Continuing India’s trend of spreading its wings globally, Ratan Tata’s IT and telecommunications business, Tata Communications, signed an equity joint venture with shareholders of China Enterprise Communications Ltd (CEC) to acquire a 50 percent stake in the Chinese firm for an undisclosed amount, reuters reported.

The joint venture, signed through Tata Communication’s subsidiary, Tata Communications International, will provide networking services to domestic enterprises and MNCs in China.

“Emerging markets is a focus area for TC. China is a market we have been exploring for over a year now. We entered into a commercial relationship with China Enterprise Netcom Corporation (China Entercom) earlier this year. Our intention now is a strategic entry into that market, which is considered bigger than India for broadband and other services,” TC’s senior vice-president (corporate strategy) Srinivasa Addepalli told the Economic Times at a media briefing in Mumbai.

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Oil, politics, poverty, enviromental and security issues aside, the most absurd story dominated headlines of the worlds largest read english daily - the Times of India today. Headlines read - “1,500 manholes stolen, BMC says olympics to blame”. The BMC or Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation , is the corporation in charge of the city’s civic maintainance - responsible mainly for the building and maintenance of roads, streets and flyovers, water purification and supply, hospitals, street lighting, maintenance of parks and open spaces, sewage treatment and disposal etc.

So what bizarre connection do India’s sewage covers have with the glory of global sportsmanship at the olympics? The paper quotes civic officials saying that the massive construction activity undertaken for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing has increased demand for iron ore globally. As a result, they claim, organised gangs are now operating in Kurla, Bandra, Mankhurd and parts of Byculla (parts of Mumbai city) to systematically steal the manhole covers. A staggering 1,500 covers have been stolen in the past few months—each costing a handsome Rs 5,500 (US$128) in the grey market.

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Shanghai vaulted into the ranks of the world’s leading centres of commerce, becoming one of eight Asian cities among the top 25, while Mumbai, improved its tally by 3 notches, emerging as the 7th most preferred destination for investment in 2008, a study by MasterCard said.

Tokyo retained its spot as Asia’s top commercial centre — and number three globally — while Singapore overtook Hong Kong which ranks sixth globally to move into fourth spot overall, the MasterCard Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index said.

“Asia’s dominance among the top 25 cities globally demonstrates the growing importance of Asian cities to a progressively urbanised global economy,” MasterCard said in a press release.

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Its been a bad begining to the week for Asia. Following a slide on Wall Street on Friday when crude oil neared US$140, and the latest emplyment data showed a steep increase in U.S. unemployment, shares on most Asian bourses have fallen.

Fears that the United States may be heading for a recession were re-ignited after the Labour Department said Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May from 5.0 percent in April. It was the biggest monthly increase since February 1986 Forbes reported.

On Monday, South Korea’s KOSPI fell 23.35 points or 1.3 percent to close at 1,808.96, In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index finished down 308.06 points or 2.1 percent at 14,181.38, Singapore’s Straits Times index closed down 62.71 points or 2 percent at 3,084.02, and the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) fell 17.59 points or 1.4 percent to 1,230.98, off a low of 1,223.45. The Taiwan weighted index closed down 1.8 percent at 8,587.96, while the Jakarta composite index closed up 7.84 points or 0.3 percent at 2,410.08, off a low of 2,352.60. India’s Sensex provisionally ended 444.14 points or 2.85 percent lower at 15,128.04.

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Telecom and broadband experts belive that WiMax, a telecommunications technology that provides wireless voice and data over long distances is the solution for connecting Asia’s developing countries to the information super highway. While service providers say they don’t have the capital to set up mobile and internet services in Asia’s far flung under developed areas, technology guru’s have faith in wiMax’s ability to reach everywhere.

Thats why WiMax holds a promising potential as an alternative technology to connect underserved rural areas that will never realistically receive fixed-line services. The sweet spot for WiMax is its ability to provide voice and data connectivity at speeds of up to 1Mbps in Asia’s emerging markets where such digital divide exists, reported Business wire.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific WiMax Opportunity, finds that the region - covering 17 Asia-Pacific countries can potentially boast of 43 million WiMax subscribers by end-2013, generating estimated revenues of close to US$11 billion, at a CAGR of 45 percent (2007-2013).

The emerging markets are expected to account for nearly 80 percent (or 34.4 million) of the total subscribers in 2013, collectively contributing 69 percent (or US$7.59 billion) to the region’s total WiMax revenues given their low-ARPU (average revenue per user) nature.

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The pharmaceutical business is tilting towards Asia. The region is being hailed as ‘the pharmaceutical hub’, and most multinational and domestic companies in the region believe it is inevitable that Asia will soon be leading the pharma market, reported pharmaceutical technology.

India, China and Singapore are expected to become leaders in the pharmaceutical sector. India and China have become major suppliers of APIs, with India also exporting high volumes of pharmaceutical dosage products. South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong are also creating strong pharmaceutical bases, although these markets are mainly dominated by MNCs.

More clinical trials are also being conducted in Asia and India has taken the lead in clinical trial outsourcing. Asia is now returning to GDP levels of the 19th century when it was at its highest (12%). According to Goldman Sachs, India is expected to become the world’s third largest economy by 2050.

Many MNCs are investing and building their businesses in China and India, and it is expected that total pharmaceutical sales in China (at current levels of approximately $14 billion [€9 billion]) will double to $28 billion (€18 billion) by 2010.

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Yesterday Pakistan became the first South Asian nation to adopt daylight - saving time, pushing clocks forward by one hour. The three-month experiment although aimed, as elsewhere, at cutting energy costs by taking advantage of long summer days, will create chronological confusion in Asia, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Consider this: Pakistan lies west of India and is usually half an hour (yes, half an hour) behind its political archrival. But by winding its clocks forward today, Pakistan is now half an hour ahead of India, whose time remains unchanged. The situation seems a little absurd, like California being ahead of Utah.

Or take India and its little neighbor Bangladesh. Imagine India as a friendly country with its arm slung over Bangladesh’s shoulder. The hand on the shoulder is India’s northeast corner, a sizable chunk of territory connected to the rest of India by a thin arm of land.

Now, a Bangladeshi who crosses his country’s western border finds himself in India, whose time is set to half an hour behind Bangladesh. So far, so good. But if he goes in the opposite direction, across the eastern frontier, he finds himself in India yet again, and still has to turn his watch back 30 minutes, even though the sun will rise earlier than it did when he was at home.

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Jet Airways finally publically announced their special introductory Mumbai-Shanghai fares on Friday. They will fly between the two commecial capitals for RMB 3680 (US$527) + tax only if you buy the ticket between 16th-31st May and fly between 15th June- 15th July.  The introductory ticket has a one month validity.

Not to be outdone, Air India, India’s little Maharaja, has reacted to its new competition. Air India promptly cut Mumbai-Shanghai fares to RMB 3230 (US$462) + tax. The offer is valid for a fortnight, from June 15th - 30th.

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In addition to competing for natural resources in Africa, India and China have now set their sights on mobile phone subscribers. Leading mobile companies in both China and India - China Mobile and  Bharti Airtel are fiercely trying to acquire Africa’s MTN Group Ltd, the continent’s biggest mobile-phone operator, China Knowledge reported.

China and India have often been compared as the rest of the world adjusts to the presence of new economic powers, but rarely have representatives of the two nations competed head to head on a deal. China’s government-controlled entities have invested and lent billions of dollars to African countries in recent years, while private companies in India have concentrated more on shopping outside the nation’s borders.

According to MTN’s statement to its shareholders, it has started to negotiate with Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile-phone carrier, on the acquisition. But analysts believed China Mobile as well as China Telecom will probably become the two strongest competitors against Bharti Airtel. “There are many phone operators in Africa,” Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile’s president told reporters in Hong Kong. The Beijing-based parent company of China Mobile Ltd. “hasn’t participated in the bidding” for MTN Group Ltd., Wang added, who didn’t say whether the Chinese company is interested in making an offer later, reported Bloomberg.

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The quest for natural gas has brought age old enemies India and Pakistan to seek an agreement, allowing a pipeline from Iran to bring energy to Pakistan and India.”I am very optimistic about the IPI (Iran, Pakistan, India) pipeline as it would go a along way in meeting India’s energy requirements in the long run,” Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora told The Hindu on Sunday. The US$7.4 billion , 2,700-km-long pipeline is scheduled to be completed by 2011 and would initially carry 600 million cubic metres of gas per day.

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