Infosys's Put Option Costs Decline After Indian Rupee Weakens

The cost of options to protect against a drop in Infosys Ltd.’s shares fell for the first time in four days, signaling optimism that a weaker rupee will increase profitability at India’s second-largest software exporter.

One-month puts with a strike price 5 percent below Infosys’s shares cost 1.6 points more than calls priced 5 percent above, according to data available at 3:47 p.m. in Mumbai. The spread, known as skew, was at 2.5 points at Thursday’s close. Infosys shares rose 0.7 percent at the close, while the 50-stock CNX Nifty jumped 1.7 percent.

The skew dropped as the rupee trades near a 20-month low against the U.S. dollar amid outflows from the equity market. The rupee’s recent declines will help software companies grow earnings and orders, and was expected to help stocks rebound, said Rajendra Wadher, a director at PRB Securities.

“Information technology stocks will outperform the Nifty in the near term from a technical perspective,” said Ayush Nagaraj, a sales trader at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. “The rupee broke out yesterday and it helps the sector, which is at a support level. The risk-reward at this level is skewed to the upside.”

Shares of Bengaluru-based Infosys are valued at 16.7 times their 12-month projected earnings, compared with a five-year average of 17.3 times. The CNX IT index, which gained 0.4 percent on Friday, trades at a multiple of 15.1.

The rupee strengthened 0.5 percent to 63.9275 per dollar, rebounding from Thursday’s drop to 64.24, its lowest level since September 2013. The India VIX index, a gauge of protection against stock market swings, fell 2.8 percent.

Foreign investors sold local shares for nine days through May 6, paring this year’s net inflows to $6.86 billion, according to data compiled

Athlete dies, three others critical after suicide pact in Kerala

The Kerala police are investigating the death of a 15-year-old female athlete and attempted suicide by three others girls who ate poisonous fruit at a state-run sports institute, a minister said on Thursday.

The teen athletes were reported to have eaten othalanga, a toxic local fruit, in a suicide pact at the centre in Alappuzha in Kerala which is run by the Sports Authority of India (SAI).

They were found unconscious at their hostel late on Wednesday and rushed to hospital where one girl was pronounced dead and the other three remain in a critical condition.

All four were believed to have signed a suicide note, said officials, but no details have been given about the contents of the letter.

Officials said it was too early to speculate on the reason for the suicide pact by the teenagers who were training as rowers but the victims' relatives say the girls were mentally harassed by senior athletes and coaches at the institute.

Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Sarbananda Sonowal said local police were investigating and the SAI director general was heading to the institute as well.

"Law will take its own course, but I assure you that if anybody from Sports Authority of India is found to be guilty in this connection, we will be taking strictest possible action against her or him," Sonowal said in a statement.

SAI Director General Injeti Srinivas told journalists that it was a "very shocking incident".

"Four girls tried to commit suicide. Our entire focus is now on providing them with best possible medical facilities," he said.

Sapphire Now: TreatmentMAP uses SAP Hana to fight cancer

ORLANDO, Fla. – A technology called TreatmentMAP, developed by German biotech company Molecular Health, won the SAP Hana Technology Trailblazer Award at this week’s Sapphire Now event.

TreatmentMAP received the award for using big data to create personalized treatments for cancer patients by combining individual tumor genetics information from patients with the whole of global biomedical knowledge. The award is handed out to the company that is best using big data and the “Internet of Things” to achieve breakthrough results.

The application combines cutting-edge genetic analysis with an enormous and complex data warehouse, which runs on SAP Hana. Pulling from more than 10 years worth of centrally located data from Molecular Health’s data warehouse, certified oncologists then use TreatmentMAP to analyze genome information.

“We constantly comb the latest relevant publications, review them and supplement our data warehouse,” explains Markus Schmitt from Molecular Health. “It now contains more than 23 million publications. Hundreds of cancer indicators, 37,000 drugs, more than 90,000 clinical studies and much more other information are curated here.”

Molecular Health has been using TreatmentMAP to recommend therapies since early 2014. Through its database, TreatmentMAP can generate up to 100 GB of data for each patient and recommend a treatment in just a few hours.

The goal is to create a scale-out model to treat more patients at the same time. SAP expert Kai Sachs said, “Our objective is to run these analyses concurrently for 50, 100, or more patients,”

There is about 700 megabytes of “pure data” generated from each person’s DNA, which creates a problem when trying to treat thousands of patients. In order to achieve necessary throughput, the SAP Hana platform is designed to allow analytics and calculations to be performed directly on the data.

India Posts to start E-Commerce Centre from Monday in Delhi

To cash in on growing online shopping trend, India Post Delhi circle will start its e-commerce centre from Monday

"Considering the rapid growth of e-commerce business in the country in the recent past, the Department of Posts, through Delhi Postal Circle has taken up a project to establish the e-commerce Centre at Safdarjang, New Delhi," an official statement said today.

This processing centre will handle exclusively all the e-commerce business.

"The e-commerce Centre at Safdarjang, New Delhi is to be dedicated to the Nation by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon'ble Minister of Communications and Information Technology on 11th May 2015," the statement said.

The centre is capable of handling 30000 parcels or articles per day and parcels collected from the e-commerce customers, processed and dispatched within 24 hours to respective destination through quickest available flight or train, as the case may be.

"The leading e-commerce customers, Amazon, Paytm, Yepme, Snapdeal, etc are already availing the benefits of fast, reliable and safe processing of their e-commerce parcels at the newly established e-commerce Centre at Safdarjang in New Delhi," the statement said.

India Post will also launch a mobile application for android phones that will help people in real time tracking of accountable articles, post office search, postage calculator, etc through Mobile Phone.

A tale of (maybe) two CEO transitions

EMC’s Joe Tucci and Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff are two alpha CEOs who may see their status change soon.

What’s next for Marc Benioff and Joe Tucci?

This week, everyone’s been wondering about Salesforce  CRM -2.84%  CEO Marc Benioff’s future given reports of a possible acquisition of his company by Microsoft, Oracle or perhaps another company. But the speculation around EMC  EMC 2.86%  Chief Joe Tucci’s future is no less interesting.

As has been reported ad nauseum this week, Salesforce, the company Benioff co-founded 26 years ago, may or may not be sold in what would be a very big deal—worth an estimated $48 billion or $51 billion or so. No one expects that, if an acquisition happens, Benioff will end up being someone else’s number two guy. Perhaps, if Oracle  ORCL 1.22%  is the purchaser, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison will name Benioff, once a top lieutenant and a long-time frenemy, CEO. (If that happens, cue an exploding Mark Hurd). Or, maybe Benioff will leave the business to manage his foundation full-time. That would make sense given his philanthropic bent.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, 67-year-old Tucci has announced and renounced retirement plans a couple of times. In January he told shareholders he’ll stay as long as the board wants him.

Tucci has been CEO of the storage giant since 2001, chairman since 2006, and oversaw a wide-ranging diversification-by-acquisition push into virtualization (VMware) security (RSA), content management (Documentum and others) and yes, still more storage and related technologies (Data Domain, Isilon, XtremIO, Likewise, ScaleIO etc.).

EMC also partnered with VMware  VMW 1.91% and Cisco  CSCO 1.51%  to create VCE, a maker of data center hardware that combines storage and computing in one box. EMC has since taken on more of Cisco’s stake.

He assembled the “EMC federation” of VMware, VCE, RSA and Pivotal, all companies partly owned by EMC. In his view, the federation can expedite deployment of next-generation technologies in large accounts. But it also may be his undoing.

Activist investment firm Elliott Management doesn’t like the idea of the federation at all, saying that an independent VMware is more valuable than a VMware that is partially owned by EMC. And Elliott put some $1 billion where its mouth was, investing in EMC.

In January Elliott got two seats on the EMC board and agreed to a standstill agreement. For now. But no one thinks that’s going to last forever.

At any rate, after Tucci, who has not designated a successor, spoke this week at EMC World, he shared the stage with a pretty impressive-looking Mr. Spock impersonator. Said one audience member after their “live long and prosper” sign off: “Maybe it’s just me, but that sounded an awful lot like a goodbye.”

Given that Cisco CEO John Chambers announced he is stepping down after 20 years at the helm, maybe it’s time for the old guard to get and go

BlackBerry Leap to Launch in India at Rs. 21490

The fact that BlackBerry is set to launch the Leap in India next week is widely known. If you've been waiting to find the launch price, well, your wait is over. NDTV Gadgets has learnt from its sources that the smartphone will be priced at Rs. 21,490.

BlackBerry Leap comes with a 5.0-inch 720p full-touch display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 2GB of RAM. BlackBerry Leap packs 16GB of internal storage that is expandable by up to 128GB via a microSD card.

The BlackBerry OS 10.3.1-running smartphone comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front camera. BlackBerry Leap is powered by a 2800mAh battery, which, the company claims, can offer up to 25 hours of 'mixed usage'. The smartphone does not support TDD-LTE Band 40 that's used by current 4G networks in India, but is compatible with FDD-LTE Band 3 that is likely to be used by some operators in the future.

BlackBerry Leap was unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona earlier this year. The company said at the time it plans to roll out two more smartphones over the course of the next months, both with a physical keyboard.

While the BlackBerry Leap is a mid-range smartphone, one of the smartphones coming later this year is high-end smartphone featuring "a dual curve all touch display" with a keyboard behind a slide. "We don't have a code name for it but I call it The Slide," BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen told media in Barcelona. "It will come some time this year," he added without giving a specific date.

Android M, voice access and more things to expect

Google I/O kicks off by the end of the month, and the search giant has now put out the schedule for the event. While Android M is said to be one of the biggest announcements, Google also has some nifty details up its sleeve to reveal at its upcoming event. Here’s a quick look at what to expect at Google I/O.

Android for Work
Google is expected to announce an update to the Android for Work, which was announced earlier this year. It aimed at making the software more appealing to corporations, a move that could help extend the Internet company’s reach into workplaces. At the event, Google is expected to bring Android to all type of work places. “The current implementation doesn’t work for high-security businesses, so we’re guessing that Android M and the new version of Work combine for even more app separation,” points out ArsTechnica.

Android M

The ‘Android for Work Update’ session says, “Android M is bringing the power of Android to all kinds of workplaces.” Google is known to name its mobile OS versions in alphabetical order, so it’s quite likely that after Lollipop, the next name will begin with the letter ‘M’. According to ArsTechnica, Google has pulled out the description, but not before the news site got its hands on a screenshot. From Muffin to Malai barfi, the guess game for the name has already begun.

Voice commands
With the ‘Your app, now available hands-free’ session, the company will be announcing ‘Voice Access’ that offers access to Android devices only via voice. This could probably mean a driving app or so. Moreover, it also means users need to remember a lot more voice commands to access the app. Google may have to work at ensuring the app understands varying accents and dialects.

Skybox
A session called “The Earth in real time” talks about implementing Skybox. Those not in the know how, Google had bought satellite imaging company Skybox last year for around $500 million. The announcements are speculated to be around real-time satellite imaging.

Cloud Messaging

Google is also expected announce Cloud Messaging 3.0, a new version of Google’s push messaging platform.

Games for Chromecast
Google has also announced to be making more announcements for Chromecast. The description goes on, “designing for the mobile and television experience on multiple screens, and adapting existing game design patterns to a multi-screen interactive format.” There’s also another session covering, “Android and iOS mobile devices as game controllers to unleash new interaction models for Chromecast and other Cast devices.”

Miscellaneous
One can also expect some more on Polymer 1.0, Google’s UI toolkit at making websites that offer an app feel. Google’s Advanced Technologies and Products group may showcase a wearable at the show. Google is also known to be testing tools to woo developers, and we could possibly hear more on it at the show.

Honor 4C and Honor Bee Budget Dual-SIM Smartphones Launched in India

Huawei has launched two new smartphones under its Honor brand in India, the recently introduced Honor 4C, as well as a new 'made for India' handset, the Honor Bee. The company also launched a power bank in India, the Honor AP007.

The firm has priced the Honor 4C at Rs. 8,999, and the Honor Bee (seen below) at Rs. 4,999. Both smartphones will be available exclusively on Flipkart, starting 6pm Friday. The company is touting a launch offer of 10 percent discount on price. The Honor AP007 power bank has been priced at Rs. 1,399.

The Honor 4C features a 5-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) TFT IPS display. It is powered by a 64-bit 1.2GHz octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 620 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. The dual-SIM dual standby Honor 4C smartphone runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat with Emotion UI 3.0 skin on top.

The smartphone sports a 13-megapixel rear autofocus camera with an f/2.0 aperture, LED flash, and a Sony CMOS sensor, while it also houses a 5-megapixel front camera. The handset packs 8GB of inbuilt storage that can be expanded via microSD card (up to 32GB). The Honor 4C is backed by a 2550mAh battery.

Connectivity options include Bluetooth v4.0, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPRS/ EDGE, 3G, Micro-USB, and a 3.5mm audio jack. It weighs 162 grams, and has dimensions of 71.9x143.3x8.8mm.

huawei_honor_bee.jpegThe Honor Bee is also a dual-SIM dual standby handset (Micro-SIM), and features a 4.5-inch (480x854 pixel) display. The smartphone runs Android 4.4 KitKat with Huawei EMUI 3.0 Lite on top.

Powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core SC7731 Cortex-A7 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM, the smartphone bears 8GB of built-in storage that's expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB). The Honor 4C sports a 8-megapixel rear autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and a CMOS, apart from a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. The smartphone is powered by a 1730mAh battery.

Connectivity options on the Honor Bee include Bluetooth v4.0, A-GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPRS/ EDGE, Micro-USB, and 3G. It measures 66.7x134.3x10mm.

honor_ap007_power_bank.jpegThe Honor AP007 power bank features a 13000mAh battery, and three LED indicators. Only available in Grey colour, it outputs power in 5V, and has a 300 charge cycle lifespan.

Earthquake engineering: Building a 'quake resilient' nation

The earthquake in Nepal last week which led to widespread loss of lives and property underlines the importance of geologists, seismologists and earthquake engineering specialists to predict such disasters and prevent deaths and destruction. Earthquake ­engineering According to Vasant Matsagar, associate professor, department of civil engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, “Geology, seismology, geotechnical engineering, and earthquake engineering are treated differently; wherein, the experts respectively are geologists, seismologists, geotechnical engineers, and earthquake engineers. There is a wide scope in India as well as abroad for students who study and conduct research in these areas. There are, however, varying degrees of opportunities available in government organisations, multinational companies, educational institutes, research organisations, and corporates.” In India, the IITs, Indian Institute of Science and National Institutes of Technology, and other engineering colleges train students in earthquake engineering. “Several research projects in the area of earthquake engineering have been completed which were funded mostly by the government departments such as Department of Science and Technology (DST). The technical contributions made in the form of patents, research articles published by the faculty members, researchers, and students in the area of earthquake engineering enormously contribute in advancement of the knowledge and its dissemination within stakeholders. This research over a period of years transpired in the building codes and standards, which is governed by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Several IIT faculty members, who are actively engaged in earthquake engineering research, are members of the BIS code drafting committees,” says Matsagar. Apart from their studies and research, the IIT faculty members are engaged in outreach activities for capacity building, spreading awareness and knowledge enhancement of the technicians, stakeholders, and society at large on earthquake engineering; thereby, bridging the gap between theory and practice. “The IIT faculty members are considered to be the competent authority for approval of design and drawings of civil engineering structures for their safety from earthquakes. Notably, no other peer group could measure up to IIT faculty members in terms of research-based knowledge in earthquake engineering which is required to understand the design philosophy of the standard codes of practice published by the BIS for correct interpretation and implementation of the design criteria,” he adds. Geology and ­seismology Geologists and seismologists, on the other do research on the origin of seismic activities by studying the earth’s composition, its cross-sectional properties, materials, and more specifically the ‘plate tectonics.’ Moreover, they study geological features such as faults, their orientations etc and their effect on seismic activities. This information is helpful in the assessment of probability of seismic hazard at a given site or location. Geotechnical engineers conduct research on soil and rock behaviour when subjected to earthquake ground excitations. The structural engineers conduct research on earthquake resistant design of structures (buildings, bridges, tanks, dams, nuclear facilities etc). Also, they work towards making the earthquake resilient society by building appropriate infrastructure. “As we are not yet able to find precursors of earthquakes, the studies on active faults and thrusts, neotectonics, liquefaction and seismic hazard zonation and vulnerability studies can help in risk assessment and disaster management in earthquake prone areas by constructions as per BIS standards. Structural geology, geophysics, geotechnical studies and disaster management are other areas that have immense scope. Besides Geological Survey of India, mining, oil and natural gas companies, students can find jobs in geotechnical domain, remote sensing, climate change and disaster management,” says CS Dubey, head, Centre for Advanced Studies in the department of geology, Delhi University. Students can also explore the domain of Himalayan research. Institutes such as Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, an autonomous institute of the DST, is an earth science institution engaged in advance level of research in all aspects of geology and geodynamics of the Himalayas, including geological mapping, glaciological changes, Himalayan uplift, changes in monsoon precipitation, structure and tectonics and geophysical studies. The institute provides two fellowships – junior research fellowship and institute research associate. Students with an MSc/PhD degree in corresponding discipline are eligible to apply. “Ours is a research institution with a mandate to carry out cutting-edge research in the Himalayas. One can do research on glaciers, earthquakes, geothermal energy, climate, landslides, geo-resources, river systems and geodynamic evolution of the Himalayas,” says Anil K Gupta, director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun. The Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research is another multidisciplinary research institute established by the DST. The institute is also involved in extensive research on the Himalayan seismic zone. The Institute of Seismological Research in Gujarat and CSIR- National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad are other examples. Where to study * Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) * Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru * National Institutes of Technology (NITs) * Delhi University * Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun * Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad * University of California, Berkeley * Harvard University * University of Cambridge * Massachusetts Institute of Technology * Stanford University With inputs from Aanchal Bedi

NORMS FOR ONLINE TRADE

Maharashtra Food & Drug Administration conducted a raid on e-commerce website, Snapdeal.com, in Mumbai last month for selling prescription medicines on line. The action was initiated by the state FDA for violation of Rule 65 of Drugs & Cosmetics Act which specifies that only a licensed dealer can sell drugs to a customer on production of a doctor’s prescription. The drug control officials have now directed Snapdeal.com to immediately withdraw offers for sale and exhibition of prescription drugs from its e-commerce sites and delist them. The company is reported to have agreed to comply with the state FDA directions. The FDA had detected another case of online trading of prescription drugs to overseas buyers last year by a group of traders without having drug licenses or prescriptions. It has been found that buyers largely from the US, Europe, Canada, Japan and some African countries, were placing orders for drugs like anti-depressants, anti-hypertensives, sildenafil citrate, etc. at the websites of these traders. The trading firms have been sending the consignments of these drugs by air couriers without obtaining the drug license and other permissions from the concerned authorities. The FDA  reported to have found more than 20 such trading companies indulging in this activity at that time in the country.

Although online trading of medicines to overseas buyers without license and doctor’s prescription is also considered to be an offence, such trading operations within the country needs to be taken much more seriously by the regulatory authorities. Apart from Snapdeal, there are reports that e-commerce in pharmaceutical products has been launched in different parts of the country by some various groups to serve the domestic customers. A couple of months ago, MedPlus, a leading pharmacy chain in south, launched e-commerce services in Hyderabad and the company is contemplating to expand its services to 50 other cities in the country. These services definitely offer the customers to pick up the medicines without visiting the pharmacy and that too at 10 to 15 per cent discount on most of the medicines. A serious problem the patient community and regulatory authorities may face because of this new trade practice is the circulation of doubtful quality of medicines supplied online. It is possible that many substandard drugs could be routed through this new channel unless trading through online is strictly monitored. Unrestricted online selling of medicine can also lead to self medication among the people resulting in irrational use of certain drugs in the long run. DCGI is already aware of this looming threat to the public health and it will be better if his office came out with a set of norms for online selling of medicines without any delay.

Meerkat Update Pulls Facebook Into the Livestreaming Mix

Facebook is getting in on the livestreaming madness.

Meerkat, the livestreaming service that caught everyone’s attention during the South By Southwest conference in Austin earlier this year, released an update over the weekend that allows brands and celebrities to share their live broadcasts directly to their Facebook Page.

It’s the first time either Meerkat or Periscope, Twitter’s livestreaming competitor, has offered an option like this for Facebook. The update also means that people don’t need a Twitter account to watch these Meerkat videos. Now, a Facebook account will suffice. Soon, you’ll only need a phone number to create an account, Meerkat CEO Ben Rubin told Re/code.

The move is symbolic in that it represents Meerkat’s first move away from Twitter, the platform it has relied on very heavily since launching in late February. (Its first user rule was, and still is, “Everything that happens on Meerkat happens on Twitter.”

Meerkat got a taste of how dangerous it can be to rely so heavily on another service a few months back. Twitter cut off Meerkat’s access to Twitter’s social graph, essentially making it harder for people to find and follow others. The reason: Twitter was building its own livestreaming application, and it cut off access so it would be harder for Meerkat to grow. In other words, Meerkat was a threat.

This new update shows that Facebook doesn’t see Meerkat that way, although this integration is minimal compared to what could theoretically happen down the road. If Meerkat adds the ability for people to log in using their Facebook accounts, or if Facebook allows people to source Meerkat followers from their Facebook friends list (what Twitter pulled back on), it will provide a little more evidence that Facebook is welcoming Meerkat with open arms.

That process may already be under way. Rubin said Meerkat sought help from Facebook on a handful of questions during the update process. “They were very friendly,” he added.

This could mean that Facebook isn’t building its own live streaming app — it may not let Meerkat integrate too deeply if it were — or that it has its eyes on Meerkat as a possible acquisition target

R-Com says looking to monetise tower assets

Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications Ltd (R-Com) has asked merchant bankers to give suggestions on how to monetise its tower and fibre assets in a subsidiary in order to reduce its debt in the current financial year. As of 30 September 2014, R-Com’s consolidated debt was at Rs31,839.00 crore. R-Com said it has already announced plans to substantially reduce the company’s overall debt and it keeps exploring and analyzing various strategic alternatives. On Wednesday, The Economic Times reported that R-Com, India’s fourth-largest telecom carrier, is looking to sell a majority stake in its subsidiary Reliance Infratel Ltd, the country’s third largest tower company, at a valuation of Rs20,000-25,000 crore in a bid to focus on core operations and cut debt. The report, citing unnamed sources, suggested that R-Com wants to sell its entire stake in Reliance Infratel but may settle for a 51% sale at the least. “As one of such alternatives, the company has invited certain investment banks to make proposals for running a process to monetise the valuable tower and fibre assets held in its subsidiary, Reliance Infratel Ltd. within the current financial year. The company will make further disclosures, as and when these developments lead to a disclosable event,” R-Com said in a filing to BSE on Wednesday. R-Com has sought bids from investment bankers such as Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JM Financial among others. As of February, 2011, Reliance Infratel’s wireless towers portfolio comprised 45,443 towers with a presence in all 23 telecom ‘circles’, making it the largest tower owner in India, according to the company’s website. In February this year, Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s biggest mobile phone operator by users, raised $310 million through a secondary share sale in its mobile tower unit Bharti Infratel Ltd. Bharti Airtel used the funds primarily to reduce debt. Local mobile operators have been selling towers to specialist tower firms and leasing them back to cut maintenance costs and debt.

LIC acquires NMDC shares worth over Rs 1116 cr

State-owned iron ore miner NMDC today said Life Insurance Corporation of India ( LIC) has acquired almost 8 crore of its shares shares worth over Rs 1,116 crore in a market purchase.

In a BSE filing, NMDC said the country's largest insurer has acquired 7,98,39,172 shares or 2.013 per cent stake in the firm in a market purchase through various brokers worth over Rs 1,116.17 crore on April 11, 2015.

Post the share purchase, LIC's stake in NMDC has risen to 10.124 per cent from 8.111 per cent, it added.

The NMDC scrip was trading down by 3.18 per cent at Rs 131 on the BSE.

Three Reasons Apple Should Acquire IBM

Could a growing company that makes most of its money selling to individuals in China breathe life into a shrinking giant that sells to enterprises?

If the acquirer is Apple AAPL -0.17% and the target is IBM IBM +0.17%, the answer is maybe. And there are three reasons that such an improbable merger might make sense.

Before getting into these reasons, it is worth pointing out that such a deal would make Warren Buffett smile. According to AP, he “believes that IBM will be making more money ten years from now than it does today, and IBM is repurchasing its stock aggressively so Berkshire’s share of the company’s profits  — [it owns 9% of IBM stock now] will grow over time — [due to revenues from IBM's cloud computing and corporate services].”


Whether that happens or not, Apple is becoming increasingly dependent on demand in China for its eight year old iPhone line — China is Apple’s biggest region and its sales soared 70% there to $16.8 billion in the first three months of 2015 – while IBM keeps getting smaller while promoting the hope that the cloud — it invested $4 billion there, according to the Wall Street Journal – will be its salvation.


During the same period, IBM’s revenue dropped 12% to $19.59 billion “as a surging U.S. dollar compounded the impact of shrinking hardware sales. It was the company’s 12th straight quarter of year-on-year declines,” according to the Journal.


Cook worked at IBM from 1982 to 1994. Cook rose up the ranks at IBM and in his last job there he was “North American Fulfillment director, managing manufacturing and distribution functions for IBM’s Personal Computer Company in both North and Latin America,” according to Biography.com.

In July 2014, IBM and Apple partnered “to deliver Apple technology to big business,” according to the Wall Street Journal. IBM has since developed software for Apple’s iOS operating system, but it has been unclear how important the relationship is to either company’s bottom line.

Last month, IBM and Apple announced a deal to get iPads into the hands of elderly Japanese through Japan Post. But so far, the IBM partnership has not boosted iPad sales which tumbled 23% to 12.6 million in the first three months of 2015, according to the Journal.

On April 30, Cook expressed optimism for the partnership, noting  “We want to change the way people work. There are too many enterprises that are stuck in a different era.”


IBM’s market capitalization is currently $171 billion. Let’s assume that Buffett would be willing to part with his shares for a 20% control premium — meaning that IBM might cost Apple $205 billion.

For now, Apple’s market capitalization is $743 billion — and it could borrow more money if it decided to use debt to help finance that $205 billion purchase. But it would take 28% of Apple stock to buy IBM at that price.

IBM needs help with execution

Whether it makes economic sense for Apple to buy IBM depends on whether the merger could generate enough additional cash flow in current dollars to more than offset the acquisition price.

I think such a deal could generate some significant cost savings by consolidating overlapping overhead departments like finance, human resources, and procurement. Perhaps the two companies could find ways to save on office space as well.

Moreover, Apple might be able to spin off some of IBM’s business lines that would not fit the combined companies. For example, it probably would not make sense for Apple to keep IBM’s mainframe business.

On the other hand, IBM has a well-developed sales and consulting arm focusing on business and government that Apple lacks.

Apple could apply its long-proven ability to build products that individuals want to own — it might be able to find gems within IBM’s vast library of patents and intellectual property that it could turn into products that enterprises would want to buy.


Ultimately, such a deal would only make sense if Apple could figure out how to turn IBM into a company that grows fast by selling products that businesses want to own.

On the other hand, perhaps this is an execution challenge that is beyond the ability of any human being to master.

Will the faulty Xiaomi Mi Fit app spoil Mi Band's India plans

The Rs 999 Xiaomi Mi Band is scheduled to go on sale in India tomorrow, but the Mi Fit app (for Android) could play a spoilsport.
The Mi Band's companion Mi Fit app for Android has been of late behaving erratically for many users. It is either not letting users sign in to the app or is refusing to pair with the Mi Band. The app also returns the user to the log in screen at random intervals.

While many users have taken to Twitter to express their grievances, we also have ourselves faced this issue. Over the weekend, the app didn't even let us sign in, and today, it managed to take a step ahead of the log in screen but failed to pair with the Mi Band.
Having made innumerable attempts, the app could pair itself with the Mi Band only twice and then immediately logged out.

This appears to be a recent issue as we could use the app without any hiccups for most of last week.
Users also complain that in spite of raising the issue with Xiaomi they haven't received any response from the company.

We have tested the Mi Fit app on different Android devices, including a Xiaomi phone, without success. The app, however, works without any issue on the iPhone.

We approached Xiaomi informing them about the issue. Jai Mani, product manager, Xiaomi India said, "There was some issue with our servers during the weekend, but it's been fixed now." On being communicated that the problem still persists, he said that he will get back with more information about the issue and the fix soon.

We have meanwhile received another response from Xiaomi. "We experienced a small outage with our Mi Fit backend service over the weekend where some users were unable to log in to the app. This was a result of a server migration that was underway for all global Mi Fit app users. As of today morning, the issue has been resolved. We will also be releasing an updated version of the app later this week aimed at completely resolving any lingering issues related to this migration," said the Xiaomi statement

Snapdeal case Cops to summon courier officials

 A day after the police recorded the statement of a pharmacist, who had complained to the state food and drug administration against e-commerce portal Snapdeal for "supplying prescription drugs", the police said on Sunday that they would record the statement of the courier agency which had "delivered" the drugs to the complainant's Panvel residence. 

Prescription drugs cannot be sold over the counter (OTC) without a doctor's prescription. 

Senior police inspector Bajirao Bhosale said, "We will record statements of all those who are linked with Snapdeal in selling the non-OTC drugs without the doctor's prescription. We have summoned the courier agency's authorized person." 


Bhosale said they would also probe the role of pharma firms accused of selling non-OTC drugs on Snapdeal. He said the five pharma companies have licences to produce the drugs but have no retailing licences for those products.

Moto 360 smartwatch available at Rs 5000 discount on all variants

Motorola today announced a special offer on its Moto 360 in India. Across variants in watch face and strap, the smartwatch will be available at a Rs 5,000 discount on the original price on Flipkart, till stocks last. The leather variants will be available for Rs 12,999 and the metal variants, which launched last week will be available for Rs 14,999.

The Moto 360 has a 1.5” 320x290p, 205ppi watch face, and comes in 23mm and 18mm metal band variants, with options for grey leather and  black leather watchstraps as well. It runs on AndroidWear, compatible with Android phones 4.3 and higher, and a 320mAh battery. The Moto 360 packs 4GB internal storage and 512MB RAM, and is water-resistant IP67.

Finally, Android beats Apple in app revenues

According to new data from Digi-Capital, for the first time, Android is making more money from apps than iOS is.

Android has long beaten Apple in terms of absolute downloads, because it has a far larger install base. Last year, more than 1 billion Android handsets shipped, compared to a (relatively) paltry 192.7 million for the iPhone. But this is largely a vanity metric if it doesn't translate into actual money, and the largest audience in the world won't persuade developers to use your platform if there's no way to monetise it.

But Digi-Capital now believes that in terms of revenue, the Android platform is now larger than iOS. This is good news for developers -while Apple customers remain (on average) richer, and willing to spend more on apps and on in-app purchases (driving higher advertising rates), the news shows Android is a more financially viable platform to develop for than ever before.
However, Google won't be celebrating just yet. In working this out, Digi-Capital has also included revenues from the Chinese Android app stores, which don't stock Google apps and don't give Google any cut of the revenue.Google's suite of apps aren't available in China after all. iOS revenues still dwarf either Google Play or the China Android stores, but together they just make it to the top spot

Who's Going to Stay, Bitcoin or Blockchain? | Opinion

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are known for their decentralized architecture, and that’s what made them famous in the first place.  That might not remain the case for long. In a real world scenario, the most powerful are those who have access to and control over information. Armed with the right information, one can easily control the economic and political outcomes in the world. The concept of decentralized currency lies in not empowering a single or a group of entities to exercise control over the flow of money and in turn the economy.

The same holds good with Bitcoin too. As the network keeps expanding, scaling distributed forms will become difficult after a point and the whole system will start moving towards recentralization. The ones with enough resources will have access to the whole data or core network. Normalization of so-called disruptive technology is just a matter of time. When VoIP was introduced, it was considered to be disruptive, it was celebrated as a revolution in telecommunication. It was assumed that VoIP will decentralize telecommunications by depriving telecom operators the total control over airwaves and sharing it across the Internet.

Similarly, as the mining pools become more powerful, they end up controlling a major part of the Bitcoin infrastructure. When a single entity or a group of entities have a large part of the infrastructure under their collective control, it again tends to cause centralization.

In addition, the underlying Blockchain technology has more potential than just supporting Bitcoin transactions. Blockchain eliminates the need for a trusted third party like the central bank or similar financial institution to process transactions. This is made possible by the distributed consensus process.

Blockchain technology is being gradually adopted for various purposes. Recent innovations in this regard have leveraged upon Blockchain’s principle of consensus process to get rid of middlemen in other scenarios. It can be used for managing other financial instruments like securities, equities and derivatives, electronic contracts etc. There is proof of existence platforms that use Blockchain technology to authenticate and verify the authenticity of documents. Any electronic document can be notarized by uploading them to as non-transactional data into the Bitcoin Blockchain. The resulting hash generated acts as a reference for the content.

Microsoft to launch two high-end Lumia phones later this year

Microsoft recently shared more details on the Windows 10 OS for desktops but didn't give us much on its phone platform. Later, the operating system group chief Joe Belfoire noted that the Windows 10 for phones will arrive later this year.
Now we learn Microsoft is also planning to introduce two high-end Lumia devices with its latest platform. These Lumia devices can be expected to run Windows 10 out of the box.


Out of the two, a premium model with codename Cityman will sport a 5.7-inch QHD display, an Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset with octa-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, and a 3,300 mAh removable battery. The Cityman will feature a 20MP rear snapper which hopefully carries the PureView lineup a step further and a 5 MP front camera.
Meanwhile, Talkman will feature a 5.2-inch QHD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC with hexa-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB built-in storage, and 3,000 mAh battery. This one will also have a 20MP rear snapper and 5MP front camera.
There's no way of verifying the validity of this report so take it with a healthy pinch of salt.

Microsoft's risky bet on HoloLens

It's not a mass hallucination but part on a hands-on demo of Microsoft's new augmented-reality headset, the HoloLens. The unreleased device overlays 3D virtual objects (in this case, falling origami balls) on top of your real surroundings.


The Redmond, Wash.,-based company brought 100 of the goggles to its Build developers' conference last week to give attendees a taste of what it's like to make "holographic" programs. It was also a chance for Microsoft to recast itself as a tech company of the future instead of one stuck in the past.

Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) is the latest major tech player to gamble on unproven, innovative hardware. Google (GOOG) had the (now mostly defunct) Google Glass. Apple (AAPL, Tech30) spent the past seven months breathlessly building up the Apple Watch.

HoloLens is the computing platform of the future, according to Microsoft, and it has potential for more than just games.

It could be used to remotely guide someone through home repairs, with an expert annotating your real broken washing machine with virtual arrows and circles. Medical students could practice removing virtual appendixes from holo-cadavers. Architects could walk through a fully realized blueprint at an empty building site.

And according to one useless but delightful example shown during the Build keynote, HoloLens could even give you a virtual dog.

Hands on with Microsoft's HoloLens

Microsoft has made a lot of progress on the device since it first unveiled the technology in January. Those demo models were rough, covered in exposed wires and bore little resemblance to the sleek concept device shown on stage. The latest model is is a shiny black wrap-around visor with a strap that secures it to your head.

HoloLens is still in beta and has its bumps -- the field of view is narrow and the headset a bit heavy to wear for extended periods of time. It's far from being the experience shown in Microsoft's promo videos. But the spacial sound, eye tracking, and mapping features are incredible. In close to real time, HoloLens can figure out what's in front of it and seamlessly integrate 3D designs with physical objects.

For the final demonstration on Thursday, reporters dropped an origami ball by staring at it and speaking voice commands. It exploded and blew a holographic hole in a real table, exposing an expansive illustrated underworld with green hills, rivers, and folded cranes lazily flying through the blue sky.

Even if it never makes it out of the lab, HoloLens could end up as a success for the 40-year-old company. The hardware and software shows Microsoft's imaginative, youthful, risk-taking side. It got a roomful of normally jaded people to feel a bit of wonder and excitement