People

Balakrishnan on Tejas Board

Infosys executive Balakrishnan V has joined the Tejas Board as an independent
director. Balakrishnan is a senior VP and group CFO at Infosys Technologies. He
has held leadership positions in finance domain, and is a recipient of the Best
CFO award from CNBC and Finance Asia.

Pathak Joins Comviva

Comviva, a provider of integrated VAS solutions for mobile operators in emerging
markets, has appointed Milind Pathak as VP. At Comviva, Pathak will head the
Airtel SBU, one of the companys key accounts, in India and globally, providing
strategic direction and operational focus to expand the Airtel mandate. Prior to
joining Comviva, Pathak was the co-CEO & country manager for Buongiorno (Hong
Kong).

Kramer Quits Telstra

Even as Australias telecom and information services major Telstra announced
some major reshuffle in the organization, the companys product management
chief, Holly Kramer decided to resign from the company. Telstra, CEO, David
Thodey, had announced major changes to his leadership team, which he said,
"Would help the company grow in the key markets, invest in innovation, and
provide better customer service". Thodey said that Kramer decided to leave
Telstra to pursue other opportunities.

British Hacker to be Extradited to US Again

British computer hacker Gary McKinnon, who is accused of breaking into NASA
website, could be extradited to the US within weeks. According to reports, the
UK governments home secretary, Alan Johnson, has decided it is not worth
damaging special relationship with the US by not handing over McKinnon. The
British UFO eccentric is accused of breaking into NASA and Pentagon computers,
and the incident is termed by the US as the biggest military hack of all time.

Tata Elxsis VCL Expands Hollywood Presence

Tata Elxsi has announced the addition of visual effects (VFX) industry veterans
Joel Hynek, Tricia Ashford and Treva Blue to their team. The trio will operate
the Los Angeles division Visual Computing Labs (VCL), as part of its strategy to
greatly expand its presence in Hollywood. They will lead VFX production for VCL
in the US and work in tandem with VCLs studio in Mumbai.

Rahul is Top Newsmaker on Yahoo! India

As per the recent survey by Yahoo! India, Rahul Gandhi is the young newsmaker,
beating Bollywood stars and cricketers. Yahoo! said the list of popular
newsmakers of India in its 2009 Year-ender Special was gathered through news
accessed on Yahoo! India network by users. Following Rahul Gandhi is Katrina
Kaif, who was in constant news about her movies and her private life. Reality
show star Rakhi Sawant managed a fifth spot after Lalit Modi, and AR Rahman.

NISG Appoints Mittal

National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), a premier organization in the
space of e-governance, has appointed Sanjiv Mital as its CEO. NISG, a public
private partnership has been established to become a centre of excellence in
e-governance. Mittal was previously the CEO, and later, the VC of Comviva.

Dubey Joins USHA

Subodh Dubey has joined USHA International as its CIO. Previously, he was with K
Raheja Group as their CIO in Mumbai.

Chowdhry on IIT-H Board

HCL Insys chairman and CEO, Ajai Chowdhry, has been nominated by the President
of India to be the chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Hyderabad. An
engineer by training, Chowdhry is one of the six founder members of HCL. He is
currently the chairman of the CII National Committee on Technology and
Innovation, besides being a part of the IT Hardware Task Force.

Karat Demands Arrest of Google Chief

A demand was made in the Rajya Sabha to arrest the chief of Google India and
impose a ban on the site for allegedly hosting advertisements related to
pre-natal sex determination in violation of law, especially the PNDT Act. Brinda
Karat said the government had earlier issued a warning to Google in this regard
but the site has again started putting sponsored ads about clinics doing
pre-natal tests.

Raman is CEO, NATGRID

Mahindra Special Services Group CEO, Captain Raghu Raman has been appointed CEO
of the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) project to strengthen the
intelligence sharing and analyzing mechanism in the country. NATGRID would help
intelligence and law enforcement agencies across the country to get quick access
to desired information.

TAKE Names New EVP

TAKE Solutions, a provider of supply chain management and life sciences
products, has appointed Tom Hernandez as executive VP of worldwide sales. With
more than twenty-five years of experience in growing innovative technology
companies, Hernandez would lead TAKE in its global focus of delivering high
value supply chain solutions.

Play Woods Debacle Online

The Internet has been flooding with images, animated actions, videos and even
jokes, not to mention news, about the car crash which involved the golf maestro
Tiger Woods. And now some cyber punks have created a game to immortalize his
debacle on the net. Named as Tiger Woods Wife Outrun, the game from Break.com,
helps you control Tiger Woods in his escapade from his golf club-wielding wife.
Woods had met with an accident in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando. Woods pulled
out of his driveway in an SUV and struck a fire hydrant, then a tree, citing an
incident report from the Florida highway patrol in Orange County.

Infosys Recognizes Indias Science Brains

Thanu Padmanabhan K VijayRaghavan Abhijit Banerjee The Infosys Science Foundation has announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2009, recognizing the contributions to scientific research in India. The winners of the Infosys Prize 2009 are: Thanu Padmanabhan (physical science), Ashoke Sen (mathematical sciences), K VijayRaghavan (life sciences), Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, and Upinder Singh (social sciences and economics). Thanu Padmanabhan of Inter-university Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune got this in recognition of his contribution to a deeper understanding of Einsteins theory of gravity in the context of thermo dynamics and large scale structure in cosmology. Ashoke Sen of Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, was honored in recognition of his contributions to mathematical physics, in particular to string theory. K VijayRaghavan of the National Center of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru won the prize for many of his contributions as a developmental geneticist and neurobiologist. Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, got the honor for the contributions to the economic theory of development, and for his work in the empirical evaluation of public policy, while Upinder Singh of the University of Delhi got the award in recognition of her contributions as an outstanding historian of ancient and early medieval India. No prize has been awarded for the engineering science disciplines this year, as the jury did not find a suitable candidate as per the statutes of the Infosys Prize.

Peeping Tom Caught

The FBI has served search warrants at two technology firms Google and Yahoo! in
connection with a Westmont man, accused of secretly recording nude videos of
ESPN reporter Erin Andrews through hotel peepholes. Michael Barrett, accused of
stalking ESPN sportscaster, is also suspected of taping a second woman and the
FBI wants that tape. In an affidavit for the warrant, an FBI agent indicated
that investigators are seeking electronic records connected with a 42-second
video posted in June to Flickr.com entitled Hot Blonde Out of Shower.

Serena Software Names Phalgunan as India MD

Serena Software, an application lifecycle management (ALM) firm, has appointed
Sangeetha Phalgunan as MD for India. She will be responsible for driving growth,
channels and the expansion of the companys market share in India. Her
experience in the IT industry will help meet the Indian customers rising demand
for business process management solutions and end-to-end ALM solutions.

Naik Joins ECS

ElectraCard Services, a leading provider of software solutions for electronic
payment systems has appointed Chetan Naik as president, sales and marketing. He
will oversee the sales and marketing functions at ECS. Naik brings with him more
than twenty-three years of experience in sales and marketing in the IT industry
across multiple geographies. ECS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Opus Software
Solutions, provides third party processing services for credit and payments
management across the world. ECS is a PCI DSS certified third party processor (TPP)
for MasterCard and VISA across the issuing and acquiring side.

Tata Comm Appoints Wirt

Tata Communications has appointed David Wirt as its global head of managed
services. Based in Singapore, Wirt will take charge of managed services
commercial business and data center engineering and operations, as well as the
outsourcing business of Tata Comm. He will report to Vinod Kumar, president and
chief operating officer of Tata Communications.

Pitney Bowes Joins BSA

Pitney Bowes Business Insight, global provider of location and communication
intelligence software, data and services, has joined the Business Software
Alliance (BSA) in India as a member. As part of the membership agreement, John
OHara, executive vice president, international operations, PBBI, will represent
PBBI on BSAs Committee in India. The BSA works for promoting a safe and legal
digital world. Its programs foster technology innovation through education and
policy initiatives that promote copyright protection, cyber security, trade and
e-commerce. Its members include Adobe, Agilent Technologies, Altium, Apple,
Aquafold, Astro-Vision Futuretech, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, Corel, and
Dassault Systmes.

Balasubramanian Joins CA

CA has appointed Arun Balasubramanian as director, sales of CA Technologies,
South India and Sri Lanka. Based out of the CA sales office in Bengaluru,
Balasubramanian will be responsible to drive CAs business in the region. Prior
to this role, he was regional head of sales for HP Software. He was responsible
for driving exponential sales growth during his tenure as software lead for five
years.

Mahindra Satyam Promotes Nayyar

Mahindra Satyam has promoted Vinner Nayyar, previously VC, as the chairman of
the Board. He will continue as a whole-time director. Consequently the size of
the Board has inreased to eight comprising two independent, two non-executive
and two executive directors. Nayyar was CEO of Tech Mahindra till June 2009.

Mindteck Revamps Senior Management

Mindteck India has announced the appointment of its key senior management team.
The company has appointed Ramesh Ajjampur as senior VP, global delivery and Usha
TN as VP, legal and company secretary. Ajjampur will be responsible for
planning, monitoring, and managing the global delivery operations at the
company. Usha will look after the companys legal and corporate matters.

Mawana Sugars Hires Nayak

Sukanta K Nayak has joined Mawana Sugars (earlier Siel) as
assistant VP and head, IT. He comes from group company, Usha International,
where he worked in a similar capacity.