Reliance plans retail foray, refinery fundraising

MUMBAI, Jan 23 (Reuters) - India''s Reliance Industries Ltd. unveiled on Monday an initial $750 million move into retail and plans for a subsidiary fundraising to pay for some of its $6 billion refinery expansion, which might lead to an IPO.

Reliance Industries plans to nearly double capacity at its 660,000-barrels-per-day Jamnagar refinery, making it the world''s single-largest oil refinery, and a new subsidiary will raise the money via private equity or an initial public offering of shares.

Reliance Petroleum will be implementing the refinery and polypropelene project at the special economic zone in Jamnagar at an estimated cost of $6 billion, Reliance said, offering no specific details.

Reliance Industries, an oil and petrochemicals group, has also formed a subsidiary to set up hypermarkets, supermarkets and speciality stores in select towns and cities across India.
This is a fairly positive step in a sector which needs lots of capital and Reliance will be able to pull it to the top, Nagarajan Narasimhan, head of research at CRIS INFAC, said.

A big business house like Reliance would bring value to India's growing retail sector, Narasimhan said. Given its ability to bargain and get the best price, this will be definitely a profitable business for Reliance, he added.
The company's shares fell 0.3 percent and closed at 701.45 rupees in a weak Mumbai market. Though Reliance has given few details, Narasimhan estimates the $750 million it plans to spend would fund 350 to 400 outlets. In a recent report on the sector, CRIS INFAC forecast India''s retail industry would grow 25 to 30 percent annually and triple in size to 1.09 trillion rupees by 2010, driven by its fastest-growing segments, food and grocery.

It said Indian firms were expected to invest about 31 billion rupees a year in retail. While the vast majority of Indian retailing is still done in small shacks and street bazaars, companies such as Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd, Shoppers Stop Ltd. , Trent Ltd. and the Piramal Group have led the growth of organised retail in malls and other urban outlets.

At its Jamnagar refinery in the western state of Gujarat, Reliance aims to raise crude throughput to 1.2 million barrels per day by March 2009, primarily for exports. The Indian government offers several tax breaks to industries and projects set up in its special economic zones like Jamnagar, located mostly near India''s sea ports.

RURAL PC

Mumbai, Jan 10 (UNI) IT global major Intel Corporation is
working on launching an economic PC targetted at the rural
markets in India.
To be priced at just Rs 10,000, the company expects its
initiatives on this front to bear fruit later this year, Mr
Anand Chandrashekhar, Senior Vice President & General Manager
(Sales) told reporters here today.
''The rural PC is a dream close to our heart and our team
is engaged in this initiative in full earnest,'' Mr Chandrashekar
Chandrasekhar, senior vice-president and general manager of sales
said adding, ''You can expect an announcement later this year.''
Launching Intel's latest mobile technology called 'Centrino Duo,'
which will enhance the performance of the new generation of laptops,
Mr Chandrasekhar announced an investment of USD 1 billion in India
in addition to an equivalent amount already invested thus far in its
Indian operations.
Union Communications & Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi
Maran was also present on the occasion.
The 'Centrino Duo' launch signifies a first-of-its-kind
achievement for India as a state-of-the-art technology of this kind
has not only been designed but also launched in the global markets
for the first time from India.
Claimed to be the most visible product emanating from Intel
India Development Centre, manned by 3,000 engineers and
fast-emerging as one of Intel's premier design centres worldwide,
and also the 'most revolutionary' since the launch of its Pentium
Procesor in 1993, Mr Chandrashekar said the one million unit of the
new product will be sold within three weeks of its launch.
This technology will be of particular interest to the gaming and
entertainment industry which has been growing exponentially in the
last two years and is poised for an explosive growth over the next
few years.
Besides enhancing laptop performance by a whopping 70 per cent, it
also extends battery-life by up to 28 per cent or an hour more than
now available.
UNI JJ KD SKB1552

All u wanted to know about...InterneT

Who controls the Internet?
The Internet is controled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based independent organisation entrusted with the task by the US government on a renewable tender. Set up in 1988, ICANN assigns domain names worldwide. But internet’s phenomenal growth and the web’s growing economic and social importance have prompted opposition to the US monopoly.

Who heads ICANN?
Paul Twomey is the President/CEO of ICANN, since March 27, 2003.

Who was in charge of the Internet till ICANN came into existence?
Until 1998, the Internet was overseen almost exclusively by one man: Jon Postel, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California. As a graduate student in the 1960s, he was among the handful of engineers who built the Internet. For the next 30 years, he managed it on behalf of the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency, which funded the Internet's initial development.

Why are some countries protesting ICANN's control?
In 1998 the US government established an approach to run the internet by subcontracting it functions to a private, not-for-profit corporation with international participation. Despite its success, ICANN is under increasing pressure for reform. Governments want more influence over the internet and ICANN is seen as encroaching on their sovereignty. Many governments feel that, like the phone network, the Internet should be administered under a multilateral treaty. ICANN, in their view, is an instrument of American hegemony over cyberspace: its private-sector approach favors the United States, Washington retains oversight authority, and its Governmental Advisory Committee, composed of delegates from other nations, has no real powers.

What does the US say?
Ahead of World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the US released a statement reasserting its intention to maintain unilateral control of ICANN. It claims such control is necessary to maintain internet "stability".

What is WSIS?
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a UN-sponsored conference about information and communication. The second phase took place November 16-18, 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia. It resulted in a series of agreements including the creation of the Internet Governance Forum.

What is the agenda of WSIS?
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) aims to improve information access to all countries, provide communication technologies (ICTs) to promote development.

What is the need for WSIS?
The digital revolution has changed the way people think, behave, communicate, work and earn their livelihood. However, there is the gap between developed and other countries when it comes to technological advancements. According to the UN roughly the same number of people use the Internet in the world's eight economic giants (429 million) as in the other nations combined (444 million). The main agenda of the conference is to bridge this divide.

How was WSIS formed?
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), following a proposal by the Government of Tunisia, had resolved in a Conference at Minneapolis in 1998 to hold a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and place it on the agenda of the UN. This was endorsed by the UN General Assembly while according the lead role to ITU in cooperation with other interested organisations and partners. It further recommended that preparations for the Summit take place through an open-ended intergovernmental Preparatory Committee – or PrepCom – that would define the agenda of the summit.