Talks on stalled Kerala project to commence next month

September 10th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - The two-day talks between the Kerala government and Smart City Dubai to take forward the proposed Smart City Kochi software township project turned out to be inconclusive, but both parties were confident that the deadlock would be broken. Emerging after the meeting, Chief Secretary Neela Gangadharan, who led the Kerala delegation, said discussions were yet to be concluded and would continue.

September 8th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan Tuesday told the Kerala assembly that talks would begin with Smart City Dubai Wednesday to take forward the proposed Smart City Kochi software township project.

February 2nd, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - Maytas Infra - the infrastructure company floated by the promoter-family of scam-tainted Satyam Computer Services - has lost another project in Orissa. Hyderabad-based KVK Energy, which is setting up a Rs.50-billion (Rs.5,000-crore), 1,050 MW coal-fired power project in Cuttack district, Tuesday said Maytas was no longer its joint venture partner.

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.

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.

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 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.

April 21st, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - The proposed Rs.15-billion Smart City Kochi IT park Tuesday suffered a setback after Smart City Dubai, which has signed a pact with the state government to develop the project, said it wanted the freehold land issue resolved. This was informed in a press release, issued Tuesday by Smart City Dubai chief executive Fareed Abdulrahman, who said they were assigned to Smart City Kochi and still heavily involved in the development of the project and had not pulled back from their roles and responsibilities.

September 18th, 2009 KOCHI - The first phase of the Rs.600-crore Koratty information technology park in Kerala, being set up as part of the state government's plan to open IT parks in all districts, will be opened Oct 10. The project, coming up on 42 acres in Koratty in Thrissur district, is one of the fastest developed IT parks in the state, Siddhartha Bhattacharya, chief executive of Infopark Kochi, which is developing the project, told IANS.

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.

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 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.