The Economic Times is reporting on rumours that Sify's top tier management executives are all set to make a hasty exit from the company.

NASDAQ-listed Sify, one of India’s leading internet, network and e-commerce providers, is staring at a management crisis with the top brass set for a sudden exit. Sources said the company’s managing director and CEO R Ramaraj and a group of top honchos have put in their papers amidst talks about growing strife with the new promoters, US-based private equity firm Infinity Capital Ventures.

Sources told ET that 20-25 top executives could be on their way out. Some of them, including Mr Ramaraj, have already put in their papers, they added. Incidentally, the move comes barely 24 hours ahead of Sify’s first quarter results and an investor conference to be addressed by Mr Ramaraj.

Source: Economic Times.

An interesting interview with Iqara's CEO where he talks about the present state of broadband in India.

One of your competitors is offering modems free and does not charge for uploads whereas you rent the modem for Rs99 per month and charge for uploads.

Today a cable modem costs around Rs1,500. We expect it to go down further. When that happens we may offer the modem free. Speaking of the free modem, the offer is only for select subscribers. Offering free modems does not make economical sense in the current situation.

Reliance infocomm appears to have won the latest round in their ongoing bandwidth wars with VSNL.

Reliance Infocomm’s international network transport and communication service providing company, Flag Telecom, has bagged Deutsche Telekom’s bandwidth contract worth $80-100 million. The contract had reportedly attracted bids from Tata Group company Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), Cable & Wireless and Singtel.

The order, which sources said is the biggest till date, is to buy bandwidth under the sea between Europe and the US for Deutsche Telekom's retail broadband business all over Europe.

link: Financial express.

Internet and telephony major Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) is planning to take on United States Trade Representative (USTR) on allegations that VSNL is creating artificial shortages of bandwidth in and out of India.

USTR, which deals with trade and anti-competitive practices, has accused VSNL of creating bandwidth crisis. In its ‘Telecommunications Trade Agreements’ report, the organisation has also alleged that VSNL was responsible for bottlenecking of bandwidth, in turn, preventing US operators from serving Indian customers.

RajIV, an Andhra Pradesh government undertaking, has received a private sector fillip following tie-ups with companies like ICICI, Hutch, Naukri.com et al. in bringing broadband connectivity to villages across the state.

"There are around 20 other companies, including seeds and fertiliser companies, that are looking at expanding their reach through Internet as well as physically through our kiosks," Myneni said. This apart, there are some organisations that are looking at tying up with the consortium to provide weather information, etc, to farmers as well.

With the announcement that Microsoft are planning on investing USD 1.7 billion into India (over four years), the total amount in terms of investment plans announced over the last 11 weeks has touched USD 10 billion. Most of these investments are scheduled to go into research and development.

Besides Microsoft [USD 1.7 billion], Cisco [USD 1.1 billion], Intel [USD 1 billion] and SemIndia with AMD [USD 3 billion] make up the bulk of the rest.

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Barreling on

Business Standard / New Delhi December 01, 2005

The economy continues to outpace forecasters, none of whom predicted either the 8.1 per cent GDP growth achieved in the first quarter, nor the 8 per cent now reported by the Central Statistical Organisation for the second (July-September) quarter. It is now more or less certain that growth in the full financial year will exceed the Reserve Bank’s upper limit forecast of 7.5 per cent. If achieved, that will take average growth in the 2003-06 period to 7.6 per cent, matching the record of 1994-97, but recorded this time with moderate inflation and without macro-economic imbalances other than the growing current account deficit (for which, blame oil). These “advance estimates” of quarterly GDP, released a month earlier than the usual schedule, must have been available to the Prime Minister ahead of public release, making him bold enough to hold out the prospect of 10 per cent growth at the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Delhi a day earlier.

Aiming to promote growth in the telecom sector, the DoT is apparently considering implementing a Baby Bell-like split of BSNL into four regional arms - North, South, East and West.

According to the proposal, the North and Western arms would merge with MTNL's Delhi and Mumbai operations respectively. All four arms along with a mobile unit - BSNL Mobile, and an infrastructure unit - BSNL Infrastructure would operate under the aegis of a parent company - BSNL Holdings.

Intel has decided to kill the Bangalore based Whitefield project. The much hyped processor would have been the first to be designed and developed entirely in India, but Intel India pretty much shot itself in the foot when it had to let 250 employees go over an audit scandal. Following the axeing of a significant portion of his department, the Whitefield project head jumped ship in August, thereby (presumably) prompting the slide.

UK based Vodafone has bought a 10.05% stake in Bharti Televentures Limited - owners of the brand Airtel - India's largest mobile operator. The deal worth USD 1.5 billion, is said to be the largest ever foreign investment in India, and marks Vodafone's second foray into the Indian market. The British giant had previously invested in RPG Cellular, but sold its stake to Aircel in 2003.

Incidentally, Vodafone's current CEO is an Indian - Arun Sarin.

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