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The Kerala government has come out with an over Rs 20,000-crore investment package to promote the state as an IT destination. The state’s main target is IT and ITeS companies that are planning for further expansion in Chennai and Bangalore.

Through its arm Kerala State IT Infrastructure Limited (KSITI), the government is planning to set up an IT city and IT parks across the state, which would have a seating capacity of 200,000 people by the year 2015. KSITI will promote these projects through the public-private partnership model.

The two key marketing words for KSITI are ‘continuous power supply and single-window clearance’ which saw the participation of several top companies in the roadshow held in Chennai recently.

N Radhakrishna Nair, director, KSITI and chief executive officer of Trivandrum Techno Park, said that Kerala, which was promoting tourism as ‘God’s own tourism country’ now want to promote it as ‘God’s own e-state’. The IT/ITeS sector contributed around Rs 5,000 crore to the state last year.

The state government is planning to set up a Techno City, spread over 500 acres, in Thiruvananthapuram with an investment of between Rs 8,000 crore and Rs 10,000 crore.

Land acquisition for the new facility, which will come up in close proximity to the existing Techno Park, is in the final stage. The Techno City is expected to be ready by 2015. It will have facilities including residential flats, hotels, shopping malls and theatres.

KSITI is also planning to expand the 130-acre Techno Park. The company had acquired another 200 acres. Infosys and UST Global have already started the construction work.

Both these companies are planning to invest around Rs 1,000 crore. Currently, the park employs around 20,000 people and by 2012, it is expected to employ around 100,000, Nair said.

When the Techno City and expanded Techno Park will become operational by 2015, around 200,000 people will be employed.

Speaking about the advantages, Nair said, “Low-cost and uninterrupted power and single-window clearances are the two main mantras. For instance, for IT/ITeS, the state is supplying power for Rs 3.20 a unit, while in Chennai it is around Rs 3.50 a unit (only for IT companies not for ITeS). In Kerala, since all the IT parks will be located near the power grids, companies do not have to depend on the local electricity boards.”

If a company wants to set up a facility in Kerala, it will not take more than 4 weeks for all the necessary clearances, Nair said.

In Chennai, Infosys waited for four years to obtain approvals for its Mahindra City facility. The Kerala government has created an industrial area Act, which will allow the CEO of the park, who is a non-IAS officer, as the signing authority.

Wow, Tuesday was very exciting. We flew to Trivandrum, Kerala, in the morning. We were met at the airport by our host and then went to the Technopark to visit with different personnel. It is a business park with @ 20,000 employees. The business park is beautiful because it is has “park” still in its vocabulary. By that I mean it has all kinds to trees. Kerala is in the extreme southern tip of India and after meetings we were taken to dinner at a hotel right on the Arabian Sea. It was almost too late for sunset but I got a picture. The dinner was a buffet with some great curry dishes. We got up early Wednesday morning to fly to Bangalore. Kerala is a vacation spot in India because of the ocean - I can understand that because I would definitely like to spend more time there.

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The availability of quality manpower talent in India has enabled UST Global to expand on a massive scale in the Asian sub-continent. UST Global is currently the biggest software employer in the ‘God’s Own Country’ and has aptly set up its Indian headquarters at Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram.

The California-based IT major provides end-to-end IT services and business process outsourcing solutions for Global 2000 companies. UST, which primarily caters to the US and European markets, plans to set up centres across tier-II and tier-III towns of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. With nearly 5,500 employees, mostly in India, UST Global is keen on increasing its headcount in the country. Last year, UST Global was ranked second in the top 20 Outsourced Software Testing & QA Vendors.

Part of the $6-billion Comfro Group, UST’s goal is to become a $1-billion company by 2010. In an exclusive interview to Sify.com, Arun Narayanan, Joint Chief Operating Officer of UST, shares the company’s growth plans.

A global tender will be floated in two to three weeks to find a private partner for the country’s first telecommunication equipment manufacturing cluster, the Rs.8 billion Telecom City, a top official said.

The new venture will come up on a 25-acre plot near Technopark, the information technology campus on the outskirts of the Kerala capital.

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Six brand new house getting ready for rent from 01 SEP 08 on two buildings at Kedaram line (Behind Cosmopolitan hospital - connecting road to Chalakuzhy)

Following facilities are available for each apartment
3 Bedroom with wooden cupboards (all bath attached) + Hall + Kitchen,
Vertified / Granite flooring
Reserved car parking with covering
24 Hour water supply

Availability: 01 September 2008 onwards
Priority     : Family / Executive Bachelors / Ideal for Company accommodation

For more details, Please write to cbanair@hotmail.com

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It was a fine morning. What was not quite so fine was myself. I was a bit late that day. So i didn’t care to climb the hill to reach the office, but waited for our very own ‘Tech-xpress’, commonly known as the Technopark express(though it has got a stop every 100 metres and a speed one-fourth of that). I almost reached the bus stop near the traffic island when i saw a big gathering there as if waiting for receiving somebody.

By the time the xpress arrived and everyone headed to it. Then i came to know that these people were waiting for the xpress and there was not any other big issue. I felt a bit proud of myself, as i’m late for just this one day, unlike these travellers. To my wonder, I could see another crowd (almost the double of those waiting to board it) inside the bus. I could figure some of my collegues hanging from its door (well, that was their secret in keeping themselves fit..!!)

I was almost sure that some of us would not be able to board it. So I kept myself very near to the door through the rush. But feeling sympathy for someone smaller than me, I gave some space and was pushed away from the door. And what happened atlast..? When the bus left, I was still there in  the stop, but not alone. Most of those from the fairer sex couldn’t board it. I was a bit tired and my shirt was full of wrinkles. But that didn’t pain me much than knowing the next xpress is after an hour. After all this what i gained was the wrinkles in my shirt, loss of time and lot of sweat in the morning itself (sweating for nothing..!!). We the defeated, climbed the hill and reached the office late. Here I was received by a ‘professional glare’ from my PL. I understood its meaning only when i reached before the mirror in the washroom. It was not only wrinkles, but the dirt in my attire added to the ‘brightness’ of his glare at me. Being totally ‘out’ in the morning itself, it was a bad day for me.

That was the last day I tried for this adventure. I wonder how the regular travellers can be regular with this journey.

I wonder if the authorities could have provided an additional bus, atleast during these peak hours. After all, its not just for profit an authority is there. I pray proper measures would be taken to rectify this issue in the near future itself, giving a good meaning to the word, ‘welfare’.

Students from engineering colleges across the country will vie for top honours at the third edition of TechTop 2008, a competition for the best engineering project to be held at the Technopark campus here in August. The two-day event, beginning on August 18, will be organised by Technopark and the Indian arm of the US-based Degree Controls Inc. and supported by the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Executive Knowledge Lines.

TechTop 2008, organized by the Thiruvananthapuram Technopark in association with US-based Degree Controls Inc, on August 18 and 19, has picked the project by students of the DKTE Textile and Engineering Institute, Ichalkaranji in Maharashtra, as the best innovative venture.

This innovative project based on “Electrolytic Effluent Treatment Plant” won the first prize, cash award of Rs, 1 lakh sponsored by Degree Controls.

The awards were given away by Dr. K Radhakrishnan, Director, VSSC, who was the chief guest at the awards function. The ceremony was presided over by Dr Ajaykumar, Secretary - IT, Government of Kerala.

The Oxford Engineering College, Bangalore bagged the second prize of Rs.25, 000 for their project “Constant Velocity Joint Assembly,” sponsored by IBS group.

The third prize of Rs.10,000 sponsored by One View Systems, and SunTec Business Solutions was shared by BITS, Pilani - Goa and Sahrdaya College of Engineering, Kodakara, Kerala, for their respective projects on ‘Microbial Fuel Cell Using Sewage’ and ‘Water Plants  and EOG Based Room Utility Control For Bedridden Patients’.

An expert committee, headed by N T Nair, chief editor of Executive Knowledge Lines, assessed the 33 projects that competed for top honours.

According to R K Nair, chief executive officer, Technopark, “The growth of technology bound industry in Kerala will be driven by start up companies fired by innovation. The relevance of Incubation activities is coming in this context. We have to attract young talent in our country to consider entrepreneurship as a serious option.”

He added that competitions like TechTop are a vehicle for Technopark to spot and nurture such talented youngsters and convert them into ‘Technopreneurs’.

“Our endeavour will be to develop TechTop as the most sought after competition in the country in the Technology space. As we go along we want to expand the scope of the competition to include postgraduates and school children in addition to the undergraduate students,” he added.

TechTop TechTop is organized every year to tap the innovative potential of entrepreneurial citizens of India. The objective is to promote individual innovators through support mechanism at various stages to become technology-based entrepreneurs.

The two-day All India exhibition witnessed 23 projects from 10 states.

Courtesy :- CIOL News

It won’t take too long for “Gods own country” to be rechristened “Hartal’s own country”. India’s most educated state, which boosts itself of near-complete literacy seems have taken special liking for hartals. 80 hartals in last 6 months in the state underlines the same fact.

But what was most frustrating to see on the hartal called on 20th Aug was how the media helped propagate “negative” news to make hartal a success. Before I tell how media did it, let me tell a small history about kerala hartals.

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Zyxware technologies joins hands once again with GNU/Linux Users Group Trivandrum to organize the third install fest of the year in Trivandrum. This time the event is planned on a much more massive scale than the first two install fests. The earlier events were 1 day events targeted at the general public. This time it is targeted at the IT community in technopark and it is a full week program. The program is scheduled to be conducted from Sep 1 to Sep 5 at Park Center, Technopark, Trivandrum.

One-day-install-fests have a small disadvantage in that they get over by the time people get to know about it from the media. We have decided to get over this problem by spreading the event from Sep 1, Monday to Sep 5, Friday. The event is going to be conducted in the heart of technopark - Park Center. We are hoping to get the event inaugurated by one of the Ministers of the Government of Kerala.

Free Software Seminar Series, Open Movie Show and 3D Desktop Demo

In addition to the installations we are also organizing daily Free Software seminars covering topics ranging from “Business Opportunities in Free Software” to “Enterprise Application Development in Free Software”. On Wednesday we will be showing some of the popular Open Movies like Big Buck Bunny and Elephants Dream.

During the Fest

IT professionals working in Technopark can bring in their laptops to the Park Center and drop it off to get any of the Free Software Distributions installed. They also will have the opportunity to buy T-Shirts, Stickers, CDs and DVDs at the Fest. There will be informational posters, live presentations, open movie shows around the counters. There will also be a couple of GNU/Linux Gaming PCs available for people to try out the open games.

Zyxware Planning to Launch Freedom Toaster

During this install fest, we are also planning to unveil a freedom toaster. (If you don’t know already, a freedom toaster is a Free Software Vending Kiosk that will burn and give any of your favorite Free Software at the click off a button. It would look and operates like any of the soft drink vending machines) If we are able to pull this off, this will probably become the first time that somebody has done this in India. The Freedom Toaster is expected to turn quite a few heads during the Install fest.

Our Objective

Through this event and through the Freedom Toaster, we are hoping to generate enough buzz inside Technopark to be able to bring in new Free Software users and to rope in those professionals who are already using Free Software. In addition we are also hoping that at least a few companies in Technopark would become interested in trying out the freedom offered by FLOSS.

Partners

The partners for this event in addition to Zyxware and GLUG are Kerala State IT Mission, SPACE-Kerala, Free Software Foundation of India.

BSNL - Telecommunication Sponsor

BSNL has agreed to sponsor the event as the Telecommunications Partner and they will be meeting all the telecom and internet needs. They will be providing us with complete WiFi access in the Park Center and EVDO Wireless access at the Kiosks. A BSNL representative will also be present to demonstrate the configuration of BSNL broadband and EVDO in GNU/Linux.