• NATIONAL

SEBI's direction to markets for unlisted terror funding bodies

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has ordered stock exchanges to keep a track of terror funding entities. The securities intermediaries are asked to inform Union home Ministry within 24 hrs, if any client's particulars match the particulars listed in United Nations "Beyond doubt" list.

The registered intermediaries have been further directed to continuously scan all existing accounts to ensure that no account is held by or linked to any of the entities. The SEBI and FIU-IND are required to be informed, the details of accounts bearing resemblance with any of the individuals/entities in the list.

No tax for Cabs to Noida

Traveling to NCR regions like Noida and Gaziabad has become much easier & cheaper. The transport departments of Delhi and U.P have decided to countersign permits of Taxis. The waiver of tax for buses & autos will be done in a phased out manner.

The cabs will have to get their permits endorsed by the two states to ply between Delhi & all the NCR towns instead of paying Rs 300 as a toll at the border, as was done earlier. With resolving of issues both the states have mutually agreed on tax waiver for the public transports.

Rise in Court fees for the commercial cases likely

The Center agreed to revise the court fees, for settlement of high commercial value litigations, paid to the judiciary. The judges of Hon'ble SC are of the view that corporate entities exploit the judiciary to get decisions without paying adequate court fees. Irrespective of the huge amount recovered through court process, the parties pay Rs 2 as court fees.

Business visa are not work Permits

The Ministry of Home Affairs has clarified that "B" visas cannot be used for employment purpose. The "B" visas are issued for the purpose of exploring trade opportunities in India any misuse of the same cannot be allowed. For a business Visa it is mandatory for the Chinese Businessmen to submit a letter from a sponsoring business organization in India to the Indian mission, along with the expenses the Chinese businessman may incur during his stay in India.

MHA has come up with detailed FAQ's with the Visa application to combat flow of foreign nationals to India with Business Visa using as a work permit.

Premji assures support for affected staff in France

Wipro Chairman Azim Premji today assured the French government that the 60-odd employees working with the company's wireless IT division in Sophia Antipolis would receive support, even as it plans to exit the wireless intelllectual property (IP) product business. Price BSE | NSE Also Read - Premji assures support for affected staff in France - Worst may be over for major Indian IT firms - 'Projects that were in limbo are getting approved' - Wipro profit up 19% to Rs 1,162 cr - Wipro rises 2% - Wipro Q2 consolidated net up 19% at Rs 1,161 cr Also Read - Volatile Sensex sheds another 156pts - Zylog Systems Q2 net dips 21% - Google offers faster, new Orkut - Simplex Infra Q2 net declines marginally - Aurobindo back in black with Rs 103 cr profit More During his discussion with Christian Estrosi, ministry of industry (Paris), Premji said: "We reiterate our commitment to France, a key growth market for Wipro. We look forward to growing our presence, serving our customers effectively and creating employment opportunities in the country."

He explained that his company had implemented exemplary social measures to support the employees at the Sophia Antipolis centre who were affected due to Wipro's worldwide exit from the IP connectivity business. These measures include support to encourage employment and entrepreneurship, as well as financial benefits.

During the discussion, Estrosi reiterated a "strong attachment to the fact that all the employees of Sophia's centre can find again a professional future as quickly as possible, through solutions of employee take over and/or of company creation carried by employees".

Talking to mediapersons during the company's quarterly results announcement this week, Wipro officials had stated that the company had come to an amicable settlement with the affected employees in France. As a part of this, Wipro had offered the IP developed at the centre to the affected employees at Sophia Antipolis free of charge. Besides, the company had offered its office space and equipment free for charge to those employees for one year.

Since the last three years, Wipro has implemented its development plan for its IT services in the French market. Christophe Martinoli, head of France, Wipro Technologies, said the company intended to double its staff base and revenues in France in the next 18 months.

• INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Pervez Musharraf "a proclaimed offender", Pak Court directs Police declare

Police is directed to declare Former-president of Pakistan as 'proclaimed offender' and confiscate his property, by a court in Pakistan.

Musharraf has been residing outside the country since mid-April. Pakistan Supreme Cort had declared the emergency imposed by Muharraf in 2007 as Unconstitutional, which had raised the possibility of his trial for treason. Over the past few months quite a few legal cases & police complaints has been filed against him.

NASA scientist arrested for espionage played a key role in Chandrayan-I: denied bail

The NASA scientist who played a key role in the Chandrayan-I mission of ISRO, arrested in the charges for espionage and trying to sell classified documents of defence to an Israeil agent was denied bail. The scientist pleaded not guilty when produced in the court. The bail was denied considering him to be of flight risk.

Obama's healthcare plan to benefit Indian IT players

Indian top-tier information technology services companies, who were banking on the recession-proof healthcare sector to tide over uncertainty, are now seeing multi-billion dollar opportunities from the healthcare space in the US, especially the Obama administration's proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. Also Read - Cognizant buys UBS captive unit for $75 mn - Infosys suggests better times ahead; Q2 net up 7.5% YoY - Infosys: Way to go - Mastek net down 35.8% Y-o-Y - Infy ups hiring target for 2010; to add 2,000 - Satyam to recruit again, even seniors Also Read - Volatile Sensex sheds another 156pts - Zylog Systems Q2 net dips 21% - Google offers faster, new Orkut - Simplex Infra Q2 net declines marginally - Aurobindo back in black with Rs 103 cr profit More The chances that US President Obama will achieve a near-universal healthcare system have dramatically improved after a lone Republican, Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, prepared to vote with Democrats for a compromise proposal. This gives Obama a much better chance of achieving the 60 votes he needs to pass a Bill in the Senate.

The plan, which proposes to create Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for all Americans by 2014 with an investment of $20 billion, can open up new vistas of opportunities for Indian IT services firms including Infosys, Wipro, TCS and MindTree in areas of EHR implementations, upgrade, integration and interoperability-related works.

"Obama's stimulus plan proposes to allocate $150 billion to healthcare. Of this, nearly $20 billion is proposed for healthcare IT alone, most of which is expected to be spent on Electronic Health Records. This allocation, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is opening up the healthcare IT market like never before. It is bringing in a host of opportunities for EHR vendors, healthcare IT service providers and hospital systems," says Rajiv Shah, Senior Vice-President, Healthcare Services SBU (strategic business unit), Wipro Technologies.

Other than the EHR implementation and upgrade, he says the proposed Act has brought new opportunities for service providers to engage more closely with EHR vendors, which can open up more strategic partnerships and alliances.

"The Obama administration's healthcare plan will benefit not just Infosys but also many other Indian IT services companies. We see this as an area of significant opportunity for the future, and that is an area where we are investing now. IT will play a significant role in bringing down the healthcare costs as proposed under the plan," agrees S Gopalakrishnan, CEO and MD of Infosys Technologies.

If the American Recovery and Reinvestment plan as proposed by Obama goes live, it will help hospitals maintain a digital record of the patients. If a patient decides to change his/her healthcare provider, the hospital can easily share the EHR with the next healthcare provider, thus ensuring portability for the EHRs.

The IT vendors will have to play a huge role in ensuring the EHR created by one provider is compatible with the IT systems used by another, in the absence of which there can be a loss of information. "Due to these fears, the patients might be restricted with regard to his choice for the right care. We are in a position to help build software to access the central database for doctors and hospitals," said Sridhar Perepa, GM, R&D, MindTree.

Traditionally, the healthcare industry was quite slow in adopting technology, a bottleneck in integrating various healthcare systems. However, defying the recent recessionary markets, the healthcare sector has remained quite steady in terms of investment, which has kept alive the hopes of most IT services firms with a little focus on the sector.

Says Gopalakrishnan: "All developed countries have a population that is aging. As the population ages, healthcare becomes very, very important - both preventive and curative."

The healthcare industry in most developed countries has been notoriously expensive, an offshoot of lower investment on technology, which is expected to force healthcare providers to increase their investment in IT.

"The healthcare industry has been very slow in adopting technology, globally. The databases are not integrated, the pharmacy does not talk to the physician - it's not integrated. There is a lot that needs to be done through automation and that's what US is planning - integrating all these things and creating a next generation technology-driven healthcare system," opines Gopalakrishnan.

The US presently suffers from a high-cost delivery healthcare model arising from high medico-legal compliance cost. The US patient is paying for treatment based on process inputs, rather than outputs linked to benefits received. Analysts feel the Obama administration's first priority will be to remove inefficiencies in the medicare delivery process, thereby reducing the cost of delivery. However, this may not directly benefit the Indian IT services providers, but opportunities will gradually trickle down in the form of long-term partnerships with the US healthcare industry.

"As the US healthcare system is generally well supported by tested technology platforms, the Obama plan on healthcare is, by itself, not likely to create significant new opportunities for the Indian IT industry in the normal course. However, if Indian technology players can build new solutions to assist the US healthcare industry to prevent leakages, improve efficiency, reduce the cost and wastage, and transform the core process of delivery, then they have a significant opportunity," said Pradip Kanakia, Head of Markets and Healthcare Services, KPMG in India.

Even IT services providers have started to realise this. The renewed focus on healthcare by the administration is also encouraging other allied IT applications (other than EHR) to take better shape. "We are also working actively on hosted EMR models, remote managed services offerings for the EHR product vendors, interoperability testing, digitisation of medical records, and integration of EHR and PHR, among others," says Rajiv Shah of Wipro Technologies.