EFFORTS ON TO DEVELOP IT INDUSTRY IN BIHAR

Salem
The Hindu

The Bihar Government has initiated efforts to develop Information Technology industry in the State taking Tamil Nadu as model, its Information Technology Minister Anil Kumar said.

After visiting the Vinayaka Missions University (VMU) here on Monday, Anil Kumar told media persons that the Bihar Government had taken up infrastructure development projects including construction of IT towers to attract IT companies to invest in the State and create employment opportunities for the youth.

The Minister also said the government was making efforts to promote technical education in the State as a large number of students from Bihar were going out every year to pursue higher education in other States.

POLARIS SETS UP INSURANCE CONCEPT LAB WITH MICROSOFT

Chennai
The Economic Times (Delhi edition) The Hindu

Software services and product firm Polaris Software Lab on Tuesday said it has set up an insurance concept lab in partnership with Microsoft. The lab, which would work out of the Polaris campus in Chennai, would help build insurance solutions to improve customer acquisition, retention and performance monitoring for the insurance industry. It will use Microsoft's technology know-how for the same.

INFOPRINT FORMS ALLIANCE WITH SAMANTHU BUSINESS FORMS

Bangalore
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)

InfoPrint Solutions, a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, on Tuesday announced its alliance with print service bureau Samanthu Business Forms for deploying its printers to telecom firms in South India. Samanthu has acquired InfoPrint's 4100 MD1 and MD2 printers and will deploy the InfoPrint 4100 to service the telecom, government and global logistics clients at its Bangalore headquarters.

YAHOO UNVEILS NEW TOOLBAR FOR WEB BROWSING

San Francisco
Financial Chronicle

Yahoo unveiled a new toolbar on Monday that will give Web users access to their e-mail as they surf the Web, the latest step in its strategy to make its products more open to users and third parties.

Firefox, Yahoo, Microsoft and others make toolbars - small strips that sit atop Web browsers - to give users quicker and easier access to Internet functions.

The Yahoo toolbar available later this week will allow users access to a selected group of programs from the toolbar without leaving the page they are on.

For example, users get notifications of new e-mails on the toolbar and can open them. The Internet company also showed off a newly styled in-box, which combines social networking functions and also allows users access to third party programs.

Yahoo has about 275 million users of its e-mail. Its portal relies on advertising and the company says it has an audience of more than 500 million consumers.

As is usual with Yahoo, the changes are being phased in slowly and later will be rolled out for all of its users.

The company is continuing to pursue its open strategy as it is in the middle of a transition. It is looking for a new chief executive to replace Jerry Yang, who has resigned. It also has notified 1,500 employees that they are being laid off.

NABARD ROPES IN KPMG TO PREPARE INTEGRATED IT SYSTEM

Sanjay Jog, Mumbai
The Financial Express

The state-run National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), which has firmed up a plan to reposition itself to take on challenges in the current economic situation, has roped in KPMG as its IT/management consultant.

KPMG will study in detail all existing business processes (operational and administrative) and the flow of information across these business processes. The use of IT in the business will be studied both in business transactions and in Management Information System. The targeted requirements will be mapped in IT systems and then gap analysis will be carried out.

KPMG will suggest a feasible integrated IT system for Nabard, which proposes to set up direct financing subsidiary and an independent micro finance unit. Besides, Nabard plans to set up independent supervisory board as at present 89 of 402 cooperative banks are licensed. Further, it proposes to segregate Nabcons (Nabard Consultancy) as an independent subsidiary. Nabard may hive off Nabcons as an independent subsidiary once gross income touches Rs 40 crore.

Nabard sources told FE on Tuesday that it has sought suggestions from its employees to help KPMG for recommending integrated IT system for Nabard. "This is an excellent opportunity for us to have a re-look at our business processes and critically analyse the systems and procedures currently prevalent in our organisation. We must come up with views and suggestions on simplifying / rationalising the systems and procedures keeping in view efficient delivery and cost reduction. Further, we may also identify the redundant processes which can be dispensed with, without adversely affecting our main functions," Nabard said in its missive to employee.

Nabard’s decision to go in for an integrated IT system is crucial when the direct financing subsidiary is under consideration as ground level credit (GLC) flow is expected to grow from Rs 1,96,000 crore in 2008 to Rs 11,17,000 crore by 2018.