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November 2000 Karthikeyan to be first Indian to drive Formula 1 - Reuters India sets ambitious growth rate - New York Times Indian films flavor of Australian festival - Reuters India to launch weather satellite - CNN Shell to invest in retail petrol business - Dow Jones Newswire ICICI-Prudential to start insurance business in India - Business Wire US, UK, Japan vie for Indian IT professionals - Associated Press Samsung to set-up colour monitor plant in India - Reuters Janus has $1 billion in India - Reuters Pride and Patents - Times of India Iceland bowled over by Indian film-makers - Times of India INS Shalki fitted with crew excape system - Times of India Indian headgears inspire Italian bike couture - Times of India India's Karthikeyan set for Silverstone 14 November 2000, Reuters LONDON- Narain Karthikeyan will have a test with Jaguar at Silverstone on December 1, becoming the first Indian to drive a Formula One car. "Basically we're just fulfilling our contractual obligations," said a Jaguar press officer. "Tomas (Scheckter) had his test earlier in the year." Karthikeyan and South African Scheckter, son of former world champion Jody, raced together for the Stewart Formula Three team last season and had been promised a Formula One outing with Jaguar, who took over the old Stewart F1 team. Top of the pageIndia Sets Ambitious Growth Rate NEW DELHI - Promising to slough off bureaucratic red tape and speed up economic reforms, the Indian government kicked off an economic summit Sunday by encouraging multinational corporations to invest in India. High returns, greater deregulation and a predictable policy of privatization and liberalization are all being offered in an attempt to woo foreign investors at the launch of the India Economic Summit 2000, a three-day event sponsored by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum. After averaging a steady 6 percent growth rate for the eighth year in succession, Vajpayee said his government had now set its sights on touching an ambitious 9 percent growth rate by the end of the decade. Top of the pageIndian films flavor of Australian festival SYDNEY: It's a film festival that aims to bring all the genres of Indian visual art to the Australian audience. As an indicator of the growing trend of Indian films weaning a global audience, a number of Indian films will be featured at the 10-day "Goat Island Film Festival 2000," being organized by the Sydney City Council. Five elected Australian productions would also be shown at the festival. "It would be probably the first time in the world that a festival with such an eclectic selection of Indian productions is being organized," Anupam Sharma, a Sydney-based film producer, said. "The festival would include not only mainstream Hindi films but also documentaries, short films and the so-called new wave films," he told IANS. Hindi blockbusters like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai would be screened along with films that are tailored for foreign audience like Fire, Split Wide Open, Salaam Bombay, Bombay Boys etc. Beside these, Raj Kapoor's Satyam Shivam Sundaram is also set to tantalize Australian hearts and is being promoted as "a tale fused with erotic and sensual undertones." India
to launch weather satellite in October 2001 NEW DELHI - India's Cabinet approved on Thursday a proposal to build a weather satellite to be launched next October. Cabinet spokesman and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters the satellite would be built locally and launched from Sriharikota in southern Karnataka state. He said the estimated cost of the satellite, called METSAT, would be 750 million rupees. "This satellite will support the India Meteorological Department to make available meteorological services such as cyclone warning and weather imagery," Mahajan said. Mahajan also said the minimum life of the spacecraft is five years and the expected life is about seven years. Shell India Plans To Spend INR20 Billion In Pete Retail
Business BOMBAY - Shell India Ltd., a unit of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, is planning to invest 20 billion rupees to enter the petroleum retail business and to acquire oil fields, local news agency Press Trust of India reported Monday. Shell is also planning to set up a 2.5 million metric ton liquefied natural gas import facility at Hazira in the western Indian state of Gujarat, he said. He added the company is going ahead with the project on its own but may consider taking partners later on. Shell is also planning to set up a 2.5 million metric ton liquefied natural gas import facility at Hazira in the western Indian state of Gujarat, he said. He added the company is going ahead with the project on its own but may consider taking partners later on. ICICI-Prudential Life Insurance Receives Certificate of
Registration to Set up Life Insurance Business in India MUMBAI - ICICI-Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited, the joint venture (JV) between ICICI Limited, and Prudential plc of UK, today received the Certificate of Registration from the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (IRDA) to undertake life insurance business in the country. As per the terms of the agreement, ICICI would hold 74% of the equity of the newly formed company, while Prudential would hold the balance 26%. The Company will initially be capitalized at Rs. 150 crore. Mr. Mark Tucker, Chief Executive of Prudential Corporation Asia said, "We are very excited by the opening of the life insurance market in India and we appreciate this opportunity given to us to re-enter the market after a gap of 44 years. Prudential is totally committed to building a market leading nationwide business in India in partnership with ICICI." US, UK, Japan vie for Indian IT professionals 1 November 2000, Associated Press BANGALORE - THE UNITED States, Britain and Japan wooed Indian information technology professionals on Wednesday at Asia's largest IT fair in India's Silicon Valley, offering more visas and lucrative business deals. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's point man on information technology reforms said Indian engineers were swiftly bridging the shortage of professionals in these countries, including 300,000 in the United States, 40,000 in Japan, 20,000 in Germany and 15,000 in Austria. "The world is coming to India, it's coming to Bangalore, and we are proud to be part of that action. The IT field provides one of the largest opportunities for building bridges between the American and Indian communities " US Ambassador Richard Celeste said in his address at the inauguration. Samsung to set up colour monitor plant in India 8 November 2000, Reuters NEW DELHI - South Korea's Samsung Electronics, targeting a growing market in personal computers (PCs), said on Wednesday that it would set up a colour monitor plant in India, spending $35 million over five years. Samsung, which has two Indian firms, one to make consumer electronic goods and the other computer-related products, said in a statement that the company would first invest $10 million to make one million colour monitors a year. The plant would be scaled up to 4.0 million units with fresh investments of $25 million by 2005. The plant at Noida near Delhi would start output in June next year, and will be Samsung's seventh colour monitor plant in the world. The company currently has plants in Mexico, Brazil, China, Malaysia and Britain, in addition to the South Korean base. Samsung, which has a 20 percent global market share in colour monitors, has a 45 percent market share in colour monitors in India and expects to increase it next year to 50 percent by boosting sales to one million units. Company officials said Samsung expects to sell 600,000 colour monitors this year in India, up from 400,000 last year. Janus says has $1 bln in India, invests selectively BOMBAY - U.S.-based fund Janus International has invested one billion dollars in India. "It's about individual companies," CEO Richard Garland, told Reuters Television in Hong Kong in an interview. "It's not a macro play at all. It's really bottom-up driven." He said Janus had invested in some firms because it found companies with good management and strong growth in earnings. "Janus is actually one of the largest international investors in India," he said. He also said Janus was interested in the software sector. Pride and Patents India's recent victory in getting a US patent for basmati rice revoked teaches us quite a few lessons. After neem and turmeric, this is the third legal victory for India. In this case, our fight was against RiceTec Inc, a Texas-based company which had obtained a patent for "basmati rice lines and grains''. It is one thing to take pride in our civilisational heritage and repudiate the patent regime on the ground that many patentable items cannot be located in time or legal ownership; that these belong to a culture shaped by an altogether different social reality where communities have priority over commerce and consumerism. Unfortunately, this argument cannot by itself suffice in the real world where the WTO and its rules have come to prevail despite opposition from many quarters. This tide of globalisation cannot be rolled back and, therefore, of necessity India must learn to adapt to the patent regime even if it finds many of its provisions unacceptable. Iceland bowled over by Indian film-makers Iceland is keen on seeking co-operation from India in film-making as it was "deeply impressed" with the latter's expertise in technique as well literary and imagery skill. "Movie making has gone global and Indian films have the expertise which can be shared with us," Iceland president Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said here on Wednesday. He said Iceland was interested in cultural exchange with Indian film-makers and also invited the Indian film industry to the Scandinavian country for their international shoots. Meanwhile, Icelandic movie-maker and an Oscar nominee Fridrik Thor Fridriksson said that he had already planned a film with India as an epicentre. "This is my first visit to India, it has such picturesque qualities that even a small street seems like a film. I have already begun rolling my MNTAL camera for a story," he said. Emphasising need for screening Indian commercial films in Iceland, the film-maker said he had liked renowned Indian film director Shekar Kapur's internationally acclaimed films Bandit Queen and Elizabeth. "However, my favourite film-maker is Satyajit Ray with his superb creations like "Shatranj ke Khiladi," Fridriksson said. Fridriksson is here in connection with the first ever on-going Iceland Film Festival in New Delhi and Mumbai `INS
Shalki' fitted with crew escape system MUMBAI: INS Shalki, the Indian Navy's first indigenously-built submarine is among the four of its class to have an effective crew escape system which can be activated in case of an accident, commander Sanjay Mahindru said here on Tuesday. The submarine was commissioned on February 7, 1992. The other three submarines in the Indian Navy fleet equipped with this safety measure are INS Shishkumar, INS Shankush, and INS Shankul. Of these, INS Shishkumar and INS Shankush were made by HDW in Germany while INS Shalki and INS Shankul were made at the Mazagon Dock here. Commander Mahindru said India is among the few countries having the capability to make submarines, the others being the US, the UK, Russia, China, France and Australia. Indian
headgears inspire Italian bike couture When the Italian government passed the bike-helmet law, designer Giuliana Cella decided to add colour to the drab object and launch her line of designer helmets -- inspired by the headgear of Indian princes. The rigid crown of the accessory she fashioned with six covers made of Rajasthani brocade, Ashanti strips, Punjab embroidery, antique Benares saris, Bhatinda "phulkari" and Indonesian silk batik, all unique fabric from India, the Far East and Africa. The 'Bike Couture' launched at the Milan women collection in February won her wide accolade. The famous Italian singer, Ornella Vanoni, joined Cella to convince people that not only does the helmet protect but at the same time it can also be trendy. |
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