Sunday, July 30, 2006
Hyderabad Business News July 29,2006
Rapid exit taxiway to ease air traffic
Hyderabad, July 28: Delhi International Airport Ltd, the company tasked with modernising the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, said on Friday that it has commissioned a rapid exit taxiway, D1, at the airport, which is expected to ease the air traffic congestion.
“Simultaneously, a portion of parallel taxiway, E2, was also opened for aircraft operations. The new taxiway is expected to reduce waiting time of aircraft to land and take off from Delhi and facilitate timely flights,” DIAL sources said. “This is part of the upgradation works to minimise the runway occupancy time and improve the traffic circulation. This will in turn reduce congestion in the air,” the sources said.
DIAL is a joint venture company consisting of the Bangalore-based GMR Group, Fraport AG of Germany, Malaysia Airports, India Development Fund and Airports Authority of India. The company was formed to modernise and restructure the Delhi Airport.
“These development measures are in continuation to the recent opening up of the second runway for three hours each in the morning and in the afternoon. Orders have been placed for seven x-ray machines of which three have been installed and the other four x-ray machines will be installed during the second week of August,” the sources said.
Andhra Bank to raise rates
Hyderabad, July 28: The public sector Andhra Bank will be raising interest rates in the wake of the hike in the reverse repo rate 25 basis points by the Reserve Bank of India, K. Ramakrishnan, the bank’s chairman and managing director, said on Friday. The increase could be between 25 to 50 basis points.
Mr Ramakrishnan said an internal committee of the bank was discussing the interest rate hike, and a decision was likely to be announced next week. “An increase in the interest rates appears imperative because cost of funds will now be higher,” he said.
He said that Andhra Bank was considering a proposal to launch operations in the United States, which has a large non-resident Indian population, particularly from Andhra Pradesh. The paperwork for the proposal had begun, he said, adding that obtaining a banking licence in the US was time-consuming and tough proc-ess.
The bank was also planning to set up representative offices in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which have large Indian expat communities. Meanwhile, Andhra Bank reported a net profit of Rs 116. 41 crore in the first quarter of 2006-07, up 36.70 per cent over the Rs 85.16 crore in the same quarter of last year.
The bank’s interest inco-me had increased by 23.11 per cent to Rs 759 crore, against the Rs 617 crore. “Low-cost deposits grew to Rs 12,466 crore, an increase of 26.46 per cent over the 9,858 crore in the first quarter of 2005-06,” he said. Andhra Bank’s business had increased to Rs 54,852 crore, rupees, up 25.35 per cent over the first quarter of 2005-06.
The gross bank credit grew by 20.40 per cent to Rs 21,794 crore from from Rs 18,102 crore. The bank’s net NPAs stood at Rs 16 crore, or 0.07 per cent of adva-nces, compared to the Rs 68 crore on-year, he said.
Gaming gets a booster shot
IT Today
Gaming could just become a lot richer with ATI Technologies, a Canadian company which specialises in 3D graphics chips, teaming with system integrators and OEMs to launch ATI’s Radeon X1900 CrossFire multi-GPU graphics and the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. The tie-up between ATI and Intel is surprising, considering that ATI is being acquired by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel’s biggest competitor in the semiconductor space, but never mind. It’s business.
“The rendering horsepower of two ATI graphics cards in concert with the brawn of the new Intel Core 2 Extreme pr-ocessor works to break down the barriers associated with traditional gaming, addressing GPU and CPU-bound scenarios to produce leading image quality and performance in games,” says ATI, which has largest development centre, outside the US and Canada, in Hyderabad. The result would ‘boun-dless gaming’.
“ATI CrossFire and the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor represents PC gaming excellence tod-ay,” says Godfrey Che-ng, director of marketing, platform technologies, ATI Technologies Inc., responsible for ATI’s CrossFire strategy. “The number of system integrators and OEMs worldwide backing the platform demonstrates the impact of co-mbining these technologies.”
Says Rahul Sood, president and CTO of Voo-dooPC, a Canadian company, “The new Intel Core 2 Extreme processor and CrossFire X1900 graphics combined with Voodoo’s elite PC craf-tsmanship brings gamers the unsurpassed image quality, all in a cool and stylish package that ma-kes this gaming’s piece de resistance.”
iPod’s ‘Trojan Horse’While Apple’s iPod, which has put the company that Steve Jobs built in clover, its iTunes could be providing the gravy for years, according to a new study by ABI Research. “The battle for portable devices has already been won by iPod (unless Microsoft’s plan for its Zune platform succeeds) but in the home and mo-bile markets, the prize is still up for grabs.
iTunes could be a ‘Trojan Hor-se’ through which Apple can enter the home market sooner than the competition,” says research director Vamsi Sistla. With over a billion files downloaded from iTunes so far, computers all over the world are brimming with music, speech and video organised by iTunes client software.
Leveraging all that content, which users have already paid for and want to hear on a good home audio system or watch on a digital-ready TV, creates a huge opening for consumer electronics vendors. That could happen through a PC. Or, it cou-ld be implemented thro-ugh a dedicated “media centre” PC.
TajGVK to build 4th hotel in city
Hyderabad, July 28: TajGVK Hotels and Resorts Ltd, which currently operates three five-star properties in Hyderabad, will be building a fourth five-star hotel in Hyderabad, executive director Shalini Bhupal said on Friday. The new hotel in the Begumpet area is estimated to cost Rs 70 crore, and will have 189 rooms. It will be operational by 2008, she said.
Ms Bhupal said the company’s hotel project in Chennai is in an advanced stage of execution and is likely to be operational in March 2007. The new hotel is estimated to cost Rs 125 croer. She said that TajGVK was in the process of acquiring land for setting upa five-star hotel in Bangalore, besides expanding the Taj Krishna in Hyderabad to add 135 rooms and 75 service apartments at an estimated cost of Rs 120 crore.
The Taj Residency would also be expanded at a cost of Rs 100 crore. Meanwhile, the company, a joint venture by Indian Hotels Co. Ltd of the Tata group and the GVK business group, posted a net pr-ofit of Rs 14.79 crore in the first quarter of 2006-07, up 99 per cent from the Rs 7.45 crore on-year. Revenues increase by 68 per cent to Rs 56.88 crore from Rs 33.85 crore.
Lufthansa will add Kolkata to network
Hyderabad, July 28: Lufthansa German Airlines will be adding Kolkata to its network with the launch of three non-stop flights between the eastern Indian city and Frankfurt from December 1. Kolkata will be the sixth city in India to which Lufthansa will be flying in India.
“With the regional network being extended to include Kolkata, India will become the only country in Lufthansa’s Asia-Pacific network to be served through six gateways. This now gives passengers a maximum choice of 45 weekly flights between India and Germany,” the airline said.
“Kolkata is an important gateway for the entire north-eastern Indian region and the introduction of our service will further enhance trade relations between India and Germany. Kolkata will also serve as an important transit point for passengers who would be visiting neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar,” Werner Heesen, general manager, passenger sales India and Director South Asia said in a statement on Friday.
Lufthansa will operate the route to Kolkata with an Airbus A340-300 offering a total of 221 seats. There will be 8 First Class, 48 Business Class and 165 Economy Class seats on the flights. The first Lufthansa flight to Kolkata had been on on 1 November 1959, Mr Heesen said.
Hyderabad, July 28: Delhi International Airport Ltd, the company tasked with modernising the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, said on Friday that it has commissioned a rapid exit taxiway, D1, at the airport, which is expected to ease the air traffic congestion.
“Simultaneously, a portion of parallel taxiway, E2, was also opened for aircraft operations. The new taxiway is expected to reduce waiting time of aircraft to land and take off from Delhi and facilitate timely flights,” DIAL sources said. “This is part of the upgradation works to minimise the runway occupancy time and improve the traffic circulation. This will in turn reduce congestion in the air,” the sources said.
DIAL is a joint venture company consisting of the Bangalore-based GMR Group, Fraport AG of Germany, Malaysia Airports, India Development Fund and Airports Authority of India. The company was formed to modernise and restructure the Delhi Airport.
“These development measures are in continuation to the recent opening up of the second runway for three hours each in the morning and in the afternoon. Orders have been placed for seven x-ray machines of which three have been installed and the other four x-ray machines will be installed during the second week of August,” the sources said.
Andhra Bank to raise rates
Hyderabad, July 28: The public sector Andhra Bank will be raising interest rates in the wake of the hike in the reverse repo rate 25 basis points by the Reserve Bank of India, K. Ramakrishnan, the bank’s chairman and managing director, said on Friday. The increase could be between 25 to 50 basis points.
Mr Ramakrishnan said an internal committee of the bank was discussing the interest rate hike, and a decision was likely to be announced next week. “An increase in the interest rates appears imperative because cost of funds will now be higher,” he said.
He said that Andhra Bank was considering a proposal to launch operations in the United States, which has a large non-resident Indian population, particularly from Andhra Pradesh. The paperwork for the proposal had begun, he said, adding that obtaining a banking licence in the US was time-consuming and tough proc-ess.
The bank was also planning to set up representative offices in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which have large Indian expat communities. Meanwhile, Andhra Bank reported a net profit of Rs 116. 41 crore in the first quarter of 2006-07, up 36.70 per cent over the Rs 85.16 crore in the same quarter of last year.
The bank’s interest inco-me had increased by 23.11 per cent to Rs 759 crore, against the Rs 617 crore. “Low-cost deposits grew to Rs 12,466 crore, an increase of 26.46 per cent over the 9,858 crore in the first quarter of 2005-06,” he said. Andhra Bank’s business had increased to Rs 54,852 crore, rupees, up 25.35 per cent over the first quarter of 2005-06.
The gross bank credit grew by 20.40 per cent to Rs 21,794 crore from from Rs 18,102 crore. The bank’s net NPAs stood at Rs 16 crore, or 0.07 per cent of adva-nces, compared to the Rs 68 crore on-year, he said.
Gaming gets a booster shot
IT Today
Gaming could just become a lot richer with ATI Technologies, a Canadian company which specialises in 3D graphics chips, teaming with system integrators and OEMs to launch ATI’s Radeon X1900 CrossFire multi-GPU graphics and the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. The tie-up between ATI and Intel is surprising, considering that ATI is being acquired by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel’s biggest competitor in the semiconductor space, but never mind. It’s business.
“The rendering horsepower of two ATI graphics cards in concert with the brawn of the new Intel Core 2 Extreme pr-ocessor works to break down the barriers associated with traditional gaming, addressing GPU and CPU-bound scenarios to produce leading image quality and performance in games,” says ATI, which has largest development centre, outside the US and Canada, in Hyderabad. The result would ‘boun-dless gaming’.
“ATI CrossFire and the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor represents PC gaming excellence tod-ay,” says Godfrey Che-ng, director of marketing, platform technologies, ATI Technologies Inc., responsible for ATI’s CrossFire strategy. “The number of system integrators and OEMs worldwide backing the platform demonstrates the impact of co-mbining these technologies.”
Says Rahul Sood, president and CTO of Voo-dooPC, a Canadian company, “The new Intel Core 2 Extreme processor and CrossFire X1900 graphics combined with Voodoo’s elite PC craf-tsmanship brings gamers the unsurpassed image quality, all in a cool and stylish package that ma-kes this gaming’s piece de resistance.”
iPod’s ‘Trojan Horse’While Apple’s iPod, which has put the company that Steve Jobs built in clover, its iTunes could be providing the gravy for years, according to a new study by ABI Research. “The battle for portable devices has already been won by iPod (unless Microsoft’s plan for its Zune platform succeeds) but in the home and mo-bile markets, the prize is still up for grabs.
iTunes could be a ‘Trojan Hor-se’ through which Apple can enter the home market sooner than the competition,” says research director Vamsi Sistla. With over a billion files downloaded from iTunes so far, computers all over the world are brimming with music, speech and video organised by iTunes client software.
Leveraging all that content, which users have already paid for and want to hear on a good home audio system or watch on a digital-ready TV, creates a huge opening for consumer electronics vendors. That could happen through a PC. Or, it cou-ld be implemented thro-ugh a dedicated “media centre” PC.
TajGVK to build 4th hotel in city
Hyderabad, July 28: TajGVK Hotels and Resorts Ltd, which currently operates three five-star properties in Hyderabad, will be building a fourth five-star hotel in Hyderabad, executive director Shalini Bhupal said on Friday. The new hotel in the Begumpet area is estimated to cost Rs 70 crore, and will have 189 rooms. It will be operational by 2008, she said.
Ms Bhupal said the company’s hotel project in Chennai is in an advanced stage of execution and is likely to be operational in March 2007. The new hotel is estimated to cost Rs 125 croer. She said that TajGVK was in the process of acquiring land for setting upa five-star hotel in Bangalore, besides expanding the Taj Krishna in Hyderabad to add 135 rooms and 75 service apartments at an estimated cost of Rs 120 crore.
The Taj Residency would also be expanded at a cost of Rs 100 crore. Meanwhile, the company, a joint venture by Indian Hotels Co. Ltd of the Tata group and the GVK business group, posted a net pr-ofit of Rs 14.79 crore in the first quarter of 2006-07, up 99 per cent from the Rs 7.45 crore on-year. Revenues increase by 68 per cent to Rs 56.88 crore from Rs 33.85 crore.
Lufthansa will add Kolkata to network
Hyderabad, July 28: Lufthansa German Airlines will be adding Kolkata to its network with the launch of three non-stop flights between the eastern Indian city and Frankfurt from December 1. Kolkata will be the sixth city in India to which Lufthansa will be flying in India.
“With the regional network being extended to include Kolkata, India will become the only country in Lufthansa’s Asia-Pacific network to be served through six gateways. This now gives passengers a maximum choice of 45 weekly flights between India and Germany,” the airline said.
“Kolkata is an important gateway for the entire north-eastern Indian region and the introduction of our service will further enhance trade relations between India and Germany. Kolkata will also serve as an important transit point for passengers who would be visiting neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar,” Werner Heesen, general manager, passenger sales India and Director South Asia said in a statement on Friday.
Lufthansa will operate the route to Kolkata with an Airbus A340-300 offering a total of 221 seats. There will be 8 First Class, 48 Business Class and 165 Economy Class seats on the flights. The first Lufthansa flight to Kolkata had been on on 1 November 1959, Mr Heesen said.
