Japan decided to impose a Fresh Round of Financial Sanctions against Iran

Japan announced on 9 December 2011 that it is imposing a fresh round of financial sanctions against Iran. Japan will freeze the assets of 106 organizations, one individual and three Iranian banks.
More than 350 Iran-based entities are now subject to Japanese sanctions. However, the move will not restrict imports of Iranian crude oil, a step many Western nations have been urging.


Resource-starved Japan relies on Iranian oil for 10 percent of its energy supply.

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Mobile Subscriber Base in India increased to 881.4 million by October 2011 from 873.61 million

According to the data released by the regulator TRAI on 8 December 2011, mobile subscriber base in India increased to 881.4 million by October 2011 from 873.61 million in September 2011 registering a growth of 0.89%. The overall teledensity (telephones per 100 people) in India reached 76.03%.


Telecom operators added 7.79 million mobile subscribers in October 2011, taking the total number of telephone users in the country to 914.59 million.


The number of active mobile subscribers, according to the visitor location register (VLR) data, during the month of was 626.18 million. VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time, excluding switched-off and out-of-the-coverage area customers.


Performance by the telecom operators


The growth in the wireless category was led by Uninor, which added 2.66 million new users, taking its subscriber base to 32.31 million by the end of October 2011. Tata Teleservices  on the other hand lost 0.93 million and its subscriber base stood at 87.83 million.


The country’s largest private operator Bharti Airtel added 0.94 million subscribers, taking its user base to 173.73 million. Vodafone added 0.92 million new customers to take its user base to 145.91 million.


Idea Cellular and Aircel added 1.63 million and 0.48 million users, respectively, during the period. Idea's subscriber base stood at 101.81 million at the end of October 2011, while that of Aircel stood at 60.28 million.
RCom (Reliance Communications) added 1.03 million new subscribers to take its user base to 148.11 million, while SSTL added 0.74 million new users to take its total userbase to 14.01 million.


State-run telcos BSNL and MTNL added 0.40 million and 31788 new users in October. The subscriber base of BSNL stood at 96.19 million and 5.61 million, respectively.


Mobile Number Portability (MNP)


As per TRAI’s report, about 25.38 lakh subscribers submitted request for MNP in October 2011. Since the introduction of MNP in November 2010, about 231.66 lakh subscribers across India had submitted requests, till October, for changing their service providers while retaining their mobile numbers.


In MNP Zone-I (Northern and Western India), maximum number of requests were received in Gujarat (22.39 lakh), followed by Maharashtra (19.10 lakh).


In MNP Zone-II (Southern and Eastern India), maximum number of requests have been received in Andhra Pradesh (19.46 lakh) followed by Karnataka Service area (19.18 lakh).


Broadband


Wireline category subscriber base declined to 33.19 million in October from 33.31 million in September. Broadband subscription reached 12.98 million in the reported month from 12.84 million in September 2011.

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Defence Minister A.K. Antony ordered Probe into Controversial Rs. 500-crore Contract

Defence Minister A.K. Antony on 8 December 2011 ordered a probe into reports that a key military intelligence unit's imagery intelligence gathering and analysis equipment is below par. The probe was ordered based on a revelation that possible corruption in the procurement of Rs. 500-crore worth of equipment had compromised its ability to use satellite images of enemy troop movements and assets.


According to reports,  the Indian Army's imagery interpretation capabilities that are critical to provide information on enemy troops locations and military assets were compromised due to faulty procurement processes leading to critical software upgrades being denied to the unit by the contracted firm.


The Army's image-analysis capabilities, which allow it to cull information of military relevance from satellite images, were hit by a controversial 2008 contract. The contract relieved the supplier, Rolta, of its responsibility of providing periodic upgrades of the software — though the Army continued to pay crores of rupees to the company.
The reports of a leading daily also claimed that the Indian company was being contracted again for a Rs.165-crore order for supply of software for which it does not hold licenses anymore.


It was also established that the military officials involved in giving the contract to Rolta went on to work with the firm — raising fears of conflict of interest.

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American Multinational Conglomerate 3M, Launched New R&D Facility

American multinational conglomerate 3 M on 23 September 2011 announced the launch of its second research and development facility in Bangalore, India. 3 M established R&D centre with an investment of 100 crore rupees. Although the company had a bigger presence in China, revenues in China were growing faster.

The company plans to increase its sales in India from 1175 crore to 5000 crore rupees within the next five years. American multinational conglomerate 3M, was earlier known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.

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Sri Lankan Golfer Anura Rohana emerged victorious in the Global Green Bangalore Open

Sri Lankan golfer Anura Rohana completed pole to finish victory in the Global Green Bangalore Open on 17 September 2011 thereby ending a decade-long wait for a title on Indian soil.

He wobbled a bit but steadied his nerves in authoritative style. Leading by a comfortable five shots from Mukesh Kumar overnight, Rohana overcame a minor blip to finish with three-under 69 for the round, and a card of 12-under-276 for the competition. Mukesh finished second (282) after shooting two-under 70.

Rohana's only previous triumph as a professional was in the Surya Nepal Masters in 2009. In the Surya Nepal Masters he had won dramatically when he won by two strokes with an eagle on the final hole.

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BSES Rajdhani Power entered into MoU with America’s Lighting Science Group for LED Lighting

BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL) on 19 September 2011 entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with America’s largest manufacturer of Light Emitting Diodes (LED)’s, Lighting Science Group (LSG). The far reaching MoU, a first of its kind in India will ensure that the two collaborate and explore avenues to demonstrate and promote energy efficiency using the next gen LED lighting. This association is expected to enable BRPL and LSG to explore opportunities to demonstrate the benefits of LED lighting.

The scope of the association is to involve conducting field trials of various LED based lighting options, including street lights at select locations and making LED products available at competitive prices for BRPL customers.

The next generation LED bulbs fit perfectly into existing screw-in light sockets and create clean, bright light level, equivalent to that of a conventional incandescent bulb. When compared to a CFL, LED bulbs use significantly less electricity and contain no mercury.  They also have a significantly longer life span than both CFL’s and Incandescent Bulbs.  The average life span of a LED Bulb is around 50000 hours verses 8000 hours for a CFL and 1000 hours for an incandescent bulb.

LED is an ideal long-term sustainable product, which is perfectly suited for extreme hot and humid climate. commercial and industrial establishments are switching to LED’s owing to its benefits. It is also a recommended lighting product for lighting using solar energy. LED lights are ideal if the per day usage is more than 8 hrs. Use of LED bulbs helps in conserving precious electricity as well as leads to huge savings in a household’s electricity bill.

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HALCON announced Commencement of Air Cargo Services at the Ojhar Airport in Nashik

HALCON along with terminal operator Clarion Solutions on 20 September announced the commencement of air cargo services at the Ojhar airport in Nashik in Maharashtra. HALCON is a joint venture working group between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and Container Corporation of India (Concor).

The airport is owned by HAL, which invested around Rs.70 crore in developing the infrastructure. While the airport, runway and air traffic control (ATC) will be managed by HAL, the cargo complex is to be managed by Clarion Solutions, which is assigned terminal operator, ground handling operator and regulated agent.

The airport is well equipped and capable of handling even the Russian AN-124 aircraft, the heaviest aircraft in the world. The airport comprises a full-fledged air cargo complex, warehousing, integrated packing centre for perishables, cold storage, screening, unitising, ground handling services for airlines, CCTV surveillance, bar-coding, labelling and customs.

It alsohas a modern radar, ATC, met services, airport aides, parking space and most importantly, night landing facility. Nashik being about 200 km from Mumbai, Ojhar airport expects about 20-25 per cent of the 40000 tonne a month cargo handled at the Mumbai airport.

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