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Bharti Airtel and Huawei Deal

ellular major Bharti Airtel has awarded a 150 million-dollar deal to Chinese vendor Huawei for building and managing GSM mobile infrastructure for its Sri Lankan operations.

Huawei will deploy comprehensive 2G and 3H network for Bharti Airtel Lanka, the subsidiary of Bharti Airtel.

Airtel has signed three-year deal managed networks deal for its Lanka operations with Huawei Technologies and it includes telecom applications and software.

With the network deal in place, customers in Sri Lanka can look forward to a host of products and services at an affordable price from Airtels vast portfolio, Bharti Airtel said.

Bharti Airtel was recently awarded the licence to provide 2G and 3G mobile services in Sri Lanka. Under the agreement, Huawei will deploy and manage Airtels core network, Node-Bs and BTSs and comprehensive end-to-end 2G/3G network solutions, it said.

According to Sanjay Nandrajog, Executive Director, International Operations & Managed Services, Bharti Airtel, "Bharti Airtel is committed to creating a mobile network and offering 2G and 3G services to customers in Sri Lanka. Huawei has established credentials as a global company producing high quality products and solutions."

Max Yang, CEO, Huawei India said, "We look forward to continuing this strategic partnership with Bharti Airtel by providing innovative and customer-oriented solutions and services including wireless solutions.

Source: dnaindia.com

American Express to sell international banking unit

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3 SEZs cleared by GOVT.

The government on Tuesday gave formal clearances to three IT special economic zones (SEZs) in Navi Mumbai promoted by Mukesh Ambani and another by Tata Consultancy Services but deferred decision on all proposals for Uttar Pradesh.

The go-ahead was given at a meeting of commerce ministry's Board of Approval (BOA) on SEZs, which took up 19 proposals for consideration and decided to extend formal approvals to 10 of them.

"Three IT SEZs in Navi Mumbai and have been granted formal clearances," commerce secretary G.K. Pillai, who is also the chairperson of BOA, told reporters here.

"All proposals for setting up SEZs in Uttar Pradesh have been deferred since they did not have the possession of the land. Also, there was no official from the state government present," Pillai added.

Besides the three Navi Mumbai SEZs, other prominent ones that received official nod were those of Tata Consultancy Services in Gujarat and another from Gujarat Industrial Development Corp.

Pillai said the board has so far given formal approvals to 386 SEZs out of which 149 were notified. He said an investment of Rs.477 billion ($11.5 billion) has already been made in SEZs, providing direct employment to over 40,000 people.

The BOA chairman indicated that the government may soon reject as many as 100 SEZ proposals that had been given in-principle approvals but its promoters had failed to obtain their respective state government's approvals.

"However, they can re-apply and put in fresh application for the government to consider. They are free to apply," said Pillai.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Aligarh Muslim University - UPDATE

The Aligarh Muslim University, one of India's oldest universities, is in the news once again for the wrong reasons. On September 16, at around 10 pm, BSc II year student Mazhar Nayeem was shot dead. He was a resident of room 10, Mumtaz House at the Aftab Hall of Residence.

Some unidentified people shot Nayeem at point-blank range and fled. Like many previous killings in AMU, it is not known who killed Nayeem and why.

Students close to Nayeem say he was not involved in any controversy, did not have any love affair; there was no known rivalry in his family in the Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh. The boy was gentle, religious, and had a small friend circle of like-minded students.

Thus, in many ways, this murder resembles a series of murders in the recent past in AMU -- a residential university which is home to 25,000 students in the north Indian town of Aligarh, about 125 km from the national capital New Delhi.

In April, two undergraduate students were killed in separate incidents. The murders were then linked to the ongoing process of empanelment of the new vice-chancellor as the then vice-chancellor Naseem Ahmad had completed his five-year term.

Nayeem's murder was followed by mass violence on the campus on Monday. Angry students burnt the vice-chancellor's home, the proctor's office and other university property.

The students' anger and frustration mounted because before Nayeem's murder, a Class IX girl was allegedly raped by some non-teaching employees of the girls' hostel on September 8. Despite protests, no action was taken against the alleged rapists.

The administration allegedly tried to cover up the incident, but the girl students broke out of the hostel on September 12 and staged a demonstration before the VC's office. Only wide media coverage persuaded the vice-chancellor to institute an inquiry, that too headed by a male, which is in violation of Supreme Court's directives.

Source: rediff.com

Russia and China worried by Iran attack talk

Russia and China expressed alarm on Tuesday over comments by France's foreign minister raising the spectre of war with Iran, and Washington said diplomacy was key to ending a standoff with Tehran over its nuclear programme.

Minister Bernard Kouchner, his comments clearly testing the resilience of a coalition of major powers seeking to curb Iran's ambitions, sought to play down his weekend remarks, saying they had been meant as a warning against war.

"I do not want it to be said that I am a warmonger!" he told Le Monde newspaper, days before the five U.N. Security Council permanent members, including Russia and China, and Germany were due to meet to discuss possible new sanctions against Tehran.

"My message was a message of peace, of seriousness and of determination," the paper quoted Kouchner as saying on his plane as he headed to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear at a joint news briefing with Kouchner that his remarks had disturbed a Kremlin, like China, less inclined to sanctions than the West.

"We are worried by reports that there is serious consideration being given to military action in Iran," Lavrov said. "That is a threat to a region where there are already grave problems in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Washington, which itself has kept open the possibility of armed force if diplomacy fails, made clear it had no interest in military embroilment at this stage. At the same time, it seemed at pains to dismiss suggestions of disunity among the powers.

"We believe that there is a diplomatic solution," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We are working with the French and the rest of the EU (European Union) community in order to pressure Iran to comply with their obligations under the U.N. Security Council regulations."

Source: uk.reuters.com

Mudslide kills 3 in Assam

A mudslide buried three people living in a hilltop home, raising the death toll to 49 in fresh floods in the northeast in the past 10 days, officials said Sunday.

``Three people of a family died Saturday as their hilltop house collapsed under the weight of mud and rock loosened by heavy rains during the past week,'' said C.K. Bhuyan, an Assam state government official.

Monsoon rains pounded Assam state in June, triggering floods, but waters receded in August with a break in the downpour. Heavy rains resumed early this month, however.

``Reports reaching us from inaccessible areas indicate up to 49 people have died in the fresh flooding during the past 10 days,'' said Bhumidhar Barman, an Assam state minister.

Source: www.hindu.com

Ram Setu

Ambika Soni's cultural ministry is in the centre of a storm for an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court that said there was no historical proof of Lord Ram's existence.

On Saturday, the minister said she had personally ordered the deletion of the three objectionable lines in the affidavit.

But she claimed the draft affidavit was not prepared by her ministry but by the additional solicitor general or the ASG.

''I'm not blaming anybody else but the affidavit came from ASG,'' said Ambika Soni Union Culture Minister.

Two officials of the ASI have been suspended for not making the changes Soni had suggested in the draft.

The minister has already ordered a probe. On Saturday she met Congress President Sonia Gandhi to explain what went wrong.

And she said she was willing to step down.

''It won't take me a minute to resign if required by the PM and UPA chairperson,'' said Ambika Soni, Union Culture Minister.

But one of her cabinet colleagues feels she should not wait for orders.

''If I were the Culture Minister, I would have resigned immediately. If Lal Bahadur Shastri could resign after a train accident in 1956, then when there has been such an error with a sensitive affidavit, and the feelings of the people have been hurt, I feel the Minister should resign,'' said Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Commerce.

Though the ASG refused to speak on camera, sources in his office said liberty was given to all government departments to make required changes but the change in the culture ministry's affidavit were not communicated to the ASG.

The damage control exercise on the Ram Setu controversy seems to be boomeranging with Congress ministers trying to settle their own political scores.

And despite the opposition attempt to gain political mileage, a full blown-out war has begun within the government over who was responsible for the controversy.

Source: ndtv.com

Bush faces new political battle over Iraq withdrawal

US President George W. Bush on Sunday faced a new clash with congressional Democrats over the unpopular war in Iraq as Senate Democrats reportedly reached a deal that would allow soldiers to spend more time at home.

"If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "Al-Qaeda could find new recruits and new sanctuaries," he added, naming the extremist network that he blames, along with Iran, for fueling violence in Iraq.

"By contrast, a free Iraq will deny Al-Qaeda a safe haven. It will counter the destructive ambitions of Iran. And it will serve as a partner in the fight against terrorism," he said.

Meanwhile in Washington, thousands of protestors marched from the White House to Congress Saturday, waving placards demanding an end to the war in Iraq, the return of US troops, and the impeachment of Bush.

Organizers said 197 people, including dozens of veterans and activists, were arrested as they crossed police lines. Police put the number of arrests at 189.

Authorities also used pepper spray to disperse the crowd, according to the Act Now to Stop War & End Racism (ANSWER) coalition, the group that organized the march.

The president announced in a speech on Thursday that the size of the US force in Iraq would decrease by about 21,500 combat troops by mid-2008, with the first 5,700 soldiers leaving Iraq in December. Most of those soldiers had been scheduled to rotate back to the United States at that time.

Currently 169,000 US troops are in Iraq, up from 130,000 before Bush announced a "surge" of US forces in January.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, keenly aware that the all-volunteer US military has been stretched thin with repeated deployments, said Friday he hoped US forces in Iraq can be brought down to about 100,000 by the time the next president takes office in January 2009.

The figure could decrease faster if Senate Democrats have their way: a proposal by Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia -- a Vietnam war veteran -- is under discussion that would require US troops to spend as much time at home as on their most recent tours overseas before being re-deployed.

The proposal is close to winning enough Republican support for approval, The New York Times reported Saturday.

If approved, the measure would force US military commanders to withdraw troops on a much faster timeline than the one the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, presented to Congress on September 10.

Gates called the proposal "well-intentioned," but said it might require extending tours of units already in Iraq, and calling up additional National Guard and Reserve troops.

At the Washington protest, one woman carried a picture of her 25-year-old daughter who is on her second tour of duty in Iraq. "I had a nervous breakdown when they told me her tour was being extended to 15 months," she told AFP.

"Now they say it's probably going to be 18 months."

For months US politicians have been searching for a way to end the unpopular war in Iraq without appearing unpatriotic by cutting funds for soldiers on the battle front.

In the US political system the president is the top military commander and sets foreign policy, but the US Congress approves the budget and can set conditions for funding.

In order to be approved, Webb's measure must gain support from at least some of Bush's Republicans, because opposition Democrats have a razor-thin majority in the Senate.

In his Saturday address Bush also said that Petraeus and the US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, told him that security conditions in Iraq "are improving, that our forces are seizing the initiative from the enemy, and that the troop surge is working."

Petraeus and Crocker were in Washington for hearings on Capitol Hill on Monday and Tuesday.

"The more successful we are, the more troops can return home," said Bush.

Some 3,773 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and some 27,850 wounded in action since the US-led 2003 invasion.

Source

Japanese PM candidate Vows to Stay Away from Controversial Shrine

The campaign to succeed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced his intention to resign earlier this week, is now officially down to two candidates, and their comments have already provided some clues to what Japan's post-Abe foreign policy might look like. Catherine Makino reports from Tokyo.

Yasuo Fukuda (file photo)

The former chief cabinet secretary, 71-year-old Yasuo Fukuda, appears to be the leading candidate to replace Mr. Abe. His opponent is the former foreign minister and current leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, 66-year-old Taro Aso.

Fukuda is a political moderate, who says his aim is to create warm relations with Japan's neighbors, especially China and South Korea. Aso, a conservative, has annoyed China in the past with disparaging remarks.

Japan's relations with the two countries deteriorated badly during the tenure of Mr. Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. A major reason was Mr. Koizumi's insistence on making regular visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 convicted war criminals among Japan's 2.5 million war dead. Japan's neighbors see the shrine and the visits as glorification of the country's militaristic past.

On Saturday, Fukuda said prime ministers should not visit the shrine, and said he would not do so if elected. He suggested removing the irritant of Yasukuni altogether by building a new memorial.

He says he supports an alternative place to honor the soldiers and civilians who died during World War II. He says there should be one centralized memorial, but he would need public support for this.

Aso has defended Mr. Koizumi's visits to the shrine in the past and hinted he might do the same. He was circumspect Saturday when asked what he would do if elected.

He says his thoughts are the same as he stated in a recent newspaper interview. Just because a memorial has been built, he says, does not mean that it will not disappear.

Both candidates say they will support an extension of the Japanese navy's support mission for U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan. Mr. Abe has also fought for an extension of the mission, in which Japanese ships in the Indian Ocean provide fuel for U.S. and other coalition forces.

The extension is opposed by the main opposition, the Democratic Party, which controls the upper house of the Japanese parliament. A survey by the Asahi Shimbun this week shows that the public is also opposed to the mission, with 45 percent against and only 35 percent in favor.

Both candidates say they support Japan's hard line against North Korea. Pyongyang wants normalized relations with Japan, but the Japanese have demanded more details about Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents during the Cold War.

Aso said Japan could not engage in a dialogue with North Korea "without pressure." Fukuda said Japan's basic stance should not change, but he suggested that Tokyo should try harder to explain its position to Pyongyang.

Most factions of the ruling party, of which both men are members, have already pledged their support to Fukuda, and opinion polls also show that the public prefers him.

Sources

SCO files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The SCO Group Inc., just one month after being dealt a crippling blow in its legal offensive against IBM and advocates of the freely distributed Linux operating system, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.

The small Lindon company's bankruptcy filing came on the eve of a trial -- which was to have started Monday -- over the remainder of its controversial intellectual property lawsuit against Novell Inc. News of SCO's bankruptcy sent its shares skidding more than 43 percent or 28 cents to close at 37 cents on Friday. The company had hit a five-year high of nearly $25 a share in 2003 shortly after it announced it sued IBM.

Friday's bankruptcy filing, which has the effect of staying all pending litigation including Monday's trial, came after a federal judge last month found Novell, and not SCO, owns the copyrights to Unix.

That ruling undermined SCO's long-held claims that IBM stole code from Unix and put it into Linux. SCO also was ordered to remit to Novell a portion of the fees it collected from selling Unix licenses to Microsoft and Sun Microsystems.

Monday's trial would have examined whether SCO had the authority to collect Unix license fees and how much it would have to pay Novell for licensing fees it collected over the past few years.

But SCO's bankruptcy petition came as little surprise to some, and in fact, reflects what one Linux advocate describes as "the last throes of a battle that has long since been lost."

"The bankruptcy filing wasn't a surprise to anyone. The real question is: Will there be cash to get?" said James Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium formed to foster the Linux operating system. In its bankruptcy filing, SCO listed assets of between $1 million and $100 million, and liabilities of between $1 million and $100 million.

"It's not surprising that the lion's share of SCO's debts are legal bills," Zemlin said.

The Florida law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, which is representing SCO in its legal battle against IBM and others, is listed among the Lindon company's 20 largest unsecured creditors.

Other creditors include: New York legal services company Amici LLC; SCO's former venture capital provider Canopy Group; and a slew of tech companies including Sun Microsystems, Microsoft Licensing, Veritas Software, Intel Corp., Fujitsu Services and Unisys Corp.

Another Linux Foundation executive, Don Kohn, says SCO may face the possibility of being forced into an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition to liquidate its assets depending on how aggressive its creditors and Novell are in their debt recovery attempts.

Novell declined to comment on its next move.

"We'll be evaluating our options for pursuing our interests in this matter," said Kevan Barney, spokesman for Novell.

By filing bankruptcy, SCO may buy some time to negotiate with creditors and obtain debtor-in-possession financing for its debts.

In a news release Friday, SCO said its board of directors "unanimously determined that Chapter 11 reorganization is in the best long-term interest of SCO and its subsidiaries, as well as its customers, shareholders, and employees."

"We want to assure our customers and partners that they can continue to rely on SCO products, support and services for their business critical operations," said Darl McBride, president and CEO of SCO Group.

"Chapter 11 reorganization provides the company with an opportunity to protect its assets during this time while focusing on building our future plans," he said.

Subject to court approval, SCO and its subsidiaries will use the cash flow from their consolidated operations to meet capital needs during its reorganization.

SCO has filed a series of court documents to ensure that it will be able to maintain all of its commitments to its customers including paying its vendors and retaining various advisors.

But Kohn questioned if the company will survive the bankruptcy filing in the long run.

"Even if they emerge from Chapter 11, I can't imagine anyone wanting to risk their business by buying SCO's software," Kohn said.

Zemlin said the brunt of SCO's bankruptcy filing will likely be borne by its customers and its 150-plus employees.

"SCO customers will have to decide whether to continue to use its technology, or migrate to an alternative in the long run," he said.

SCO officials declined to comment beyond the news release on Friday.

Sources

General Motors, Auto Union to Extend Labor Talks for Second Day

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, and the United Auto Workers have agreed to negotiate for a second day after the scheduled expiration of their four-year labor contract.

Negotiators for the Detroit automaker and the union have broken off tonight to rest after nearly non-stop talks yesterday and today, and will return to the UAW-GM training center in Detroit at 11 a.m. tomorrow, GM spokeswoman Katie McBride said. She declined to characterize the content or nature of the talks.

``It sounds like they have made significant progress,'' Al Benchich, UAW Local 909 president in Warren, Michigan, said in an interview earlier today after he was briefed by a negotiator. ``There are still some issues that they are apart on,'' he added, while declining to say what they were.

GM is seeking concessions, including an independent union retiree health-care fund, to help end losses of $11.4 billion since 2004. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger's goal is to preserve living standards, wages and benefits for his members.

Talks started July 23 and played out against the backdrop of $15 billion in combined 2006 losses for GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. The three U.S.-based automakers estimated they pay $25 to $30 more an hour to American factory workers than Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. do at their U.S. plants.

The contract, which was set to expire at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14, continues to be extended hour by hour, McBride said.

`Strike Target'

The Asian automakers are capturing sales and market share from GM, Ford and Chrysler, meaning the U.S. companies need fewer plants -- and fewer workers.

The UAW chose GM as the focus of negotiations, naming the company as its ``strike target'' Sept. 13. The move meant the union would concentrate on reaching an agreement with GM, then try to adapt the terms at Ford and Chrysler. Those two automakers agreed to operate under indefinite extensions of the old contract while the GM bargaining continued.

``It sounds like that if things fall apart, we're going out, and if they don't, we're not,'' Chris Sherwood, president of UAW Local 652 in Lansing, Michigan, said about 1 a.m. today. ``Right now, we're locked back down into a waiting mode.''

The UAW represents 73,454 active members and 269,614 retired members and 69,288 surviving spouses at GM, according to union figures.

``My guess is that they will settle,'' David Healy, a Burnham Securities Inc. analyst in Sierra Vista, Arizona, said yesterday before the extension was announced. ``Even if they had a short strike, they could handle it in stride, anything from a couple of weeks to a month.''

Goodyear's Model

Retiree health care emerged as a pivotal issue in the negotiations, which formally began in July. The higher labor costs for GM, Ford and Chrysler included retiree health-care obligations that totaled $114 billion at the end of 2006.

GM, Ford and Chrysler each sought to form a so-called Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA, to take those retiree obligations off company books.

The popularity of the idea was boosted by a similar fund created by Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. The tiremaker made a one-time contribution of $1 billion for a fund managed by the United Steelworkers union, under a contract approved in December.

Such an arrangement would represent a major departure for Gettelfinger and the UAW, which would be responsible for managing the fund and has traditionally shunned such risks.

Gettelfinger has declined to discuss the VEBA issue in public appearances. His silence didn't stop investors and analysts from studying how VEBAs might affect the auto industry.

Bonds, Credit-Default Swaps

Citi Investment Research, part of Citigroup Inc., upgraded GM to ``buy/speculative risk'' in a Sept. 13 report that projected the stock may climb to $57 with retiree obligations removed. GM rose 93 cents to $34.22 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, and gained 16 percent for the week.

The company's 8.375 percent bond due July 2033 rose 0.5 cent to 83.5 cents on the dollar yesterday, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the NASD. The yield is 10.19 percent.

GM credit-default swaps rose by 12 basis points to 673 basis points in New York, signaling that investors now consider the company at greater risk of defaulting on its debt. A basis point on a credit-default swap contract protecting $10 million of debt for five years is equivalent to $1,000 a year.

The last UAW strike against GM was in 1998 at two parts factories in Flint, Michigan. It forced the closing of 26 of the automaker's 29 North American assembly plants. That strike also canceled production of 318,000 cars and trucks and cut profit by $1.3 billion. Afterward, GM reorganized its labor department to help avoid future stoppages.

``Waiting is really a good thing because it means they are making progress,'' said Tony Gnesotti, a union worker at Local 909, which makes transmissions for GM vehicles. ``Hopefully it will get done.''

Sources

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