Indian founded SMS GupShup raises $12 Million

SMS GupShup, a social SMS service that allows users communicate and connect with family, friends and fans using mobile handsets, has raised $12 million in Series D venture financing round. This latest funding round is led by by Globespan Capital Partners with existing investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners participating in the round.

With this new financing round, the total funding of SMS GupShup comes to $37 million. According to the company, the new funding will be used to expand into other markets such as the Philippines and Indonesia, for product development and to hire new staff in engineering, advertising and marketing. Webaroo Technology is the parent company of SMS GupShup, and is founded by Rakesh Mathur and Beerud Sheth.

Launched in April 2007, Mumbai-based SMS GupShup (spawned from Webaroo), now serves 26 million users in over two million SMS communities - double the number of communities supported just six months ago. These communities range from religious groups to sports teams to fan clubs of celebrities. Whether it's daily news, traffic reports or business alerts, GupShup has emerged as a centerpiece of connectivity in India. The company offers reply-all group messaging service in partnership with mobile carriers. Over 100 advertisers currently run on the network including local insurance provider ICICI Lombard and international brands like Puma, Microsoft and Cadbury. Also, as claimed by the company, a few thousand SMEs and several corporations are deploying GupShup's mobile messaging solutions for their business needs.

Sheth, the Co-founder and CEO of Webaroo Technology said, "Our user base and revenues have grown substantially over the last year and are seeing strong interest from carriers worldwide. Our products are useful to each of the four billion mobile subscribers worldwide." In only the past two months, the service has increased its team head count from 100 to 130 and looks to fill another 20 positions in marketing, engineering and advertising sales.

Also, according to the company, as part of this funding round, Venky Ganesan, Managing Director of Globespan Capital Partners will join the SMS GupShup Board of Directors.

Dravid operated for injured jaw, advised rest

Star batsman Rahul Dravid Friday had minor corrective surgery on his left cheek bone, injured during the second cricket test against Bangladesh in Mirpur.

"It was a minor surgery to fix the left cheek bone where he had suffered a fracture. The surgery took between 45 minutes to an hour," S. Ballal, medical director of Manipal
Hospital here where the surgery was conducted, told IANS.

"Dravid is doing fine after the surgery and hopefully will be discharged late Friday," he added.

Dravid can resume normal activities in two days but has been advised to stay away from cricket or any contact sports for three weeks, he said.

Chandrayaan's team deprived of Padma Shri

Despite Chandrayaan-1 being the first lunar mission of India, the scientists and engineers engaged in the mission remained unrecognised with no mention in the list of Padma Shri awardees, reports Srinivas Laxman of Times Of India.

The reason for their work being overlooked is a rule framed by the government a few years ago stipulating that those attached to government organisations like ISRO and Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) will not be entitled to any "government-backed"
awards, like the prestigious Padma awards.


However, the efforts are on to change this discriminatory rule. The Government now wants to revise this decision keeping in view the fact that it will be counter productive in terms of morale of those who labour in official agencies at salaries that are much less than in the private sector and where national pride is a big motivator.

The controversial decision comes at a time when government wants to stem brain drain of scientists and engineers to foreign organisations like NASA and woo them back to India with better terms than before and by rewarding good performance. Yet, if official recognition is itself banned while Padma awards are awarded to achievers of Indian origin in foreign countries, Indian establishments are bound to feel rather left out.

On Monday evening, when the names of Padma award winners were announced, ISRO officials started to look if anyone from the Chandrayaan team had been honoured as an exception as was done with Nair last year. They were shocked to find that none had figured in the list.

A space agency official on condition of anonymity said, "This was really disappointing. After the honour the moon mission brought to India, we thought that at least Chandrayaan project director, Mylswamy Annadurai, would have been honoured. But even he has been ignored. The Chandrayaan mission has been considered a brand ambassador of India." Annadurai could not be contacted for a response.

Secretary of the India chapter of Moon Society, Pradeep Mohandas said, "It is quite disappointing to know that no Padma honour was accorded to the Chandrayaan-1 team which has got kudos from several national and international fora for being an engineering and management success. It was also a project that showcased India's scientific and technological prowess to the world."

This year, there was also controversy as many popular celebrities were awarded the Padma Shri, while many other deserving candidates were left out. One of them is Beijing Olympics bronze medal winning wrestler Sushil Kumar, his coach and former grappler Satpal recently said, "Kumar was the one who got medal in wrestling after 50-60 years. He is an idol for young wrestlers. He should have got the Padma award." The trend shows that the Padma awards are only given to people who are popular among the masses. "I feel undeserving on being awarded Padma Shri," said Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, who was awarded the Padma Shri this time.

India pays homage to Mahatma Gandhi on Martyrs' Day


Floral tributes, a multi-faith prayer meet, devotional songs by schoolchildren and classical musical renderings were held as the nation remembered Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence, in myriad ways on his 62nd death anniversary Saturday.
President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other top leaders Saturday morning visited Rajghat to pay homage on Martyrs' Day to the man who led the country to its independence with his unique non-violent form of protests.
At his beautifully landscaped Rajghat memorial, floral offerings were made and a multi-faith prayer was organised.
Prayers were offered by religious leaders of Buddhist, Bahai, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Jewish, Parsi and Sikh faiths at the Rajghat.
Gandhi, who is revered world over as an apostle of peace, was a great believer in inter-faith harmony and fought all his life for it.
Rajneesh Kumar, a member of the Rajghat Samadhi Committee, said: 'Every year we have an all-religion prayer to pay tribute to 'bapu' (as Gandhi was affectionately known) on the Martyrs' Day, and this year was no exception.'
A musical tribute, complete with bhajans or devotional songs that Gandhi loved, especially 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram', was organised at the Gandhi Samriti and Darshan Samiti, the place where he was shot dead by Nathuram Godse on this day in 1948 in the presence of hundreds of people waiting for him to start the evening prayers.
Children and youth, who had come from all over the country, sang all-religion prayers to an audience comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Defence Minister A.K. Antony and a host of other leaders.
Manmohan Singh's wife Gursharan Kaur was also present at the memorial, which was decorated with flowers and its walls covered with white sheets.
Well-known Indian classical vocalist Vasundhara Komkali and her daughter Kalaapini sang melodious bhajans that had the audience totally mesmerised. One-minute's silence was also observed in Gandhi's memory.

20 yr old Indian unveils portable Operating System

Bangalore: The 20-year old engineering student Niket Chandrashekar from New Horizon College in Bangalore, has developed a portable Operating System (OS) that can be stored and operated on any device. This has been developed almost entirely with open source tools and with Wine, which allows any Windows-based applications to run on other
operating systems, reports Deccan Herald.


LinuXP, developed on the Linux kernel and tuned up to support Windows XP, Vista and 7, is shown to be useful in performing certain tasks such as recovering lost files, locating and installing drivers for printers and other connected devices. It also lets users carry their work on pen drives/cell phones to be ported and extracted through a laptop and work.

"I was thinking of creating a smaller programme that can work like an OS while studying certain innate limitations of the existing operating systems," said Chandrashekar. Also, the software developed by Chandrashekar, has a folder locking feature which not only protects the folder but also hides it from view. The student, who released similar software that works with XP some months ago, has plans to put the software online to let everyone use it.

"Since the whole of this software - with whatever work one has done on it - can be saved in portable storage devices without changes to the format or design, you can retrieve them on any laptop or desktop without having to worry about things like formatting," Chandrashekar said and added, "Also, even while used on someone's device, you can make sure the data it carries is safe."

PTII will take the blame if Veer fails: Salman Khan

It is a film that has been in the making for more than two decades and cost a whopping Rs 40 crores, but actor Salman Khan is unfazed while announcing that he is ready to take the blame if ''Veer'' fails. The period drama is the brainchild of the Bollywood heartthrob, who also turned scriptwriter for his dream project.
"I have been told plenty of times that period dramas are not a safe genre and there are many flops to prove the point. I have left it for the audiences to decide if ''Veer'' works or not.
If it does, the credit will be everybody''s and if it doesn''t, then I will take the blame," said Khan during a press conference in the city to promote the film which releases on January 22. The 44-year-old actor plays a Pindari soldier leading a revolt against the British in the film set in 1857 and the project in the actor''s own words has been a "long and hard journey.
" "The idea has stayed with me for the past two decades and back then there was no scope for an ambitious project like ''Veer'', not the budget, neither the audience. But that has changed now and after a long time, the film finally materialised," said Khan.

The actor went the whole hog for his pet project. He spent months learning horse riding and also started blogging to promote the film.

IPL 3 auction: Focus on value for money

Value for money is likely to be the theme at the player’s auction for the third edition of the Indian Premier League to be held here on Tuesday with teams already indicating that they would be more interested in players who will be available for the entire duration of the tournament.

And Kolkata Knight Riders, who bought Bangladesh allrounder Mashrafe Mortaza for $600,000 (Rs 2.7 crore) and played him in only one match, have set the tone by buying out the contract of Australia skipper Ricky Ponting who was unlikely to be available for a major part of the tournament that begins on March 12.

IPL commissioner Lalit Modi confirmed on his twitter account that KKR has bought out Ponting's contract while Royal Challengers Bangalore have also made room for buying another player by ending their relationship with Australian speedster Nathan Bracken.

Though officials of both teams were unwilling to comment on what prompted them to buy out the contracts of the players, sources said their unavailability for a major period of the competition could have been the clinching factor.

Australia host New Zealand for a full series in February-March which is followed by their flagship domestic championship — Sheffield Shield — and some state teams are unwilling to release their players for IPL.

“It makes sense to buy out a player's contract who is not available and bid for someone who will play throughout the tournament,” said a senior official of one of the franchises.

The IPL has also left the door open for other teams to follow suit by extending the deadline to buy out player’s contracts till 11.59 am on Tuesday with the auction process starting at noon.

There are 67 players on the auction list, including Mohammad Kaif who was released by Rajasthan Royals, with 12 slots to be filled among the eight franchisees at the time of going to press.

All the teams would have a prize purse of $750,000 (Rs 3.4 crore) and in the case of two teams bidding for the same player despite reaching the highest prize cap, the tie-breaker option would be introduced in which the teams can bid above the amount but the money would go to IPL rather than the player.

Now, cellphones that run on soft drinks

Now thanks to a Chinese designer Daizhi Zheng, we may soon be able to use mobile phones that use soft drinks like Coca Cola instead of lithium batteries, reports Indiainfo.com.

Zheng who has been working on this revolutionary device for Finnish cellphone maker Nokia, claims that he has come up with a way of using sugar-based drinks to power mobiles. Any sweet drink, even sugar-sweetened water would be enough to keep the phone running much longer than lithium batteries.

The bio-battery generates electricity from carbohydrates, using special enzymes as catalysts. In the process, the device generates oxygen and water. According to Zheng, his sugar-based bio-battery lasts up to four times longer than a fully charged lithium battery and is much easier to recharge: just pour some more sweet fuel.

Since lithium batteries are very expensive and harmful for the environment, if Zheng's Coke-powered cellphone turns out to be real, it would be a significant breakthrough

Need to deal with office politics? Here are a few tips

Devilish bosses, backbiting colleagues and annoying subordinates will always be omnipresent in everybody's professional life. This bring along the age old problem of dealing with office politics.

While some of us say that we don't want to get 'caught up' in politics at work, most HR experts argue that playing the game is crucial to your career success, because by not getting involved, you may find your talents ignored and your success limited, and you may
feel left out of the loop.


Here are a few tips by Economic Times that will help you win at office politics and still gain your colleagues' respect.

Observe how things get done

Don't be afraid to ask some key questions to your bosses: What are your core values and how are they enacted? Are short or long-term results most valued? How are decisions made? How much risk is tolerated? The answers to these questions should give you a good sense of the culture of your organization.

Profile powerful individuals

If you can't wait to be where your bosses are, pay attention to their communication style, network of relationships and what types of proposals they say 'yes' to most often. Emulate those traits by drawing on the strengths you have.

Develop a positive track record

Planning is very crucial. If you have a rough idea on how long you want to do the job, work on developing your image as someone who gets results. This gives you an edge in all political corners.

Blow your horn occasionally

Let others know what you've accomplished whenever you get the opportunity. But it is necessary that you know the fine art of diplomatic bragging. Do not be outright show-off.

Respect counts, especially downwards

It is no new rule to treat your superiors with adequate salaams, but few executives make the folly of behaving with their co-workers and subordinates in a manner a king rules over his jagir. Don't show preferential treatment to co-workers you think won't be of use to you. You never know to whom someone might be connected.

Annular Solar Eclipse 2010


Simulation showing the annular solar eclipse to take place 15 January 2010
as viewable from Male', Maldives.


The Annular Solar Eclipse of January 15, 2010 - the 23rd out of possible 70 eclipses in the Saros Cycle 141 - was visible across most parts of Africa, Eastern Europe, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, China and South East Asia.

The maximum duration of annularity was 11 min 08 s on the Indian Ocean - made it the longest Annular Eclipse of the 3rd Millennium ! This would only be surpassed in the year 3043 !!

The Annular phase of the Eclipse (when the Moon would be seen to be totally inside the Sun's disk, giving the appearance of a Ring of Fire) probably had seen by over 100 million people in a track roughly of 300 km width extending across Central Africa, South India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Burma and parts of east China !

Generally, upto 5 Solar Eclipses (Total, Annular and Partial) can be seen in some part of the world every year. In a particular location, partial eclipses can be seen within a gap of a few years; in some cases - even within a gap of only a few months. However - Total and Annular eclipses will take much longer time to return to the same place.

The last Total Solar Eclipse seen in Tamil Nadu was on December 12, 1871. The last to be seen in Sri Lanka was on June 20, 1955.

The next Total Solar Eclipse that could be seen in Tamil Nadu would be on July 5, 2168 !

The last Annular Eclipse seen in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka was on November 11, 1901 (also belonging to the Saros Cycle 141) - over 100 years ago !

The next Annular Eclipse that could be seen in Tamil Nadu would be on December 26, 2019 !

Infosys sacks techies for 'unethical behaviour'



Infosys Technologies has sacked a software engineer, Abhishek Gupta, for making a hoax call to budget carrier GoAir at Delhi airport October 25 to avoid missing his Bangalore-bound flight, a company official said here Tuesday.

"Yes, we have sacked Gupta for indulging in unethical behaviour. We have a very strict code of conduct. We take strict action against those who do not adhere to it," Infosys
board member and Head of HRD and education and research T.V. Mohandas Pai told IANS.


The 25-year-old Gupta caused a bomb scare by telling GoAir staff that there was some suspicious object on the plane after he failed to convince them earlier to delay the flight.

"He thought the hoax call will delay the flight and he could reach the airport in the meantime to catch the flight," a Delhi police official said after Gupta was taken into custody and jailed.

The IT bellwether has also suspended another software engineer, Pallav Chakraborty, after he was arrested with his wife Sinchita by the Bangalore police Dec 29 for allegedly torturing their 15-year-old domestic maid.

"Though Chakraborty joined the company 15 days before his arrest, we suspended him after an inquiry into the child abuse, which is a very sad thing to have happened," Pai said.

As the police were investigating the case and the accused was in the judicial custody, Pai said the company would take strict action against him after the law had taken its course.

"We do not condone such acts. We are saddened by such an inhuman act. We have 109,882 employees on rolls. I think as we grow bigger, we are not the sample but part of the universe," Pai said on the margins of a media briefing on the company's financial performance for the third quarter.

Pallav and Sinchita, who hail from Kolkata, brought the girl from West Bengal for household chores.

A social organisation rescued the girl after raiding the house following a tip that a young domestic maid was in a bad state with injuries on her back and cut marks on her lips.

The police did not name the victim to protect her privacy and not to hamper investigation.

The company was also forced to suspend another engineer, Krishnamurthy, working at its Mysore development centre, after the police arrested him Dec 3 on the charge of molesting a French woman.

"Krishnamurthy remains suspended as police inquiry is still on. We will not spare anyone if (his or her) behaviour is not in line with our code of conduct," Pai said.

The three incidents occurred at a time when the company was recovering from the impact of a year-long global tech meltdown.

Indian Prof. to make robots for homes a reality by 2030


Robots have been gaining importance in the fields like engineering and education and Robotic Engineer Prof. Prahlad Vadakeppat feels that by 2030, robots will also find a place at homes. Even he and his students are working on some of these kinds of robots. Vadakeppat said to Gulf Times that a host of robots would soon be available to assist
doctors, at home and to care for the elderly.


According to Vadakeppat, many more interactive robots were being planned and they would become reality within the next five to 10 years and he and his students are building a number of robots. "Interactive robotic systems would be able to communicate and assist in homes and those with less mobility like the elderly would have robots on an assisted technical platform, which will be used to get them water, their medications and newspapers," he explained. He said that the human-like robots would be mass produced and would soon be available in China, India and Singapore. The prices of the robots vary depending on their specifications.

Recently, the Robotic Engineer showcased some of his robots at a technical seminar in Qatar on 'Advances in Robotics.' Two-foot humanoid robots that are fitted with camera and sensors, which can play football and also dance, were featured during the event. Another robot that has a re-configurable modular robotic system, which will make it possible to link two small robots to perform a function, was also featured during the seminar. "We are designing these robots for difficult tasks such as working inside a pipe by using the robot outside to manipulate the activities of the one inside," he said.

Vadakeppat mentioned that a new aspect of robotics called edutainment was also in the pipeline to attract more young people to robotic education. "To further draw young people to robotic engineering, we will be organizing a robotic world cup in Bangalore later this year and in Dubai in 2011," he said. The event will be organized by the Federation of International Robot- Soccer Association founded by Vadakeppat.

SBI to install talking ATMs for visually challenged

The State Bank of India (SBI) plans to introduce 7,000 voice-enabled automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country for visually challenged customers beginning in the month of February. These voice-enabled ATMs, customised with headphones and braille key pads, will offer services like fund transfer and downloading of account statements, reports PTI.

"Out of our 18,500 ATMs, 7,000 will be made voice enabled for visually challenged people. We expect to launch these talking ATMs starting next month," SBI's General Manager (Alternate Channels) Amitabh Kumar told PTI. At present, SBI is testing these voice-enabled ATMs with its partners NCR and Diebold and expects to make these operational in a month's time, he said. SBI plans to install these ATMs in metro, urban and semi urban towns across the country.

"The country has 10.6 million visually challenged people and it is the duty of the banks to help these people meet their banking needs," ICICI Bank's CEO and Managing Director Chanda Kochhar said. ICICI Bank had installed its first talking ATM in 2003.

Over the years, the bank has also ensured that the basic banking facilities can be used by physically handicapped people, Kochhar said.

Post offices to deliver business emails

The Department of Posts steps with 'ePost Corporate', which has been available to individuals for some time, is about to be thrown open to small and big companies to send business emails through the internet across the country. These emails will be printed and delivered by the Postal Department.

The companies would need to open a business account with the Postal Department free of cost. The payment for all the business done could be made at the end of the month, DoP General Manager (Business Development) John Samuel told Business Standard. "Through ePost, customers can send their messages to any location in India in combination of electronic transmission and physical delivery through a network of over 155,000 post offices," said Samuel.

The mails could include credit card statements, mobile phone bills and other marketing related information. "We are working on the details of the service. It will be introduced across India in the next one month," said Samuel, adding that the company having the account with the Postal Department can decide how the mails need to be sent - through standard letters or speed post.

"We have already started receiving orders for the service. It would reduce the workload of companies, besides helping them to cut costs," he said, declining to reveal the size of the orders. The Department expects huge growth after the introduction of the services. Samuel refused to share the revenue expectations. The Postal Department would charge Rs. 6 per page of email. It soft-launched the service in Kerala on January 1, and would extend it to the rest of the country. For individual customers, the Postal Department is already running its 'ePost' service at Rs. 10 per page.

DoP would also offer a complete solution for business mails - from printing, packaging, post printing and delivery. It has set up two printing facilities in Delhi and Kolkata. The companies would need to provide data for their business mails. The Postal Department would do the programming and prepare the layout, print, package and deliver the product. "Internet and email have revolutionised the world of communications, but its accessibility continues to be a problem for many people, especially in the rural areas. Aiming to bridge the digital divide, we have introduced ePost," said Samuel.

The science behind "Avatar"


 A new research has analyzed what are the things in the movie Avatar that comply with science and can exist in reality and what are the things that are implausible.
According to a report in Discovery News, one of the plausible stuff shown in the movie is the concept of moons that can host life.
Inhabitable moons are probably the most common place to find life in the Milky Way galaxy, simply because large moons outnumber planets by at least a factor of 10.
For example, Saturn's giant moon Titan could be the archetype of inhabitable moons. It is as geologically and meteorologically diverse as Earth.
Another likely concept shown in the film is that biological evolution on other habitable worlds can take a different road than Earth.
In Avatar, the biosphere of Pandora supports and extraterrestrial Serengeti of diverse creatures.
The respiratory systems of many of the species appear to operate differently from ours. Bioluminescence also plays a big role in communication among organisms.
Another plausible stuff shown in the movie is that the atmosphere on other habitable worlds might be breathable for organisms of that planet, but not for human beings.
In the flick, it's hard for humans to breath Pandora's atmosphere and they must wear filtering apparatus.
Some of the implausible stuff shown in the movie includes the concept of almost magical rocks known as "unobtaniums", which are described in the movie as metallic superconducting crystal with the capability of powering starships and fulfilling Earth's energy needs.
The reality is that even if such an element existed, it would have been forged under tremendous pressures deep inside a super-Earth and would not be extractable.
Even if it was extractable, the chemistry would be easier to synthesize on Earth rather than building an interstellar spaceship to haul it between stars.
Freight costs alone would kill any possibility of this material being commercially viable.
Another scientifically impossible concept shown in the film is floating mountains.
In Avatar, there are floating, superconducting magnetic mountains made of chunks of unobtanium on Pandora.
On such a moon, there would be a huge electrical current inside a cylinder of a highly concentrated magnetic flux that is connected to the parent planet.
Such a flux tube flowing between Jupiter and Io has the power output of about 2 trillion watts.
But, the fact is that living cells can be destroyed by extremely intense magnetic fields like these.
One more implausible ting shown in the movie is the 10-foot high blue humanoids, which would unlikely evolve elsewhere in the universe.