Hughes to connect 1300 branches of SBI
Hughes Communications on Wednesday announced in Bangalore that it has been awarded a contract from State Bank of India to deploy a network for running its core banking solution across 1300 branches in 700 cities. Valued at Rs 40 crore as a managed network service provider, Hughes will offer turnkey solutions like satellite based VPNs, networking equipment i.e. routers & switches and managed services including system integration and network management. This project will completed by February 2008.

asipac to market $3.2 b project in Brazil
City-based asipac announced on Wednesday that it has been invited to market an upcoming $3.2 billion residential project in Brazil. The project will be spread over 6,200 acres of land with a 6 km private bay-shaped beachfront and a 5 km riverfront. The project will be developed by a consortium of a Brazilian corporate house, along with Spanish and other international investors. The project will comprise of 3.2 million square feet of office spaces, convention centre, a spa, eight 5 star hotels, a 102 acres golf course, residential school, a 600 villa marina village, 11.5 million square feet of beachfront and riverfront residences, 6 acres of organic farm and a massive water park spread over 17.3 acres, with total built-up area of about 30 million square feet, said the company.

Bajaj Allianz to infuse fresh capital of Rs 175 crore
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance on Tuesday announced that it would infuse fresh capital of Rs 175 crore as part of its plans to accelerate its growth and services, reports DHNS from Mumbai. With this fund infusion, Bajaj Allianz is gearing up for the strong insurance season. Accordingly, the capital base will grow to Rs 875 crore. It has already collected over Rs 11,000 crore of new business premiums in the 6 years of its operations. The company has already collected new business premium of over Rs 3,000 crore and issued over 21 lakh policies in FY08 so far, it said.

SECL introduces new coal mining technology
South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd) announced recently that it has adopted Shortwall Mining Technology, which will not only enhance under ground coal production but will also ensure the safety of coal miners. Under this technology, coal can be produced without blasting. SECL is the first company in India to have adopted this technology for under ground coal production, the company’s release stated.

CSC signs $192 million IT outsourcing contract
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) announced on Thursday that it has signed a five-year, $192 million IT outsourcing contract renewal with TrygVesta, the second-largest insurance company in the Nordic region. The new agreement, with effect from January 1, 2008, expands geographic coverage throughout the region.
   Under the terms of the contract CSC will continue to provide IT infrastructure services, including help desk, mainframe, midrange, network, Web hosting & print and distributed computing. These services will support approximately 3,900 users at TrygVesta locations in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.