Bangalore: The ongoing migration of Indian citizens from paper cards to smart cards is throwing up a multibillion dollar business opportunity for domestic technology players.

The citizen ID card program proposed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will be supported by a vast eco-system, comprising data collectors or managers, delivery channels, chip designers, smart card manufacturers, application and software providers, system integrators, networking analysts and print companies. The entire ID card project in India is estimated to be around Rs. 10,000 crore, with the first phase covering ultra-urban, urban, and semi-urban population offering Rs. 6,500 crore business opportunities.

IT companies like TCS and Infosys have confirmed that they would actively bid for the project. “The entire process including the bidding process, deal negotiations and business evaluation, are expected to be transparent. There will not be any conflict of interest for us and therefore, we will participate in the bid,” said a Senior Official at Infosys Technologies.

TCS has already been working with the government on projects like e-passport, Gujarat police and the Defence Ministry. “Since it is going to be an open bidding process, we will be bidding for it,” said a Senior Official at TCS.

Around 27 large e-governance projects worth Rs. 40,000 crore are currently in the pipeline. Having been badly hit by the economic recession, many technology leaders have been urging the government to accelerate these projects to induce economic buoyancy. The UIDAI comes as a quick response to the industry’s call.

Som Mittal, the President of IT industry body Nasscom, told Times of India, “This is a transformational project for the country as it will overlay many underlying projects, creating huge efficiencies for the country leading to enhanced governance and reduced costs.”

The global shipment of smart card surpassed an estimated five billion units in 2008 and this figure is projected to surge at CAGR of nearly 11 percent through 2012, according to “Smart Card Market Forecast to 2012″, a recent market research report.

Kolkata: The high-powered committee set up by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to probe the multi-crore Satyam Computer fraud would submit its report July 9.

“We will submit the report to the ministry of corporate affairs on July 9 after we finalise it at the final internal meeting of the committee on July 4 in Agra,” ICAI president U.P. Agarwal told reporters on the sidelines of a function here Sunday.

ICAI is the apex organisations of chartered accountants.

Agarwal heads the seven-member committee that is looking into the financial reporting, accounting and auditing aspects of the Satyam scam. It will review the shortcomings and recommend measures for plugging loopholes against such frauds.

“We want chartered accountants to be empowered so that they can force the management to change the company’s accounting practices if they think this was required.”

Agarwal, however, refused to get into details of the report.

Bangalore: Shares of Sun Pharmaceuticals plunged by 12 percent on a relatively good day for the markets when it finished 419 points in the green. The decision by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to seize 33 drugs by Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, a subsidiary of Sun Pharma forced the stock to fall by 12.17 percent to end at Rs 1,140.45. After starting the day at Rs 1,199, the shares dropped to an intra-day low of Rs 1,070 after 580,489 shares were traded. The one year stock chart is on the left.

The FDA had seized the drugs from the company’s Michigan facilities in Detroit, Farmington Hills, and Wixom. The drugs were found to be contaminated, even after the company had conducted an internal investigation to determine the cause and taken corrective measures. This is not the first time the company has come under the regulator’s scanner. Last October, the FDA had conducted inspection of its facilities and found “significant deviations from Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) regulations.”

Sun Pharma is the second Indian company this year to have faced FDA’s wrath. In February, the U.S. drug watchdog had taken regulatory action against Ranbaxy’s Paonta Sahib facility in Himachal Pradesh on the ground it had falsified test results. Out of the 28 analysts following the stock, the consensus recommendation is outperform with 15 analysts recommending to buy the stock.

Mumbai: Three months after launching Nano, the world’s most inexpensive family vehicle at the Rs.1 lakh, Tata Motors Sunday launched here the iconic Jaguar and Land Rover cars, to cost between Rs.63 lakh and Rs.92 lakh in India.

Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata said initially, three Jaguar and two Land Rover models would be available in the country. While Jaguar models will be available in the price band of Rs.63-92 lakh, the Land Rover will be in the Rs.63-89 lakh range. They will be available in five-six cities after checking out the response in Mumbai.

“Finance options will be available from Tata Motors,” Tata said, adding: “I think the cars will exhibit the levels of technology and levels of performance here.”

“The Indian market holds significant growth potential in the long term, and we hope to tap the demand for premium vehicles from discerning customers,” Jaguar-Land Rover chief executive David Smith said.

Land Rover managing director Phil Popham declined to spell out the numbers the company was looking at. “Both Jaguar and Land Rover are premium, niche and exclusive brands. We are looking at relative small numbers. The challenge is to establish the brands here,” he said.

The company has invested over 800 million pounds to make the vehicle more eco-friendly with features like aluminium body and reduced carbon-dioxide emissions.

Tata Motors acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co for $2.3 billion in March last year.

Ironically, Tata Motors posted a net loss of over Rs.2,500 crore last fiscal mainly on account of this acquisition, apart from the economic crisis that has hit the auto sector globally.

Bangalore: The number of High Networth Individuals (HNIs) has decreased by 15 percent, falling to 8.6 million worldwide. This three year low in 2008 figures has occurred due to financial crunch, wiping out years of lucrative investment, and has shrunk the ranks of the very richest by a quarter, said a joint study by investment group Merrill Lynch and French consultancy Capgemini.

Also, other ranks of ultra- HNIs, whose investable assets are of $30 million (21 million Euros) or more, have fallen by 25 percent.

“The unprecedented declines wiped out two robust years of growth in 2006 and 2007, reducing both the HNI population and its wealth to below levels seen at the close of 2005,” the report said.

“World equity markets lost a decade of gains, and volatility reached record levels. Our 2008 findings show HNIs began to lose trust in the markets, regulators, and, in some cases, their financial advisory firms,” said the joint report by the companies.

“It was the most well-off people that were the most affected by this decline,” said Martina Weimert, Associate Director, Capgemini, France.

U.S., Japan and Germany constituted more than half of the world’s millionaires. China had the fourth biggest headcount of millionaires overtaking Britain.

The total wealth of people in the HNI category,- those with a million or more dollars’ worth of investable assets,- declined by a fifth to $32.8 trillion in 2008, down from $40.7 trillion in the previous year.

Bangalore: Indian stocks emerged as the best performers by giving investors the highest return of nearly 60 percent in 2009 so far. It has outperformed its global peers, including the U.S., the U.K. and China, which gave returns of 2.33 percent, 10.17 percent and 36.77 percent respectively.

According to an analysis of MSCI Barra indices, Indian stocks have provided a return of 59.30 percent year-to-date, against 34.37 percent gains provided by MSCI Barra’s emerging market index, covering all developing nations.

Among the emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations, the Brazilian and Russian markets seemed to be slight closer competitors with gains of 56.89 percent and 41.61 percent respectively in the year so far.

The 30-share benchmark index of Indian stocks, Sensex, gained over 5,000 points in the year so far to settle at 14,764.64 points on June 26 compared to 9,600 levels on December 31, 2008.

Other emerging markets which gave over 50 percent returns so far this year include Indonesia with 55.85 percent and Chile with 51 percent.

Analyst believed that the decisive mandate in favor of Congress-led UPA in the recently concluded general elections helped Indian markets to rise on the positive global cues.

An analyst from a leading brokerage said, “The Indian stocks have been on a recovery path primarily in the past three months due to election results and on expectation of new government spurring the economic reforms in the country in the days to come.”

Meanwhile, other developed markets including Canada gave 25 percent returns, Sweden (21.42 percent), Norway (24.70 percent) and Japan (2.45 percent), according to the data.

Further, Indian stocks have also performed significantly better in the past three months by period up to June 26 and have given foreign investors returns of 62 percent.

New Delhi: The government can raise about Rs.80,000 crore ($16.6 billion) by divesting stake in public sector units, says an industry lobby report.

“Dilution of stake in leading public sector units alone could fetch at least Rs.80,000 crore,” the report by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) said, adding that this amount could be used to bring down the fiscal deficit burden.

To overcome the immediate deficit, the government may have to borrow Rs.2.4 trillion crore from the market by September, it added.

Even a 10 percent dilution in public sector giants could fetch Rs.60,000 crore and a 20 percent dilution would still leave the government in control of these units, Assocham said.

“NTPC alone could fetch Rs.68,000 crore if the government stake is reduced from 89.5 percent to 51 percent. The four power sector giants together could give Rs.98,000 crore,” it added.

It urged the government to adhere to the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, maintain a low tax regime and introduce goods and services tax (GST) by next April to narrow the deficit.

The FRBM Act was enacted in 2003 to bring in fiscal discipline, and imposes limits on fiscal and revenue deficits.

“There is no need for accepting a long-term fiscal deficit and deviation from FRBM goals,” Assocham added.