Hike in optical fibre price hits telecom dept: Paswan
Increase in the price of optical fibre has severely affected extension work of the telecom department, according to Union Communications Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan. "The price of optical fibre in the international market has increased about 50 per cent," Mr Paswan said at a function in Raipur on Monday after inaugurating the office of the Chief General Manager (CGM) Telecom for Chhattisgarh.

GoT-IT meet today to finalise draft Convergence Bill
The Group on Telecom and IT (GoT-IT), headed by Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, is likely to finalise the draft Convergence Bill on Tuesday after incorporation of changes proposed by the group. "The group is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to take stock of the draft Convergence Bill and the aim is to finalise the draft," Mr Vinay Kohli, IT secretary told PTI.

MRTPC adjourns Microsoft case
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) on Monday adjourned until Tuesday Microsoft India's case arising from its alleged adoption of unfair and restrictive trade practices in imposing restriction on the buyers in the form of end user licence agreement (EULA). The MRTPC chairman B M Lal and member R L Sudhir postponed the case due to non-receipt of some document to be submitted to the commission, MRTPC sources told PTI on Monday.

NetKracker launches Net Nanny
netKracker has launched Net Nanny in India, an award-winning filtering software that gives parents control over what comes into and goes out of their homes through their Internet connections. Net Nanny is the only programme available today that allows the parent to exercise control on the viewing of every single site in the web site database. It blocks pornography, hate literature, bomb formulas, and anything else that a user may deem inappropriate.

Exempt e-commerce from taxation: Assocham
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India President, Mr Shekhar Bajaj on Monday appealed to Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha to exempt e-commerce transactions from taxation and keep software services and telecom infrastructure out of the service tax net. He said the government intervention in e-commerce transactions should be minimal and added parties should be able to enter into legitimate agreements to buy and sell products and services across the Internet.

SARI project to provide Net, voice connectivity to 2,000 villages IIT Madras along with Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Boston based-Internet Business Capital Corporation (IBCC)/ I-Gyan Foundation are starting a Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI) project to provide Internet and voice connectivity to over 2,000 villages.

Citrix to introduce `Nfuse' in India by month-end
Citrix Software Limited will be launching Nfuse - a roaming computing capability in India by the end of this month. Mr Anil Menon, director marketing Citrix Software Limited explains that access to enterprise applications is restricted to the PC in the office.

Supranet to push data and communication through wireless technology
If the Internet changed the way people communicated across the world using a PC, the mother of all `net'(s) -- Supranet -- which literally means the network of networks is set to merge the two worlds -- physical and the electronic. As OFC backbones fall into place across emerging markets, home gateways seamlessly network every home and location sensitive services and technologies seek to put every person on the network, pervasive computing (facilitating seamless networking of non-PC devices for voice, data, image and graphics) is the buzz.