2G case: Essar, Loop Promoters get Bail

The special CBI court on Friday granted bail to five accused of Essar and Loop promoters in the massive 2G spectrum allocation scam. However, all the accused were charged with conspiracy and cheating in the case.

While Essar promoters Ravi and Anshuman Ruia, and Loop Telecom's Kiran Khaitan and IP Khaitan have been charged with conspiracy, Essar's Director for Strategy and Planning Vikash Saraf has been charged with cheating and conspiracy in the 2G case.

The court granted them bail on a surety bond of Rs 5 lakh each.

CBI counsel A K Singh said that Loop Telecom played "hide and seek" with the Department of Telecom (DoT) and did not reveal the DoT about its relationship with Essar Group.

He alleged that Loop Telecom had not filed the clause 8 (of the Unified Access Services Licences guidelines) certificate, which was mandatory to submit at the time of filing the application for the spectrum. Further, when it was asked to file the certificate for the spectrum, the company submitted it with incomplete information.

The allegations show that Loop was concealing vital information about its relationship with Essar group.

Google Chrome overtakes IE as Top Web Browser

Google's Chrome web-browser has for the first time ever surpassed Microsoft's Internet Explorer to become the mostly used browser worldwide for the whole of last week.

Chrome comes in at 32.5 per cent and Internet Explorer at 32.1 per cent for the last two weeks worldwide.

In December 2011 Chrome had overtaken Firefox but still it was lagging behind Internet Explorer. Then it was observed that Chrome has been overtaking IE for quite some time on weekends but now this is for the first time that it has exceeded IE for an entire week.

In the week of May 14th to 20th, Chrome superseded IE in global calculation as recorded by popular web analytics site StatCounter.

Although the global statistics provides the above result if we consider it continent wise or country wise the story is something different. It seems there is a special preference for a certain browser in case of each country or at least for a group of countries.

While the UK and the US remain quite IE-biased with Chrome lagging far behind, in Asia, Chrome is the most popular browser despite a sharp recession in the recent weeks.

Apparently maximum traffic to chrome is flown from Asia and South America. However, Internet Explorer and Firefox are dominant in North America and Europe respectively.

Coming to India, Chrome is the leader with around 8 percent lead over Mozilla's Firefox. Conversely, Internet Explorer is widely used in Japan, China and South Korea with more than 50percent of the traffic share.

While Chrome continues to be on the top, it seems May 2012 may be the first month in history that the Google browser will be on top of the browser market.

Piramal Healthcare to buy Decision Resources Group

India's leading drug maker Piramal Healthcare is all set to buy the US-based healthcare data provider Decision Resources Group (DRG) for $635 million to boost research and development (R&D) portfolio.

The move came a month after the Mumbai-based Piramal acquired the new molecules division of Germany's Bayer's. The firm had been looking forward to expand its R&D portfolio after its formulations business was sold to the Abbott Laboratories, a US-based company, for $3.72 billion in 2010.

The company will acquire the Decision Resources Group (DRG), which is based in Burlington, Massachusetts, by the end of June 30. The acquisition is expected to increase the revenue up to $160 million in 2012.

Sources said that Piramal is focusing on the R&D and high-value patents. However, it will not exit the pharmaceutical sector. The DRG, which provides healthcare date to global healthcare firms for their R&D projects, is growing 20% a year and it has 48 out of 50 top global pharmaceutical companies as clients.

Lt. Gen Tejinder Singh's Surprising Move

In a surprising development, Lt. Gen Tejinder Singh has dropped his case against Army Chief Gen VK Singh in the Supreme Court, saying he would approach the appropriate forum.

Tejinder Singh had moved the Supreme Court against the Army Chief, after the latter claimed that the former tried to pay a Rs 14 crore bribe to him to clear the Tatra -Vectra deal in 2010.

The Army Chief's claim was corroborated by Defence Minister AK Antony, who had received the complaint at that time. Although he asked the Army Chief to take action, Gen VK Singh did not pursue the matter further for unknown reasons.

Lt. Gen Tejinder Singh sought a CBI probe against the Army Chief on charges of professional misconduct, saying Gen VK Singh had authorized bugling of offices of the Defence Ministry. He had also filed a defamation case against the Army Chief.

INVOLVE FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES IN CREATING STRATEGY

Even brilliant strategies fail if front-line employees don't execute them well. Many leaders struggle to help their front-line understand and buy into new ways of doing things. Next time you change your company's direction, don't relegate strategy creation to a handful of executives. Involve as many of your employees as possible, especially those who interact with your customers.

Make them part of the process by bringing them together to thing about the company's future. Ask them for input about how the company can achieve its goals. Front-line employees who help make a strategy are far more likely to do a stellar job of executing it.

Kamal Morarka acquires Gandhi Memorabilia in UK Auction

Kamal Morarka, a businessman from Mumbai, has acquired 29 items of Mahatma Gandhi memorabilia at a recent auction in the UK. He is planning to bring the acquired items of the 'Father of Nation' to India.

Morarka announced on Friday that the purchase was done through Kamal Morarka Foundation for the Arts. The items were sold by Mullock's, a Shropshire-based auctioneer.

The industrialist was delighted to acquire the items of Gandhi. He said that he would have been happier if the government would have acquired those items.

He purchased the items paying more than 1 lakh pound. He said that it would not have been a big expenditure for the government if it would have spent Rs 80 to Rs 90 lakh to buy these items.

The memorabilia includes blades of grass and soil pigmented with blood of Mahatma Gandhi and retrieved from Birla House in Delhi, where he was assassinated in 1948, Gandhi's early pairs of iconic spectacles, the famous wooden 'charkha' (spinning wheel), a prayer book signed by Gandhi and several letters and other documents pertaining to Gandhi's life.

Morarka would like to display the items in a national museum in Delhi. He said that participating in the auction was not a commercial decision, but an emotional one to buy Gandhi's items. He intended to bring back to India the objects used by Gandhi.

UK High Court orders ban on 'The Pirate Bay'

The High Court of U.K. has ordered a ban on the Pirate Bay, the Swedish file-sharing site. Accordingly ISPs such as Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media have been ordered to block access to the site.

In last February the High Court ruling contended that the Pirate Bay is more than a neutral conduit for shared files. In fact, Mr. Justice Arnold ordered the ban as he found that the site actively encourages and profits from the sharing of copyrighted material including movies, music and books.

The music, movie and publishing community has received and accepted the ban with much approval.

The Musicians' Union said, "The individuals responsible for operating The Pirate Bay have total disregard for the rights of musicians."

The Publishers Association said, "The Pirate Bay’s operators are online criminals."

The British Phonographic Industry said: "Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK. Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them. This is wrong."

The Motion Picture Association said "The whole of the creative community will benefit from today’s action."

On the other hand Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group says that "Blocking the Pirate Bay is pointless and dangerous. It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for Internet censorship of many kinds, from pornography to extremism”.