman told Reuters on Thursday. Brandishing the toy gun in front of the shop assistant last Thursday, 69-year-old Keh demanded $5,000(Singapore), threatened to splash acid on him and burn the shop down. Rather than hand over the money, the sceptical shop assistant called the police instead. A district court judge on Wednesday sentenced Keh to three years jail for attempted armed robbery and criminal intimidation.
— Reuters |
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Pakistan tax target Victor to cut force Saudi beef supplies China web users Japan insurers Steel-makers Gold edges up |
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PACL net up Castrol scheme Pitara.com Hyundai outlet Datanet India Travel portal Paper industry Reid & Taylor |
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