GIS News

Global Wireless Communications Company To Expand Operations In Asia Pacific

UbiNetics, a wireless communications technology company is expandingion it's business in Asia Pacific and officially opens its regional headquarters in Hong Kong. With offices in the United Kingdom, India and Japan, UbiNetics currently provides to enterprises and consumers with mobile wireless solutions, including GSM accessories for Palm V/Vx, PDAs and notebook PCs, embedded GPRS modules, and 3G special test and measurement products.

As part of the Company's aggressive go-to-market effort and its expansion in Asia Pacific, UbiNetics is expected to recruit new developers in this region targeting specific industries or solution areas. These developers are expected to gain the competitive advantage of UbiNetics' global reach, marketing resources and customer base. These developers are expected to build applications on UbiNetics' industry-leading hardware to assemble the most powerful, and widely implementable, customer solutions that generate real revenue growth for both parties.

As part of its expansion plan, UbiNetics also unveiled a collection of products and solutions like Palm Clip-on, GSM PC Card as well as GSM-GPRS module, that aims to provide a richer wireless experience for customers demanding access to voice and data communications.

Prospects bright for Indian IT sector in Gulf

DUBAI: There are huge opportunities waiting to be utilised by the Indian information technology (IT) sector in the Gulf, with the region taking rapid strides towards e-governance and increased use of computers. A high-level 12-member delegation from the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council of India (ESC) is on a Gulf tour. It has visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman and will go to Bahrain. According to ESC chairman Vivek Singhal, the Gulf countries should provide lots of opportunities to the Indian IT industry.

In Oman, the team signed a memorandum of understanding on bilateral cooperation with the Oman Centre for Investment, Promotion and Export Development. According to the memorandum, cooperation on exchange of information, visits of trade delegations and organising trade exhibitions and meetings between businessmen will be undertaken. Singhal said the response in Oman was great, with business prospects opening up for members of the delegation. He said the U.S. slowdown and its effects on India's IT exports were temporary setbacks. This allowed the industry an opportunity to look at other markets, including the Middle East, Europe, Japan and Latin America.

Some Omani reports said the Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) has expressed interest in setting up a joint venture with the Indian private sector to manufacture telecommunication equipment and developing software for the telecom industry. "The UAE is India's biggest Middle East IT market with a 43 percent share last year," said H.A. Nagaraja Rao, ESC resident executive in Bangalore. Singhal said India's target of $50 billion in IT exports by 2008 from $9 billion last year was realistic. The delegation will visit Bahrain at the invitation of the newly set-up Economic Development Board (EDB). In April, Bahrain had said it had plans to attract $600 million to $800 million foreign direct investment (FDI) a year, especially IT investments from Indian companies.

Interest in Indian IT prowess is recognised all over the Gulf. In April, Saudi Arabia sought India's assistance when a high-level delegation of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) visited the kingdom. Saudi authorities wanted India's help to set up an IT park in the country. Saudi officials also invited the Indian IT industry to collaborate with its Saudi counterpart. Saudi companies are aware of the presence of Indian IT firms such as Tata Consultancy Services and Aptech, but say there is scope for others to come as well. In the UAE, two Indian IT majors - Infosys Technologies and Satyam - have opened offices. During a visit to Dubai in April, Satyam Computer Services chairman B. Ramalinga Raju said Satyam gives a lot of importance to the Middle East for diversifying its revenue, 70 per cent of which currently comes from the US. At present the Middle East contributes around 1.5 to 2 percent of Satyam's total revenue, but the company's office at the Dubai Internet City will help service regional clients much better. In Dubai, Satyam has 70 professionals working in various projects, and in all 110 are working in projects across the Middle East.

Source : The Times of India , 21 May, 2001

IT-enabled services revenue up by 70% in 2000-01 in India

NEW DELHI: Revenue from IT-enabled services increased by 70 per cent to Rs 4,100 crore last fiscal as compared to Rs 2,400 crore in 1999-2000, National Association of Software Service Companies (NASSCOM) said on Sunday. "IT-enabled services have steadily increased their share in the total revenue of India's IT software and services industry from a low of 6.5 per cent in 1998-99 to 10.6 per cent in 2000-01," NASSCOM chairman Phiroz Vandrevala said. Citing the NASSCOM-McKinsey report, he said in a statement here that the share of IT-enabled services would further go up to 20 per cent by 2008. Revenue from content development, animation and engineering was up by almost 50 per cent to Rs 1,600 crore while revenue from back office operations grew by 42 per cent to Rs 1,350 crore, he said. Customer interactive services including call centres and support centres segment grew by over 110 per cent to generate a revenue of Rs 850 crore.

NASSCOM is planning to host India's largest IT-enabled services conference in Chennai from May 30 to 31 in a bid to boost growth and enhance competitiveness to emerge as "preferred global hub" in the coming years. "In order to sustain this (70 per cent) growth and achieve the next level, the industry will have to focus on critical issues such as quality standards, infrastructure, marketing strategies and government policies," NASSCOM's programme committee chairman Arun Seth said. The NASSCOM would bring together experts to discuss and prepare the roadmap for the future, he said.

Source : The Times of India , 21 May, 2001

China's 1st Water Resources Protection Association Set Up

XINING, May 18 -- An association for protecting the eco-environment at the water sources of China's three major rivers -- the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang -- was founded Friday in Xi' ning, capital of the northwestern province of Qinghai, where the rivers rise.

The association was jointly initiated by government departments and enterprises involved in water conservancy, hydropower, forestry, meteorology, agriculture, water supply and environmental protection, following the decline in the eco-environment featured by soil erosion and desertification among others in the water source regions. It will devote itself to promoting water resources protection and raising the public awareness of environmental protection, said Zhu Xianlu, vice-president of the association. he Chinese government approved last year the building of its largest nature reserve -- the Three Rivers' Source Reserve, which covers a total area of 318,000 square kilometers, or nearly half of the province.

Satellite Remote Sensing Monitors Red Tides

BEIJING, -- China will use satellite remote sensing technology to monitor red tides in its coastal areas, according to the State Oceanic Administration. The system is the same as meteorological satellite monitoring used for typhoons, and it guarantees that no red tide will be overlooked within China's seas, Qu Tanzhou, director of the State Marine Environmental Monitoring Center, said today.

When a red tide is detected by satellite, low-flying airplanes and ships will be sent to the area to confirm it, Qu said. The satellite remote sensing technology was used successfully last year to monitor red tides at three key areas including Bohai, estuaries of Yangtze River, and Pearl River. A red tide is a dense population of aquatic microscopic organisms that breed in the abundance of salt in surface water. The micro-organisms appear in most of the world's waters and most are harmless. However, some single-cell organisms produce a poison that paralyzes and kills fish. These organisms may also suffocate the fish by consuming nearly all the oxygen in the water.

Specialists say that the red tide is mainly caused by pollution from land and the large-scale farming in coastal waters, which produce too much nitrogen and phosphorus. Statistics show that the frequency of red tides along China's coastal areas is climbing. From 1993 to 1997, a total of 265 red tides were reported in Chinese waters. More than eight billion tons of pollutants are released into China's coastal areas every year. In addition, geologists note that excessive reclamation of land from marshes has also damaged the ocean ecology and is yet another factor leading to the increasing occurrence of red tides.

China To Set Up Land Usage Monitoring System With Remote Sensing

NANJING, (Xinhua) -- China aims to establish a nationwide monitoring system of land usage with remote sensing technology within five years. The system will be based on cities each with a population of over 500,000 and will focus on regions with rapid economic development, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources. The ministry will release annual reports on China's land use, its changes and illegal land usage according to the information collected by the remote sensing system.

Since 1998, data sent from satellites of the United States and France have been used to monitor the land usage in large Chinese cities. The accurate and direct information about the land situation has helped the government to make policies for urban construction.

Officials attending a seminar on land management in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, said that the ministry will focus on monitoring the western regions of China in the future to ensure that a large amount of farm land returns to grassland or forest and to protect the ecological system.

Fossilized marine growth discovered in inland China

URUMQI, May 20 -- A great number of marine fish fossils have been discovered in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. These fossils were unearthed one meter underground, at a construction site in the inland city. Most of the fishes on the rock plate are black. And the fish head, eyes, bones, fin and tail are clear and easy to be identified.

Miao Xizhong and Gao Shunli, two associate professors from the Xinjiang University, said that the fossilized fishes lived in the sea more than 200 million years ago. These fish fossils range from 40 cm to 6 cm in length. Local residents are surprised to see that marine growth fossils are found in the city, which is 2,500 kilometers to the west of the Pacific Ocean, 6,900 kilometers to the east of Atlantic Ocean, 3,400 kilometers to the south of Arctic Ocean and 2,200 kilometers to the north of Indian Ocean.

Hu Wenkang, a scholar with the Xinjiang Ecology and Geology Institute under the Chinese Academy of Science, noted that "the discovery further proves the changes Urumqi had experienced from and to land." According to experts, the major part of Xinjiang was a sea area between the period from 280 million years to 2.5 billion years ago. The area rose up and formed land some 200 million years ago. Previously, fossils of coral, ammonite and ancient fishes had been found in Xinjiang.

Scientists find submerged archaeological sites in India

NEW DELHI: Marine scientists have discovered archaeological sites submerged in the Gulf of Cambay similar to on-land structures of the Harappan and pre-Harappan era.

Releasing underwater acoustic images of the sites, human resource development minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi said that it was the first time that such sites had been reported in the Gulf of Cambay. "It is important that the structures have a similarity with the structures found on-land on archaeological sites of Harappan and pre-Harappan times," Joshi said.

Structures very similar to the great bath, Acropolis, temples and granaries had been located in the National Institute of Ocean Technology discovery, made a few weeks ago. Multi-disciplinary underwater surveys carried out by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, picked up images of several geometrical objects which were normally man-made in the 9-km long stretch west of Hazira in Gujarat. The area has been seen lined with house-basement-like-features partially covered by sand waves and sand ripples at a depth of 30-40 metres. The acoustic images point to the existence of some Harappan-like ruins below the sea bed.

Joshi said findings revealed that a few major rivers had been flowing approximately in the east-west direction coinciding with the course of the present day Tapti and Narmada rivers. Due to the geological processes and tectonic events, the entire Cambay area might have sunk along with river sections and the settlement. The scientists, Joshi said, were working on the assumption that frequent major earthquakes in the region caused upheavals, which eventually led to submergence. The Bhuj earthquake in January has caused an upheaval of upto one metre. It has been concluded that around 6000 years ago, the sea level was about six metres higher than at present, and it stabilised at the present level about 4000 years ago, with minor fluctuations. The new findings are thus believed to be between 4000 and 6000 years old.

Scientists have inferred a Gujarat coastline during the Indus Valley civilisation showing that places like Lothal were port cities. The ocean has now extended to those areas. Joshi said scientists were also being guided by the work of earlier historians. Congratulating the scientists on their work, the minister said marine archaeology was still weak in India and lamented the fact that there was even a lack of good divers and equipment.

Source : The Times of India, 20 May 2001