India’s largest BPO company Genpact on Wednesday announced a 50:50 joint venture with NDTV to set up a media outsourcing unit in Gurgaon to provide video editing, digitisation and graphics to news channels around the world.

The JV will operate in the $130 billion media outsourcing domain. It will provide media services to global and regional media and entertainment companies in areas like editing, archiving, digitisation and closed captioning. In US, the cost of outsourcing such services to BPO vendor cost around $150 per hour. Genpact plans to bring down the cost by upto 50% by offshoring it from India.

Currently, 70% of all media work is digital and about 70% of this can be offshored. The JV wants to cash in on this huge potential.

Genpact has also abandoned its plans for an initial public offering (IPO). “We have no plan to go for an IPO. We don’t need to go for it,” Genpact CEO Pramod Bhasin said adding GE, which still holds 40% in the company, was not considering exiting genpact. Two private equity ventures General Atlantic Partners and Oak Hill Capital Partners had picked up GE’s 60% stake for about $500 million in 2004.

It said it will set up BPO centres in Poland and Philippines with a headcount of 1500 each.

Genpact’s Poland BPO unit will cater to the German language market and operate in both voice and transaction based work. The Philippines unit will be purely voice based.

The company also revised its revenue target. “We expect our annual revenues cross $615 million in 2006, a jump of 26% as compared to 2005 revenues. The company also plans to set up a BPO centre in Kolkata where financial services, accounting and analytical works could be taken up,” Genpact CEO Pramod Bhasin told reporters here.

Pharmaceutical major Ranbaxy today announced that it has acquired Romanian generic company Terapia for $324 million and aims to make Romania its manufacturing hub in Europe. Ranbaxy acquired 96.7 per cent stake in Terapia and the deal gives the Gurgaon-based company two manufacturing units, bio-equivalence centres, 60 products and access to Terapias coverage of nearly 4,000 pharmacies and 450 hospitals in Romania. The company will utilise $400 million that was raised recently via FCCB route for the acquisition and the process will be completed by the second quarter.

The deal will combine the strengths of two premier generic companies and allow us to leverage an expanded base in the rapidly growing Romanian pharmaceutical market, across the european Union and the CIS markets, Ranbaxy Laboratories Chief Excutive Officer and Managing Director Malvinder Mohan Singh said.

Ranbaxy also will be moving its European manufacturing to the two facilities of Terapia, which has the capacity to make oral and liquid formulations and sterile injections.

In future we intend to make Terapias facilites our hub for manufacturing in Europe, Singh said, adding though the facilities are not yet USFDA approved, it will be filing an application in the near future.

He said the acquisition would help the company unleash new opportunities in Romania and pan European synergies and it will provide Terapia with additional products to launch in the domestic market at very cost competitive levels, thereby lowering costs and delivering value to both consumers and the domestic healthcare budget.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - In the New Delhi suburb Gurgaon, shiny new shopping malls line the main street, housing Western brands ranging from apparel retailer Benetton Group (BNG.MI: Quote, Profile, Research) to restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday (RI.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

In India’s largest city, Mumbai, an electronics store draws crowds of customers by listing discounted prices on flat-panel televisions and refrigerators — a major shift for shoppers accustomed to haggling with small, independent shopkeepers.

India’s fast-growing, young, urban middle class is driving a retailing revolution, bringing Western-style formats including hypermarkets, department stores, specialty chains and even dollar stores. As many as 250 malls are expected to open in India over the next two years, up from around 60 now.

But the next phase is still to come as global giants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) wait anxiously for India’s government to ease restrictions on foreign investment.

“India is becoming a consumer economy,” Mike Duke, Wal-Mart’s vice chairman and head of international operations, told Reuters in a recent interview in New Delhi.

Duke was the second high-level Wal-Mart executive to meet government officials here in the past year, as the world’s biggest retailer tries to convince India to open up its retail market to outsiders.

Wal-Mart and other retailers see huge opportunity in the country of one billion people, with a middle class estimated at nearly 60 million people, and another 220 million who have significant buying power.

Noida might be better connected to Delhi. Indirapuram might be close to Connaught Place, and Faridabad to south Delhi. And Greater Noida might be the best-planned township in the country. Despite competition from these areas, Gurgaon continues to hold its own as the most attractive suburb within the NCR. Reason: it has managed to get several elements of the development mix right. It has international standard office space that attracts big corporates; it has, or is developing, high-end condominiums to house corporate staff; its a BPO hub; and it also has the malls and pubs that offer a cosmopolitan lifestyle. Not surprisingly, Gurgaon has also led the field in property price appreciation. Over the past two years, real-estate prices have risen by 25-35 per cent annually.

Easy availability of housing finance and rising salaries within a fast growing economy have pushed up demand in the residential segment. Says Abhijit Malkani, regional director, NAI, a real estate consultancy: Over the past couple of years a number of Indian and overseas companies have moved into Gurgaon. A large workforce has followed in their wake which prefers to own rather than lease an apartment.

Furthermore, the easy availability of loans has spawned a class of investors who take loans to buy a second property as an investment. The affluent also buy here because they want a weekend home. All these factors have pushed up demand

Shiv Kapur, the brightest golfing talent to have emerged from India in the past few years, will be the star attraction at the first annual Netlink Invitational Golf Series 2006 to be played in Gurgaon near on Saturday.

Kapur, the Volvo Masters Champion and Asian Tour Rookie of the Year in 2005, plays one hole with select 18 groups during the course of the Golf Day, which will form part of the Netlink Invitational series at Gold Greens Golf and Country Club, Gurgaon.

The format for the main tournament will be Texas Scramble where only the best ball in the fourball is counted and there will be only one team score on every hole. This ensures brisk pace of play and it also leads to interactive golf at its best.

The Netlink tournament will be shotgun start teeing off at 8 am and the game will be followed by a round of entertainment, lunch and the awards ceremony.

“Shiv Kapur’s presence will add to the lustre of the tournament. His exploits on Asian Tour and now European Tour have made us all proud,” said Rajesh Bakshi, Managing Director of Netlink Business Sytem Pvt Ltd.

Sunday at the malls in Gurgaon could well be history soon. The district’s deputy commissioner has asked all the mall managers in Gurgaon to down shutters on Sundays.

Trashing earlier reports of Haryana Tourism allowing malls to open 24X7 to promote tourism in the state, especially in Gurgaon, the Gurgaon deputy commissioner RP Bhardwaj has said that the Haryana Government had withdrawn the earlier notification.

“Those interested in opening shops whether in the malls or outside in open markets would now be required to acquire exemption under clause 9 and 10 of the Punjab Shops & Commercial Establishments Act 1958,” he said.

In Gurgaon, only Shoppers’ Stop (in MGF Metropolitan Mall) and Lifestyle (in DLF City Centre Mall) and PVR and DT Cinemas have the required exemption. The IT and ITeS (BPOs and Call Centres) sector is already exempted from this under special clauses of the Information Technology Act.

Mall managers are calling it a draconian order. “Major chunk of revenue comes to our tenants on Saturdays and Sundays only when footfall reaches its peak. We are shocked,” said Sanjay Chawla of DLF Mall.

Footfall at the malls on Sundays and Saturdays reach 25-35,000 while it remains around 10,000 on weekdays.

“All the mall managers have met the DC urging reversal of the order. We pleaded that the mall concept all over the world allows 24X7 operation and Gurgaon, which is global city now, should not be an exception. If there has to be a holiday for the mall, it should be a Monday which is a lean day,” said an official of another mall.

In a bid to consolidate its land holdings around New Delhi, the realty division of Media Videotech has spent Rs 67 crore in acquiring four realty companies with big land holdings in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Acquistion of three of these firms is for a total consideration of Rs 45 crore pending approval by the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange.

The companies that are being acquired are Acacia Buildwell, VAlerian Property Developers and Beechtree Buildcon. These acquisitions will allow the compnay to gain control of Rs 200 crore, 4 lakh sq ft IT park project in Gurgaon and has acquired additional land for the project at a cost of Rs 45 crore.

On Monday, the company acquired another realty company, Smart Buildwell for a consideration of Rs 22 crore in an all cash deal. With this acquisition, Media Videotech gains control of a Rs 160 crore residential township in Bhiwadi in the NCR, with a total saleable floor space of one million sq ft.

The housing project is at a prime location on the Bhiwadi-Alwar Road and will be targeted towards those working in and around Gurgaon as the demand for residential apartments in this region has risen sharply, company sources said.

Once the acquisitions are approved, Media Videotech will own land worth Rs 262 crore. The company is currently sitting on two construction projects worth Rs 380 crore and has set aside Rs 320 crore for future acquisitions, company sources said.

The Rs 81-crore, outsourced product development (OPD) company, Gurgaon-based R Systems International will raise around Rs 100 crore from the primary market to fund its expansion and to further consolidate its position.

The company said it had identified third-party product development as its core business area and plans to fund its expansion through first public offer of 44 lakh shares.

The 15-year-old company, which had taken over two product companies three years ago, said it would not acquire any software-product companies and would stick to services in the Rs 2000-crore Indian outsourced product design area.

It generated Rs 95 crore out of its total revenues of Rs 158 crore last year from designing third-party software products and is planning to double its staff strength in India from 1,000 to 2,000.

Over the past three years, the outsourced product design division of the company has shown maximum growth and we plan to make further acquisitions in the software services, especially in healthcare, and to provide product support in our existing areas of operations such as banking, finance, internet content-delivery and supply-chain management, said Rekhi Singh, founder and President of the company.

The company currently has nearly 26 per cent of its equity with private equity firms promoted by GE and Intel, the two of whom will together contribute nearly a third of the total shares offered as part of the IPO.

A 12-year-old, kidnapped from Agra last month, was rescued from Noida yesterday. Three people have been arrested from Kapashera in connection with the case. An Esteem car stolen from Sarojini Nagar has been recovered from them.

The police said Nitin Pratap Singh, Ajay and Kamal Chaudhary all belonging to Uttar Pradesh kidnapped Dalvir, son of one Hakim Singh, a resident of Agra while he was on his way to home from school. They had demanded a sum of Rs 50 lakh as ransom from Hakim Singh, a contractor. Ajay and Kamal Chaudhary were Dalvirs neighbours. Nitin who was reportedly facing financial trouble conspired with his other two friends to kidnap Dalvir, the police said.

Delhi Police claim they had received information that the kidnappers were in Delhi and acting on specific information, the trio was apprehended around 6.40 pm last evening near Kapashera on Old Gurgaon Road after a brief encounter.

It was found that the kidnappers had kept the boy at various locations in UP and were now planning to hide him in Gurgaon from his present location in Noida. Dalvir was rescued from the said hideout at 11.30 pm last night.

Ciena, which earlier this month announced that its first-quarter losses narrowed as sales continue to improve, is tightening its belt.

The Linthicum, Md.-based telecommunications equipment and networking company says it plans to close its Shrewsbury, N.J., facility not later than April 29, the last day of Ciena’s second fiscal quarter. The New Jersey facility currently houses 114 employees.

Ciena says roughly 62 employees will be cut, although it hopes to offer relocation to Maryland for 27 employees, mainly engineering staff. Development work previously done in New Jersey will be consolidated at other locations.

“For more than a year now, we have been moving away from product-based or location-specific R&D to a model of core competency-based R&D that enables us to leverage our engineering resources across a wider range of product and solutions sets, independent of geographic location,” says President and CEO Gary Smith.

Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN) estimates that the latest actions will generate $7 million to $8 million in annualized cost savings.

Besides the activities at its Linthicum headquarters, Ciena has development facilities in Acton, Mass.; Alpharetta, Ga.; and Kanata, Ontario. It recently launched a development center in Gurgaon, India. At the end of its first fiscal quarter ending January 31, the company employed 1,442 worldwide.

Ciena, which made its name making equipment to move traffic around high-speed telecom networks, has been recasting itself into a what it calls a “network specialist,” working with buyers and sellers of products that can inexpensively deliver voice, data and video.