India

Aiming to promote growth in the telecom sector, the DoT is apparently considering implementing a Baby Bell-like split of BSNL into four regional arms - North, South, East and West.

According to the proposal, the North and Western arms would merge with MTNL's Delhi and Mumbai operations respectively. All four arms along with a mobile unit - BSNL Mobile, and an infrastructure unit - BSNL Infrastructure would operate under the aegis of a parent company - BSNL Holdings.

Intel has decided to kill the Bangalore based Whitefield project. The much hyped processor would have been the first to be designed and developed entirely in India, but Intel India pretty much shot itself in the foot when it had to let 250 employees go over an audit scandal. Following the axeing of a significant portion of his department, the Whitefield project head jumped ship in August, thereby (presumably) prompting the slide.

Bloomberg, among others is carrying a story highlighting recent incidents where the tendrils of politicisation (the repercussions of which are well known) seem to be creeping into the Indian software and BPO industry. The article highlights the ongoing Devegowda vs. Narayana Murthy row, and recent calls for unions in the software industry.

Full story: Bloomberg.

The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on the Indian government's policy to not share seismology data with international bodies due to concerns that this might compromise the security of our nuclear testing programme. The October 8th earthquake is now apparently forcing a reevaluation of this policy:

Kapil Sibal, the minister of science and technology, acknowledged to reporters in Delhi last week that "India surely needs to network with the rest of the global earthquake community. It needs to re-think on all old issues."

Canara Bank, one of India's oldest banks, has chosen Red Hat Linux as its platform of choice, in branches across the country.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be deployed on more than 1,000 servers and 10,000 desktops at Canara Bank to provide a robust, secure and scalable solution for powering the bank's business critical IT infrastructure. Under the first phase of deployment, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been rolled out at approximately 500 branches in a record span of three months. Close to 500 Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers and 5,000 Red Hat Desktops have been deployed in this phase.

President A.P.J. Kalam expressed his concerns over the security ramifications of mapping software alá Google Earth, in a speech to the National Police Academy in Hyderabad. In his presentation, he drew attention to the availability of high-resolution images of sensitive Indian installations and noted the lack of appropriate national and international laws to control the dissemination of such data.

Full Speech and presentation: President Of India Website.

Assocham and ISPAI, among others, are not satisifed with some of the changes in the proposed IT Act 2005.

“The new Act will scare away foreign clients from Indian BPOs as they will not be held liable for any data theft/breach. The deletion of section 66, which deals with hacking will abet cyber crimes in India. We must take great caution as laws cannot be amended every now and then” Mr Duggal added.

Intel is all set to offer PCs customised to withstand rural conditions in India. The computers are said to come with special screens and filters to handle extreme heat and dust conditions, and will also have the option of being powered using a standard car battery to ensure that the lack of power is not an issue. Coupled with Intel's interest in promoting WiMAX everywhere, it probably makes sense to assume that these PCs will be supplied Wireless-enabled.

No prices have been announced thus far, but the PCs are scheduled to be launched by the end of this year.