Impact of a US slowdown on India’s software services sector are exaggerated: Wipro

DAVOS: Worries over the impact of a US slowdown on India’s software services sector are exaggerated and Wipro’s clients are showing no signs of reducing outsourcing, it’s top official said.

“I don’t think it’s a situation of gloom for the industry. I think it’s a situation of cautiousness for the industry,” Azim Premji, chairman of India’s third largest software services exporter said.

“Don’t get carried away. Run a tight ship. Have realistic expectations,” Premji said during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.

Earlier this month, New York listed Wipro reported a lower than expected 11 per cent rise in quarterly profit, it’s slowest growth in four years and said higher billing rates should help offset rising costs from wage hikes and a firm local currency.

Bangalore based Wipro counts Cisco, Nortel and Credit Suisse among its clients. Premji said Wipro’s customers in the banking and financial services industry, hit by the subprime worries and wobbly markets, were likely to drive global outsourcing even more aggressively in an uncertain economic environment

Trying do drive more offshore work on IT is one fairly effective methodology of cost takeouts without much risk because they are used to it, they are used to their partners, they are familiar with the system.” “We are sitting pretty.

I think global delivery companies such as ours will be the last affected,” Premji said, echoing similar comments made by other leading Indian software firms.

The banking and financial services industry accounts for about 25 per cent of Wipro’s total IT revenue. Wipro, a diversified firm with interests in computer hardware and consumer goods, is majority-owned by Premji.

Shares in Indian IT firms were among the worst performers in a booming local market last year, hurt by concerns over the impact of a slowdown in the US, rising local wages and an appreciating currency.

“I think there is undue pessimism vis-a-vis the IT sector and I think it’ll correct itself sooner than later,” Premi said

Will the Taj Mahal make it?

With only hours now before a new list of seven wonders is announced in Lisbon, Indians around the world are thinking Taj Mahal at this moment. Will it, won’t it? Did we fail to send in enough votes? Or will the monument of love manage to edge out other competing wonders powered by a huge surge of voting in the last few days?

The campaign had kicked off a few years ago, but most Indians woke up to it only late last year when the New 7 Wonders Foundation, a Swiss non-profit group, was to visit the Taj. In the manner of a beauty pageant marvels from round the world competed to make the top 21. Since then, it has been a massive global exercise from each country to vote its wonder into the final list of seven.

For many months, the Taj trailed badly before a sudden burst of concern that it would be left out of the new list saw frenzied voting from Indians. By late June, 13 per cent of all votes were coming from India. And that would not factor in the army of Indians all over the world.

Individuals and organisations made fervent appeals to cast more votes for the Taj Mahal. On television, hoardings, radio, the Internet. It became fashionable to vote for the Taj and schoolchildren asked each other- “Have you voted?”

At TimesofIndia.com, readers wrote in hundreds asking fellow Indians to ensure the Taj made the list. Like Babita Sharma from Noida who said: “It is really a shame on our part that we are not giving due attention and protection to the Taj despite its worldwide popularity. I would appeal to fellow indians to come forward and save the dignity of Taj Mahal by voting for it.”

Over the months, many readers also wrote in about their deep appreciation of the Taj and their apprehension that it was not being treasured and preserved the way it deserved to be.

A reader, Jayanto Ghosh, said: “The Taj is among the seven wonders. Nobody can stop it. Only Indians can do it.” Another reader, Binu Samuel from Baroda, echoed the sentiment saying the “Taj is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and no other monument can beat it. The problem is that we do not know the significance of it till we lose it.”

Many readers brought up the problems that the Taj has been mired in. Krishna from Bangalore said,”The government has to take measures to prevent industrial pollution, which causes damage to the Taj Mahal.”

Johnson from Kolkata said “Urgent steps should be taken to preserve this beautiful structure, else its days might be From Faizabad,
Deepak Kumar from Faizabad, UP, wrote, “The beautiful Taj Mahal has been caught in politics. But, we should not forget that it’s a building of love. So I wish that it’s always maintained with care.”

Added N P Roy from Faridabad Haryana, “Possibly the greatest structure ever to be built solely on the foundation of love. This epic monument, which took 17 years to build over 400 yrs ago, is truly an international treasure which needs to be preserved for posterity as one of the Seven Wonders of the world.”

Likewise, Allaukik from Dallas, US, sounded a warning: “Civilizations die if they do not preserve their past. Let us not be irresponsible.”

There are of course those who wonder why there is so much hype about a private endeavour. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has distanced itself from the campaign terming the much-awaited list as the result of a “private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the internet and not the entire world.”

The entire polling for the new seven wonders was on-line, and on phone and SMS.

Even so, when the official declaration ceremony begins at Estadio da Luz in Lisbon after midnight, many Indians will be waiting with bated breath for the announcement.

Among the top contenders for the list are the Great Wall of China, the Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru, the Colosseum of Rome, the statues of Easter Island and the statue of Christ the Redeemer, among others. Machu Picchu has been a frontrunner through the campaign with the help very active voting from Peru.

Nasa to study Sunita William’s tests

US space agency Nasa scientists plan to spend next 12 to 18 months analysing the results of experiments conducted by Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams during her stay in space.

The study of a group of experiments she dubbed “lava lamp” will help engineers design more efficient fluid management systems, such as fuel tanks, cooling systems and water recycling systems, for future space missions, Nasa said.

“I call it the ‘lava lamp’ experiment because some of the fluid is pink, and we hang out watching it with video and pictures,” Williams wrote in her mission log at the International Space Station. “If only we had a black light.” While these Capillary Flow

Experiments (CFE) are mesmerising, they actually have nothing to do with lava or lamps. They are a suite of three experiments designed to investigate how fluid flows in microgravity.

On Earth, fluid management systems rely on gravity. In a car, for instance, a pipe runs from the bottom of the fuel tank to the engine. Gravity positions the fuel at the bottom of the tank, and the fuel pump forces it through the pipe and up to the engine. But in space, where gravity is virtually absent, fluids aren’t so predictable. Propellants float around inside of tanks, and water drops bounce about recycling systems.

During her long stay aboard the station, Sunita Williams worked with the Capillary Flow Experiments more than twice as many times as any other astronaut, earning herself a regal title from the team.

Wii sales trounce PS3 and Xbox

Nintendo’s Wii video game console outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 six to one in June in Japan, a Japanese publishing company says.

Although the Wii has been on sale since late last year, they’re selling so briskly supply still hasn’t caught up with demand and long lines form when shipments arrive at stores.

Enterbrain Inc, the publisher, found that Wii also outsold Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360 in Japan in June.

Nintendo, the maker of Pokemon and Super Mario games, sold 270,974 Will consoles in Japan in June, while Sony sold 41,628 PS3 machines, and Microsoft sold 17,616 Xbox 360 consoles, it said. Overseas sales were not available.

The Wii, with its motion-sensitive remote control wand – called a Wiimote – that can be used as a sword, tennis racket or fishing rod depending on the game, has helped make the game a surprise hit around the world, widening the appeal of games to far beyond the usual niche target of young males.

The latest numbers suggest that Nintendo’s lead is widening. Wii outsold PS3 just four to one in April and five to one in May, according to Enterbrain.

“The Nintendo’s game console is catching on not only among children but also adults and singles,” said Enterbrain spokeswoman Yuko Magaribuchi.

The availability of more game software for the Wii was another factor adding to its popularity, she said.

Nintendo has said it sold 5.84 million Wii machines worldwide in the five months since its release in November, 2.37 million in the Americas, and 2.0 million in Japan. The Kyoto-based company said it expected to sell 14 million more Wii machines in the fiscal year ending in March 2008.

Sony has shipped 5.5 million PS3 machines in the fiscal year through March.

Nintendo has also marked robust sales with its Nintendo DS portable machine, while Sony has struggled with its offering, the PlayStation Portable.

The boy wizard grows up

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has come a long way in the past six years. But even the crew who have filmed him for so long were apprehensive about his first on-screen kiss.

“I shouldn’t be watching this,” said producer David Heyman, describing his thoughts during the kiss scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, due out this month.

Still only 17, Daniel Alan Radcliffe has already starred in four, and soon to be five, blockbuster films, a well-received play in London’s West End, and another, non-Potter movie due out in September.

Born July 23, 1989 to Alan Radcliffe and Marcia Gresham, Radcliffe harboured ambitions of an acting career from an early age, but his parents – a literary agent and casting director respectively – were not so keen, so his initial experience in the entertainment industry was limited to school plays.

In 1999, however, he was cast to play the young David Copperfield in the BBC’s adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, and from there his film prospects began to brighten.

The following year, with auditions ongoing for the first Potter film – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – Heyman bumped into Radcliffe’s parents, who were family friends, at a play Radcliffe was acting in.

Having been impressed by Radcliffe, Heyman asked the boy’s father if young Daniel could audition for the part of Harry Potter, a part Radcliffe eventually won, with the release of the first Potter film in 2001.

That same year, he also played the role of the son of a principal character in The Tailor of Panama, a central America-based thriller by British director John Boorman.

He has acted in a total of five Potter films and has ridden the wave of Potter-mania in that time.

JK Rowling’s seven-part Harry Potter series of novels, the latest of which is to be released July 21, have sold 325 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 64 languages.

The films, meanwhile, have grossed $US3.5 billion ($A4.11 billion) worldwide.

Despite being best known for his role in the Potter films, Radcliffe has also won critical acclaim for playing Alan Strang, a disturbed teenager fixated on horses who develops an intense relationship with his psychiatrist, the lead role in the West End play Equus.

He is also set to appear in December Boys, a movie due out in September about four orphans growing up in Australia in the 1960s.

Radcliffe is under contract to appear in the final two instalments of the series – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the eagerly anticipated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – with the final two films due out in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

His wealth is already estimated at STG17 million ($A40.15 million), according to the Sunday Times’s 2007 rich list.

He has said that playing the role of Harry Potter is an “immense privilege”, adding: “I feel a huge sense of loyalty to the character of Harry and the fans who have supported these films over the years.”

Despite the fame and fortune, though, he has continued his studies, starting by hiring a private tutor to help him through the first film. For his A-levels, he is studying Religion and Philosophy, English Literature and History.

He has admitted to being a big fan of his co-star in the Potter films, Gary Oldman, and told reporters in a press conference last month that Oldman is his role model.

Whether or not he ever manages to rival Oldman’s cinematic career, Radcliffe has become a movie superstar of his own, and is growing up before the public’s very eyes.