Azim Premji

• Azim Premji is Chairman of Wipro Technologies, one of the largest software companies in India. He is an icon among Indian businessmen and his success story is a source of inspiration to a number of budding entrepreneurs.

• Born on July 24, 1945, Azim Hashim Premji was studying Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, USA when due to the sudden demise of his father, he was called upon to handle the family business. Azim Premji took over the reins of family business in 1966 at the age of 21.

• Under his stewardship, WIPRO has grown from a US$ 2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company to a US $1.76 billion IT- giant. Ranked among the top 100 Technology companies globally, Wipro is also the largest BPO services provider based in India. Premji was named as the Business Man of the Year 2000 by Business India and the Business Leader of the Year 2004 by the Economic Times. The TIME magazine listed him in 2004 as one of the 100 most influential people worldwide. In 2003, the Fortune magazine named him as one of the 25 most powerful business leaders outside the US.

• In 2006 FORBES ranked him at 25th among the world richest. In 2007 FORBES ranks him at 21 on the World Richest Billionaires. Yet, as mentioned above, he even doesn’t have a fancy brand wear; and nor even a Mercedez.

Infosys

• Infosys Technologies Ltd. was started in 1981 by seven people with US$ 250. Today, a global leader in the "next generation" of IT and consulting with revenues of over US$ 3 billion.

• Infosys was founded on July 2, 1981 by N.R. Narayan Murthy and six of his colleagues, namely, Nandan Nilekani, N. S. Raghavan, S. Gopalakrishnan, S. D. Shibulal, K. Dinesh and Ashok Arora. Narayan Murthy borrowed Rs.10,000 from his wife Sudha Murthy as seed capital for the company. In 1987 Infosys got its first foreign client, Data Basics Corporation from the United States and opened its first office in the USA. In 1993, Infosys became a public limited company and successfully completed IPO in India. In the same year Infosys received ISO 9001/TickIT certification. Infosys set up its first office in Europe in Milton Keynes, UK in 1996. In 1999, Infosys crossed $100 Million in annual revenue and was listed on NASDAQ. It was Indian company to be listed on NASDAQ. In the same year Infosys opened offices in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, and Australia. In 2000, Infosys crossed $200 Million in annual revenue. In 2004, Infosys crossed US $1 Billion in annual revenue. In 2006, Infosys completed 25 years of its existence and its revenues crossed $ 2 billion. Today Infosys has more than 50,000 employees and has presence in more than 20 countries across the world. Its corporate headquarters is in Bangalore.

Services offered by Infosys are:

• Application Development & Maintenance,
• Corporate Performance Management,
• Enterprise Quality Services
• Infrastructure Services Packages
• Application Services
• Product Engineering
• Systems Integration

Reliance Power IPO subscribed over 6 times

• Anil Ambani group's Reliance Power IPO generated a demand of over Rs 78,975 crore within one hour of its book building process, that started on Tuesday morning.

• According to the latest data available on the National Stock Exchange, the IPO got subscribed over 6.75 times till 11 a.m. in the first day of its public issue.

• Most of the bids came at Rs 450, the upper end of the price band making it the country's largest ever IPO with an estimated proceeds of Rs 11,700 crore, bankers close to the IPO said.

• Reliance Power has a diversified portfolio of 13 medium and large-sized power projects, under development and strategically located at various places across India.

• With an installed capacity of 28,200 megawatts, the Reliance Power IPO will significantly contribute to reducing the demand-supply gap for the power in the country at competitive rates.

Kozhikode emerges winners in school fest

• Kozhikode has once again emerged winners in the state school kalotsavam. The district has bagged 635 points and will receive a trophy weighing 117 sovereigns.

• Hosts Kollam stands second with 626 points and Ernakulam is in the third position with 622 points. Palakkad stands fourth with 597 points.

Narendra Modi in Guruvayur

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi performed " thulabharam" at the Sree Krishna Temple in Guruvayur on 14th January 2008 ,Kerala,India.

Lohri2008

• Lohri festival is celebrated every year on 13th of January.It is a festival to worship fire. Lohri .Lohri Festival is celebrated with great pomp in North India. At this time Earth starts moving towards the sun marking the auspicious period of Uttarayan.

• Like most other festivals in India, Lohri is also related to the agricultural activities of the farmers. It marks the harvesting season in Punjab and the end of the winter season. Lohri usually falls on the last day of the month of Paush, a day known as Makar Sankranti in most parts of the country. According to the English calendar, Lohri falls on 13th January every year.

No ban for Indian workers

Dismissing reports of a freeze on recruitment of workers from India, Malaysia on Wednesday insisted that it never made a ruling to this effect. "Let me state categorically that the Home Ministry has never come out with any ruling that we have stopped the intake of foreign workers from India," Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad told reporters


He said he was not aware where these reports came from. "This has disturbed us a lot," he said.


The news reports about the ban came during a visit by Defence Minister A K Antony to Malaysia, triggering a furor in India. Malaysian Works Minister Samy Vellu, who is in New Delhi to attend the conference of overseas Indians, had denied the reports on Wednesday itself.