CII to host India IT Summit 2009 in Kerala next month

June 15th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Cooperation in the IT sector between Singapore and industry majors in Kerala has received a major boost after a delegation from the Group of Technopark Companies (GTech) visited the city-state for talks with senior government officials and business lobbies. GTech represents the heads of all major IT companies in Technopark, which is home to more than 120 companies and employ close to 18,000 people.

September 10th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Kerala's IT sector will generate as many as 200,000 jobs in the next five years, state Chief Secretary Neela Gangadharan said Thursday. Inaugurating a conference on IT in Kerala - Challenges and Opportunities, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, she said over 200 rural IT Parks (Techno Lodges) are expected to come up in the state in the next two to three years.

January 10th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - It is advantage time for IT companies in Kerala. With Satyam under a cloud, the software companies in the state are busy trying to win over clients of the tainted IT bellwether even as they are flooded with job applications from Satyam employees.

March 27th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - While India's overall software exports have slowed down on account of the global slowdown, those from Kerala grew 43.41 percent till February-end, fetching a revenue of Rs.2,300 crore. 'While the STPI (Software Technology Parks India) figures for the country show a growth of 17.62 percent till February-end this fiscal, software exports from Kerala have grown at 43.41 percent,' said an IT department official who did not wish to be identified.

June 13th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Wipro chief Azim Premji has asked the Indian IT industry to get ready to face the global competition, and not fall into a mind trap of 'India Advantage'. "We have talked a lot about India advantage.

January 12th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Unfazed by the mammoth fraud in Indian IT bellwether Satyam, Britain Tuesday hailed India as a 'success story', saying one rotten apple does not soil the whole barrel, even as an optimistic New Delhi urged the international community 'not to press the panic button'. 'India's economic growth is based in strong fundamentals and a zeal for reforms.

August 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The global financial crisis, it seems, has affected the outsourcing of mass from foreign countries to India. Till a few months ago, requests for these so-called "Mass Intentions", or prayers offered for a specific reason, poured into India from the United States, Canada and Europe, where there is a huge shortage of priests.

March 25th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - An eight-member delegation from China's Shenyang city Wednesday visited the information technology campus Technopark here to pick up tips on software outsourcing. The officials from the Shenyang Information Industry Bureau (SIIB) said they would study Kerala's software outsourcing services to set up similar parks back home.

June 23rd, 2009 MUMBAI - Telecom major Idea Cellular Tuesday signed a Rs.145-crore agreement with Firstsource Solutions, a business process outsourcing (BPO) service provider. As part of the agreement, Firstsource will provide for five years a suite of customer management interaction services, including customer service, billing, new product information and plan details to Idea from its centre in Coimbatore, the companies said in a statement.

July 27th, 2009 CHENNAI - The second phase of softyware park Infopark in Kochi, which may be developed under a public-private partnership (PPP) model, will come up over 160 acres, said a top company official here Monday. "We are getting into the second phase of Infopark's expansion.

October 10th, 2009 THRISSUR - Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan Saturday inaugurated the third IT park in the state - Phase 1 of Infopark Koratty - and said that nearly 200,000 jobs in information technology sector would be created in the next two years.

August 14th, 2009 KANNUR - The cyber cell of the Kerala Police has traced down an e-mail threat from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) warning of serial bomb blasts in the state, if a separate Muslim state, comprising districts of north Kerala, is not created. Inspector General of Police Tomin Thachenkery said on Friday that a few media offices in the state had received the e-mail threat on Thursday.

May 14th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Companies based in the Technopark IT industrial park here will join hands with the Kerala government to strengthen the AIDS awareness campaign in the state, an industry official said here Thursday. The Group of Technopark Companies (GTECH), a body representing the chief executives of the Technopark firms, has adopted a corporate policy on HIV/AIDS that calls for strengthening the awareness campaign among among the member companies and employees, the group secretary, Satish Babu, said.

February 10th, 2009 MUMBAI - The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) Wednesday signed an agreement with Colombia's Federation of Software and Related Technologies (Fedesoft) to enhance software trade between the two countries. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed at the India Leadership Summit, organised by Nasscom here, by its president Som Mittal and his Fedesoft counterpart Alberto Pradilla Bermudez.

August 21st, 2009 KOCHI - Talks will resume next month with Smart City Dubai to take forward the proposed Smart City Kochi project, a Rs.1,500-crore ($316-million) software township, according to Fisheries Minister and project chairman S. Sarma. The Kerala government has intimated to Smart City Dubai - a Dubai-based company that is into setting up self-sustained townships for knowledge-based industries - that the talks could be held over two days between Sep 7 and Sep 10, Sarma told reporters here Friday.