Category Archives: Business & Economy

Ex-IAS man to oversee digitization of records

Business & Economy, Records, All, Science & Technology

Bangalore:

The high court on Friday appointed retired IAS officer V Balasubramaniam as the court commissioner to oversee indexing , scanning and digitization of revenue records.
This includes the task of crosschecking the correctness of the data furnished. Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh passed the order while asking the authorities — DCs/Acs and revenue department — to extend all help, like police protection to the senior bureaucrat, at the time of field work/survey.
Balasubramaniam, who appeared in the court, gave his consent for the job. The judge said the government could lay hands on private lands based on public purposes and suitability so that misuse or abuse of discretion could be eliminated. Listing out the benefits of digitization of revenue records, he said having statistics of government land available in each village/taluk/district will help government take timely action if there is encroachment of land. It will also help in making use of land for industrialization /urbanization.
The court has fixed October 16 as the next date of hearing while granting time till October 8 to the authorities to complete the process of indexing/scanning and digitization of revenue records.

Order on hospital stayed

Adivision bench headed by Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen has stayed the June 30 government order handing over the 100-bed General Hospital at Bailhongal in Belgaum to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College run by Karnataka Lingayat Education Society.  The petitioners, Rafeeq Mugud Sab Badiger and two others, said the people are happy with the services and handing over of the hospital was done upon a representation submitted to the CM on November 17, 2011, by an MLA representing Bailhongal constituency.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Bangalore / TNN / August 18th, 2012

Cricketer Srinath inaugrates Generic Drug Store at K.R.Hospital, Mysore

Business & Economy, Sports

Caption: Former international cricketer Javagal Srinath, who inaugurated the Janatha Bazar Generic Drug store at K.R. Hospital in city this morning, is seen District in-charge Minister S.A. Ramdas and MUDA Chairman L. Nagendra.

Mysore, Aug. 14- Former international cricketer Javagal Srinath today inaugurated the Janatha Bazar Generic Drug store in K.R. Hospital premises, adjacent to Dhanvantri Road.

Speaking on the occasion, Srinath said it is important to create awareness among the public to take preventive measures against diseases rather than looking for cure.

Srinath also stressed on the need for more such units.

Medical Education and District In-Charge Minister S.A. Ramdas, in his address, said this is the third generic drug store in the State after Bangalore and Hubli.

This drug store is aimed at providing medicines to the patients at affordable prices, he said and added that he had held talks with 14 major pharmaceutical manufacturers for supplying drugs at discounted rates.

Medicines prescribed by private practitioners too will be available at the drug store, he said and added that medicines will be distributed to orphanages, old age homes and rehabilitation centres through this drug store.

The Minister later performed guddali puja for the Outpatients Dispensary Building to be constructed in the K.R. Hospital premises. The programme was jointly organised by Mysore Medical College & Research Institute (MMC&RI) and Karnataka State Consumers’ Co-operative Federation, Bangalore.

MMC& RI Director Dr. Geetha K. Avadhani, Medical Education Principal Secretary Ramesh Zalki, Dr. B.G. Sagar, Dr. B. Krishnamurthy and others were present.

source: http://www.StarofMysore.com / General News / August 14th, 2012

‘Jackfruit can be next major export’

Business & Economy, Nature

Jackfruit, often perceived to be an inferior crop, could be the State’s next major export. The fruit, if processed properly, has the potential to earn the State a lot of revenue, said activist Shree Padre.

Speaking at the Horticulture Day celebrations at Lalbagh on Wednesday, he explained various initiatives taken across the world in exploiting commercial value of the fruit. He suggested the Horticulture department to popularise the crop.  “The disadvantages are its overwhelming scent, size and difficulty in processing it,” he said.

But, adoption of modern technology can give it a push.  As part of the series of lectures organised for the day, K Amaranarayana, secretary to deputy chief minister, explained the methods adopted in various countries for making the City greener.

Based on his studies of green architecture in London and Libya, he said: “A majority of Libya is a desert. Making use of the little resources, the country has planted indigenous varieties along the roads.”  He said if the community is roped in, the results could be manifold.

source:  http://www.DeccanHerald.com / Home> City / DH News Service / Bangalore, August 09th, 2012

Sequoia Capital invests $4.6M in online clinic management platform Practo

Business & Economy, Science & Technology

Bangalore-based Practo Technologies Pvt Ltd., a web-based clinic management software developer, has raised Rs 25 crore (around $4.6 million) from Sequoia Capital in a Series A round of funding. Practo’s flagship product is Practo Ray, a web-based software tool which provides automated appointment scheduling and storage of healthcare records including X-rays, files, prescriptions and billing. Practo’s platform currently manages 10,000 appointments per day, with 8,000 doctors at 5,000 dental, wellness and other healthcare centres across India.

The money raised will be used to launch its various products globally and expand Practo’s 80-member team to around 350 over the next two years.

Shailendra Singh, managing director of Sequoia Capital India, said in a statement, “In a short span of time, Practo Ray has become the preferred platform for thousands of doctors to book appointments, issue prescriptions and store patient records, and millions of patients can now access their appointments and health records online or through their mobile devices.

“We believe Practo has the potential to become the dominant Cloud-based healthcare platform in India and we are excited about the new services that Practo is planning to launch on top of the robust platform it has already built,” he added.

Practo has recently launched Practo.com that helps patients find doctors and connect with them through their dedicated online interface. It provides customised search options and shares details on doctors and clinics. In addition, the company has also launched an online API for partners to launch other online services that doctors and clinics may use. Several pharma companies and healthcare vendors are currently building applications on the Practo API.

Practo’s founder Shashank ND said in a statement, “The idea to create Practo Ray – our online software for clinic management, came out of our understanding of the doctor’s pain in managing patient records, scheduling appointments, etc. This prompted us to initiate an easy-to-use, technology-driven service that allows efficient patient care.”

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)

source: http://www.techcircle.vccircle.com / Home> Internet / by Nandita Das / July 30th, 2012

Vijay Mallya-led United Spirits Ltd shifts focus to premium brands

Business & Economy

The Vijay Mallya-led United Spirits Ltd (USL), the largest spirits company in the world in terms of numbers, has initiated a total overhaul of its business structure, with a strategic shift in focus from mass selling brands to premium brands.

The focus has shifted to premium brands that would bring in a larger profit margin per case, almost 3.3 times more than the regular segment. The new approach to the business appears to be a leaf taken from the manufacturer of Royal Stag and Blender’s Pride whisky, French spirit behemoth Pernod Ricard, USL’s nearest rival.

For USL, the alarm bell rang in FY11 when Pernod Ricard, whose sales were around onefifth of USL’s, made a profit of about Rs 500 crore when the United Spirits Ltd’s profit figure hovered around Rs 400 crore.

Pernod Ricard India has led the way for the industry by generating handsome profits, from small volumes. The primary focus of Pernod’s business strategy is to focus on premium brands such as Royal Stag and Blender’s pride whiskies. The French company’s market share is less than one-fifth of USL, which controls 55% of the 250-million cases Indian spirit market.

An industry source said the French company generates profit of nearly Rs 350 per case while the USL’s average profit per case is around Rs 200 per case.

“USL’s premium brands share of the company’s overall contribution pie is at 55% today and expected to be up by another 5% by the end of this year. This is a significant increase from just 9% in 2005 and is an outcome of sustained premiumisation focus.

Specifically, we have brands cross-lined to Pernod’s brands — pricing of Signature is at par with Blender’s Pride nationally while McDowell’s No.1 Platinum is cross-lined with Royal Stag,” a senior USL official said.

It is the competitor’s success in generating larger profits from smaller volumes that had triggered off a new thought process within the top management of the USL. The focus has shifted to striking a fine balance between volume and margin.

The strategy, christened “premiumisastion”, has been changing the face of the group from one identified with its mass selling brands such as Bagpiper, the largest selling spirit brand in the world until recently, to premium brands such as Mcdowell No. 1 Reserve, Mcdowell No. 1 Platinum whisky, Mcdowell Celebration rum, Mcdowell No. 1 Caribou rum , Mcdowell No. 1,  Royal Challenge,  Signature Premier, Antiquity etc.

source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> News> News By Industry> Cons. Products / by M. Padmakshan, ET Bureau / July 30th, 2012

Wipro Technologies Wins Large Multi-Year Contract from Royal Philips Electronics

Business & Economy, Science & Technology, World Opinion

Selected as Strategic Global Prime Partner

Wipro Technologies, the Global Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing business of Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT) today announced that the company has signed a large multi-year contract with Royal Philips Electronics as their Global Prime Partner in its Transformational program, towards enabling enhanced business growth and profitability.

As a part of this strategic global engagement, Wipro will work with Philips on their transformational roadmap towards optimizing and enhancing all their business processes of Idea to Market, Market to Order and Order to Cash across a wide spectrum of technology enabling platforms that include Integration, User Interaction and Security & Authorization. Wipro will also be the System Integrator for key initiatives across these Philips’ businesses and platforms.

Jeroen Tas, Chief Information Officer, Royal Philips Electronics said, “As Philips continues to drive performance improvements across its businesses, we would like to reiterate our commitment to invest in innovation and customer intimacy that are at the heart of our transformational Program. We are pleased to bring on board a valuable and like-minded partner like Wipro to help us drive our vision of sustainable growth and profitability.”

N S Bala, Senior Vice President and Global Head – Manufacturing and High-Tech, Wipro Technologies said, “We are delighted to have been chosen as a strategic global Prime Partner by Philips in their transformational journey. Wipro will leverage its strong understanding of the business domain and capability in new and emerging technologies, to enable Philips become more agile, deliver innovative products and solutions to its customers, faster and strengthen their leadership position in the market place.”

Wipro Technologies offers strategic business and technology solutions and advises customers on Business Process Optimization & Engineering, cutting across diverse functional and engineering areas such as Supply Chain Management (SCM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions (MES). It also enables intuitive man-to-machine interactions, provides industry insights using analytics and drives innovation across intelligent – connected devices for better customer experiences.

source: http://www.wipro.com / press release / Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

MTR still under-leveraged brand: Sanjay Sharma

Business & Economy

Five years after Bangalore-based MTR Foods was acquired by Norwegian foods group  Orkla Brands International  for about $100 million (approx Rs 430 crore then), the Indian breakfast mixes, spices and snacks maker is in no hurry to bring in Orkla’s products such as frozen pizzas and chocolates to India. In Delhi to announce the launch of meal mixes under the Rasoi Magic brand, MTR Foods CEO  Sanjay Sharma  told ET that the eight-decades-old firm is looking for local buys and doubling spends to compete with rivals like Britannia. Excerpts:

Orkla operates in many categories like frozen pizzas, chocolates and confectionery. But we have decided not to bring in Orkla brands into India, at least in the next few years. That’s because we believe MTR is still quite an under-leveraged brand. We need to create a lot more value for MTR first.

But other processed foods companies like Britannia and McCain are betting big on packaged processed foods…

We will invest in these categories depending on how they evolve. Take frozen foods-maybe 0.1% consumers in India buy frozen foods. The category has a long, long way to go. Compare that with spices-branded spices itself is a Rs 8,000-crore business. This is the big space for us right now. Meal mixes is another category we are bullish on. It is nascent-at about Rs 60 crore now, but we expect it to triple by 2014. Internal estimates suggest that the category can grow at a CAGR of 45% in the 2012-14 period.

Breakfast mixes-one of your core categories-has become crowded with multinationals, Indian brands and private labels. How are you coping?

We are going aggressive on advertising, for one. We’ve doubled ad spends. From a ratio of 8% to sales last year, our spends have gone up to 16% of sales.

You’ve recently forayed into packaged snacks in Bangalore. When are you scaling up the category?

We are testing ready-to-eat ethnic snacks in Karnataka. The category is still under development. Our aim is to develop ethnic snacks for specific markets. A pan-India presence in ethnic snacks could take us 5 years.

source: http://www.articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com / Home> Interview> India / by Ratna Bhushan / ET Bureau / July 25th, 2012

Karnataka govt to start integrated medicine-and-music therapy in hospitals

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

Bangalore:

Think about delivering a baby while hearing music of your choice in labour room, soon it will be a reality in hospitals run under the Medical Education Department of Karnataka. The government on Monday announced its plan to open the Centers of Integrative Medicine (CIM) in four hospitals in Karnataka including two hospitals in Bangalore.

Announcing the project, Medical Education minister S A Ramdas said that the pilot project will be initiated in Bangalore Medical College and Research Center, Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences, Hubli and a Music therapy center at Vanivilas Hospital in Bangalore and Cheluvamba hospital in Mysore

Hospitals attached to the Bangalore Medical college like Victoria General and Vani Vilas and the KIMS in Hubli will operate Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy and Homeopathy to treat the patients of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, HIV, Cancer and Infertility, said the minister.

“Karnataka is the first State in India to introduce integrative medicines in mainstream government hospitals. An expert committee including a physician, a psychiatrist and qualified practitioner of integrated medicines will train a team of 37 doctors and therapists in 4 hospitals from August 14 this year. The OPD will start from November 1, 2012,” said Ramdas.

Government will spend Rs. 1.25 crore in center every year to start the project. The decision to start  alternative medicine therapies in mainstream government hospitals was taken after a five-member committee appointed by the ministry submitted a report last week.

“Yoga and music therapy have worked in reducing stress during pregnancy. Music therapy is helpful for a woman to deliver a baby naturally,” said Dr R Nagarathna, a committee member and Dean, SVYASA University.

Dr Sudha, Director, Soukya and also a committee member said: “Non communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes can be controlled by alternative medicines. But proper diet, yoga and  Ayurveda also help in controlling CT4 counts of HIV patients. The study was conducted on a group of 20 HIV+ patients and it showed improvement in their mental and physical strength.”

sourc: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Bangalore / by Hetal Vyas, TNN / July 23rd, 2012

Nandini Mysore Pak, Cashew Burfi in 100 gm packings released

Business & Economy, Science & Technology, Uncategorized

Mysore, July 17

Nandini has now come out with its popular Mysore Pak and Cashew Burfi in 100 gm packings which were released by Karnataka Housing Board Chairman G.T. Devegowda at a programme organised by Mymul at the Mysore Dairy premises yesterday.

Speaking on the occasion, GTD lauded Mysore Dairy in coming out with tasty and hygienically packed milk products to the consumers.

Managing Director Dr. Suresh Babu said that the Farmers Welfare Trust was doing yeomen service for the milk producers by providing good facilities for their meritorious children. He added that a building belonging to MyMUL at Alanahalli was being renovated to a hostel for the students.

MDCC Bank President C. Basavegowda, District Co-operative Union President H.V. Rajeev, KMF Director S.C. Ashok and Mymul Chairman C. Omprakash were present.

Mymul donates dialysis machines

Mymul has donated dialysis machines to two hospitals in city. KHB Chairman G.T. Deve-gowda and MDCC Bank President Basavegowda launched the operation of the two machines at Cauvery Hospital in Siddarthanagar and River View Hospital in Hebbal yesterday.

They said that the facility would help the MyMul members suffering from renal problems by providing dialysis at reasonable rates. They announced that each dialysis would cost Rs. 600 for the members as against the usual Rs. 1,300 and assured to top up further with more people-friendly programmes in future.

source: http://www.StarofMysore.com / General News / July 17th, 2012

Biocon seeks marketing alliances in several emerging markets

Business & Economy, Leaders, Science & Technology

MUMBAI:

Bangalore-based Biocon is planning to forge partnerships as well as leverage existing alliances to augment the access and penetration of its biosimilar molecules.

“We are investing in augmenting our manufacturing, research and marketing base to pursue strong and sustained growth. This includes our first overseas manufacturing facility in Malaysia, a new state-of-the-art research centre in Bangalore, and a number of marketing alliances in several emerging markets,” Biocon chairperson & managing director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said in the company’s annual report.

The company has regional partners in 32 geographies including Brazil, Mexico, China and Japan.

“Building on our domestic experience, we have begun unlocking value in other emerging markets with recombinant human insulin (rh-Insulin), insulin analogs and monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), key products of our biosimilars portfolio,” Shaw said.

The company’s new insulin facility in Malaysia started last September and will help to take its biosimilar insulin and analogs to the global markets. The company is also looking at optimising its regional partnership approach to carve out a large slice of the global insulin market, the report said.

In the Novels portfolio, the company had received positive outcomes from phase III trial in Psoriasis for Itolizumab, the anti-CD6 molecule targeted at autoimmune disorders like plaque psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.

The Itolizumab successfully met all primary and secondary end points in the 52-week, double blind, and placebo controlled trial.

Its partner, Amylin had filed an IND in the US for phybrid, which is a novel biological entity targeted at diabetes and obesity. The molecule has entered into phase I clinical trials in the US markets.

Its biosimilar Trastuzumab has commenced multi- centric, phase III trials in the country, aimed at accessing the pie in emerging markets. The other molecules from its Mylan partnership are also due to enter clinics over the course of the next couple of years, the company said.

source: http://www.articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> News> News by Industry> Healthcare/Biotech / PTI / July 15th, 2012