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indianexpress:  India is fast emerging as one of the major markets for Sandvik Asia Ltd, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the $ 10 billion Sandvik AB of Sweden. With the present share of investment between 2 and 3 per cent of the global market, India is being seen on par with the China market, said President and CEO Sandvik AB, Lars Pettersson.

He said that India is being looked at as a growing market, with a lot of material and manpower being sourced from here. “We see India among the top five future markets for Sandvik Asia,’’ he said.

Pettersson sees China, India and Eastern Europe as the big markets. The group is represented in 130 countries and has about 42,000 employees and sales of approximately $ 72 billion.

Sandvik is a high-technology engineering group with advanced products and a world leading position in many segments.

The materials made here are not just for local purpose but for the global market, said Hakan Kingstedt, Managing Director and President of Sandvik Asia Limited. Sandvik has five plants in India — Pune, Mehsana, Hosur, Hyderabad and Chiplun — is planning its sixth location. “We are scouting for a location across India and we will be looking at locating it near the ports,” he said.

Expansion is the buzz word with the company investing Rs 170 crore annually for the last three years, Kingstedt said. In Pune, Sandvik Asia is setting up a high-speed steel taps plant under the Sandvik tooling division at a cost of Rs 45 crore.

indianexpress:  Setting a deadline of six months for completion of the project that led to doubling of cost for the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the standing committee on Wednesday sanctioned an additional Rs 50 crore for the road project — originally estimated to cost Rs 46.90 crore and now escalated to Rs 96.90 crore — which could not be completed within the set-time due to failure in removing bottlenecks for execution of the project.

“The committee sanctioned additional money for the completion of road work under Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP). The work includes concretisation of Alandi Road, Baner Road, Karve Road and Airport Road. The committee has set a specific deadline of six months for their completion,” committee chairman Bapu Pathare said.

There was a delay of over a year in completion of the project under IRDP in 2004 and Walecha Engineering Pvt Ltd was issued work order.

However, the failure by the civic administration in removing the bottlenecks, including acquisition of the land, led to the cost overrun, he said.

The committee also approved appointment of consultant for implementation of work on Geographical Information System (GIS) for Development Plan (DP) that will enable planning of development work of the city.

Under the project to be completed in two years at a cost of Rs three crore, the electronic DP maps of PMC will be prepared with information of service lines — drinking water and drainage pipelines — along with the geographical status of the land.

indianexpress: ELI Lilly and Company India Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of the US pharmaceutical, Eli Lilly and Company on Wednesday announced the launch of BYETTA (exenatide injection) to improve blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes in combination with metformin and/or sulphonylureas — two common oral diabetes medications.

Speaking on the occasion, Sandeep Gupta, CMD, Lilly India said, “Exenatide is the first in a new class of anti-diabetic medicines known as incretin mimetics and is the first FDA-approved agent of this category.”

With the prevalence of diabetes growing by the minute, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates the number of people with diabetes in India will reach nearly 80 million by the year 2025. “Considering the high economic burden caused by diabetes, Lilly has prioritised the launch of BYETTA in India in the first wave of global launches,” Gupta said. India becomes the fourth major launch in the world after the US, UK and Germany where BYETTA is now available.

Added Vinod Mattoo, endocrinologist and medical director at Lilly India, “BYETTA is neither an insulin nor a substitute for insulin. It actually helps the human body make more of its own insulin.”

indianexpress: In a major breakthrough, the Crime Branch Unit II of city busted a multi-crore fraud and arrested one person in connection with duping over 200 depositors by promising them return at fancy interest rates.

The accused named Pandhari Mannar Reddy (49), a resident of Wanavdigaon, was picked up by a team of crime branch officials after they got a tip off regarding his whereabouts in the city.

The crime branch took action after Vibha Vilas Ghule (47), a resident of Manjari Budruk approached additional commissioner (crime) Rajendra Singh and apprised him of the colossal fraud.

According to crime branch officials, Reddy, who used to run a laundry had collected huge sums of money from the depositors by promising them attractive interest rates ranging from 10 to 18 per cent, for the past four years.

Initially, Reddy returned the amount with the promised interest rate and won their confidence.

He the used the money for bidding on horses during races at Royal Western India Turf Club. His fortunes started dwindling as he started losing money, crime branch officials said. When the depositors claimed back their money, Reddy avoided them which raised the suspicions of the depositors. Ghule alone had given Rs one crore to the accused, officials added.

Investigations have revealed that Reddy owns two shops by the name of Reddy Computers and Reddy’s Mobile Gallery, a Maruti van and a number of bank credit and debit cards in his name.

Investigation Officer Yashwant Nalawde said, “Primary investigations have revealed that Reddy has duped over 200 people by taking huge sums of money from them. Reddy promised fancy interest rates and the depositors fell prey to his cunning tactics. In the beginning, he could charm people by giving the promised interest rates but later he could not deliver the amount as he had lost a considerable sum by on the horses.”

cnet: A German scientist has come up with a solution for snoring–a computerized pillow that shifts the head’s sleeping position until the noise stops.

Daryoush Bazargani, a professor of computer science at the University of Rostock and the pillow’s inventor, was displaying a prototype of his pillow at a health conference in Germany on Wednesday.

 ”The pillow is attached to a computer, which is the size of a book, rests on a bedside table, and analyzes snoring noises,” Bazargani told Reuters.

“The computer then reduces or enlarges air compartments within the pillow to facilitate nasal airflow to minimize snoring as the user shifts during sleep,” he said.

The ergonomic pillow can also be used for neck massages.

Bazargani said several U.S. firms were interested in manufacturing the pillow.

“I invented it because I snore,” he said. “I tried all sorts of products, but nothing worked. I hope people who use it will sleep more peacefully.”

msnbc: Worried that you’re not getting enough exercise or that you’ve eaten way too much garlic? A Japanese firm has come up with a phone that can help.

Japan’s largest cell phone carrier NTT DoCoMo unveiled this week a “Fitness Phone,” designed to help the user stay healthy — and avoid bad breath.

The handheld phone, equipped with various devices that can measure your pulse or the amount of steps you’ve taken in a day, dispenses heath advice after you’ve punched in statistics such as gender, age and weight.

And you can also exhale into the phone and it will tell you whether its time to reach for the breath mints.

“Our primary target groups would be fat-fighting middle-aged businessmen and young women on diets,” said Kentaro Endo, a spokesman for NTT DoCoMo.

A recent government survey found that on average, Japanese men in their 40s were fatter than they were 12 years ago, mainly due to lack of exercise, while women in the same age group were slimmer because they were more health conscious.

msnbc: Adobe Systems Inc. released new software for its popular Flash Player on Sunday that promises to bring the quality of live video on cellular phones closer to that of video on computers.

Adobe, whose software made possible the rapid rise of pioneering online video site YouTube, said Nokia and NTT DoCoMo Inc. would use its new Flash Lite 3 in their new cell phones.

Adobe said more than 300 million mobile devices equipped with previous versions of Flash had already been shipped and it expected more than a billion Flash-enabled devices to be available by 2010.

Adobe’s Flash software is installed on about 98 percent of all personal computers and is used by virtually all popular online video sites, mainly thanks to the fact it works independently of the device that the video is displayed on.

Gary Kovacs, in charge of marketing at Adobe’s mobile unit, called Flash Lite 3 “the most significant advance we’ve made in mobile” and said it brought Adobe closer to being able to release software versions for mobile and desktop simultaneously.

“It’s probably a few years away. We’ll do it over the next couple to three years,” he told Reuters.

Nokia’s 3.4 million-strong mobile software development group, Forum Nokia, said it would launch a new development community on Monday to help Flash developers and designers.

Nokia, the world’s biggest mobile telephone maker, announced a major new push into multimedia, including video, music and gaming last month, seeking to challenge Apple Inc.’s dominance in portable entertainment.

The head of Forum Nokia, Lee Epting, said in a statement: “Flash Lite 3 will enable us to deliver richer content to our customers, such as videos and animated ring tones.”

Adobe, also known for its Acrobat document management and Photoshop software, said earlier this month that its profit more than doubled last quarter on strong sales of new products and as it makes inroads into mobile, video and office worker markets.

msnbc: Nokia Corp. is buying U.S. navigation-software maker Navteq Corp. for around $8.1 billion, the world’s largest mobile phone maker said Monday.

The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, according to Nokia.

Under the agreement, Nokia will pay $78 in cash for each Navteq share, including outstanding options.

Chicago-based Navteq maintains digital maps which it licenses to global positioning systems and Web sites. Founded in 1985, it has around 3,000 employees in 168 offices in 30 countries.

Nokia said Navteq would continue to support its existing customers as before — with the Navteq map data business continuing to operate independently — but that it would be organized as a Nokia group company.

Nokia’s President and Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said “location-based services are one of the cornerstones of Nokia’s Internet services strategy. The acquisition of Navteq is another step toward Nokia becoming a leading player in this space.”

Kallasvuo added that by acquiring Navteq, Nokia “will be able to bring context and geographical information to a number of our Internet services with accelerated time to market.”

Jari Honko, an analyst at eQ Bank in Helsinki, said Nokia is “extremely driven” in its strategy to move into mobile services and called Navteq “the most significant player in its field.”