Day Four marked a similar train of successes for Mahajan who yahooed his wayinto Yahoo.com, extracting key promises from the US company that the latterwill be attempting to keep in the days ahead. Chief Yahoo, Jerry Yang andVice President Heather Killen made a momentous announcement to the visitingIndians stating that Yahoo India would be launched in the country within thenext sixty days.

Yang's news seemed like an endorsement of Minister Pramod Mahajan's talk atYahoo which had centered around the recent developments in the Indian ITenvironment. Addressing the Yahoo brainstrust, Mahajan had spoken about thenew private Internet Services Policy (ISP) and the arrival of cyber laws,which are expected to proliferate the Internet and e-commerce in India.On the Yahoo side, executives focussed on the fact that Internet usagepatterns across the world had witnessed significant changes. Unlike earlieryears when close to 80 per cent of Internet usage was confined to the US,today, the mix is 50:50, with almost 50 per cent of Internet usage gettingconcentrated in the rest of the world, and 50 per cent accounted for by theUS market. Estimates indicate that today there are over 300 million Internetusers across the globe.

The change in the Internet-usage focus from the US to the rest of the worldrepresented a major paradigm shift in the Internet realm - a trend that hadcaused companies like Yahoo to internationalise their efforts even further.Yahoo has been active in China, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore in the Asianregion and boasts a battery of 15 offices across Europe and Asia and manymore in the USA. The company usually enters a market only when it finds itadequately mature. Yahoo's entry into the Indian subcontinent was a sign ofthe fact that the company considered the market ripe for business, theexecutives emphasized.

As a part of his whirlwind tour of meeting the Silicon Valley companies,Mahajan also met with Jeff Henly, CFO of Oracle Corporation and his seniormanagement team. The presentation by Oracle focussed on the Oracle strategyfor Internet Exchange. Jeff Henly informed the minister that Oracle is verykeen to work with the government of India in this strategy. Oracle alsopresented their international and potential plans of India expansion.During the day the minister also addressed the American business communityin Silicon Valley under the aegis of the US India Business council (USIBC),at a packed luncheon meeting.

Extending a friendly Indian hand forward, Mahajan emphasized the fact thathis visit was not merely a business mission. The intent was to make friends,he said. Information technology was opening up a new chapter in Indo-UScooperation, the minister said. "This is evident from the vision statementsjointly issued by Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee and President BillClinton of the US, " Mahajan added. "So impressed is President Clinton withIndia's achievements, that he speaks almost every week about the country'sIT milestones at some forum or the other", the Minister stated in a lightervein.

Elaborating on the Indo-US relations, Mahajan said that more than 445investments had been approved in FDI in the period 1999-2000. The Indianliberalised environment provided huge opportunities to tap the vast domesticmarket and for sourcing exports to derive competitive edge in the globalmarket place. India, was thus an ideal destination for American corporates.Answering questions about India's cyber laws, which have recently seen lightof day under the umbrella of the IT Bill, the Minister said they were farfrom Draconian. At the same time, he assured the US business community thatthe Indian Government would not allow or tolerate any misuse of power underthe Bill. He added that his ministry would also soon form guidelines andrules in association with the ministry which would help keep cyber lawenforcers on the straight and narrow, preventing the perversion of thelaws.

Day Five meanwhile will be equally hectic for the minister who will beinteracting with the financial community in New York. Visits to the New Yorkstock exchange and NASDAQ are on the cards, as is a meeting with the CEO ofLucent, Arun Netraveli.