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Delhi Metro logs record gross revenue
Staff Reporter

It earned Rs. 84.61 lakh and ferried 7.24 passengers on Monday

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The Metro also recorded the highest number of smart card users at 2.81 lakh

Highest rider-ship on the Metro was 7.36 lakh recorded on Saturday

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NEW DELHI: Even as the Capital’s citizens continue to be harassed by the acute shortage of buses on the roads, the Delhi Metro has walked away with a record earning from sale of tokens and smart cards. The Metro railway, which ferried 7.24 lakh commuters on Monday, had recorded a gross revenue of Rs. 84.61 lakh, the highest so far.

In a statement, a DMRC official said the highest rider-ship on the Metro was 7.36 lakh, recorded on Saturday when the gross revenue on that day was Rs. 81.6 lakh.

On Monday, 2.24 lakh commuters used Line 1 (Shahdara – Rithala), 2.20 lakh used Line 2 (Central Secretariat – Vishwavidyalaya) and 2.79 lakh used Line 3 (Indraprastha – Dwarka Sector 9).

The Metro also recorded the highest number of smart card users at 2.81 lakh.

“On an average, 2 lakh commuters use smart cards every day. Total token sales on Monday showed an increase of 22 per cent; from 3.62 lakh it went up to 4.42 lakh,” the official said. The top ten stations in terms of earning were Rajiv Chowk, Shahdara, Vishwavidyalaya (Delhi University), Chandni Chowk, Central Secretariat, New Delhi, Welcome, Uttam Nagar (East), Barakhamba Road and Rohini (West). Additional ticket counters were opened at 12 stations to handle the additional rush.
 
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Intellectual power of India takes hold in UK
In the first of a week-long series on the new Anglo-Indian business relationship, our correspondent charts the passage from India of increasingly ambitious companies

Ashling O’Connor
The Times

In a drab 1960s office block on the unfashionable Pinner Road in Harrow, North London, a dozen or so lab technicians in white coats are poring over clinical research for Intas Pharmaceuticals.

The $150 million company was set up more than 35 years ago in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad by Hashmukh Chudgar, but it spread its wings into the British market five years ago at the behest of Nimish, Binish and Urmish, the founder’s sons.

Their office is unremarkable, hidden away in a grey world of semidetached mock-Tudor homes, a parade of shops and careworn commuters trooping on and off the Metropolitan Line.

But Intas is not only extraordinary in itself as the largest contract manufacturer by volume of generic drugs to the EU. The Chudgar family business in sprawling suburbia also represents a creeping counter-offensive that promises to transform the British economy: Indian insourcing.

The Anglo-Indian relationship is still so dominated by memories of Empire – the novels of E. M. Forster and Rudyard Kipling, television series such as The Jewel in the Crown, not to mention the cricket – that it is all too easy to see the ties between Britain and India through the prism of the past.

In the first wave of immigration, they came seeking a better life as shopkeepers, traders and restaurateurs. Today Indians are arriving as bankers, scientists, PhD students and software engineers.

Seventy miles from Harrow, to the west of the Fens, India’s biggest software services provider has taken over the old Pearl Assurance call centre on the edge of Peterborough, in an even larger concentration of Indian capital in unexpected quarters. From its “innovation lab”, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) provides software solutions for a host of blue-chip companies, including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, National Grid, Welsh Water, United Biscuits, Norwich Union and AXA.

More than a thousand employees, a third of whom are Indian, work on high-end technology projects for clients, including a leading media company that is aiming to rival the dominant digital television provider.

The £5 million facility has 18 British companies in the pipeline and a potential order book value of about £120 million.

Mike Scott, the mathematician who heads the centre, has spent almost his entire career with British Telecom. He is an evangelical convert to the Indian way of doing business and, happily, his old employer is now TCS’s biggest customer. “There is a massive intellectual power in India,” he said. “It is amazing how bright and well trained they are. I saw nothing like it at BT.”

As India bids for superpower status, it is having a transforming effect on the British economy. The singular evidence of this was Tata Steel’s successful £6.7 billion bid for the remnants of British Steel completed this year in a deal that changed all foreign preconceptions of Indian enterprise.

This new view of India’s purchasing power was reinforced a few months later by the £600 million acquisition of Whyte & Mackay, the world’s fourth-largest whisky distiller, by Vijay Mallya’s UB Group.

But these deals tell only part of the story. Below the banner of big headlines, Indian businesses are making inroads in a cross section of industries from healthcare to auto components and software design to film production.

They already own some of the most British of institutions, from steel furnaces in Doncaster to the maker of the Queen’s favourite towels, and are casting their acquisitive eyes over genteel favourites such as Jaguar. Yet the process of Indian inward investment into the UK has only just begun because the Indian outward journey is still in its infancy.

India is the future workforce of the world: half the 1.1 billion population is under the age of 25, and its 14 million-strong pool of young professionals, replenished by 2.5 million graduates a year, is nearly twice the size of both China’s and America’s. By 2025 India will eclipse Germany as the world’s fifth-largest consumer, McKinsey, the consultancy firm, predicts.

India’s invisible hand has been at work in British business for some time, but because of a comfortable bilateral relationship, rooted in the shared – albeit uneven – experience of imperialism, it is only just coming to notice.

Think London, the foreign direct investment agency for the capital, says that India is the second-largest investor by projects after the US. Sixteen per cent of the £52 billion that flows into London each year comes from India, creating 634 jobs from 19 projects last year. These figures are impressive even before you consider that they do not include the Corus and Whyte & Mackay acquisitions. And they are symptomatic of a newly confident and capital-rich India, which has entered the global market seemingly from nowhere.

Before 2000, an Indian company had never made a significant overseas acquisition. However, according to McKinsey, Indian companies bought more than 100 foreign businesses during 2005 for $4.5 billion.

“Once they have taken the decision to move out of India, the world is their next market,” Kevin Gold, managing partner at the London law firm Mischon de Reya, said.

Indian entrepreneurs, freed from the capital constraints of their predecessors, are suddenly taking flight from their domestic markets. London is often their first stop and is increasingly a bridgehead to continental Europe.

“India is generating newfound wealth,” Sunil Dwivedi, head of India at Think London, said. “It wants a world platform and London is the natural choice because of historical and language connections. We have seen this coming for at least three years.”

This year India’s total outbound M&A investment may exceed the $30 billion target for inbound investment, according to Ernst & Young and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Investment by Indian companies into the UK has already eclipsed investment into India by British companies.

“There is an amazing reversal in the tides of capital flows,” Naina Lal Kidwai, HSBC India chief executive and the first Indian woman to graduate from Harvard Business School, said. “You don’t see a Corus happening every day, but the trend continues. Indian companies see London as a gateway to Europe.” Small to medium-sized businesses represent the fastest-growing sector, particularly in private wealth management, retail banking and reinsurance. There are more than 10,000 Indian-owned businesses in London, employing 49,000 people. “If the Tatas can do it, smaller companies think they can do it, too,” said Anita Nandi, head of the City of London’s India office, which opened in Bombay in May to foster bilateral trade and investment.

“Five years ago, they wouldn’t even have thought of getting out of their rural markets,” she said. “Technology means you can be sitting in a village in Madhya Pradesh but still doing business in London.” In pockets around Britain, thousands of Indian companies are quietly thriving in an amenable corporate environment where language and law are all terribly familiar.

“The UK values people who come to live in Britain on the work they do and not their colour,” said Lord Paul, the Indian-born industrialist who is one of Britain’s richest men 40 years after he settled in London. “Any immigrant feels comfortable here, and Britain has gained because of its openness.”

Behind the complaints about white-collar jobs lost to sweat shops on the sub-continent, Indian companies are making a significant contribution to the Government’s coffers and advances in science and education.

TCS already generates about $800 million of its $4 billion global turnover from the UK, where it is reporting year-on-year revenue growth of 45 per cent. Employing 4,000 people in the UK, its economic impact is tangible. The idea that it is draining money from the British economy is outdated.

Much like the East India Company believed that it would have a civilising impact on India, Indian companies believe that they can import a superior technical knowledge to make Britain a more efficient place.

“In the narrow context, people see the offshoring. They do not see the full impact of our investment – the tax we pay, the academic institutions we support,” A. S. Lakshmi, TCS’s UK head, said. “But I think all the major political parties recognise we bring competitiveness to British companies. We help them become nimbler and open their eyes to new opportunities.”

The empire is striking back, but the process of reverse colonialism is just getting started in the remaking of corporate Britain.

Indian firms doing business in Britain

Tata (steel, IT, hotels, tea)
Wockhardt (healthcare)
UB Group (spirits)
ICICI (financial services)
Bharat Forge (auto components)
HCL (outsourcing)
Ranbaxy (pharmaceuticals)
Apeejay Surrendra (tea)
Monocon (refractories)
Cognizant (IT)
UTV (film)
Godrej (consumer goods)
Kotak Mahindra (broking)
Reliance (life sciences, telecoms)

Onwards, upwards

— India is the second-fastest-growing economy after China. GDP growth in first quarter was 9.1 per cent. Full-year growth is expected to be at its strongest in 20 years

— India has 36 dollar billionaires and 83,000 dollar millionaires. It also has more than 200 million people who survive on less than a dollar a day

— Bombay’s unofficial population is 20 million. It is forecast to eclipse Tokyo as the world’s most-populous city by 2020

— Per capita income in India will rise 26 per cent, from $831 to $1,021, this fiscal year, moving it into the category of lower- middle-income countries, as designated by the World Bank

— The UK is India’s fourth-largest trading partner behind the US, China and Belgium

— India represents 16 per cent of the flow of foreign direct investment into London

— There are 1.3 million people of Indian origin in Britain; 437,000 live in London. The capital is home to 173,000 Indian citizens

— There are 160 multinational Indian companies in London. More than 10,000 Indian-owned businesses in the capital generated a combined turnover of $14.4 billion, or 5 per cent of the city's economy. India is the second-largest foreign creator of jobs in the UK, after the US
 
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Vision 2020, that's Kalam's parting shot for MPs
24 Jul, 2007, 0223 hrs IST, TNN

NEW DELHI: In his farewell address to MPs, President APJ Abdul Kalam on Monday called upon parliamentarians to evolve a vision to transform the nation into a developed country by the 2020.

Maintaining that the institution of Parliament faced greater challenges than ever before, especially on matters related to human development and governance, Mr Kalam told the MPs to evolve an energy independence bill for the nation, just like the Constitution was first drawn up.

“The 21st century parliamentary vision for India needs to have a global and long term perspective...for transforming India into a developed country by 2020 with the national prosperity index as a measure, and acquire energy independence before 2030,” he told his audience, comprising the prime minister, Speaker, Cabinet ministers and senior leaders, at the Central Hall of the Parliament.

Elaborating his concept of energy independence bill, Mr Kalam said it would be a “three dimensional approach for energy choice towards realising clean planet earth”. He also asked the Parliament to adopt a vision resolution. “Adopt a resolution that India will be transformed into a safe, prosperous, happy and socio-economically developed nation before the year 2020 using national prosperity index (NPI) as a measure.”

Underlining the NPI concept, Mr Kalam said: “While we are happy that our economy is in the ascent phase and our GDP is growing at nearly 9% per annum, it is evident that economic growth is not fully reflected in the quality of life of a large number of people, particularly in rural areas and even in urban areas. Hence, we have evolved what is called a national prosperity index which is a summation of (a) annual growth rate of GDP , plus (b) improvement in quality of life of the people, particularly those living below the poverty line and (c) the adoption of a value system derived from our civilisational heritage in every walk of life which is unique to India.”

Mr Kalam then spelt out his 10-point vision for a “distinctive profile of India” by the year 2020. “A nation where the rural and urban divide has reduced to a thin line; where there is an equitable distribution and adequate access to energy and quality water; where agriculture, industry and service sector work together; where education with a value system is not denied to any meritorious candidates because of discrimination.”

He also stressed on the need to provide the best education, healthcare for all, a transparent, responsive and corruption-free governance, eradication of poverty, illiteracy and crimes against women, an environment devoid of terrorism in a “nation that is one of the best places to live in and is proud of its leadership”.

To achieve this distinctive profile of India, Mr Kalam called for integrated action in five key areas — agriculture & food processing, education & healthcare, infrastructure, information and communication technology and self-reliance in critical technologies — where India has a core competence.

“While the country could be rightly proud of its leadership and its many achievements over the past 60 years, we cannot afford to rest content with the past achievements and we have to march in tune with the challenges of the 21st century. The leadership of the nation has to radiate confidence in our people.” he said.
 
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10 ways to improve India's healthcare system
Baltej Maini
July 23, 2007

I recently spent nearly three months in India -- traveling, meeting people and examining the vast changes that have altered the landscape that was India.

It was after nearly thirty-five years that I stayed more than two weeks in India, and I had the opportunity to view the many changes that had occurred, not through the eyes of a 'tourist', but through the eyes of an experienced healthcare executive who felt and saw the tremendous accomplishments that have been made.

The Metro commuter rail system, the eight-lane divided highway from the airport to the city of New Delhi, the construction of numerous flyovers to facilitate traffic, the evolution of high-rise buildings, call centres and shopping malls in Gurgaon, the emergence of Noida as an extension of the capital, and the presence of technology centres in Bangalore -- all signs of a robust and thriving economy.

What was striking is the frenzy with which hospitals are being built, ostensibly to meet the demands of an expanding middle class population that now can afford the best in healthcare.

Not a day goes by that a new healthcare venture is not announced, either in partnership with a foreign company or by an all Indian business house.

But behind all this glitter there are some ominous signs of the ills that pervade the health care system. A coherent and sustainable plan that addresses the healthcare needs of the masses is strikingly absent. There are no national standards by which physicians, nurses, pharmacists and hospitals are trained.

Financial incentives between specialists and hospitals from referring doctors govern the way a substantial proportion of patients are treated. Guidelines and protocols for the management of disease, including the length of stay, are virtually non-existent and the ability of hospitals to determine the appropriateness of medical and surgical therapy seems years away.

Quality management remains an elusive dream; it is not sufficient to know the mortality rate of a surgical operation; one must know if the care was timely and appropriate. Judging from the incredible advances that have been made in information technology in India, it is noteworthy that these advances have not been applied on a large scale to healthcare.

The lack of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) prevents the development of transparency throughout the healthcare system. And compounding all this is the widespread use of spurious drugs that interfere with proper treatment. Above all, there is not enough historical evidence of what it costs for the treatment of a particular condition for insurers to adequately set their premiums.

So what is the remedy for all that ails the healthcare system? A few suggestions are timely and should be considered:

1. Develop and implement national standards for examination by which doctors, nurses and pharmacists are able to practice and get employment.

2. Rapidly develop and implement national accreditation of hospitals; those that do not comply would not get paid by insurance companies. However, a performance incentive plan that targets specific treatment parameters would be a useful adjunct.

3. Obtain proposals from private insurance companies and the government on ways to provide medical insurance coverage to the population at large and execute the strategy. It is healthy to have competition in healthcare, and provide health insurance to the millions who cannot afford it.

4. Utilise and apply medical information systems that encourage the use of evidence-based medicine, guidelines and protocols as well as electronic prescribing in inpatient and outpatient settings. This is possible though the implementation of the EHR; this will, in time, encourage healthcare data collection, transparency, quality management, patient safety, efficiency, efficacy and appropriateness of care.

5. Perverse incentives between specialists, hospitals, imaging and diagnostic centres on the one hand and referring physicians on the other need be removed and a level of clarity needs to be introduced.

6. Develop multi-specialty group practices that have their incentives aligned with those of hospitals and payers. It is much easier to teach the techniques of sophisticated medical care to a group of employed physicians than it is to physicians as a whole. It is also important that doctors are paid adequately for what they do.

7. Encourage business schools to develop executive training programmes in healthcare, which will effectively reduce the talent gap for leadership in this area.

8. Revise the curriculum in medical, nursing, pharmacy and other schools that train healthcare professionals, so that they too are trained in the new paradigm.

9. Develop partnerships between the public and private sectors that design newer ways to deliver healthcare. An example of this would include outpatient radiology and diagnostic testing centres.

10. The government should appoint a commission which makes recommendations for the healthcare system and monitors its performance.

The present system (and its escalating costs) is not sustainable due to its inefficiency and a lack of aligned incentives for improving performance. A country that has leapfrogged from rotary phones to a ubiquitous presence of mobile phones must make a similar change in healthcare.

It will not be easy and it will not be inexpensive. But it has been done in other parts of the world before and it can be done here too. The potential to create the best healthcare system in the world exists. It is time to commence the debate, develop a plan and execute it.
 
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India gives assurance on iron ore and coal, Mittal says
By Pratik Parija and Manash Goswami Bloomberg News
Published: July 25, 2007

NEW DELHI: Arcelor Mittal has said it received an assurance from the Indian government for supplies of iron ore and coal for plants planned in the South Asian nation, enabling the world's biggest steelmaker to advance ventures worth $18 billion.

Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive of the company, is meeting ministers of Orissa and Jharkhand to secure materials for the 10 million-ton plants planned in each of the two states. Mittal did not say when work would begin.

Delays in awarding mining permits and land have undermined Indian efforts to attract investment, leaving the nation short of raw materials needed to sustain the world's second-fastest-growing economy after China. Work on a $12 billion mill proposed by Posco will start in October, six months later than planned. The accord for the project was signed in June 2005.

"I'm confident of getting coal, iron ore and land," Mittal said. "There's definitely an assurance from the government. I am hopeful we'll get support from the Jharkhand and Orissa state governments."

The plants would each need 600 million metric tons of iron ore over three decades, Mittal said. The company is preparing a feasibility report on the ventures, he said.

Mittal in October 2005 announced a $9 billion venture in Jharkhand, which neighbors Orissa. The progress on the project has been slow, Mittal said a year ago. Mittal signed an accord with Orissa in December for a similar-sized venture.

"We're 100 percent committed to the two projects," Mittal said Wednesday.

The states Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh account for 70 percent of the nation's coal reserves and 55 percent of its iron ore, according to McKinsey.

Mittal also said his personally-funded energy ventures in India were on course with no delays or cost overruns. In northern India, a refinery being built jointly with Hindustan Petroleum, the second-biggest Indian state refiner, is on schedule, Mittal said. Construction of the plant is expected to be completed by September 2010, Hindustan Petroleum said last year.

"We have had four foundation stone laying ceremonies for the refinery project, we want it now to take off," Mittal said. "Going by the speed at which the project is being pursued, there should not be any delay in implementing it, or any increase in the cost."

Premji to keep reins of Wipro

The Indian billionaire Azim Premji, who transformed Wipro from a vegetable-oils maker into one of the largest Indian computer services providers, has no plans as yet to pass the reins to his son Rishad, who lacks experience.

Wipro's board has a succession plan involving professional managers, Premji, the chairman and controlling shareholder of Wipro, said Tuesday. "We have the roughest and toughest competition, and the most sophisticated competition in the world," Premji said. "He's just too young and too inexperienced."

Premji, 62, took charge of Wipro when he was 21, following his father's death, and transformed a $2 million company into a global technology group with $2.5 billion in sales and 72,000 employees. Rishad, 31, last week became a business development manager in the financial services unit.
 
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ArcelorMittal plans massive India investment
Times of Oman
Thursday, July 26, 2007

NEW DELHI –– Global magnate Lakshmi Mittal is looking to build two steel plants in India for about 18 billion dollars which would be the largest ever foreign investment in the country.

The investment by ArcelorMittal would eclipse the 12-billion-dollar steel plant South Korean rival POSCO plans to build in eastern Orissa state, the newspaper reports said.

The plans were announced after a meeting on Thursday between Mittal and India's Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan here, the Press Trust of India said.

But "we have to have raw material linkages, land and other things in place" for the projects to go ahead, Mittal was quoted as saying after the meeting.

Last December, ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker, signed an 8.7-billion-dollar project with the Orissa government to build a 12-metric- tonne capacity steel plant in the resource-rich eastern Indian state.

Now, ArcelorMittal, which has no manufacturing facilities in India, says it will also build a plant in eastern Jharkhand state, the reports said.

The plants would have combined capacity of 24 million tonnes, the Press Trust of India said.

Executives from ArcelorMittal have been in touch with state officials in Orissa and Jharkhand over the past year, said the Mint business daily.

ArcelorMittal, which controls 10 percent of global steel production, has asked the government to speed up allocation of captive mines for its projects.

Mittal's plans highlights the race among global steel giants to secure the supply of key materials, such as iron ore, to feed a growing world economy.

India's Tata Steel Ltd, which earlier this year bought British steelmaker Corus, is also expanding operations domestically, and plans to increase its domestic production to about 20 million tonnes by 2015.
 
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Marketing India to the world
2007-07-26 15:05:16
Source : Moneycontrol.com

A strong rupee, a sensex bounding past 15000, Indian companies making headline grabbing global acquisitions, the insidious influence of Indian films - these are the parts that add up to the whole - ie. Brand India and its rising profile. Cashing in on the timing are two new Brand India campaigns - the tourism ministry's "India Now" campaign and the "India at 60" campaign of the CII and the US India Business Council.

It's a potent mix of symbols - Shilpa Shetty - India's latest, de facto cultural ambassador and the Taj - the desi wonder of the world floating down the Thames. Both were playing their part in Brand India's latest marketing campaign. The purpose: to flag off the 'India Now' campaign - an initiative by the Mayor of London, supported by the Tourism Ministry of India. India Now may be preaching to the converted - but could still find first impressions hard to crack. As India is still being seen as the land of noise, colour and spicy food...all of which is true. Only, now there are more things to advertise!

Actress, Shilpa Shetty told CNBC-TV18, "I'm here to encourage the event and it's obviously going to make the ties between India and London stronger.

From film premieres, screenings to art, theatre, culture, food and workshops, this three-month long festival was a chance for London to leverage India's soft power to encourage bilateral trade and tourism. It was also a chance for the Indian tourism ministry to publicise its five year old Incredible India campaign. It spent Rs 5 crore telling Londoners "India was closer than they thought" - but the campaign is still work in progress.

Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Govt of India, Dr Christy Fernandez says, "Tourism is not confined to casual visitors - there are serious visitors looking for opportunity as well - the way the mayor of London has put the whole thing together, also shows that they mean serious business between the two countries - major trade players are also participating and the general ambience and interest created over three months in a place like London cannot go unnoticed by the trade and industry."

Over the last five years, the Incredible India account has grown from a Rs 20 crore to a Rs 150 crore one - with agencies like O&M, Grey Worldwide, RK Swamy BBDO all doing time on it. It is now with Ashok Creatives, the government owned specialist tourism agency. But the brief has been consistent: to present India as an exotic tourist destination.

The first campaign that truly marketed our economic confidence to the rising Indian consumer class was the Rs 200 crore 'India Shining' campaign that was a multimedia blitzkrieg. Created by Grey Worldwide for the NDA government in October 2003, India Shining may be remembered as the story of the NDA's failed bid to retain power in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. The man behind that campaign believes that brand India needs to be marketed by a single entity.

Ex-National Creative Director, Grey Worldwide, Prathap Suthan says, "It needs to be the job of one group - whichever the body is - worth the long run - we need to invest in that. We cannot have smaller campaigns coming in from the side - you could come with a festival of lights - take Diwali - it has to sign up with the mother brand - if every communication were to align itself with that one feeling - that's going to give it the push to become what we need."

Executive Director, Tata Sons, R Gopalakrishnan explains, "There's a circularity - has Indian built Tata or Tata built India - it's not just us as there are other companies like Mahindra or Infosys as well. I feel very proud as an Indian citizen compared to 15 years ago when I went to the passport office. Now when I go to London, they say 'oh you're from Tata is that the one that bought Corus?' There is an instant recognition, if you go to San Francisco they know if you are from TCS, and the other day it was lovely to see the Indian flag flying high at Taj Boston."

But marketing India beyond tourism need not be the government's mission. Case in point - the Rs 17 crore 'India Everywhere' campaign, spearheaded by Infosys' Nandan Nilekani, orchestrated by India Brand Equity Foundation and supported by a dozen Indian companies. It was unveiled before the world's business leaders in Davos last year. While, in the past, Brand India may have led investors home, it's homegrown brands that are now taking India to the world.

R Gopalakrishnan adds, "I wish I could connect directly any advertising or any PR effort to any outcome. If I suggest that Corus happened because of brand building efforts by India, it would not be very plausible. It's also arguable - did India get built up by Corus or Corus get built up by India - there is a circularity in that relationship. I would certainly say that for a large number of Indian business houses, including the Tatas, it's very helpful for investors round the world to think of India as an investment-friendly place and those campaigns do help in that respect."

Come September, the 'India at 60' campaign will be unveiled by the CII and the US India Business Council. The changing tone of our communication - from Indian exotica to earnings reports - is dictated by the economy's needs. And the face brand India presents to the world may be governed increasingly by where corporate India looks to for growth.
 
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Maruti's Profit Soars to Record on SX4, Swift Models
By Santanu Choudhury

July 26 (Bloomberg) -- Maruti Udyog Ltd., maker of half the cars sold in India, reported record profit that exceeded analyst estimates in the first quarter as it introduced new models and a stronger currency cut import costs.

Net income in the three months ended June 30 rose 35 percent to 4.99 billion rupees ($124 million), or 17.29 rupees a share, from 3.7 billion rupees, or 12.79 rupees, a year earlier, the New Delhi-based unit of Suzuki Motor Corp. said. That beat the 3.7 billion rupees median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 16 analysts. Sales gained 26 percent to 39.14 billion rupees.

Maruti introduced five new models in the past year to attract buyers and counter higher loan rates in India, where 80 percent of vehicles are bought on credit. General Motors Corp. and other carmakers are spending more than $3 billion to expand in the country as economic growth may help car sales triple to 3 million units a year by 2012 in India.

``High interest rates are a temporary setback for automobile companies,'' said A.K. Sridhar, who helps manage the equivalent of $10 billion as chief executive officer of UTI Asset Management Co. in Mumbai. ``Sales should pick up from the third quarter,'' said Sridhar, who owns shares of Maruti.

It's the 16th consecutive quarter of growth in profit for the maker of Esteem sedans, Gypsy sport-utility vehicles and Omni vans.

Shares of Maruti rose 3.9 percent to 841 rupees at the close of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The stock rose as much as 6 percent after the earnings were detailed.

Interest Rates

India's central bank, scheduled to release its next monetary policy statement on July 31, has raised benchmark interest rates to control inflation in the world's second- fastest growing major economy.

State Bank of India Ltd. and ICICI Bank Ltd., India's two- largest lenders, have tied up with the carmaker to offer loans to customers in towns and villages, where credit wasn't previously available, to boost vehicle sales.

Maruti introduced the SX4 in May, its first new sedan in eight years, targeting buyers wanting more features such as air bags and leather seats. In January, Maruti started selling its first diesel car, the Swift, and a month before that it unveiled the Zen Estilo hatchback.

That helped the automaker increase sales by 17 percent to 169,669 vehicles in the first quarter.

``Car sales will continue to grow and Maruti will be one of its major beneficiaries,'' Amar Ambani, analyst at Mumbai-based brokerage Indiainfoline Ltd., said in a phone interview.

Investment Plan

The carmaker, 54 percent owned by Suzuki, will invest as much as $2 billion by 2012 to make new cars and expand capacity. That may help it take on competition from minicars of General Motors and hatchbacks from Volkswagen AG and Nissan Motor Co.

The company's board today approved a proposal to change its name to Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. The new name is subject to approval from shareholders and the registrar of companies.

``This international dimension in the company's name will help Maruti as it expands its role in global markets,'' the company said in a release.

The strengthening of the Indian currency against the Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar helped Maruti cut the cost of imports, analysts said. The rupee gained 12 percent against the yen and 6.8 percent against the dollar in the last quarter.

``They had a currency gain as the weaker yen made their raw material imports less costlier,'' said S. Ramnath, an analyst at Mumbai-based SSKI Securities Pvt.

Profit was also bolstered by revenue from businesses other than manufacturing. The company's other income gained 56 percent to 2.23 billion rupees, Maruti said, without giving details.

Spending on raw materials increased 30 percent to 31 billion rupees.
 
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Australia keen on selling uranium to India
Posted July 26th, 2007
By Neena Bhandari, IANS

Sydney : Australia may begin selling uranium to India if a submission by Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer is approved by the federal cabinet, a move that comes soon after India and the US finalised details of their nuclear pact.

The thorn so far has been the fact that India has not been a signatory to the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But with India's economic rise spearheading energy demand, Australia seems to be set to capitalise on it.

The Australian newspaper quoted government sources as saying that the cabinet's National Security Committee would shortly consider Downer's submission, which has the backing of Prime Minister John Howard.

"The prime minister is reported to have told colleagues that the public cannot understand why Australia exports uranium to China but refuses to export it to India," the newspaper said.

Australia plans to negotiate a nuclear safeguards agreement with India, governing the uses for Australian uranium only for its peaceful nuclear energy programme.

India has had an impeccable record of never having proliferated nuclear technology unlike some of its neighbours. The burgeoning economy is highly reliant on energy and India needs sustained supplies of uranium.

Greg Sheridan, one of the most influential foreign affairs commentators here, listed in The Australian five reasons why Australia should go ahead and sell uranium to India - it would be good for nuclear non-proliferation; the fundamental coming together of India and the US has profound implications for Australia; the global warming considerations are substantial; the bilateral Australia-India relationship would benefit enormously from trade in uranium; economic returns to Australia, especially South Australia, could be very significant.

In the 1990s, India was seen as a problem by Australia and the West, especially in non-proliferation, but today countries are looking "unashamedly in an India-centric way", added Rory Medcalf of Lowy Institute for International Policy, an independent think tank based here.

This would not be the first time that Australia would be selling uranium to a country that has not signed the NPT. Australia exported uranium to France through the 1980s - France joined the NPT in 1992.

DPA quoted the prime minister as saying earlier this year: "Certainly our policy to date has been to prohibit sales to countries which are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"But as time goes by, if India were to meet safeguard obligations, some Australians would see it as anomalous that we would sell uranium to China but not India."

Australia has 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves and is the top exporter of the metal used to fuel reactors.

The issue is divisive in Australia because the opposition Labour Party argues that selling uranium to India would undermine the NPT. Labour is well ahead in opinion polls and is seen as the likely victor in general elections expected in November.

China, which is an NPT signatory, is suspected by some of passing on nuclear secrets. In April 2006, China signed a contract to import uranium from Australia.

Howard visited India in March 2006 and was pressed by Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to allow sales of uranium. He agreed to send a delegation to India and the US to study the agreement between Washington and Delhi to share nuclear-power technology.
 
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'IT can't rest on past laurels'
PTI[ THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2007 02:23:21 PM]

BANGALORE: A top infotech official has warned the Indian IT industry, already facing trouble spots such as wage inflation, high attrition rates and a strong rupee, cannot afford to sit on its laurels as global competition is on the rise.

"We (Indian IT industry) cannot rest on our success to date," newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Infosys Technologies Ltd S Gopalakrishnan told media here in an interview.

"It's all about what we are doing today, how we are going to compete tomorrow, which is going to decide your future. So, it's being relevant, continuously evolving and changing to meet the market requirements."

Asked which are the countries he thought have the ability to beat India in its own game, Gopalakrishnan said, "Certainly China has the potential because it has a large number of engineering graduates and it's also a growing economy".

But he would not say how many years before Beijing catches up with the 'desi' industry.

However, the CEO also said India will continue to be the number one preferred location (for offshore outsourcing).

"I think we will continue to be competitive. The other positive thing which is happening is that there is an ecosystem which is being built in India for technology. And that clusters...that's being created is also going to fuel more growth and create more opportunities".
 
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US trade body sees $150 bn opportunity in India nuclear deal
Posted July 26th, 2007
By Arun Kumar, IANS

Washington : The US-India Business Council (USIBC) says the India-US nuclear deal will create jobs and opportunities in India and across the US with the Indian nuclear industry planning a $150 billion expansion.

"Government officials on both sides who are working on this historic initiative deserve our deepest gratitude and respect for their vision and statesmanship," said USIBC president Ron Somers, hailing the progress on implementation of the 123 agreement.

Conclusion of the 123 agreement and approval by the Congress would represent a major stride toward US-India civil nuclear cooperation, which would create jobs and opportunities in India and across the US, said the organisation spearheading US industry's advocacy campaign in favour of the deal.

India's nuclear industry has announced plans to expand its installed nuclear power capacity of 3,500 MW to 60,000 MW over the next 26 years. The expansion is valued at $150 billion.

India's rapidly expanding economy, growing at more than nine percent, is confronting a major energy deficit. India's energy security challenge portends major collaborations with American companies, USIBC said.

The USIBC, representing 250 major US companies seeking to do more business with India, is a division of the three million-member US Chamber of Commerce, said to be the world's largest business association.

It formed the Coalition for Partnership with India shortly after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington in July 2005. The coalition serves as host for like-minded parties - think-tanks, policy experts, industry and the Indian American community in support of US-India cooperation.
 
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India's Cultural Revolution
Robyn Meredith
FORBES, NY
07.26.07, 6:00 AM ET

Before our eyes, two giant nations--India and China--are simultaneously embracing both capitalism and globalization. The world economy is being transformed as a result, as Forbes Senior Editor Robyn Meredith explains in her new book, The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means to All of Us ($26, W.W. Norton, 2007). Each weekday through July 31, Forbes.com will post a new excerpt from the book.

When Stawan Kadepurkar entered college in 1991 in Pune, near Bombay, only 60% of the previous graduating class had found jobs. But by the time he graduated in 1995, India's economy had lurched into high gear and Kadepurkar and his graduating class found a far rosier future. Almost none worried about graduating into unemployment.

Kadepurkar landed a job as an electronics engineer at Siemens (nyse: SI - news - people ) in Bombay and was paid $1,500 a year--a terrific salary at the time. For him, and for most Indian tech workers who graduated after 1991, the good times were just beginning.

Two years out of college, he joined Infosys (nasdaq: INFY - news - people ) in Bangalore and helped the Indian company's client, Cisco (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ), write code that allowed phone calls to be transmitted over the Internet. His salary rose to $5,000 a year--more than the combined earnings of his parents, both teachers. When Kadepurkar was all of 25, he bought a house. At 29, he bought his first car.

As India connects itself to the global economy, young Indians' clothing, food and even marriage rituals are starting to mirror what they see on their new color televisions. The people like Kadepurkar who are "taking away America's jobs" may be paid just a tenth of America's wages, but they have a fantastic standard of living in India, where the cost of living is much lower.

While the glut of shiny new cellphones and motorcycles may be symbolic of India's economic success, it also signals a radical shift in culture. Millions of young, well-educated Indians live in a different world than that of their parents, who struggled to make ends meet on far lower salaries. They are even different from their older sisters and brothers, whose ambitions and dreams were far more modest. For the young and educated, India has been reincarnated as a land of prosperity and boundless opportunity.

Many denizens of the New India work on behalf of American companies and can count on finding intellectually rewarding work while earning enough money to eat in restaurants, to buy homes and cars, to chat on cellphones with their friends, and to travel. Young, well-educated Indians finally have the things most American college graduates take for granted.

Yet even as the New India cohort thrives, much of the rest of India is making much slower gains or even being left behind, creating social and political tensions that cloud over India's impressive strides forward. Most Indians still earn less than $60 a month–just $2 a day. Bringing India's poor along on the ride to a New India would require vast job creation. That is only likely to come with the addition of thousands of factories, myriad construction projects or the nurturing of a big increase in agricultural exports–or all three. A lot depends on how soon India modernizes its infrastructure.

Because of demographic trends, India is at a precipice. If India fails to create jobs for its fast-growing population of workers, it risks being mired in poverty and hopelessness. Today, half of India's 1.1 billion people are under 25 years old, and 31% are under 16 years old–not yet working age. When India's young demographic bubble begins to reach working age, India will need far more jobs than currently exist to keep living standards from falling.

The Indian government must not squander an opportunity to promote the nation's economic growth. If India fails to fully unleash its economy while it has the attention of investors around the world, it will pay a heavy price in prosperity both today and when its young population becomes a working-age behemoth in need of jobs. India must move past the on-again, off-again reforms that slow its economic rise or risk missing a historic chance to propel hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
 
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RBI fixes dollar, Euro rates
26 Jul 2007, 1721 hrs IST,PTI

MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday fixed the Reference rate for the dollar at Rs 40.27 per dollar and the single European unit at Rs 55.23 per Euro from Rs 40.30 per dollar and Rs 55.64 respectively on Wednesday.

In a press release issued here by the apex bank, the exchange rates of Great Britain's Pound and Japanese Yen against the Rupee have been given as Rs 82.5314 per pound and Rs 33.43 per 100 yen respectively, based on the Reference rate for dollar and middle rates of the cross currency quotes at noon.

The Reference rate is based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai and the SDR-Rupee rate will be based on this rate, the release added.
 
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Hat Pin - HOLD
James Crux
26/07/2007

Profiled by Growth Company Investor at 76.5p last year, human resources star Hat Pin has done a deal in the fast-growing Indian market. Famed for its Akamai, Saxton Bampfylde Hever and The Talent Business (formerly Kendall Tarrant) brands, Hat Pin has acquired Executive Access India for up to £6.9m in cash and shares in a deal part-funded through a £5.5m placing at 100p.

Executive Access India is a senior-level search business for the financial services, technology, academia and ‘not-for-profit’ sectors and the acquisition should boost earnings within the first full year of ownership. Further earnings diversification on both a geographic and sector basis is another plus. Angela Campbell-Noe, the chief executive driving Hat Pin’s growth, insists Executive Access India is ‘one of the pre-eminent executive search firms in India’ with an ‘outstanding track record’ and this certainly looks a savvy deal. Executive Access India made £1.4m pre-tax from £3.2m sales in the year to March and the Indian economy is growing at circa 9% per annum.

Alongside the acquisition, Campbell-Noe flagged up strong 2007 trading from Hat Pin with Akamai, Saxton Bampfylde Hever and The Talent Business maintaining good momentum, order books strong and Hat Pin on track to meet market forecasts for the year. Hat Pin, which treated investors to 55% earnings growth in 2006 to 6.55p, offers plenty of organic growth potential with further earnings enhancing deals sure to follow. Readers who bought on our advice should sit tight for further organic and acquisitive growth, with further deals sure to follow. Hold.
 
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Downer defends Indian uranium deal plan
By Maria Hawthorne, Todd Cardy and Nicolas Perpitch
News.com.au, Australia
July 26, 2007 06:19pm

FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer has defended plans to sell uranium to India and said the sale would help curb greenhouse emissions.

Federal cabinet is considering the sale of uranium to India, the world's second most populous country, for electricity generation purposes only.

India is one of only four countries not to have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which limits the spread of nuclear weapons.

But Mr Downer said exports could go ahead if India agreed to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), similar to a deal being negotiated between India and the US.

"In these circumstances it is a possibility that we would begin negotiations with India over supplying uranium to power stations which were subject to United Nations inspections and to the regime of the international atomic agency," he said.

"But we haven't made any final decision about this.

"It is still something that we are considering and we certainly will have to wait and see what the conclusion is of negotiations between India and America."

Mr Downer said India had no record of exporting nuclear weapons technology to other countries and the export of uranium could help the country's burgeoning economy grow.

"India is the second biggest country in the world in population terms," he said.

"Its economy is growing at nearly nine per cent a year. It's going to be a massive consumer of energy and we want to deal with the issue of climate change."

Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland said Mr Downer should be looking for ways to encourage India to sign up to the NPT, not to get around the treaty.

"The foreign minister should be urging and leading greater global nuclear safeguards cooperation, and join Labor in campaigning for wide-ranging reform of the NPT to encourage India to join," Mr McClelland said.

"Mr Downer's exuberant promotion of nuclear power is cause for concern – particularly given his weakness on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation."

But Mr Downer said the Hawke Labor government sold uranium to France before the French signed up to the NPT in 1992.

Any negotiations would be called off if the inspection system was not credible, he said.

Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said India had agreed to use Australian uranium for electricity generation only.
 
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