NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's telecoms regulator on Tuesday said about 1.71 million mobile users have opted to switch operators while retaining their numbers by Feb. 5, following the launch of mobile number portability (MNP) in the world's fastest-growing mobile market.
MNP was launched in Haryana on Nov. 25 last year and was expanded to all of India's 22 zones from Jan. 20.
While MNP has increased competition in the crowded 15-player mobile market -- that is also the world's second-biggest after China with 730 million users at end-November -- but has not led to price cuts so far.
A vicious price war had sent call prices tumbling in the second half of 2009, straining carriers' financials. But the market has stabilised with no major price cuts seen in the last several quarters.
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
TRAI: 1.71 mln users opt for mobile number portability
India's batmakers hit for six by global sponsors
By Henry Foy
MEERUT, India (Reuters) - When the world's batsmen dazzle crowds at this month's cricket World Cup, many will use bats hand-made in India. But lucrative global branding that masks the bats' true makers threatens the country's craftsmen.
In cricket-mad India, family businesses that have supplied the country's leading cricketers for generations face an uncertain future of anonymity as global giants swamp the game with cash in exchange for TV-friendly logos on the big-hitters' bats.
"Buying players with advertising is far cheaper than investing in making bats. We are crafting bats, they are using stickers. They are ruining our brands, because we cannot afford to give that kind of money, those royalties to the players," says Rakesh Mahajan, director of B.D. Mahajan and Sons (BDM).
In his dust-filled workshop in Meerut, dozens of workers cut, glue, sand and bend hundreds of bats everyday to the exact specifications of international superstars, who rely on their decades-old techniques.
"Sponsorship is no harm, but removing the manufacturer's branding is not fair. We are building the bats, but people are not recognising us: the sponsors are taking the credit," says Mahajan.
Sat in his wood-paneled office, over the sounds of sawing and banging below, Mahajan proudly shows photos of players using BDM bats. But the pictures are undeniably dated: Former superstars carry the logo, but the current crop have followed the money.
"We have no issue with Gray Nicholls, or Kookaburra," says Mahajan, referring to the long-established UK and Australia-based equipment manufacturers.
"The problem is Nike, Reebok, Adidas, people like Brittania and Hero Honda. They make biscuits and motorbikes, not bats!"
BDM employs 300 people in its two factories in Meerut, 80 kilometres north-east of Delhi, where hundreds of sports companies gather at a major hub in the country's estimated 10 billion rupee ($219 million) cricket equipment market.
Wood shavings carpet the stone floor of the bat workshop, where scores of workers squat, filing the edges of countless bats to a smooth finish under towers of willow planks and cane handles that climb to the ceiling.
Boxes of finished bats pile up in every direction from the factory entrance, ready to be distributed across India and the world to global superstars, academy players and amateur batsmen.
WORLD CUP BOOM
Despite Mahajan's fear of cricket's commercialisation, which exploded with the launch of the billion-dollar Indian Premier League in 2008 that sent player wages and TV rights skyrocketing, he admits the globally-viewed World Cup is good for business.
Demand is strong, and Mahajan's sparkling 4x4 on the dusty lane that runs through the industrial estate filled with sports manufacturers attests to BDM's 10-15 percent annual growth.
With the first match just weeks away, the factory is churning out 1,200 bats a day for its largest ever order, and to meet soaring demands from schools and local authorities, while sacks are stuffed full of cricket balls branded with carmaker logos for promotional release during the tournament, which begins Feb 19.
The company produces an average of 150,000 bats and 220,000 balls every year, using willow from England and India's northern Kashmir region. Ten percent of its products are exported, mainly to the cricket heartlands of the UK, Australia and Pakistan.
English willow bats sell for 12,000 rupees ($263), while those made from Kashmiri wood range between 500 and 1,200 rupees ($11-$26). BDM's balls cost retailers 60-600 rupees ($1.30-$13).
"For the top bats, willow is imported from England , and cane for the handle is imported from Singapore. From India comes the labour and the technique," says Mahajan.
His is a very local operation. Having filled its dingy ball factory, BDM has turned to local villagers, who collect scores of unstitched balls and return with the finished products a few days later, which will be used in professional matches across the country.
Yet when these balls are smashed around stadiums by India's top batsmen, hundreds of
Indian 'jugaad' comes to New York
New York, Feb 9 (IANS) Jerry-rigged cars, homemade stoves and do-it-yourself water filtration are all examples of what the Indians call 'jugaad' in Hindi or 'making do' with what they have on hand in Indian cities.
Now Americans for the first time are set to experience 'jugaad' - loosely translated as that certain resourcefulness and innovation found in Indian cities - at an exhibition 'Jugaad Urbanism: Resourceful Strategies for Indian Cities', opening here Thursday.
Organised by the Centre for Architecture, the first exhibition in the US on contemporary Indian urbanism explores how the energy of citizens 'making do' can be an inspiration and a catalyst for the worldwide community of architects, designers, and urban planners.
With so much emphasis on high design and high-tech in typical architecture shows, an exhibition focussing on design by the people, for the people, of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Pune brings a new perspective to the international conversation about designing for life in contemporary cities.
The exhibition on view Feb 10-May 21 juxtaposes these homemade solutions and the 'designed' ones, showing how the two can build off of one another to improve city life.
As curator Kanu Agrawal says, 'Jugaad strategies allow designers to work with maximum adaptability and imagination'.
'Inspired by the skill and ingenuity of grassroots tactics as well as a careful use of meagre resources, designers can be thoughtful contributors for healthier, safer, and more equitable cities.'
'With their organisational skills and expertise they can provide examined ways of improving living conditions,' he says.
Margaret Castillo, president of the American Institute of Architects' New York Chapter, says: 'Together, the exhibition and programmes aim to educate both local and international audiences about the critical issues of growing cities.'
'While Mumbai may seem a world away from New York City, the lessons learned from its empowered citizens and designers can be applied to rapidly expanding cities with similar issues, such as Rio or Guangzhou.
'Object-based, small-scale urbanism proves that good design has the power to make the world a better place,' she says.
Related programmes will include a day-long symposium on informal settlements and low-income housing in India, organised in partnership with the UN Human Settlements programme, and a weekly film series of documentaries and Bollywood features that focus on life in contemporary India.
The exhibition is organised in partnership with the India China Institute at The New School, the Indo-American Arts Council and the Society of Indo-American Engineers and Architects.
Tendulkar bears immense burden at World Cup
London, Feb 8 (Reuters): Sachin Tendulkar, possessor of every one-day batting record worth holding, carries an unparalleled weight of expectation over the course of the next two months.
Even the incomparable Australian Don Bradman, whose feats at the crease during the Great Depression sustained an emerging nation's morale, did not endure the pressure Tendulkar will confront at the 10th World Cup opening in Dhaka on Feb. 19.
According to the historian Ramachandra Guha, Tendulkar is the best-known Indian alive with a status equivalent to a Hindu god or a Bollywood film star. When he faced the former Pakistan opening bowler Wasim Akram the television audience in India exceeded the entire population of Europe.
"Batsmen walk out into the middle alone," wrote the Indian poet and critic C.P. Surendran. "Not Tendulkar. Every time Tendulkar walks to the crease, a whole nation, tatters and all, marches with him to the battle arena."
"A pauper people pleading for relief, remission from the lifelong anxiety of being Indian, by joining in spirit their visored saviour."
Tendulkar scored his 51st test century this year after a duel with South African fast bowler Dale Steyn recalling Bradman's jousts with England's Harold Larwood in the 1932-33 Bodyline series.
Three more one-day hundreds in the World Cup climaxing in his native Mumbai on April 2 would make him the only batsman to total 100 centuries over both forms of the game, a landmark which like Bradman's test average of 99.94 would probably last forever.
"I still want to achieve something and everyone knows that," Tendulkar, 37, said last month at a ceremony to celebrate India's number one spot in the world test rankings.
SPIN RULES
Fourteen teams have been divided into two groups for the tournament, co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, with the top four from each division advancing to the quarter-finals. The first round follows a week of warmup matches, further extending an already overlong competition, and on paper looks soporifically predictable.
In Group A, defending champions Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka would have to seriously under-perform to miss qualifying ahead of Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya.
Group B holds marginally more interest. Bangladesh barely hold their own in test cricket but they can be a force in the one-day game, especially on their own pitches as a 4-0 drubbing of New Zealand late last year testified.
With a host of slow, naggingly accurate bowlers on sluggish pitches, Bangladesh could well qualify at the expense of West Indies in a group including India, England, South Africa, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The explosion in the one-day game in India, which made the country the richest and most powerful nation in world cricket, followed their upset win over West Indies in the 1983 final under the inspired captaincy of all-rounder Kapil Dev.
At subsequent World Cups they have not played to their potential, reaching only one other final when they were demolished by an outstanding Australian side in 2003.
To exploit home advantage, India have packed their side with full- and part-time spinners in the knowledge that when the knockout stages eventually get away in late March temperatures will be soaring and the pitches will deteriorate faster.
MURALITHARAN DEPARTS
The other leading contenders have reached the same conclusion with even South Africa, who have historically viewed spin bowling with deep suspicion, naming three slow bowlers.
South Africa possess a modern-day master in all-rounder Jacques Kallis, whose averages stand comparison with those of Garfield Sobers. They will again field a confident, aggressive side but have consistently failed to convert potential into performance at the World Cup.
Australia, emphatic champions in the last three tournaments, were trounced by England in the Ashes but won the subsequent one-day series with Shane Watson batting with muscular authority at the top of the order and a revitalised Brett Lee bowling at express pace.
For their part, England have enjoyed a wonderful 12 months,
Katrina Kaif wants to have kids by 33
By glamsham
Wednesday Feb 9 10:55 AM
Glamsham Editorial
Bollywood's most happening lady, Katrina Kaif aka 'Sheila Ki Jawani' hottie flaunts her curves exclusively on the February cover of GQ India magazine. The pretty actress strikes a sexy pose on the front page and we're sure fans are going to go gaga for this one!
Following are the excerpts from Katrina kaif's interview with GQ:
"Lack of sleep is dangerous. When I feel tired, I want to put on hats and scarves and build a wall around myself" says Katrina Kaif who is busy shooting for Yash Raj's MERE BROTHER KI DULHAN these days.
According to her working in films is a wonderful business, but it can be very tricky. "You're being watched and judged by a lot of people. You live through the newspapers." Overt displays of female sexuality, for example, are out. "I'm not comfortable beyond a certain line of sensuality," she says. "I think it can be offensive to certain sectors of your audience. It's important that it comes across as you."
Kaif's reluctance to open up extends to her wildly nomadic childhood. Born in Hong Kong, she left with her British mother Suzanne Turquotte, a veteran NGO activist, when she was two or three, spending time in France and Japan and then Hawaii by the age of 11, before arriving in London at 13. "I have a lot of feelings of being lost and shy and isolated. I felt alien," she says. "It makes you feel unsettled in your mind. You crave somewhere to settle." At 18, she found it after being cast in Kaizad Gustad's BOOM in 2003, the film that launched her career. To sound easier on the Indian ear, she took the name of her Kashmiri-British father, Mohammed Kaif.
When asked about her marriage she said, "Do I see myself married in two years? I don't really know. I think by the time I'm around 33, I should be having kids. But you can't plan it. I do want to get married, but do I want to have a child grow up without a father? No. I think you need more security."