“Dogs and Indians not allowed”
Circa 1945, signboard outside the elitist British Club in Calcutta

“India is the 2nd biggest investor in London”
Circa 2006, small news snippet in the business page of a leading newspaper.

How times change. In less than seven years the India Inc story is going on the success route very few anticipated. And if you thought India because of its cheap labor was the perfect back office of the world then obviously you had your facts wrong. The far east has shown it has a far bigger cost advantage in terms of back office processing and therefore the new round of mushrooming call centers in Philippines and China. India is now offering to the world what it is best at. Knowledge.

The Great Indian Brahmin

“Asathoma Sadhgamaya, Thamasoma Jyothirgamaya”

The above is a Sanskrit verse from an ancient Hindu text meaning from the unreal lead me to the real, from shadows lead me to the light. The great Indian brain is doing exactly that. Leading the world’s largest money market into light. Yes, that absolutely right. Not talking about some mundane back office processing work. The work happening here is pure pundit-giri consisting of analysis and more, about which is a hot stock, where to invest, about mergers and charting the growth of the world’s biggest financial market. In simple words brains at Gurgaon, out skirts of Mumbai and Chennai are actually running the Wall Street Market.

If that sounds like an understatement and too unreal to be real would somebody please answer what are companies like iRevna, Evalueserve, Fidelity, Copal Partners and others doing in India. Surely they can get cheaper labor in Philippines and perhaps many more countries. Read more

Faced with increasing price pressures, vendors in the European business telephony markets are beginning to heighten focus on software and applications, moving away from the margin-sapping hardware business. However, in these new high-growth high-margin markets, the installed base of private branch exchange (PBX) remains a key competitive factor. Thus, most vendors are aggressively targeting the PBX installed base. Read more

Sparking off a trend of innovation in Indian entertainment, UTV along with Malaysia-based media company Astro Measat today announced the launch of Brand Bindass, India’s first local 360° leisure & entertainment brand for young India. It comprises of a gamut of entertainment and leisure space- bouquet of television channels, mobile, web, gaming, merchandising, retail and nationwide ground events. Read more

(ISC)2® (”ISC-squared”), the non-profit global leader in educating and certifying information security professionals throughout their careers, today announced the honourees for its inaugural Asia-Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements (ISLA) programme. Vishwas Patel of Avenues India recognized as honouree for the Category of Senior non-IT security professional. Read more

Diabetes is a growing epidemic in the United States, with the number of people diagnosed with the disease increasing more than two-fold over the past 15 years. As current treatments leave room for improvement within an area of unmet medical need, a myriad of companies are working on new types of drug products to better control and prevent diabetes and its subsequent complications. Read more

Two-day conference brings together key players and decision makers to focus on introducing a policy package for the growth of the solar energy sector in India

World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE), a not-for-profit body located in Pune, inaugurated its first bi-annual two-day event ‘Solar India 2007’ today at the NIMHANS Convention Center, Bangalore. Dr. Hermann Scheer, world renowned policy innovator & General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) and V Subramanian, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Govt. of India were present for the inauguration. ‘Solar India 2007’ is the first-ever platform for charting the way forward for solar energy development in India. It covers all aspects of solar energy, including emerging technologies, challenges and opportunities, new applications for solar energy and most importantly, policy initiatives and formation of a working committee for implementation of a new policy package for solar energy development in the country. Read more

Info Edge has been identified amongst the Top 100 Mid Sized Companies in India. In a survey conducted by Business World Info Edge emerged at no. 43 on an overall performance rank, and was ranked 7 on total average returns in the Rs 50-100 crore category. In this bracket, 256 companies had made it to the final assessment. Read more

NDTV Ltd, founded in 1988, claims to be India’s first and perhaps the largest private producer of current affairs, sports and entertainment television. NDTV English News 24X7 channel also claims to be leader news segment. Some expansion at NDTV is also taking place. The first Lifestyle channel is due to be launched in the next few weeks. With the receipt of $120 million dollars in funding, NDTV Networks has achieved funding for present business plans.

The company maintains a growth trend in its revenues and profits for its news and business channels. NDTV also claims it is now the only news channel not to become tabloid and to retain credibility and highest standards. This is one claim though many may argue isn’t the case with any news channel in India. Rising competition amongst news channels has led to an era of news actually being created rather than actually happening. In India most of the “dirty news” was earlier confined to Hindi viewers but now even the English channels seems to have followed suit. With absolutely no privacy laws in place in India sting operations and other such tactics are used by most channels. NDTV does seem to have captured a good viewership and also has made good profits.

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Puneet Mehrotra: Published in Hindustan Times, Friday July 13th, 2007

The trouble with industrial growth is that it needs energy – which costs money, an increasingly, hurts the environment too. And, in the 21st century that belongs to computers, gizmos and electronic items, energy issues will get a serious ring in the coming days, as the debate on carbon emissions, global warming and climate change gets hotter.

Global demand for energy is expected to grow 53 per cent by 2030, and 70 per cent of this demand will come from China and India. As demand grows alongside, calls for affordability “intelligent” energy could be the way out of troubles.

If you thought computers were non-polluting and consumed very little energy and data centres the most environment friendly workspace you need to think again. According to analyst firm IDC, roughly 50 cents is spent on energy for every dollar of computer hardware. This is expected to increase by 54 per cent to 71 cents over the next four years. On the other hand, an intelligent green energy data centre means substantial savings. On an average, for a 25,000 square-foot data centre it could achieve 42 per cent energy savings. This saving equates to 7,439 tonnes of carbon emissions saved per year!

The information technology industry is leading a revolution of sorts by turning green in a manner no industry has ever done before. It is worth emphasising that this time “green technology” isn’t just about sound bytes to impress activists but concrete action and organisational policy. Opportunities lie in green technology like never before in history and organisations are seeing it as a way to create new profit centres while trying to help the environmental cause. Read more

Larry’s Column

I’ve come to believe that our accomplishments are a direct result of our expectations. Somehow we develop a mental list of the things we expect to accomplish both in our personal life and our business life, and somehow we manage to develop strategies to bring those expectations to reality. Most of the time this mental activity is done unconsciously in the background and that is fine if we are happy or fulfilled with the results.
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