Maruti Udyog will increase the capacity of its new car assembly unit at Manesar (Gurgaon) to three lakh units in the next three-four years.

Similarly, the diesel engine and transmission facility (in the Manesar complex) will be tripled to three lakh units.

The Manesar facility is likely to be commissioned by December. The expansion is being considered after taking into account the production for Nissan models.
Maruti is expected to produce more than one lakh cars for Nissan in another couple of years. Maruti is going to be a major sourcing hub for Nissan. The understanding with Nissan will significantly increase Indias exports, said Jagdish Khattar, managing director and chief executive officer, Maruti Udyog.

It is learnt that Japanese auto maker Nissan will roll out a 1.3-litre, three-cylinder small car as its first made-in-India vehicle to roll out of the Manesar plant.

New Delhi: There is no doubt that hackers are the best programmers in the world. They are like double-blade sword — they can bring down the strongest castles in seconds, and if deployed for ethical reasons, they can be the titanium guards at security gates. And thats exactly what Microsoft and Appin are trying to do. Microsoft and Appin Knowledge Solutions have launched Bug Bash 2006, Indias first and biggest ever online competition on information security.

The event will see a large number of college students, with emphasis on students with interest in technology and especially security in India, fight it out in an online competition to qualify for the final round, where they get to work at Microsoft premises in Gurgaon and compete.

NEW DELHI : As the world begins to see India as a growing technological hub and trade restrictions become less restrictive, a new type of technology is making its debut from here — software that makes the global fashion industry an even smaller place than it was before.

With the opening up of textile trade restrictions due to World Trade Organization agreements, a big opportunity has presented itself for the fashion industry worldwide, said Jatin Paul, vice president of business development at the World Fashion Exchange Incorporation, based in Gurgaon.

Specializing in collaborative enterprise solutions for the fashion industry, WFX uses Microsoft.NET technology to provide customizable Web-based software solutions in order to manage the life cycle of products from sourcing and development to sales and production.

Chandigarh : AFTER failing for long to woo buyers for its prime city centre projects, the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) is now set to re-plan the projects in Panchkula, Faridabad and Gurgaon.

According to a HUDA official, the housing board will introduce latest designs and trend to make the properties commercially viable.

While there would be no immediate auction in any of the three city centres till at least the revised planning is finalised, highly placed sources said HUDA would also fine-tune its auction policy to attract maximum investment.

According to officials, the revised planning will make the city centre at Sector 5, Panchkula — modelled on Sector 17, Chandigarh, but left with a third of its properties unsold — an attractive proposition for buyers. As per the new plan, the traditional commercial concept — carving out majority of sites for showrooms, booths, and shop-cum-offices (SCOs) — will go straight out the window, sources said.

NEW DELHI: In a bid to tap the remote infrastructure management space, NIIT Technologies is setting up data centres in Mumbai and Delhi, Arvind Thakur, CEO of the company, said on Monday.

The next wave of off-shoring will take place in IT operations and we would like to ride the crest of this wave, Thakur said. The company has already acquired land in Greater Noida. The campus will house 10,000 people once it is completed. After the first phase, it will be ready for use by 3,500 people, Thakur said.

NIIT Technologies is already in the process of getting the campus designed and the approval is under way. It intends to set up a special economic zone around the Greater Noida campus and use it to support its own requirements, the CEO said. Ithas added 1,25,000 sq ft of offshore development facilities in Gurgaon, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai this year.

Sunday : Bharti Airtel is all geared up to introduce 3-in-1 services, phone, Internet and cable TV, to its fixed line customers across 90 cities.

Better known as triple play, the service has already been launched as a pilot project in Gurgaon to around 500 customers which include about 40 TV channels. With this move the company is trying to gauge customer preferences, surfing habbits, channel bundling and pricing.

The service, which will require an investment of Rs 20-30 crore on head-ends and customer premises equipment, will be launched commercially in the next few months and then anybody with an Airtel connection can experience the service.

Airtel has made it very clear that it does not intend to enter the arena of developing content but will rope in the content providers. It will only work as a cable operator in this case.

The company which currently has a subscriber base of 15 lakh fixed-line customers is looking to take it up to 25 lakh by next year.

ADP India, the subsidiary of Automatic Data Processing, has proposed to hike the headcount of its Hyderabad centre from 1,700 to 2,400 by July 2007.

ADP India is engaged in software development and solution centre services (BPO). The Hyderabad centre recorded 77% growth last year. During the last two years, the Hyderabad centre has grown substantially as it started handling employer services.

The company also plans to establish its second centre in North and is in the process of exploring locations like Pune, Kolkata and Gurgaon for its second centre.

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which signed an agreement with the Haryana government to set up Indias largest special economic zone (SEZ) in Gurgaon near Delhi, is aiming to create an ultra-modern city for technology and non-polluting industries that will be just under a quarter of Mumbais geographical size. The support facilities planned include a 1,500 hectare private airport (which could become what Gatwick is to Heathrow in London) and a 2,000 mw power plant.

The project, which will involve Rs 25,000 crore of direct investment by Reliance Haryana SEZ Pvt Ltd, is modelled on the enormously successful Shenzhen SEZ in China. While Shenzhen is housed over 32,700 hectares, the Reliance SEZ will use 10,000 hectares (100 sq km). When completed over 5-10 years, it could catalyse investments in the region of Rs 1,00,000 crore.

CHANDIGARH : The Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) on Monday signed a joint venture agreement with Reliance Venture Limited (RVL), a group company of Reliance Industries, for the setting up of a multi-product Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Haryana.

The agreement was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh D. Ambani.

The Union Government had accorded an in-principle approval in March last for the setting up of this mega project over 25,000 acres.

The agreement also paves the way for the transfer of about 1,395 acres that were acquired by the HSIIDC for setting up of the SEZ near Garhi Harsaru in

You dont know hot until youve baked in the blistering heat of summer in India ? where the mercury can reach as high as 50C in some spots during May and June.

Just ask Ina Abraham, who is spending these two months in Toronto to escape the scorching heat of Gurgaon, a suburb on the outskirts of New Delhi where she lives with her husband and children, Nikhil, 6, and Anya, 5.

You know that gush of heat you feel when you open the door to a hot oven? Thats the best way I can describe it. Its roasting, says Abraham, 39, who has made the trek back to Toronto every year since moving to India in 1998, after her husbands job was transferred there.