Maruti to halt Gurgaon petrol car production on Saturday

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd will suspend production of petrol cars at one of its plants on Saturday, a company executive said, as the country's top car maker looks to cut inventory amid slowing sales.

The production cut at the Gurgaon factory, near the Indian capital, is only for Saturday, said the executive at Maruti, who did not wish to be named.

Sales at Maruti, controlled by Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. , fell 8 percent in February from a year earlier, with the industry bracing for its first decline in annual sales in a decade, as sluggish economic growth continues to weigh on demand.

Indian car makers have been hit by high interest rates and rising fuel costs. They had hoped incentives to boost the industry would be announced in the country's budget last month, but instead saw taxes rise on some sports utility vehicles, risking growth in the market's only bright spot.

ISB expands global footprint, ties up with Japan B-school

Expanding its global footprint in executive education, Indian School of Business (ISB), one of the country's top business schools, has tied up with a leading institute of Japan to offer courses for Japanese executives.

This agreement with Tokyo-based GLOBIS will help chief executives and other top level executives of Japanese companies looking to expand their businesses to India and other emerging economies.

"The ISB's research in emerging market solutions will come handy for these executives to learn doing business in countries like India and China," Ramanathan Hariharan, head of ISB's Centre for Executive Education (CEE), told IANS.

The ISB will design and deliver courses including open programmes or short-duration programmes that are driven by research, workshops, seminars and "custom-designed programmes" or specialised courses, devised to cater to specific needs of individuals, employees of various organisations in the public and private sector and government departments in Japan.

The executive education will be a bilateral effort with executives from India also getting to know business practices in Japan. "This will be important in view of the large number of Indian companies partnering or competing with Japanese firms," said Hariharan.

ISB plans to roll out at least five programmes for Japanese executives during the current year.

Japan is the fourth country the ISB has tied up with after similar agreements signed with business schools of Pakistan, Oman, Sri Lanka and Mauritius.

"The expansion of our global footprint vindicates ISB's vision of investing in research in emerging market solutions. We leverage that research through executive education to offer solutions to those wanting to do business in India or Indian companies keen to do business overseas," said Hariharan, who is also a senior director at ISB.

ISB has strategies to reach out to Africa, Middle East and South East Asia. It recently rolled out first programme in Mauritius, considered as the gateway to Africa.

The ISB has already delivered courses for one batch at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi.

In May last year, the ISB had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) Group of Oman, to provide executive education courses in the Middle East.

"In Pakistan the second batch has been finalised and Mauritius is happening in the coming week. A batch consists of 30 participants on an average drawn from different corporates and includes the government as well," said Hariharan.

ISB sources said the CEE is already holding talks with some countries in the Middle East to offer executive education. Preliminary talks are on with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar.

The course models developed by ISB include three- to five-day courses on leadership and strategy, delivered to students in their own country.

Under the other model with a multi-phase approach, one phase happens in the home country location where the ISB faculty goes and delivers the programme, the second phase in ISB campus in India and the next phase at ISB's partner school location in the US.

The third model is participants coming over to ISB campus for exposure to India centric themes.

Established here in 2001 by a group of leading industrialists and academicians from India and abroad, the ISB has its campus here on 260-acre land. In 2012, it opened a second campus at Mohali in Punjab.

Namaste Japan, says Salman Khan

For all those who can’t have enough of comparing South superstar Rajinikanth to Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, here’s one more ‘byte’ to chew on. Like Rajini, who’s probably been the only Indian hero to command a huge fan following in Japan, it is now Salman, who is storming the markets there with Ek Tha Tiger.

Filmmaker Kabir Khan who was in Osaka to announce the release of his action thriller in Japan confirmed on tweet about the buzz that Salman is creating there. Alongside the poster of the dubbed version of ETT, Kabir tweeted, “Just got over with a packed press conference in Osaka. Happy to see the excitement in Japan about the release of EkThaTiger :-).”

Elder pharma surges 5% on Japan JV

Elder Pharma is up 5.2% after the company said that it will set up a joint venture company called Kose Elder (India) Pvt Ltd with Japan's cosmetic major Kose Corporation to manufacture and market cosmetics in India.

Elder Pharmaceuticals Ltd is up 5.2% after the pharmaceutical major said that it will setup a joint venture company called Kose Elder (India) Pvt Ltd with Japan's cosmetic major Kose Corporation to manufacture and market cosmetics in India. “As per the terms of agreement, Kose will hold 60% share in the JV Company, KOSE Elder (India) Private Limited and focus on the Indian market for manufacturing and selling cosmetics in India. Elder will hold 40% stake in the proposed JV,” company said in a statement. Elder Pharmaceuticals Ltd. stock is currently trading at Rs.337.95 up by Rs.17.85. The stock touched a high of Rs.345 and a low of Rs.328 on BSE. Total traded quantity at the counter stood at 0.33 lakh.

India, Japan conduct naval meet

Recently the Japan Maritime Defence Force and the Indian Navy met in a multilateral forum to undertake coordinate anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.

On February 26, Vice Admiral Katsutoshi Kwano, chief of staff, Japan Maritime Self Defence Force accompanied by his spouse and high level delegation visited Mumbai.

During the visit, Kwano interacted with the Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, the flag officer commanding-in-chief and other senior officers of the Western Naval Command.

"Indo-Japanese Naval cooperation and goodwill has grown substantially over the last two decades and both the navies share common maritime perspective. JMSDF and Indian Naval Ships undertake coordinate anti-piracy operations in Gulf of Aden. Both navies have over the years built up high levels of interoperability," said Chief PRO (Defence) N Vispute.

Vispute said that the first India-Japan maritime affairs security dialogue was held in New Delhi on January 29, 2013. Representatives of both the countries participated with their focus on maritime security including non-traditional threats and cooperation at various multilateral forums.

The current visit of COSJMSDF is one of the steps towards strengthening bi-lateral cooperation between the two Navies.

Sony Xperia Z Launched in India for Rs 38,990; Priced Just about Right

Electronics major Sony has launched the Sony Xperia Z,  which was first announced in January at the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January this year, at Rs 38,990 in India.

The launch comes at a nice price as both BlackBerry (Z10) and HTC have priced their recent high-end smartphones above Rs 40,000 in India.

The Xperia Z which is already on sale in Japan and Germany, will go on sale in 70 countries this week, the company said at the launch on Wednesday.

The Sony Xperia Z has a 5-inch full HD 1080p Reality Display, and is powered by a Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor. Sony Xperia Z’s Reality Display is powered by Mobile Bravia Engine 2. It sports a 13 megapixel camera. The Xperia Z also includes Battery Stamina Mode that the company says improves the battery standby time by four times or more by automatically shutting down battery-draining apps whenever the screen is off and starting them up again when the screen is back on. The Xperia Z is water and dust resistant and features a full glass exterior. It is just 7.9mm thin and weighs 149 grams and has a 2,330mAh battery.
The phone will be available in stores from March 12th. The Sony Xpera Z will come bundled with 8GB of 3G data for 2 months from Vodafone.

Xperia ZL Coming at the End of March, Sony Xperia Tablet Z to Launch in May

The Sony Xperia ZL will be launched at the end of the month. The Sony Xperia ZL is similar to the Xperia Z and comes equipped with a quad-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch 1080 × 1920 pixel display, 13 MP camera sensor. The front-facing camera is located at the bottom right corner. The Xperia ZL has a thicker profile but is lighter in comparison to the Xperia Z. Though no pricing of the Xperia ZL was announced it will be priced lower than the Xperia Z. Even though the Xperia ZL won’t be available till the end of the month, online retailer has the phone up for pre-order at the price of Rs 35,990.

Sony also announced that the Xperia Tablet Z will go on sale in May in India. The tablet features a 10.1-inch 1920x1200p display, 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 8.1MP rear camera, Android 4.1, NFC, and a 6,000mAh battery. The Xperia Tablet Z comes with S-Force Front Surround 3D and is also dust and water resistant.

Sony India Plans

Sony plans to be in the top 3 smartphone makers in India this year. Sony India will have a marketing budget of Rs 3,000 crore in India. They are also ramping up their service centers in India and will soon have 3,000 service centers across India. They also plan to give a temporary device to customers who walk in with a device to get it serviced.

Sony Xperia Z key specifications

• 5” 1080 x 1920p full HD Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2
• 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor
• 2GB RAM
• 13-megapixel rear camera
• 16GB internal storage (expandable by 32GB)
• Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi
• Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
• Price: Rs 38,990

Sony aims to triple India cellphone sales in year to March 2014

Sony Corp. aims to triple sales of its mobile phones in India to Rs.3,500 crore in the year to March 2014, Kenichiro Hibi, managing director of its India unit, said, at the launch of the company’s Xperia Z high-end smartphone.

 

The smartphone, which is priced at Rs.38,990 in India, went on sale in Japan last month and is now available in 60 countries. It is part of the Japanese electronics group’s push for a greater market presence in mobile devices.

 

In India, Sony had a 9% share of the smartphone market last quarter making it a distant No.2 behind market leader Samsung’s 40% share, according to research firm Canalys.