The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Infosys Q2 net up 9.7% at Rs 1,906 cr, pays 300% interim dividend Bangalore/Mumbai, October 12 IT bellwether Infosys on Wednesday reported a 9.72 per cent growth in its consolidated net profit to Rs 1,906 crore for the second quarter ended September 30. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,737 crore for the September quarter of the previous fiscal (2010-11), Infosys said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The consolidated revenue of the country's second largest software exporter rose to Rs 8,099 crore in the reporting period from Rs 6,947 crore in the year-ago period, translating into a 16.58 per cent increase. "The global macroeconomic environment is still uncertain. It is and should be a concern for the IT industry. In this scenario, clients are looking for new opportunities for growth, accelerated innovation and increased returns on investments," Infosys CEO & managing director SD Shibulal said in a statement. Infosys' strategic initiatives and organisational structure will enable it to build long-term partnerships with clients and help drive their business objectives, he added. Revenues are expected to be in the range of Rs 8,826 crore to Rs 9,012 crore for the quarter ending December 31, a year-on-year growth of 24.2 per cent to 26.8 per cent. For the fiscal ending March 31, 2012, it has estimated revenues of Rs 33,501 crore to Rs 34,088 crore, a y-o-y growth of 21.8 per cent to 24 per cent, the statement said. The company's board has proposed an interim dividend of Rs 15 per equity share of Rs.5 at par or 300 per cent for the first six months (April-Sept) of FY2011-12). Infosys saw the gross addition of 15,352 employees during the quarter, while net additions amounted to 8,262 people. The total headcount of Infosys and its subsidiaries stood at 1,41,822 employees as of September 30, 2011. The company added 45 clients during the reporting quarter. As on Sept 30, 2011, Infosys' cash and cash-equivalents, including investments in available-for-sale financial assets and certificates of deposits, stood at Rs 18,601 crore, as against Rs 17,388 crore on the corresponding day last year. On a standalone basis, the company has reported a growth of 11 per cent YoY in net profit to Rs 1,822 crore. Infosys' revenues rose to Rs 7,470 crore in the July-Sept quarter from Rs 6,425 crore in the same period last fiscal. — PTI Fiscal guidance raised by 6% Having recorded a very decent performance in the second quarter (July-Sept) of FY2011-1, which beat the revenue generation guidance for the quarter by an excess of about Rs 300 crore, Infosys announced Wednesday it was revising revenue outlook for this fiscal, projecting six per cent higher growth year-on-year (YoY). The IT major revised its outlook for the entire fiscal to Rs 33,795 crore, projecting 23% YoY growth as against Rs 32,044 crore given in July with 17% YoY growth, according to Indian accounting standards. This is the second time the firm raised its fiscal guidance in six months. It, however, continued to ring a cautious note despite the income exceeding its expectations. The windfall recorded by the company during the quarter ending Sept 30 resulted in its bluechip scrip gaining 5.4% on the BSE in the first three hours of trading, with its stock going up to Rs 2,645 from the opening of Rs 2,601 and Tuesday’s closing of Rs 2,509. — TNS
	Industrial growth slows down to 4.1% in Aug Sanjeev Sharma/TNS New Delhi, October 12 Industrial growth remained sluggish, slowing down to 4.1 per cent in August due to poor performance of the manufacturing sector and a decline in mining output spurring a worried industry to ask the government to take steps to kickstart investment. Disappointed with the factory output growth , Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Wednesday it may impact India's second quarter (July-September) GDP. CII president B Muthuraman said the dismal performance of the IIP in August is a matter of great concern to industry. “We need to see strong measures from the government to revive investments in large projects, which have been stalled due to various bottlenecks”. He also said the RBI should stop raising interest rates in order to signal its concern on growth”. Commenting on the industrial output data, FICCI president Harsh Mariwala said the slowdown in the manufacturing sector was more broadbased now as 14 of the 22 sectors had shown less than average growth for the period April-August 2011. “There are enough signals of slowdown in the industrial sector now and it is high time that government seriously looks into providing some investment boosting measures”, he added.
	Maruti workers told to vacate plants, face eviction Ravi S Singh/TNT Gurgaon, October 12 The government on Wednesday warned striking Maruti Suzuki workers they would face action if they failed to vacate the company's plants where they have been staging a dharna (sit-in). The broad indications are that security agencies may move in to evict the employees sometime on Thursday in case the latter did move out on their own. The government firmed up its view on the agitation at a joint meeting with Faridabad police commissioner SS Deswal, Faridabad deputy commissioner PC Meena and Haryana labour commissioner, Satwanti Ahlawat, held on Wednesday afternoon to review the situation relating to the Maruti workers' strike. It was eventually agreed the government must step in soon to restore normalcy in the auto major's plants. Deswal said the police, the district administration and the labour department had sent an "advisory" to the workers by the police to vacate the company's premises. "It has been conveyed to them (employees) that their act of sitting on an indefinite dharna, thereby thwarting movement of men and material in the plants, was downright illegal", he added. Although Deswal did not spell out the timeframe for the workers to move out of the plants' premises, he said they must vacate it soon. The workers have virtually held the Maruti plants captive since they resumed their agitation on October 7. Earlier, a month-long standoff between the company’s management and workers had ended following an agreement between both sides on September 30.
	BlackBerry on the blink again, RIM says core switch failure Girja Shankar Kaura/TNS New Delhi, October 12 As millions of BlackBerry users across four continents tried hard to connect to their Google Talk or BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) and failed to received data on their smartphones since Tuesday evening, its Canadian manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) said the series of failures in its services were as a result of a core switch failure. "The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure," the company said in a statement. This was the second time in 36 hours that the BlackBerry services were disrupted across some continents. Extensive delays initially hit Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India on Monday and the problems while spreading to Brazil, Chile and Argentina came back to haunt the previously affected countries on Tuesday again. BlackBerry services have long been prized by executives and politicians who rely on its security and reliability to deliver email and other messaging to mobile workers. "Although the system is designed to failover to a backup switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we’re now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible," RIM said. Stating it was working to restore normal service as quickly as possible, the company apologized for the inconvenience to its customers.
	PM to attend IBSA summit in Pretoria on Oct 18 Sanjeev Sharma/TNS New Delhi, October 12 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will leave for South Africa on Monday to attend the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit to be held in Pretoria on October 18, which is expected to discuss the global economic situation as an important agenda item. Briefing the media on the PM’s visit, M Ganapathy, secretary (west) in the external affairs ministry, said one of the important issues of the summit would be the current global financial and economic situation, which he said was complicated and difficult. “Singh, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and South African President Jacob Zuma will discuss possible steps that need to be taken to address the global financial situation”, he said. Ganapathy said the discussion on the global situation and coordination of views would be significant as all the three leaders would be attending the G20 meet early next month. The leaders of the three countries, which are aspirants for permanent membership of the UN Security Council, are also expected to discuss issues related to UN reforms. The three countries, all nonpermanent members of the Security Council, have through the IBSA platform shown coordinated action with the visit of an IBSA delegation to Syria a couple of months ago and coordination of the IBSA countries’ position in the vote on the Syrian resolution at the UN Security Council. This will be the fifth IBSA summit, which is a forum comprising the three leading developing countries of three different continents.All three countries are also members of G20, BRICS and BASIC. The summit will be preceded by the trilateral meeting of foreign ministers and forums on various topics like business and women and child development. IBSA is structured as a forum for cooperation on three broad fronts. These include consultation and coordination on significant political issues and trilateral collaboration on concrete areas and projects. The prime minister’s delegation includes External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon.
	India’s exports up 36% in Sept New Delhi, October 12 India's exports maintained their growth momentum in September, 2011, rising by 36.3 per cent year-on-year to US $24.8 billion, though there was a "deceleration" due to uncertainty in the United States and Europe, Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said on Wednesday. On the other hand, India's imports grew by 17.2 per cent to $34.6 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $9.8 billion for the month. During April-September 2011-12, the country's exports increased by 52.1 per cent to $160 billion. Khullar said there was growth in the country's exports, but a deceleration is clear. "Good news is back. Export continue to grow over last year, but the heady numbers have gone, it is clear there is deceleration," he told reporters here. During the first six months this fiscal, imports expanded by 32.4 per cent to $233.5 billion. The trade gap during the period amounted to $73.5 billion. The sectors that exhibited major growth during the April-September, 2011, period include engineering, gems and jewellery and petroleum. Engineering exports grew by 103 per cent to $46.4 billion, petroleum shipments by 53 per cent to $27 billion and gems and jewellery consignments by 23 per cent to $18.5 billion vis-a-vis the corresponding period last fiscal (2010-11). India's petroleum imports during the six-month period grew by 42 per cent to $70.4 billion. — PTI
	Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7.5 Tribune News Service New Delhi, October 12 Microsoft on Thursday brought in its latest version of the Windows Phone operating system in India — the Windows Phone 7.5. The company also announced the the launch of a smartphone in partnership with handset manufacturer HTC, named HTC Radar, which would be based on the new operating system. Microsoft India chairman Bhaskar Pramanik, while launching the system, said: "With the Windows Phone, we’ve looked at the consumer experience in an absolutely fresh way. This operating system is stylish, innovative and one that seamlessly integrates the most sought after user experiences such as search, gaming, email and social networks across Bing, Office, Xbox, LIVE, Facebook, Twitter and more". "HTC Radar will be priced at Rs.23,990 and be available in the market in the next week," HTC India's country manager Faisal Siddiqui said. Last week, Samsung had launched its Omnia W smartphone in the country, which comes equipped with Windows Phone 7.5. The key features of the operating system are threads which enables users to switch between texts, Facebook chat and Windows Live messenger linked inbox wherein consumers can see multiple email accounts in one linked inbox. Built-in voice-to-text and text-to-voice support system also enables hands-free texting and chatting. Pramanik also said maintaining a balance between user experience and price was a difficult task. Phones based on the Windows Phone system cost around Rs.20,000 presently.
	Satyam case: SC grants bail to five New Delhi, October 12 The Supreme Court Wednesday granted bail to four erstwhile Satyam Computers Services Ltd employees and an official of its statutory auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accused in one of India's biggest corporate frauds. The firm’s former senior manager V Venkatapathy Raju, former assistant manager C S Srisailam, former vice president G Ramakrishna, former head of its internal audit VS Prabhakar Gupta and PwC employee Subramani Gopalakrishnan were granted bail. — IANS Kamal Oswal The Punjab government on Tuesday appointed noted industrialist Kamal Oswal as industrial advisor to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal with immediate effect. — TNS