Serial blasts rattle Bangalore; woman killed

BANGALORE: A series of low intensity blasts on Friday rocked the southern and central parts of Bangalore, a city that has of late been on the radar of terror groups. One person was killed and seven were injured in the eight explosions that created panic among residents and threw traffic out of gear on a rainy working day.

The explosions were reported within 45 minutes from 1.15 p.m. Though the police have not ruled out the involvement of terrorist groups, Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar M. Bidari told journalists that “miscreants” had triggered the blasts to “disrupt the peace” in the city. Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, after an emergency Cabinet meeting, announced that no “hard core terrorist group” was involved in the blasts which, he claimed, were carried out to “malign” the government.

“I heard a deafening explosion as I was starting my bike,” Vinay, an employee of a car showroom on Mysore Road, told The Hindu. “I thought a bus tyre had burst until I saw smoke billowing from behind a bush. I ran back into the office,” he said.

According to police sources, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) fitted to timer devices were used in all the explosions. Preliminary investigations revealed that ammonium nitrate, bolts and nuts and cement chips were packed into the devices.

Sources in the National Bomb Data Centre told The Hindu that the IEDs were almost identical to the ones used in the explosions at the Mecca Masjid, Gokul Chats and the Lumbini Park in Hyderabad, and in the court blasts in Lucknow and Hubli.

The first explosion occurred at a bus stop near the Madivala checkpost, off the busy Hosur Road, around 1.15 p.m. Sudha Ravi, who was waiting for a bus with her husband, was killed on the spot, and two were injured. Two more explosives went off in the adjoining Audugodi area, injuring three persons.

Similar low-intensity explosions took place at three places on Mysore Road and at two spots in the heart of the city — near the Mallya Hospital and near the Rashtriya Military School on Langford Road.

At Audugodi, the explosives were planted behind a telephone junction box near a commercial complex under construction and another near a stormwater drain.

On Mysore Road, the explosives were placed under a power supply transformer near a mall; one near a stormwater drain; and the third near a car showroom next to the Regional Transport Office.

A high alert has been sounded across the State.
Source : The Hindu dt. 26 7 2008

`XP hurting Vista badly

NEW DELHI: Microsoft may have given farewell to Windows XP, but seems users are still in no mood to bid goodbye to one of the most popular operating systems.

According to a recent Forrester survey, less than 10 percent of the 2,300 companies surveyed use Vista. Forrester says 87.1 percent of companies surveyed continue to use Windows XP.

Mendel told a leading tech magazine that it would be wise by Microsoft to "consider following the lead of Microsoft's important partner Intel and re-evaluating the case of Vista."

The report negates Redmond giants claim that over 180 million copies of Vista have been sold. Also, what may be more disturbing for Microsoft is that many of the pre-loaded Vista machines are being downgraded to XP in compliance with corporate licensing plans.

The report also had a bit of good news for Microsoft. It found Vista usage among businesses going up by more than 40 percent since January and that the rate of adoption of Vista remains twice that of Mac OS X.

The Forrester report also shows the growing popularity of Firefox browser. It notes that almost 20 percent of the enterprise users are using Firefox browser and urges developers to make sure that their applications work with Firefox.
Source : infotech.indiatimes.com dt. 25 7 2008

IT jobs to grow ten fold

NEW DELHI: "Indian IT industry may be passing through a rough patch because of a slowdown in the US economy and high inflation rates, but this stage will pass,” says a study.

The study elaborates, “India will continue to drive the global IT market for the next few years. In fact, it will emerge as the second most important IT industry in the world after the US in terms of revenue and employment."

"India will create the second largest IT services labour pool after the US within the next seven to eight years. That's not all, domestic IT industry's contribution to our GDP is likely to rise from 0.8 per cent in 2006-07 to 2.65 per cent by 2015-16."

This has been forecasted by a yet to be released white paper ‘India's Role in the Globalization of the IT Industry' by Evalueserve, a KPO. It says, "by 2015-2016, the number of professionals working in the IT industry will grow ten fold (from 2001-2002) and the total revenue will grow 22 times."

This means, the IT industry is likely to employ 3,750,000 professionals and record $193.1 billion in revenue by 2015-16.

"Since India's GDP is growing at 8.5 per cent per annum in real terms and 14 per cent in nominal terms, by 2015-16 our GDP is likely to be $2,400 billion. Given this, the IT industry is likely to constitute 8.05 per cent of India's GDP."

While in the last decade, IT services exports (including engineering services, R&D, and those related to creating and maintaining software products) have been growing at 32 per cent annually.

Evalueserve estimates this growth rate will taper off and become around 20 per cent in the next seven to eight years. The reason: rising wages, lack of high quality talent, and IT jobs relocating to other low-cost destinations in Eastern Europe and Latin America.

The paper thus concludes: First, by 2016 India will have the second highest number of IT professionals in the world after the US. In fact, US will employ between 1.25 to 1.33 times more professionals than India.

Second, even in 2016, the US IT industry will generate approximately $810 billion in annual revenue, which would be almost five times the revenue of the Indian IT industry.
And third, since the IT industries in both the US and India have become inextricably linked with one another, both countries will import and export more IT services and products for the next seven to eight years.
Source : The indiatimes.com dt. 25 7 2008