VSNL set to lose $600 m in foreign currency post decontrol
India will loose foreign currency worth $600 million if voice telephony allowed on the Internet, VSNL director Amitabh Kumar said on Friday. Speaking at the IT convention in Mumbai, Kumar said that the government will have to find out ways for implications of the policy decision before reaching to any conclusion on this issue. According to Kumar, currently VSNL gets $600 million every year on account of international calls. In the case of voice telephony, "we may loose foreign currency of such a big amount." Kumar's remarks has once again indicated the threat to VSNL due to government's decision of ending its monopoly on international voice telephony before 2004. Currently, the VSNL's 90 per cent income comes from international telephony.UTI fund picks up 5.5 pc in Star Ya Kalakar.com
Unit Trust of India's (UTI) Internet fund has picked up 5.5 per cent stake in talent and entertainment portal Star Ya Kalakaar.com Ltd (SYK) for about Rs 2 crore. "UTI's offshore fund, based in Mauritius, has taken the stake at Rs 40 per share of Rs 10 face value", portal's chairman and CEO Amin Merchant told PTI in Mumbai on Friday. The company issued fresh shares to the fund, taking its total share capital close to Rs 10 crore, he said. Chatterjee and George Soros group company and Indian Capital Corporation Ltd, had picked up three per cent stake in the portal at Rs 30 per share.
Gladstone Tech appoints PwC for restructuring
Gladstone Technologies Ltd (GTL) has appointed PricewaterHouseCoopers (PwC) to undertake a corporate restructuring exercise, which could include plans for demerging or hiving off the telecom business into a separate entity. "The major objective of the three-phase consulting exercise spread over five weeks will be on the telecom business", finance director J A Rao said. PwC will undertake a valuation exercise to arrive at a fair market value and work out the number of shares to be given to GTL shareholders in the newly hived off entity, he added.
Community info centres will help people of NE: PM
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said on Friday that the community information centres to be set up in Meghalaya would help bring the benefits of IT to the people of the North East. "Citizens of the North-East are well positioned to use it to strengthen their economic prosperity, their cultural links with each other as well as the rest of India, and their ability to directly benefit from various government schemes," Vajpayee said in a message on the eve of inauguration of the centres. The two info centres at Umsning and Mylleium in Meghalaya are part of a special initiative that will create community info centres in every block of the North East.
Dataquest ranks Wipro No 1 among Indian IT companies
Wipro Ltd has been adjudged as the number one among the Indian information technology companies in the Dataquest top 20 annual survey following its annual domestic and global product IT services touching a sales figure of Rs 2035,70 crore for the year 1999-2000. The company was ranked number three behind HCL Group and Tata Group but Wipro being the single entity having the gross sale of above Rs 2000 crore was selected as the HCL and Tata revenues were group revenues. .
TNT floats new Website for better navigation
TNT has launched a new Website to meet its customer needs more effectively. The Website has three key differenciators from the earlier site. The new site is expected to allow easier and better navigation, besides providing simplified information with local content.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.