Falling call rates due to rising competition pulled Bharti Airtel&rsquo;s net profit down eight per cent for the fourth quarter ended March 31. The fall, the first in three years, comes at a time when the country&rsquo;s top mobile service provider is looking to quickly integrate its $9 billion purchase of Zain Telecom&rsquo;s African assets &mdash; as early as mid-May.

Bharti Q4 profit falls 8%

Business Standard

US-based telecom services provider AT&amp;T has sold a 6.02 per cent stake in Pune-headquartered Tech Mahindra (TM) to India&rsquo;s largest life insurance firm, government-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), for an estimated Rs 560 crore.

LIC buys 6% AT&T stake in TechM

If everything goes well as planned, India will be ready to have internationalised domain names (IDN) on the internet in seven Indian languages &mdash; Hindi, Bangla, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Gujarati &mdash; by next year. The department of information technology (DIT), Government of India will submit its proposal by next month to The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names &amp; Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organisation responsible for managing the internet's domain name system, including IP address space assignments based in California, USA.

Net domain names in Indian languages

Hyderabad-based technology solutions provider Infotech Enterprises Limited (IEL) has finalised a master agreement with Westinghouse Electric Company for the provision of engineering services in India. Westinghouse is a group company of Toshiba Corporation engaged in the supply of nuclear plant products and technologies.

Infotech to provide engineering services to Westinghouse

The Kerala IT department has floated request for proposals (RFP) for undertaking master planning for the second phase of Infopark Kochi.

Kerala invites RFP for Infopark II

Andhra Pradesh is targeting to achieve an export turnover of Rs 70,000 crore and create direct IT employment for 125,000 people by 2015, according to state information and technology and communications (IT&amp;C) principal secretary K Ratna Prabha.

AP aims at Rs 70,000 cr IT exports by 2015

Bids for pan-India 3G spectrum inched closer to the Rs 10,000 crore mark, as telecom operators' renewed interest in metros led to the prices jumping at the end of the 18th day of auction today.

Bid crosses 9,500 cr on 18th day of 3G auction

Press Trust of India

The Centre is understood to be doing a re-think on a Ministry of Home Affairs&rsquo;s tender on developing a criminal tracking system which was expected to be awarded to Wipro Technologies, India&rsquo;s third-largest IT services firm. The project, in its entirety, is estimated to be around Rs 2,000 crore.

Wipro may lose out on criminal tracking project

Foreign exchange gains and cost efficiencies helped Patni Computer Systems to post a two-fold rise in net profit at Rs 157 crore (India GAAP) for the first quarter ended March 31, compared to Rs 76.5 crore in the year-ago period.

Patni net doubles

Higher taxes and incremental working capital related to the acquisition of Symphony Marketing Solutions pulled down the net income of Genpact, India&rsquo;s largest business process outsourcing (BPO) company, by 6.01 per cent for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010. Net income stood at $28.1 million (Rs 125 crore) against $29.9 million (Rs 133 crore) in the year-ago period.

Genpact net dips 6.3%, maintains guidance

India&rsquo;s largest business process outsourcing (BPO) company, Genpact, posted a six per cent fall in its net income for the first quarter ended March 31, besides a foreign exchange loss of $0.7 million (Rs 3.1 crore). N V Tyagarajan, COO, however, tells Kirtika Suneja there is no cause for concern.

'We are getting to an end-to-end market in India'

MindTree, the Bangalore-based information technology (IT) services provider, has bagged the application development services (ADM) segment of the Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identification (UID) project, renamed as &lsquo;Aadhaar&rsquo;. This is the first of the many IT projects that has come up for bidding till date.

MindTree pips Accenture, IBM to bag first UID project

After getting a new name, 'Aadhaar', and a new logo, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has invited applications from three top advertising agencies &mdash; Lintas, Percept and Rediffusion &mdash; to create a branding strategy. Around Rs 10 crore would be allocated for this.

UIDAI may finalise ad agency today

Telecom operators and analysts predict that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will fall short of the Rs 35,000 crore target from the auction of third generation (3G) and broadband wireless access (BWA) licences by Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore on account of waning investor appetite and heightened risk perceptions.

Pranab may fall short of 3G auction revenue

Three key accessories &mdash; battery pack, chargers and hands-free headphones &mdash; can now be mass-produced in India at lower prices.

Cheaper connect to cell phones

L Maruti Sanker, managing director of Hyderabad-based 7Seas Technologies, has always been an avid gamer. What started with floppy-based games like Prince of Persia, Dave and Mario, and the Dancing Bush on UK-based online portal Miniclip.com during his BTech days, grew into more than just an off-hour activity.

Learning the game of entrepreneurship

If the rows of international games and music titles at the local store become cheaper, remember to thank Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

All 'play' and less 'duty' makes Budget fun for media

LG&rsquo;s Chocolate BL40, an addition to its premium Black Label range, is by far the next best option after Apple iPhone. You have to give it to LG for designing a screen that makes images look so crisp &mdash; a monster resolution of 345 x 800 pixels helps.

It's either bold or chocolate for smartphone fans

Infinite Computer Solutions has bagged a contract from mobile handset maker Motorola to further develop and support Motorola&rsquo;s short messaging service (SMS) and multi-media messaging service (MMS) messaging platform.

Infinite bags Motorola order

Bangalore-based Lakshmi Access Communications Systems Private Limited (LACS), a wireless infomedia services (WIS) division of Devraj Group of Companies, which is planning to launch its touch media device (TMD) and touch infotainment device (TID) across the country, is expecting an over 15 per cent sales for the devices in Gujarat. Erstwhile Sagar Info Distributors Private Limited, LACS had evolved from plain IT distribution towards WIS (for enterprise and retails segments).

LACS expects over 15% sales of TMD/TID in Gujarat

US-based human capital management software provider SilkRoad Technologies Inc is scouting for joint venture (JV) partners in India to tap into the country&rsquo;s job market.

SilkRoad scouts for JV partners in India

Tech News: Latest Techn news & updates on Smart Watches, Gaming Console, iOS updates with launch date and price straight from Business Standard.com.

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