Indians Win Top Awards
At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business Plan Competition for the second year in a row Indians were key members on teams that captured the first, second and third place awards in the prestigious contest. The first prize and a $20,000 cash award this year was won by FibrinX, which presented a business plan to commercialize a tissue sealant that uses plasma made from Atlantic salmon. The company said the technique is a safer and cheaper way to prevent blood loss after traumatic injuries or during surgery.

India 8th in Billionaire Ranking
India ranks 8th in the world in terms of the number of billionaires and 9th in terms of the total wealth of the super rich, ahead of several "rich" countries according to the Forbes Magazine findings.
Outside the OECD, only Russia (27 billionaires) and Hong Kong (15) have more in the billion club than India. On the flip side, India has the lowest per capita GDP ($571) of all the countries in the list, Indonesia and Philippines being the only others with per capita GDPs of under $1,000. At the other end of the spectrum, Norway has a per capita GDP of $ 49,000

India’s Top IT companies
Nasscom had estimated a 35% growth in IT and BPO exports for the IT companies to $17.9bn in FY05. The top five IT majors — TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech and Satyam — had a total customer base of 611 in the $1m category. This base has grown at a staggering rate, with clients being added not only in this category, but also in the higher revenue brackets.
Only four companies had more than 100 clients each in the $1m per annum revenue category a year back, namely Infosys, Wipro, TCS and HCL Tech. Now Satyam has entered this club, with 130 clients having revenues greater than $1m per annum. In this bracket, the

customer base of Satyam has grown by 46% in the past year. Forthe quarter ended March ’04, HCL Technologies did not have any client with revenues more than $10 m per annum. The situation has changed now with the company having 12 clients with revenues greater than $10m per annum and four clients with revenues greater than $20m per annum.
Both TCS and Infosys have increased their client base which has revenue greater than $50m per annum. Both these companies now have five clients each with revenues of more than $50m per annum. A year back, Infosys had three clients in this category against four clients for TCS. The client base of Wipro in this category was not available.

IIT Delhi develops electric bus
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, has developed an electric bus that can be a boon for the country's polluted cities and towns dependent on diesel-run public transport. The battery-operated bus can carry about 150 people at a top speed of 65 kmph and cover about 160 km at one go. The vehicle runs free of vibration, noise and heat.
The project follows years of research at the Instrument Design Development Centre of IIT.

India Tops in Science/ IT prowess: Report
India has emerged tops in terms of scientists and engineers in the latest IT report collated by World Economic Forum. Besides earning accolades for our 2.84 lakh engineering graduates coming out of engineering colleges this year, India moved up six notches to be at 39th position in terms of network readiness, while the US, the earlier number one, dropped to fifth position and Latin American countries like Brazil and Mexico registered drop in rankings. In terms of quality of scientific research institutions, India ranked 17th and 11th in terms of quality of

math and science education. The quality of business schools seems to be even higher, with the country at the sixth spot. Following India are Finland and Israel on second and third spots in availability of scientists and engineers. China, in contrast, is 67th, even below Pakistan and Bangladesh.

IT exports from Bangalore up 52%
From Indian technology hub Bangalore Software and back-office service exports grew by half to more than $6 billion in the year to March despite lingering worries about its overloaded transport system. New 198 new service firms have been added taking the total number of exporters to 1,520. Bangalore made up for 97 per cent of the southern state of Karnataka's information technology and allied service exports, which grew to Rs 27600 crores in 2004/05, up from Rs 18100 crores a year earlier.

Bangalore has the biggest share of India's IT and back-office service exports, which are estimated to have grown 35 per cent to $17.3 billion in the year to March. The industry, fed by a huge low-cost, English-speaking workforce, employs more than 1 million people. Karnataka is home to 300,000 of them, and companies starting last year planned some 50,000 new jobs, officials said. Among them were Internet firms Google and Amazon and consulting firm Capgemini
Karnataka is promoting the palace town of Mysore and the port city of Mangalore as new IT centres. The two now make up for the remaining 3 per cent of the state's service exports. Some 206 IT firms, 129 of them foreign, registered with STPI in 2004/05. Among them were eight hardware companies, including Elcoteq , Europe's top contract manufacturer. The 206 companies plan to invest Rs 2780 crores, officials said.