Indian PM should induct more professionals in government, says Silicon Valley’s Kanwal Rekhi (Interview)

August 3rd, 2009 GEELONG - The Silicon Valley dream for the Australian city of Geelong were shattered when the massive accounting fraud with its potential partner, Indian IT giant Satyam surfaced in January this year. ollowing job losses in the car manufacturing sector, Geelong could not have asked for more when the plan was proposed for a massive 75 million dollar IT hub at Deakin University.

September 13th, 2005 “The company conveyed to the government last week that it would not be able to make the investment as the project would not be viable without the tax concessions. The company, however, said it would explore opportunities in the future,” an unnamed Intel official told Business Standard.

April 14th, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO - Major companies in the Silicon Valley are suffering the biggest slump since the dot-com bust, further proving that the leading technology hub is not immune from the effects of a global economic meltdown, a new report has said. According to rankings compiled by the San Jose Mercury News, total market capitalisation of Silicon Valley's 150 biggest public companies plunged 32 percent to about $850 billion for the past 12 months ending March 31, the worst decline since 2002.

September 15th, 2009 KOLKATA - Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid Tuesday urged the Information Technology (IT) sector to spell out its standpoint and suggestions on the Companies Bill which is slated to come up before a standing committee of parliament soon. "We are in the process of moving before the standing committee of parliament the Companies Bill, 2009.

April 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - With the hiring of foreign talent facing heightened scrutiny and the threat of greater restrictions in the US, Microsoft Corp has filed substantially fewer applications for H-1B visas coveted by Indian techies for next year. 'I think we will see substantially fewer H-1B applications filed this year.

September 1st, 2009 CHENNAI - The Latin American region, unaffected by the global meltdown, offers good business opportunities for Indian companies in sectors such as information technology (IT), pharmaceutical, renewable energy, agri-business and manufacturing, said a senior Indian diplomat here Tuesday. "Indian companies should formulate long-term strategies to tap the available potential.

January 20th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government has taken no view on the proposals from domestic and international companies to buy the fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services and left the decision to its new board, Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta has said. 'There are many corporate houses, they are interested,' Gupta told reporters on being asked if the government was interested in hiving off the beleaguered firm to engineering and construction giant Larsen and Toubro.

January 11th, 2009 CHENNAI - Perhaps for the first time in the Indian corporate history, an audit firm - and a foreign one at that - is being dumped midway by a company. The government-appointed new board for Satyam Computer Services has declared that the fraud-hit IT bellwether will have a new audit firm to restate the books of accounts.

December 3rd, 2005 Intel, world's largest chip maker, plans to make an investment of $1 billion for its Indian operations. The firm will spend $800m on boosting its research and development operation, with the rest of the cash being used to finance investment in firms.

September 12th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Infosystems has emerged as the best employer in the Indian information technology industry, followed by iGate, Rolta, RMSI and SAS Institute, says a survey by Dataquest magazine and International Data Corp. HCL rose two positions from last year, while iGate slipped one notch to number two, according to the "Best Employers Survey 2009" that covered 200 IT companies in India, out of which 31 were short-listed for the final round.

March 31st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, Tuesday confirmed reports that computers in his office were hacked and saw the Chinese government's hand in the cyber-spying. 'A communication from my office to the central secretariat of the elected government (Tibetan government in exile) about a person who wanted to see me fell into Chinese hands.

July 27th, 2009 BANGALORE - Investment in IT training and software certification is set to decline by 25 percent in the Asia-Pacific region this fiscal as budgets on tech spending fall due to recession, a study by IT research and advisory firm Gartner said. "Training budgets are among the first to be cut as part of cost containment efforts in the downturn.

March 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Contrary to the general perception that India had forced US IT giant IBM to exit the country in 1977, evidence shows that the government was not only keen to retain the company but had also held secret parleys for that with the company's top brass in the US, says a new book. The closed-door talks with IBM were piloted by the then Electronics Commission led by senior technocrat N.

March 30th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India Monday admitted that there have been attempts at hacking into the computers of the Indian embassies, but underlined that it has taken a slew of measures to ensure no sensitive information was stolen in the process. 'We have been through this process before,' Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told reporters here.

June 25th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government Thursday appointed Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of software giant Infosys, as the chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority -- constituted to provide identity cards to Indian citizens. Nilekani, who has been given the rank and status of a cabinet minister, will step down from the Infosys board.This is a project of national importance.