Category Archives: Business & Economy

‘India undergoing 5 revolutions now’

Business & Economy, Education

Hyderabad :

Hinting that India was a tough country in which to do business, eminent historian RamachandraGuha said if he were an entrepreneur, he would have liked to have been born in a country like Singapore or Sweden.

Addressing graduates of the Indian School of Business on its 12th Graduation Day on Sunday, Guha referred to his book , ‘Makers of Modern India’ and said India was undergoing five dramatic revolutions ‘simultaneously’. “India is experiencing a national revolution as from being a colonised colony, the country is emerging as an independent nation. Second is the democratic revolution, as in our country we still hold general elections and not the ‘election of generals’ that takes place in neighbouring countries,” he said. “We are also going through an industrial revolution as the country is transforming from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. There is an urban revolution as people are migrating to cities in massive numbers. Finally, there is a social revolution, where India is coping up with issues of hierarchy and patriarchy,” he added. The historian urged the ISB grads to try and experience the democratic and social revolutions closely as by virtue of being MBAs, they would naturally be part of the other transformations.

Addressing the ISB pass-outs, Kishore Mahbubani, dean and professor in the Practice of Public Policy,  Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore said: “MBAs are one the major reasons due to which there are lesser number of wars in this world today as MBAs are taught to carve out a ‘win-win’ strategy while a war is always a ‘lose-lose’ strategy.” “This generation has the least prospect of dying in a war. The other good news is that countries will be able to halve global poverty by 2015 and the middle class is expanding rapidly and in Asia alone, the middle class base will expand to 1.75 billion people in 2020 from the current 500 million,” he said. On problems, he said the biggest worry was that the 193 countries in the world were no longer isolated entities and each and every action of a single country could create ripples in other nations.

ISB’s 12th Graduation Day saw 565 students of the post graduate programme class of 2013 and 59 students of the PGP-MAX class of 2012 pass out.

Referring to world trends, Mahbubani said there were ‘good news, problems and solutions’ in the present day world.

According to him, there was certain ‘good news’ for young people. “This generation has the least prospect of dying in a war. The other good news is that countries will be able to halve global poverty by 2015 and the middle class is expanding rapidly and in Asia alone, the middle class base will expand to 1.75 billion people in 2020 from the current 500 million,” he said.On problems, he said the biggest worry was that the 193 countries in the world were no longer isolated entities and each and every action of a single country could create ripples in other nations. According to him, the solution was in the strengthening the world bodies such as United Nations  and World Health Organization  that can help bind the world and address the issues of the world in a holistic manner.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Hyderabad / TNN / April 08th, 2013

Ramesh Hospitals ties up with Piramal Group

Business & Economy
Expanding footprint: P. Ramesh Babu, Managing Director of Ramesh Hospitals, flanked by Yogita Jadav, Senior Vice-President of Piramal Group's India Venture Trust, and P. Ravi Kiran, Chief Financial Officer, at a press conference in Vijayawada on Monday. – Photo: V. Raju / The Hindu
Expanding footprint: P. Ramesh Babu, Managing Director of Ramesh Hospitals, flanked by Yogita Jadav, Senior Vice-President of Piramal Group’s India Venture Trust, and P. Ravi Kiran, Chief Financial Officer, at a press conference in Vijayawada on Monday. – Photo: V. Raju / The Hindu

Vijayawada :

Ramesh Hospitals here, which specialises in cardiac care, has tied up with the Piramal group to extend its services to other towns and semi-urban areas in Andhra Pradesh. It is also constructing a 350-bed hospital in Guntur, according to Ramesh Babu, the promoter.

At a press meet here on Monday, Ramesh Babu said he had set up the hospital 25 years ago and for the first time brought advanced equipment and expert cardiac care to the city. “We have two hospitals here and are proposing to set up another one in Guntur. We also have a satellite centre at Eluru in West Godavari and we have several tele medicine centres,” he said.

With a view to extending medical services to other areas, he said the group had tied up with India Venture Advisors Pvt Ltd of the Piramal group, and the company had picked up stake in Ramesh Hospitals. However, he said the details were being worked out and he could not specify the stake at this juncture.

He said the hospital had treated over 5 lakh patients in Krishna, Guntur, Godavari, Prakasam, Khammam, and Nalgonda districts over the past 25 years. It also offered a diploma course in clinical cardiology to general physicians concentrating on research. “We have plans to set up a medical college,” he said.

P. Ravi Kiran, Chief Financial Officer of Ramesh Hospitals, said roughly Rs 50 crore would be spent on the hospital coming up at Guntur and “our ultimate aim is to increase the bed strength to 1,000 in the next four years or so.”

Yogita, Vice-President of India Advisors Pvt Ltd, said the company was managing funds close to Rs 400 crores and it had launched another healthcare and life sciences fund of Rs 500 crore recently. “Ramesh Hospitals is the first one we have tied up with in Andhra Pradesh and it will give us access to extend our services to coastal Andhra Pradesh,” she said.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> News> National / The Hindu Bureau  – sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in / Vijayawada, April 08th, 2013

Mobile app to combat film piracy launched

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Uncategorized

A mobile phone application that helps combat film piracy designed by Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce with the support of the US Consulate General, was launched by US Ambassador to India Nancy J Powell here today.

The application called ‘Indian Movie Cop'(IMC), available as a free download on Mac’s App Store, provides movie fans with a one-stop shop of movie trailers, plot synopses, theatres and show times and educates them about piracy and enables them to report piracy in real time in one of eight Indian languages.

It provides tools to identify, report and prevent piracy, and those users alerting about the piracy will be rewarded, an official said.

As per a Northbridge Capital Asia report, the Indian film industry estimated to be worth Rs 14,400 crore produces around 1,050 films every year, but loses 14 per cent of its revenue to video piracy, Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police V Dinesh Reddy said.

“About 90 per cent of pirated DVDs of films available in Indian market are a result of illegal camcorder recording in theatres,” the DGP said.

Veteran film maker Daggubati Rama Naidu said, “As a film industry, we have been waging a war against piracy for many years. Indian Movie Cop is a significant step to producing long-term results and bringing all stakeholders together.”

Uday Singh, managing Director of Motion Picture Association (India) said that the new mobile application will help law enforcement officials and movie going audiences to understand the negative impact of content theft and help build a platform for respecting content creators and owners.

CID Additional Director General of Police T Krishna Prasad said information on piracy given by the movie goers through the IMC to the AP Film Chamber of Commerce will be processed before it is taken up as an actionable intelligence.

“That information has to be processed before we take an actionable intelligence. In order to ensure convictions (of the accused), we will be looking for admissible evidence in the form of IP addresses and transfer of technology,” he explained.

source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> PTI Stories> Entertainment> News / Press Trust of India / Hyderabad, April 07th, 2013

Fashion tech beats other top courses

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy
Picture for representational purpose only. AFP
Picture for representational purpose only. AFP

Vijayawada: 

Thinking of a secure career, students have always been opting for the time-honoured courses like engineering, medicine, management and law. Of late, the trend seems to be changing as the students are opting for unconventional courses like fashion designing, textile technology, hotel management and many other courses that are available in the city.

Many colleges have come up offering courses in fashion designing and hotel management in the last two years in the city which are roping in a good number of students from the city and even other parts of the district.

Among these courses, fashion designing course is an important and most-opted course by the students where even the engineering and management graduates are choosing this course as job opportunities in their streams are considerably less.

There are as many as four fashion technology colleges in the city offering bachelor of sciences, diploma and PG diploma in many fashion designing-related courses. A PG Diploma student P. Saritha of Samana Institute of Fashion Technology and also a team member of the movie Kevvukeka costume designing crew, said that she has opted for this course out of interest and there is a lot of scope for career in the field. She said, one can produce their own products and women can come up as entrepreneurs from this field.

P. Nilima, another fashion designing student who hails from Machilipatnam, said this is not just an alternative career but is one of the ongoing courses that has good placements and a vast number of job oppurtunities all over the country. One who cannot stay away in Hyderabad or such cities can reside in Vijayawda as the colleges here are even capable of referring students to the film industry, which is one of the biggest gateways for fashion graduates.

Samana Moosavi, CEO of SIFT, said 40 per cent of the students in their college are from engineering and management backgrounds who opt for one year PG diploma so that they can step into fashion industry where plenty of oppurtunities are available, unlike in the engineering and management streams.

N. Malla Reddy, a teaching faculty in a hotel management college, said that students from rural areas are also very much keen to join such courses as placement oppurtunities are vast in this field.

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / by  B. Tharun Kumar / April 07th, 2013

Realty’s Famous 5

Business & Economy, Leaders

Realty5HF17apr2013

As children, we all dream big and, often collectively. But how many of us do really realise our childhood dreams? Well, here is a group of childhood buddies who grew up to realise their dream them together. And how.

Ajay Salike, chairman Armsburg properties heads a firm that’s the result of what a group of five friends once dreamt.

Sallike narrates an interesting tale behind the success story of Armsburg. “The name of the company is derived from the initial letters of our names,” he says.

The ‘A’ in Armsburg somes from Ajay Salike himself, whereas its second initial ‘R’ stands for Rajendra Malve. ‘M’ is for Madhusudan Poddtura whereas ‘S’ represents both Sanjay Salike and Sunil Linga.

And what does the ‘burg’ of Armsburg mean? “That’s a German word for a home”, says Salike. “All five of us wanted to form a venture during our childhood days.” In early 2000, the city’s real estate sector showed a lot of promise and they decided to make a foray into this sector.

But how have these five friends been investing in the company, running it and sharing profits among themselves?

“All five put in equal amounts of money. As far as sharing of profit is concerned, it is also done in the same fashion.”

But Hyderabad’s real estate sector went literally for a tailspin for around four years, after 2000. So, how did the Famous Five cope up with those trying times.

“We simply reduced the size of the units we owned but we never compromised on the quality,” says Sallike.

And, before we forget, on Ugadi, his company is also gave out Alto cars to each of the customers who booked a flat in their ongoing project, Armsburg Myspace — a two-block residential project located near Suchitra Circle.

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Business/Tech / DC / April 14th, 2013

MakeMyDabba unlocks culinary skills of homemakers

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Science & Technology

Hyderabad :

Like several homemakers, Aruna Chaparala, who lives in Chandanagar that abuts the IT hub, cooks great food. But all these years, her culinary skills are by and large confined to her family and close kin. But she has just unlocked her skills.

She has become a Partner Chef with a tech start-up that finds a business model in tapping the skill hitherto not valued much outside confines of the house.

Founded by two techies, MakeMyDabba.com targets to address the need for proper dining places for techies and other migrant population in urban areas.

“When you live in a new city, you long for your ethnic food. There are not many options available, say, if someone wants Tamil, Gujarati or Kannada. On the other hand, you have thousands of homemakers who cook wonderful food. We find an opportunity here in this social enterprise,” Akkiraju Bhattiprolu, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of MakeMyDabba.com, told Business Line.

For homemakers, they can cook a few more meals, depending on orders on hand and have it delivered at the customer’s place.

“We have spread the word through pamphlets, explaining our concept. We could rope in 65 Partner Chefs (The term they use for those who supply food) and about 200 customers. We are using social platforms such as Facebook to spread the word,” he said.

This is not the first start-up founded by Akkiraju. He along with his Bay Area (San Francisco) friend Rohit Mathur, have founded YAssume (which throws up meaningful contacts to quicken the marketing operations) but shut it down recently.

HOW IT WORKS

Using information technology tools, the Web site throws possible dining options from Partner Chefs near to your place. A customer can try food from the vendors near by at a discounted price. “If you like it, you can order food (lunches or dinners) for a certain period,” Akkiraju said.

Rohit Mathur, the other founder and Chief Executive Officer, is moving back to India to work on expansion to other cities. “We are getting enquiries from places like Bangalore and Gurgaon. This is a testimony for our business idea – there is a need for ethnic food,” Akkiraju said.

The start-up has begun talks for funding from institutional investors. “We are planning to sign a deal soon,” he said.

kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Industry> Info-Tech / by K. V. Kurmanath / Hyderabad, April 16th, 2013

Call for development of more software products

Business & Economy, Science & Technology

 

Honorary secretary IMA Visakhapatnam P.A. Ramani launching the mobile version of a software product Online Medical Record Vault by Sajix Incorporation in Visakhapatnam on Thursday. Also seen are GVMC Chief Medical Officer Ramana Murthy and vice president of Sajix Arun Kharidehal.--/ Photo C.V.SUBRAHMANYAM / The Hindu
Honorary secretary IMA Visakhapatnam P.A. Ramani launching the mobile version of a software product Online Medical Record Vault by Sajix Incorporation in Visakhapatnam on Thursday. Also seen are GVMC Chief Medical Officer Ramana Murthy and vice president of Sajix Arun Kharidehal.–/ Photo C.V.SUBRAHMANYAM / The Hindu
Online medical record vault portal is the first launch of a software product from a company based in the city in the last two years and hope more such products are launched from the companies here, president of Visakhapatnam Information Technology Association Peter Schneeberger said.

Speaking at a function organised by VITA to launch the portal by GVMC Chief Medical Officer Ramana Murthy here on Thursday, Mr. Schneeberger said it was indeed remarkable especially when most IT companies in the city are into service. Going for a product requires tremendous effort in terms of planning and implementation, he added congratulating Sajix Incorporation and its vice-president (Business Development) Arun Kharidehal.

Noting that security of personal data is a key issue, Mr. Schneeberger urged the company to take steps to secure the data and also suggested that it be integrated with the hospital records. Mr. Kharidehal explained that the product complies with the security protocols specified by the US Government.

Sajix launched – iHelix Personal Health Record Portal called OMR Vault – at a function organised here.

The portal enables the registered users to upload their personal medical data and records and access it from anywhere.

Access to a database of medical records will help the doctors analyse their work and also improve their diagnosis of different diseases, honorary secretary IMA Visakhapatnam PA Ramani said. GVMC CMO commended the company for developing the first online medical record registry in the city and hoped that it would go a long way in help improving medical care. He urged the company to create awareness on the product among the common man.

All the employees of VITA are going to register on the portal, Mr. Kharidehal explained.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Visakhapatnam / by Special Correspondent / April 05th, 2013

USFDA lifts import alert on Aurobindo Pharma’s unit

Business & Economy, Science & Technology, World Opinion

Hyderabad :

The US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has lifted an import alert on one of Aurobindo Pharma’s units here. “The USFDA, in a Web site update, has lifted the import alert for non-sterile products manufactured in Auro Pharma’s Unit-VI cephalosporin facility based in Hyderabad,” the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange on Thursday.

The removal of the alert will help the Hyderabad-based company to resume the exports of nine products to the US market. Exports of these items were stopped after the alert on the facility imposed in February 2011. Prior to the alert, the Unit had registered annual sales of $33 million. Aurobindo Pharma’s scrip gained 11.67 per cent on the BSE on Thursday to end at Rs 145.90.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home / by The Hindu Bureau / Hyderabad, March 28th, 2013

Hyatt now at Gachibowli

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, World Opinion

HyattHF12apr2013

Hyatt Hotels and Resorts has announced the re-branding of Ista Hyderabad to Hyatt Hyderabad Gachibowli, as of April 1, 2013.

Located in Gachibowli, the hotel is located 20 minutes from the international airport.

Hyatt Hyderabad Gachibowli features166 rooms, that include nine suites, fitted with poolside or garden views.Spread over 16 acres, the hotel is set amongst beautifully landscaped gardens, complete with foliage, natural rock formations and water bodies.

Luxury rooms offer a spacious outdoor private balcony while suites are expansive with a private garden area, separate meeting area and a pantry.

The hotel’s award winning all-day dining restaurant, “Collage” offers international cuisine with buffet options. The Lounge Bar is set with a waterfall in the background and is the ideal place for an informal meeting, afternoon tea or a post dinner drink to the music of a live pianist.Deori offers elements of traditional Andhra cuisine and the age-old Nizamigharana food, all presented in a contemporary setting. With live stage performances by the in-house Ghazal player, it offers a true “Nawaabi” experience.

The hotel also has a Spa and Fitness Center, with six beautifully appointed treatment rooms, a hair salon, luxurious eucalyptus steam and sauna facilities and a whirlpool and a fitness centre equipped with modern cardio and resistance machines and a temperature-controlled outdoor swimming pool.

Reservations may be made by visiting www.hyatt.com or by calling on 040 48481234.For anymore information visit hyderabad.hyatthotels.hyatt.com.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express /  Home> Cities> Hyderabad / Express Features – Hyderabad / April 03rd, 2013

‘Coconut cultivation has potential in coastal Andhra’

Business & Economy, Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature

Hyderabad, (PTI):

Andhra Pradesh offers tremendous potential for coconut cultivation on over 5 lakh hectare of land from the existing 1.1 lakh hectare, according to a top official of the Coconut Development Board.

There is enormous potential for growing coconut in the entire coastal Andhra Pradesh and many other districts. The present area under coconut cultivation is around 1.1 lakh hectare and there is scope to grow coconut on around 5-5

source:  http://www.ptinews.com / Home> Business / by Staff Writer / by PTI / Hyderabad, April 03rd, 2013