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Friday,
April 5, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Wipro, IBM
forge alliance RBI for
flexible exchange rate Reliance
Info to set up centres Bill Gates
April Fooled Gandhi on
the Internet Need to
promote biotechnology
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Bids
invited for EIL selloff Record
grain output likely
Lock-in
norms for selling shares
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Wipro, IBM forge alliance
Bangalore, April 4 IBM’s Asia Pacific region President Kakutaro Kitashiro and Wipro Chairman Azim Premji signed the agreement and announced the alliance at a press conference here. As part of this alliance, Wipro will market and integrate IBM’s wide range of server and storage products in India, including pSeries (Unix servers), xSeries (Intel-based servers), iSeries and zSeries. In addition, IBM’s full portfolio of storage products covering Enterprise Storage Systems (ESS), Liner Tape Open (LTO), Network Attached Storage (NAS) and iSCSI products will also be offered. “It is a unique alliance and first of its kind in India”, Kitashiro, who flew into the city from Tokyo, to sign the alliance agreement, said. He met Premji recently and was impressed by the achievements of Wipro, which has focussed on quality customer service and added “IBM also has the same culture”. Kitashiro hoped that the alliance was going to turn out to be a successful one in India and Asia Pacific. Premji said it was obvious that the alliance was important for both Wipro and IBM and this has been demonstrated from the fact that Kitashiro has flown from Tokyo to announce the alliance. Premji said IBM is a $ 85 billion company and more than 20 per cent of its revenue came from Asia Pacific. Wipro and IBM would work together to address opportunities in solutions and server markets, besides expanding the market shares but declined to divulge the revenue sharing pattern agreed to in the alliance agreement, but added “we expect significant business to come”. Wipro, Premji said, despite the slowdown had gained higher market share ahead of its rivals last year. IBM’s market share had also been growing. He declined to comment when asked about reports that Dell planned to establish a manufacturing unit with a Wipro tie-up. Wipro Infotech President Suresh Vaswani answering to a similar query earlier, dismissed it as “only a report and nothing more than that”. IBM (India) Managing Director Abraham Thomas said the alliance was very
significant for his firm and biggest gainer would be customers in India and abroad. The alliance would prove to be a watershed for the IT industry in India.
PTI
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RBI for flexible exchange rate New Delhi, April 4 The RBI Governor, Dr Bimal Jalan, made the comments when asked to speak on the weakening of rupee against the dollar. Rupee has fallen to a low of Rs 48.91 against the dollar. “The markets are quiet,” he told reporters here on the sidelines of a function organised by the Indian Civil Accounts Organisation. At the main function, the Governor spoke about a flexible interest rate structure policy where the banks had the flexibility to make regular adjustments. The interest rates should be indexed to the inflation rate, he felt. Dr Jalan said real interest rates were high in the country despite the nominal rates being at a record low and there was a need to evolve a medium-term nominal interest rate policy to ensure a fixed real rate. Mr Jalan said it was necessary to have a high rate of savings and investments to ensure high GDP growth. This would be possible with a sound infrastructure that promotes savings. Describing the fiscal situation as difficult, he said the high fiscal deficit was despite low inflation. The high savings rate has enabled the government to borrow mostly from domestic sources, he observed. Mr Jalan, however, said the real rate of return on expenditure was poor because of low quality of government spending. The high fiscal deficit has a tendency to spill over to the external sector but this problem has been avoided in India because of the comfortable balance of payments situation.
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Reliance Info to set up centres
Mumbai, April 4 Reliance Infocom plans to sell various applications based on voice, video and data to corporate houses, small and medium businesses and individuals through the outlets, said an official. These centres will come up by the end of the current year. The Infocom outlets, as the retail stores have been tentatively named, will be manned by trained employees of the company, according to sources. Officials say the outlets will begin operations over the next few months when the optic fibre cable (OFC) network is ready. Reliance is laying 60,000 kilometres of OFC connecting 500 cities across the country. It will subsequently be extended to more than 1,500 towns across India. The network will enable it to offer broadband connectivity for various applications based on voice, video and data. In the first phase, the OFC network will connect 115 cities. Work is nearing completion in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa. It proposes to offer a number of services to the corporate sector and residences. This includes telephone and broadband Internet services, like content for cable television. The company is investing Rs.250 billion in this venture to become an integrated telecom player in the country. The Reliance group is planning to unveil a number of telecom services such as fixed-line with limited mobility, and national and international long-distance telephony through the Reliance Infocom umbrella. Reliance has already bagged licences for offering fixed-line telephone services in 18
circles. IANS
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Bill Gates April Fooled
Montreal, April 4 Montreal French-language station CKMF-FM said on Wednesday that staffers Marc-Antoine Audet and Sebastien Trudel had a 10-minute telephone chat with Microsoft Corp. boss Gates on Monday, April 1. The broadcast was aired in their nightly show on Tuesday and repeated on Wednesday. "We were happy. We had been calling Microsoft persistently for four weeks," an ecstatic Trudel told Reuters.
Trudel said he and his colleague had already fooled Canadian pop diva Celine Dion and Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve on their show. "We do that often," he said. "This time, we wanted to give ourselves a challenge with somebody more difficult to reach," Trudel said. He said he was surprised that Gates's aides did not check to see if it was really the prime minister's office on the line.
Trudel said they imitated Chretien's heavily accented English, talking about the economy, insulting Microsoft's Windows operating system and inviting the multibillionaire to visit a well-known Montreal strip joint. The radio host said that Gates, the founder of software giant Microsoft and reportedly worth more than $40 billion, was not amused by the fake interview. "He did not seem angry but he did not find it so funny," the comic told Reuters. A Microsoft spokesman said the company felt the radio hosts had forged documents to prove they were from the Canadian government but stressed that it was taking the prank in stride. "We are taking it in good fun -- and we are glad they did not call collect," said Sean
Sundwall, public relations manager at Microsoft. Reuters
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Gandhi on the Internet
Mumbai, April 4 The online bookshop, launched by Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal in collaboration with “Gandhiana,” an Internet-based platform for passive resistance movements last week, would now make Gandhian books and other literature representing an alternative world view available at the click of a button, according to a statement issued here today. www.gandhiana.org will display books by and on Gandhi and would provide netusers an opportunity to glance at the numerous writings available on the Father of the Nation and those penned by the Mahatma himself, it said. The launch of the online book shop is part of the week long commemoration of famous Dandi March, launched by Gandhiji 72 years ago.
PTI
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Need to promote biotechnology Chandigarh, April 4 The Green Revolution which started in Punjab and then in other states is showing signs of fatigue. Biotechnology can open new frontiers in terms of high yielding pest-resistant crops, DNA finger printing, “Golden Rice” which is nutritionally enhanced, cleaner industrial processes with low energy consumption and lower production wastes and biotech diagnostic products. Ms Romila Dubey, Principal Secretary, Science and Technology explained the initiatives being taken by the Punjab Government in promoting biotechnology. Dr V.K. Vinayak, Adviser, Department of Biotechnology, described the crucial role that biotechnology can play in the area of health care. Dr Paramvir Singh Ahuja,
Director, Institute of Himalyan Bio Resource Technology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Palampur, discussed the scope and the strategy to tap potential of biotechnology in hill states which are naturally endowed with diverse bio-resources and various unique species of plants and herbs. Mr Sunil Ahuja, Financial Commissioner, Science and Technology, Haryana, Mr Sachit Jain, Chairman CII, HP State Council, Prof P.K. Khosla, Senior Adviser — Biotechnology, Himachal Pradesh, Mr N S Tiwana, Executive Director, Punjab State Council for Science and Technology also spoke.
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Bids invited for EIL selloff New Delhi, April 4 Companies eyeing the government equity in EIL will be required to submit their EOI by May 17. In case of engagement of advisers for assisting the government in offloading equity in EIL, the last date for submission of initial bids is April 19. The invitation of initial bids follows a decision of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) last week which cleared a proposal for offering a majority stake in the PSU to strategic partner along with management control. An additional 10 per cent stake will be offered to employees at one-third of market price or bid price whichever was lower. The government currently holds 90.40 per cent equity in EIL while 5.14 per cent is with public and another 3.14 per cent is with banks and financial institutions.
PTI
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Record grain output likely New Delhi, April 4 “The foodgrain production target has been fixed at 220 million tonnes for 2002-03,” Agriculture Secretary J. N. L. Srivastava said today at “National Conference on Agriculture for Kharif Campaign 2002” here. The Secretary said the foodgrain production was expected to touch 210 million tonnes for last crop year and this would be nearly 6.8 per cent more than the 196 million tonnes achieved in 2000-01. The 6.08 per cent growth in output would be much higher than the targeted 4 per cent growth for the farm sector. Pulse production would be around 13 million tonnes in 2001-02 against 16 million tonnes target while oilseeds production would be at 22 million tonnes against 27 million tonnes target, Mr Srivastava said.
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Two-rupee coin Godrej exports Aastha in USA Iffco awarded NTPC mulls IPO Reliance dividend HM car sales dip Philips CD system Sterlite in pact ABN Amro Bancafe Finolex stake |
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Bangalore, April 4
