'Bangalore'- the best Indian city to live in

Southern technology hub Bangalore has emerged as the best city to live in India, a global survey said today.

But  Bangalore's worldwide rank is very low at 141st position in a list of 221 cities globally in terms of standard of living, compiled by the 'Quality of Living Survey - Worldwide Rankings, 2011' by the global HR (human resources) consultancy major Mercer.

Vienna has been ranked as the world's best city to live in on the global list, which has five Indian cities-
Bangalore (141st),
 New Delhi (143rd),
Mumbai (144th),
Chennai (150th) and
Kolkata (151st).

Globally, Vienna is followed by Zurich, Auckland, Munich, Dusseldorf, Vancouver, Frankfurt, Geneva, Copenhagen and Bern among the top-ranked cities in terms of quality of living, Mercer said.

In another list of the world's best cities in terms of personal safety standards, Luxembourg has been placed on the top, followed by Bern, Helsinki, Zurich, Vienna, Geneva and Stockholm.

On this list, Indian cities have been ranked a little better, as Bangalore has got 117th place, New Delhi and Kolkata shared the 127th position, Mumbai is at 142 and Chennai is placed at 108th.

Bangalore has been ranked as the best Indian city both in terms of quality of living and the personal safety standards.

The personal safety ranking has been on measures of internal stability, crime levels, law enforcement effectiveness and host-country's international relations.

Facebook faces crackdown in Europe on selling users' details

LONDON : Facebook is facing a crackdown in Europe for harvesting Facebook users' all personal information and "selling" the same to advertisers, a media report said.

The European Commission is planning to stop the way the popular social networking website "eavesdrops" on its users to gather information about their political opinions, sexuality, religious beliefs and even their whereabouts, 'The Sunday Telegraph' reported.

Using sophisticated software, Facebook collects information from people's activities on the social networking site -- whatever their individual privacy settings -- and make it available to advertisers, it claimed.

However, following concerns over the privacy implications of the practice, a new European Commission directive, is to be introduced in January, which will ban such advertising unless users specifically allow it, the newspaper said.

Even though most of the information it harvests is stored on computers in the USA, if Facebook fails to comply with the new legislation it may face legal action.

Viviane Reding, the vice-president of European Commission, said the directive would amend current European data protection laws in the light of technological advances and ensure consistency in how offending firms are dealt with across the EU.

"I call on service providers -- especially social media sites -- to be more transparent about how they operate. Users must know what data is collected and further processed (and) for what purposes."

Facebook has, however, denied the claims. A spokesman for the company said: "We do not share people's names with an advertiser without a person's explicit consent and we never sell personal information to third parties."

In small and medium business segment, TCS targeting more customers

TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) launched a first of its kind fully integrated information technology solution for Small and Medium Business (SMB) segment recently, today said it was targeting to reach over 1000 customers in the segment nationally this year, a top official today said.

iON, TCS's strategic unit for small and medium business, presently has over 250 customers who are experiencing the benefits of increased efficiences, predicatablity of technology, talent on call and an expanded customer based following the end-to-end integrated suite of cloud based business solutions, V Ramaswamy Global Head iON told reporters here. The third generation service model allows SMBs to capture growth through seamless technology deployment.

Over 60 per cent of the SMB's do not have IT system, which is a large market waiting to be tapped, he said.
Launching the product in Kerala market, he said TCS will go aggressive in the state and tap opportunties in the education, food processing and health care sectors. There are over 2.20 lakh registered SSI units employing close to one million people, he said key sectors including Information Technology, Tourism, Agrobased business including food processing, Readymade garments, were the areas they would
To provide its customers with seamless service, iON has created an eco-system of over 100 Cloud Service Partners across India. iON's industry solutions are currently available for Manufacturing, Textile, Education, Retail, Restaurant, Wellness and Professional services.

iON addresses the entire spectrum of an SMB's technology needs which range from sophisticated domain based ERP solutions like HRM finance, inventory besides basic applications like email, document management and website services.

Kozhikode realty market is getting ready for another big round of boom

Rising interest rates and slowing growth may have dampened spirits across the country but Kozhikode (formerly Calicut) realty market is gearing up for another round of boom. The Kozhikode on the way to a new trend, would see the launch of around 15-20 projects in and around the city.
According to a study about the market, the industry has taken up projects after taking genuine demand into account. The demand is from actual customers whose housing needs are genuine and there is very little investment demand. Builders say rising interest rates and slowing growth may not affect demand. Moreover, like elsewhere in the state, Kozhikode also gets a large inflow of NRI money into real estate. However, the focus of the builders is on domestic demand, growing at a healthy rate.
Builders in Kozhikode have placed their hope on the growing importance of the city as an IT destination. In fact, many companies have started looking at Kozhikode seriously while deciding on their future investment plans. A Hungarian company has already announced its plans to open a centre in Kozhikode employing almost 1,000 IT professionals initially.

It is against this backdrop that the city is getting ready for a new jump. The rates for residential apartments are now in the range of Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,100 per square feet and rates for premium apartments within the city, especially in places like Mananchira and Nadakkavu, have gone up to Rs 4,100 per sq ft.
Expansion of Kozhikode airport, the growth of tourism and the potential of the city to emerge as a new IT destination are the aspects on which the builders are pinning hopes on. Taking into account the all-round development of the city, the builders have launched new projects.
The growth in general business in the city has also led to a boom in commercial space construction. There are about 40 builders in Kozhikode and its suburbs. They ensure that supply is kept in line with the demand. As a result, there has been a consistency in the rates for built-up space in both residential and commercial categories.

Jet fuel prices hiked, It's too bad for aviation

Indian oil companies hiked jet fuel prices for the second time this month, raising rates by a steep 2 % with effect from midnight tonight.

"The price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF), or jet fuel, at Delhi's T3 airport was raised by Rs. 1,195 per kilolitre (kl), or 1.95 per cent, to Rs. 62,310.33 per kl with effect from midnight tonight, an official of Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest fuel retailer, said.

The increase comes on back of a massive 3.8 per cent or Rs. 2,845 per kl hike in rates effected from November 1.

But for a one-off marginal reduction in mid-October, ATF prices have been on the climb since September. IOC and other state retailers, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum, had on October 1 and September 16 and raised jet fuel prices by 2.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively, as imports became costlier due to fall in rupee against the US dollar.

ATF in Mumbai, home to the nation's busiest airport, will cost Rs. 63,228.40 per kl from tomorrow as against current rate of Rs. 61,983.64 per kl.

Jet fuel makes up for 40 per cent of an airlines' operating cost and the steep hike in prices will raise burden on the cash-strapped airlines. No immediate comment was available from airlines on the impact of the price hike on passenger fares.

ATF prices vary from airport to airport, depending on the local sales tax or VAT.

The three fuel retailers revise jet fuel prices on the 1st and 16th of every month, based on the average international price in the preceding fortnight.