Nokia losing out to Samsung!

After upholding the leadership position for a span of long 14 years, now the Finnish Mobile giant Nokia is losing out to Samsung. An early poll has suggested that South Korean phone maker Samsung has surpassed Nokia in the global phone market.

In the first quarter of this year Samsung has sold around 88 to 92 million numbers of cell phones while Nokia has officially sold 83 million phones including both the Smartphone and feature phones.

In the last quarter of 2011 Nokia had remained on top of the overall global mobile phone sales graph with 23.4 percent market share, Samsung was second with 19 percent and Apple was in third position even without any feature phones on offer.

Although at present we don’t have the official quarterly sales report of Samsung and other manufacturers, the abrupt fall in Nokia’s share is expected to have occurred in February and March this year.

If the speculation is not wholly true, but it is certain that in the race for Smartphones Nokia has already lost the game. In Quarter One of 2012, probably Nokia has sold only 12 million Smartphones, and 71 million feature phones.

The above statistics clearly shows that how badly Nokia is losing out in the global Smartphone segment.

KFC to pay $8.3 Mn for Girl's Brain Damage in Sydney

In a setback for Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), the Australian court has ordered the fast food giant to pay $8.3 million (AUD 8 million) to a family of a girl for causing brain damage.

A family in Sydney had approached the New South Wales Supreme Court claiming their girl's brain was damaged after eating chicken wraps from the KFC when she was 7-year-old in 2005. The victim was in coma for several months and suffered brain damage. Last week, the court had held the KFC responsible for the food poisoning. Justice Stephen Rothman on Friday ordered the KFC, one of the leading fast food giants in the world, to pay AUD 8 million for the brain damage.

However, the KFC denied the charges and said that it would appeal further to the court.

Delhi Airport to become Costliest in World

New Delhi airport would become the most expensive in the world with hike in airport charges. The airport's operator GMR Infrastructure Ltd has announced that the charges will be increased from May 15.

GMR Infrastructure, which has received a regulatory approval, will raise the airport charges from May 15, saying the hike will cover the cost of the airport.

With the increased charges, the air ticket prices for international flights operating from New Delhi would rise by an average of Rs 580 ($10.99) and the domestic fares would be increased by an average of Rs 290.

The operator in a statement on Wednesday said that the charges for aircraft's landing and parking fee would also be increased. The move may discourage foreign airlines to operate to and from Delhi.

The move may also hurt the Indians, who are fed up of paying high price for travelling by flights.

Mamata's West Bengal to launch TV Channel

After feeling the heat from the media on various issues ever since she came to power in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has decided to launch a newspaper and TV channel, which will be owned by the government.

"The government work is not being highlighted properly. We need our own news channel and paper to inform the people," she said.

Mamata accused the media of bias towards her and said the scribes are busy in reporting negative news about her and the government.

Align Employees and Company Priorities

Lucky Managers find that their employees' interest naturally align with company priorities. If you're not one of the lucky ones, here are three ways to line up what your employees care about with your company needs to get done:

- Know your employees' priorities: Don't wait for review time. Regularly ask your employees what they personally care most about. As a manager, you need to know what drives them.

- Communicate company priorities: Tell employees what the company needs to achieve in the next week, month, and year. Be clear and consistent, and do this often.

- Align interest to responsibilities: Now that both agendas are clear, try as much as possible to channel employees' interest into relevant company priorities.

Facebook acquires 'Tagtile' Team

Social-networking giant Facebook Inc is acquiring the team of developers behind customer-loyalty application Tagtile. Tagtile is founded by Indian engineers Abheek Anand and Soham Mazumdar.

In an attempt to boost its talent pool stride, Facebook has made this step. Few days before Facebook had acquired the photo-sharing app Instagram for 1 billion dollars. However, for Tagtile, nothing has been disclosed about the financial terms.

Tagtile is a customer loyalty mobile application. Co-founders of this San Francisco based company Abheek Anand and Soham Mazumdar are engineers with experience working at VMware Inc and Google Inc, according to their website.

Tagtile has said on its website that Facebook was acquiring substantially all of their assets. The Tagtilers have also described the opportunity to be a great one which can provide them big chance to achieve their goal to help grow their business. They are quiet excited.

Looking at its growth pace, it can be expected that Facebook may conduct the most anticipated US initial public offering ever. Presently, the Menlo Park-based Company is valued at $95.8 billion, according to SharesPost Inc, which provides valuations of private companies.

IT Giant Infosys defers Annual Pay Hike

India's leading IT firm Infosys will not be offering salary hikes in April, which may upset its employees when there is price rise in all the consumer goods and products.

Nandita Gurjar, Infosys's vice-president and global head of HR, said, “Our employees understand the problems of the company. They are behind us and they are the major stakeholders. Most of our employees were aware of this from their business units about the conditions. This was a known thing for many. We formally informed them today morning".

The Bangalore-based company generally announces its annual pay hike in April. However, it decided to withhold it for the timing. The management would take the decision for pay hike after reviewing the market condition in the middle of the year.

"Our focus right now is on growth and the whole leadership team is working towards it. So, we have decided not to roll out hikes this April, but we might re-look into it later in the year if things improve", Gurjar said.

However, there will be recruitment and promotion in the company. Around 16,000 employees would get promotions and the company will recruit 35,000 employees this year.

This is not the first time the IT giant has delayed the annual pay hike. Earlier during the financial turmoil in 2008, Infosys had taken a similar measure in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers implosion and the global financial crisis.

Later in the same year, employees were paid around 10% hike in October. The experts said that other Indian companies in the sector may follow the same.

Infosys employed 149,994 as of March 31 this year. The company said there would be no deferring of hiring of freshers from campuses. The company is also planning to hire 1,200 in the US where already 1,200 have been recruited in the past 18 months.

Turner to close down 'Imagine TV' in India

In a shocking development, U.S.-based Turner Broadcasting System Inc, a Time Warner company, has decided to wind up the operations of 'Imagine TV' in India because of poor ratings.

Turner had bought a majority stake in Imagine TV while clinching a deal with NDTV, which previously owned the Hindi entertainment channel. The deal was signed in 2009 at $117 million.

Imagine TV's India and international feed 'Imagine Dil Se' will be shut with effect from today on April 12. Today is the last working day for Imagine TV in India.

The fans of Imagine TV were left disappointed with the decision, as they won't get another chance to watch serials like 'Chandragupta Maurya', 'Mahima Shani Dev Ki', 'Preeto', 'Jamuna Paar' and Veena's Swyamvar.

China cracks Whip, deletes 2.10 lakh Posts

Amidst the rumours of coup and political crisis, China cracked the whip and deleted around 2.10 lakh posts since March 2012. In addition, 42 websites were shut to deal with the situation.

The Chinese leadership has taken serious note of the Internet rumours that put the political establishment in the country in a tight spot. Several social media and microblogging service websites have been under the scanner for spreading the "false news" and "rumours".

Meanwhile, over 10,000 people protested in Chongging against top Communist leader Bo Xilai, whose wife was detained on suspicion of murder. The police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the mob.

Dont' Forget to Manage

the distinction between leading and managing is a subject of ongoing debate. Leading is often characterized as the more glamorous job: leaders guide, influence, and inspire their people, while managers implement ideas and get things done. But leaders who focus exclusively on coming up with big, vague ideas for others to implement can become disconnected from their team or organization. 

Avoid being a 'big-picture only' leaders. Make decisions and develop strategies that take into account the real-world constraints of cost and time. Stay involved with the details of implementation. Sure, it's easier to come up with ideas and tell others to make them so, but you also need to roll up your sleeves and understand what those ideas take to become reality.

Nokia Lumia 900 hit by a Software Bug

Mobile phone major Nokia has found a software bug in its Lumia 900 model, which went on sale in the US through AT&T on April 8. The report is a big blow to the firm, which eyes to dominate the US Smartphone market.

The firm on Wednesday said that the glitch, which may lead to loss of data connectivity, would be fixed soon.

Nokia, which is struggling to dominate the US market where Apple and Google have expanded their empire, needs to wait for a week to resolve the problem.

Nokia said that the problem was related to the phone software, not to the hardware, network it the Windows Phone operating system. "A memory management issue was discovered that could, in some cases, lead to loss of data connectivity," Nokia Smartphone unit chief Jo Harlow and Nokia USchief Chris Weber said in a joint statement.

The firm said that the software update, fixing the problem would be available on April 16.

The Lumia 900 will be launched globally this quarter. The model, which uses Microsoft's Windows Phone software, has won several awards at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January this year.

Android controls 50% of US Smartphone Market

The Internet marketing research company comScore MobiLens has provided that the Android Smartphones only controlled 50% of the U.S. Smartphone market for the first time in February 12.

In February 12 while Apple’s share for iOS was 30.2%, RIM’s BlackBerry claimed 13.4% and Microsoft had 3.9% of the market in the U.S.

The report also offered that around 234 million Americans were using mobile device in February and around 69.5 million people in the U.S. bought Smartphones within that month.

The fact of Google’s success story was brought into light by one Horace Dediu, an analyst with Asymco, who provided the finding that while Google makes only $1.70 per Android Smartphone, Apple makes $576.30 per iPhone sale.

But in spite of the largest support towards the Android phone by the U.S., the number is low in comparison with the world market for the phone. The market for the Android phone had already approached the 50 % mark last August.

Mobile Facebook available in 8 Indian Languages

Mobile Facebook users will enjoy another hi-tech facility on their phone within some weeks as the social networking giant will allow them to access their accounts in 8 Indian languages.

According to the report, Facebook’s mobile site will be accessible in 8 Indian languages including Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali and Marathi with Hindi, Malay and Vietnamese. This is a wide range of languages and one can opt for his desirable language to surf on this popular social networking site.

The users need to use the 'Facebook for Every Phone mobile application', to access the service, which was launched in July 2011. Currently, this application is active on over 3600 Java-enabled phones, globally.

Initally, the application was supporting only English language. But now it has been expanded with 8 Indian languages to give users the facility to use Facebook with the language of their choice.

Facebook's Country Growth Manager Kevin D’Souza said that the app can be accessed with many models in India on Facebook.

BlackBerry Curve 8530 available at Rs 11,990

BlackBerry has re-launched its Curve 8530 CDMA phone in India at a price of Rs. 11,990. The new price is 37 percent less than its original launch price of Rs. 18,990 during the device’s introduction two years back.

The previous price of the Curve 8530 was Rs. 13,500. India has turned into a super market for the phone sellers. May it be CDMA or GSM the market is growing day by day.

India CDMA Smartphone shipment has increased significantly in the last few years. While the number was less than one lakh units in 2010, it has increased to over three lakh units in 2012. As per the IDC the number is expected to increase even more reaching to over six lakh units in 2016.

RIM's range of CDMA phones includes BlackBerry Style 9670 (Rs 19,704), BlackBerry Curve 9330 (Rs 15,990), BlackBerry Bold 9650 (Rs 20,990) and BlackBerry Curve 9350 (Rs 20,990) along with the BlackBerry Curve 8530.

The revised prices are as follows –

• BlackBerry Curve 8520 -  Rs 8,999

• BlackBerry Torch 9860 -  Rs 21,990

• BlackBerry Curve 9380 - Rs 16,990

• BlackBerry Curve 9360 - Rs 18,990

The company has recently also cut prices of its handsets and tablet PC, PlayBook, and expanding its retail market in India to boost sales.

5 Indian States where we find Female Foeticide

The term female foeticide means killing the female foetus in the mother’s womb. The means and manner in which female foeticide and infanticide have been addressed in our country are worthy of intense scrutiny.

It has been established that sex selection and foeticide, the worst form of discrimination against girls, is chiefly practiced among wealthy, educated urban families.  In India, sex ratio stands at a paltry 933:1000, i.e., 67 women short of every 1,000 males.

According to figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau, in Punjab, 81 cases were registered for female foeticide while for Rajasthan the corresponding number was 51.

Madhya Pradesh registered 21 cases, Haryana 18 and Chattisgarh 24. Below are the five Indian states where we find Female Foeticide:

Punjab

Punjab remains the heart land of pre-natal sex selections and post-natal gender discrimination, in the country. The birth of a son is preferred over that of a daughter since ancient times. The basic reasons for such an adverse situation, lies in the socio-cultural fabric of the society.

Haryana

This malaise continues unabated, particularly in Haryana, where males are preferred over females. In several states, especially Punjab and Haryana, marriage outside one’s community, or social or income group, is frowned upon.

Numerous other authentic studies reaffirm that the practice of female foeticide is widespread all over India, the worst states being Punjab and Haryana. They also find that the law has been infringed with impunity.

Madhya Pradesh

State of Madhya Pradesh had the highest number of recorded cases of both female foeticide and infanticide. While the figures for Madhya Pradesh said that there were 23 female foeticide cases in the State, it also recorded 51 cases of female infanticide – the highest in the country.

Rajasthan

It is unfortunate that in the present time, female foeticide is commonly practiced across the Rajasthan and female infanticide is also common especially in districts like Jaisalmer. The archaic social structure has always given preference to males over females in the state. The state also has a high maternal mortality rate of 445 per 100,000 live births.

Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh's female foeticide figures in 2003-05 were the second highest in the nation. However, till now the ratio is a matter of concern in Chhattisgarh. The main reason behind the CSR decline seems to be latent female foeticide, which might be widely-practiced but going unnoticed by the state government.

One of the main reasons behind female foeticide is the dowry. Daughters were unable to provide social security to their parents in old age and thus were considered an unnecessary investment.

At the same time, respondents were apprehensive of finding a suitable match for their male children. The girl children in India have been the most vulnerable for centuries and, are even today, vulnerable to the insults of deprivation as well as discrimination.

It is a shame for any progressive nation that a male child is given preference to a female child and consequently lives are literally nipped in the bud in front of the wide open eyes of an indifferent society.