India kicks off New Communications Satellite

India's geostationary satellite GSAT-8 was successfully put into orbit in the early hours of Saturday, 21st May, 2011. As we had reported earlier, it was launched aboard the Ariane-VA-202 rocket from Kourou space port in French Guiana in South America. The rocket belonging to European Space Agency (ESA) consortium's Arianespace, lifted off with two other payloads aboard.

The 3.1 tonne satellite lifted off at 2:11 am IST and successfully separated from the rocket's upper stage after 31 minutes, putting it in an elliptical equatorial geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) at 1,800 km above the Earth. Now under control of ISRO's (Indian Space Research Organisation) Master Control Facility (MCF) facility at Hasan, about 180 km from Bangalore, the satellite will gradually be boosted to its final geostationary orbit at an altitude of about 36,000 km above the Earth in the next couple of days and its solar power panels will be deployed.

ISRO Director, S. Satish said, "The MCF will test and monitor the health parameters of the payloads by June 1. It will be available for DTH services from July 1". As reported earlier, the GSAT-8 carries 24 high-power Ku-band transpoders for Direct-To-Home (DTH) services run by private and government operators. The satellite also has a global position system (GPS) aided geo-augmented navigation (Gagan) as an additional payload. This seeks to improve the accuracy of the widely popular U.S.A.-owned GPS global positioning and navigational system.

Recent Indian firm of TCS

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the latest Indian IT service provider to announce financial results that suggest demand for outsourced IT services is becoming more predictable. For the final three months of its latest fiscal year TCS, India's biggest IT service provider, made $2.2bn of sales which was 33.2% higher than the same period last year and 4.7% higher than the previous quarter.

Profit was £531m in the quarter, which was 25.4% higher than the same period a year ago and 2.7% more than the preceding quarter. TCS's full-year results showed sales worth $8.2bn and a profit of $1.9bn. These were just over 29% and 31% higher than the previous year, respectively. TCS now employs just under 200,000 people.

Like HCL and Infosys before it, TCS's results display that demand is stabilising after recovering over the last year. TCS's key wins in the quarter (see below) show, like HCL and Infosys, that it won services contracts from customers looking to make their operations more efficient. Similarly to Infosys, TCS shows signs of customers spending on IT to transform business.

India-Pakistan peace match

Pakistan tennis star Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi has resumed calls for a peace match on the Indian border to foster reconciliation efforts between the two South Asian rivals. Qureshi, whose doubles pairing with Indian star Rohan Bopanna has been dubbed the "Indo-Pak Express", wrote to Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani calling for "tennis for peace."

The star's father Ihtesham told AFP that Aisam had made the request as a "unique effort to promote peace". Qureshi and Bopanna, currently 17th in the ATP world doubles rankings, made headlines around the world when they reached the final of last year's US Open. "They floated the idea after the US Open. We hope Pakistan will take the initiative," said Qureshi.

Unveiling the idea last year, the pair said they wanted a net strung across the Wagah border crossing, as part of a "Stop War Start Tennis" campaign. Qureshi last year said the International Tennis Federation and Peace and Sport, a charity run by Prince Albert of Monaco, supported the idea and had also written to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

India broke off diplomatic and sporting links after Islamist gunmen launched coordinated attacks on targets in Mumbai, killing 166 people in November 2008. India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the assault. But hopes are being revived that India and Pakistan could agree to resume direct sporting ties after the prime ministers of both countries watched the World Cup cricket semi-final between India and Pakistan two weeks ago in India.

Indian actor Shiney Ahuja prisoned in rape case

 

The actor was found guilty by a special fast-track court in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay). He has maintained his innocence throughout the trial. His lawyer said he would appeal against the sentence.

Ahuja was arrested in June 2009 and charged with rape, criminal intimidation and wrongful confinement. He was granted bail in October. But the court ordered the actor to stay away from Mumbai while on bail.

Judge PM Chouhan pronounced Ahuja guilty on Wednesday despite the 20-year-old victim withdrawing her allegation of rape last year. She said she was told to complain to police by another woman who had got her the job with the actor.

Ahuja is seen as an up-and-coming actor who has made an impression in Bollywood's independent cinema scene. He has acted in films such as Life in a Metro and Gangster, and worked with a number of leading directors.

He won several awards for his 2003 debut in the critically acclaimed film Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.

Three Indian cellcos moves closer to 3G sharing deal

 

Idea Cellular is the latest Indian operator to go live with 3G services, and the long expected spectrum sharing deal with rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar could be around the corner. Idea has switched on commercial 3G services in parts of the Himachal Pradesh telecoms circle, starting with the state capital Shimla and the city of Baddi. It is offering a wide range of services including mobile TV, the Idea Mall app store and video on demand. The cellcos says it will have its 3G services available in 200 towns by the middle of April, 750 by year end and 4,000 by the close of 2012.

Its talks with Bharti and Vodafone are said to be in the final stages, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. None of the cellcos gained 3G licenses in all 22 of India's operating regions or circles, so they will need to sign roaming or spectrum sharing deals to gain national coverage. The larger players are likely to want this level of coverage, and a Bharti/Vodafone/Idea alliance would create a strong contender to the state-owned providers (MTNL has 3G licenses in Delhi and Mumbai and BSNL everywhere else).

Among the three, Bharti gained 3G spectrum in 13 circles, Idea in 11 and Vodafone in nine, although the latter was more heavily focused on large metros, and paid more than twice what Idea shelled out. The three companies already share their towers via their joint venture Indus Towers, which has about 110,000 locations. Idea may also be considering the sale of its 7,500 towers that are not part of Indus, which could raise it about $1bn towards its new roll-outs. So far, Indian operators to have launched live services are Bharti, Vodafone, Aircel, Reliance and Tata Teleservices, while BSNL and MTNL gained their franchises ahead of last year's auction and are already building out their offerings.

Indian Navy catches 16 Somali pirates

 

Indian Navy on Sunday captured 16 Somali pirates off the Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea. Defence spokesperson captain M Nambiar said in Mumbai that the Navy also rescued 16 crew members - 12 Iranians and 4 Pakistanis - of a hijacked vessel following a three-hour operation against Somali pirates.

Capt Nambiar said, INS Suvarna intercepted the pirates' mother vessel Morteza following a distress call received by the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre at 11 am from a merchant ship MV Maersk Kensington.

The Coast Guard ship ICGS Sangram was also diverted for the operation. This was the second pirate attack thwarted by the Navy and Coast guard in the Arabian sea in a fortnight. The Navy has been maintaining surveillance off the Lakshadweep islands over the several months as part of 'Operation Island Watch'.

Pakistan reveals “We welcome India's invitation”

 

Pakistan has hailed Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's invitation to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to watch the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket semifinal clash at Mohali. On March 30, India and Pakistan will face each other for the first time since 26/11 attacks in 2008.

Yesterday, in his identical formal invitations to both Mr Zardari and Mr Gilani, Dr Singh had said, "I propose to be at Mohali to watch the World Cup semi-final match between India and Pakistan to be held on 30th March." The Pakistan government will decide on the matter today. "We welcome the invitation," Presidential spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said.

"PM Gilani is out of the country and a decision will be taken once he is back from Tashkent tour," Babar added. Official sources said the invitation would also be discussed by the Foreign Office before a decision is taken.

India and Pakistan have faced each other four times before in the World Cups. The men-in-blue have emerged victorious in all the encounters played in the 1992, 1996, 1999 and 2003 editions of the tournament.