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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Are global financial institutions proving to be defunked in the face of inflation and a global food crisis, and is it up to Asia as the emerging center of world power to take the lead in finding solutions? Business leaders who met at the annual World Economic Forum on East Asia, a high-profile gathering of business and government leaders, in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week seem to think so.

“Global institutions are inadequate. They are not responding to global challenges,” Yashwant Sinha, a former finance minister of India said while citing record-high crude oil prices. Rapid increases in the price of rice and other agriculture products have set off riots and protests from Africa to Asia and elevated fears of a global food crisis, reported the International Herald Tribune.

“I would say that this is where there is an opportunity for Asia,” said Sinha, who is now a member of the Indian Parliament. “There are a whole host of things that Asian nations can do together. We must start writing the rules of the game.”

Asian countries must help each other in dealing with crises because the United States can no longer be expected to be “the locomotive of the global economy,” said Yoshimi Watanabe, the Japanese minister of financial services and administrative reforms. “The Asian countries are in the same boat, we share the same destiny,” he said.

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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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A recently held wine auction in Hong Kong sold US$8.2 million of fine vintages and smashed at least five world auction records for some of the world’s finest wines clocking Asia’s largest such sale till date.

Asia primirarily a fruit and rice wine consuming continent is now gulping down more of the fermented grape drink. According to Vinexpo/IWSR’s research for Asia, wine consumption increased by 10.4 percent in 2004-05 and by 8 percent in 2005-06.

They’ve also predicted that wine consumption would increase by 11.856 hectoliters until 2011, up 48 percent twice that of the period from 2002-2006 and also eight times as much as that of other countries in the world. Asian wine consmption is also expected to account for 4.8 percent of global wine consumption till 2011.

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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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Five days after Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited Beijing to settle India - China border issues, and weeks after India discovered Chinese threats to its communication network and other space assets, India launched the Integrated Space Cell (ISC). The establishment of the ISC oddly follows an agreement between India and China on peace and tranquility, ongoing confidence building measures and a MoU on defence cooperation - marking another twist in the ‘friendly enemy’ status the two countries share.

Justifying the formation of the cell, Defence Minister A. K. Antony said at the United Commanders’ conference that India wanted to utilise space for peaceful purposes and remained committed to non-weaponisation of space. However, “offensive counter space systems like anti-satellite weaponry, new classes of heavy-lift and small boosters and an improved array of military space systems have emerged in our neighbourhood.” according to the Hindu.

The Space Cell will be put under the command of the Integrated Defence Services Headquarters and will act as a single window for integration among the armed forces, the department of space and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Times of India reported.

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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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Asia is becoming a hot bed for nuclear energy. With fuel prices soaring through the roof , US, French, Russian and Canadian companies are exploring nuclear energy in Asia as an alternate energy source.

General Electric, Daewoo and Toshiba are among companies looking to win big contracts in Southeast Asia. A report by the world nuclear association last year said that through to 2010 projected new power generating capacity in Asia is approximately 38 GWe per year, and from 2010 to 2020 it is 56 GWe/yr, up to one third of this replacing retired plant. This is about 36 percent of the world’s new capacity (current world capacity is about 3500 GWe, of which 368 GWe is nuclear). Much of this growth will be in China, Japan, India and Korea. The nuclear share of this to 2020 is expected to be at least 39 GWe and maybe more if environmental constraints limit fossil fuel expansion.

There are currently 109 nuclear power reactors operating in six countries of the region, 18 units under construction and firm plans in place to build about another 40 units.

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India’s Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee is curently on a four day good will visit to China. Admist talks with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi over border issues, Mukherjee inaugurated the Consulate General of India in Guangzhou city and expressed interest in visiting the earthquake hit Sichuan province before returning to India on Friday.

Although Mukherjee’s meet with Premiere Wen Jiabao was called off, he will hold talks with Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping today. Xi, was appointed to be Vice-President in March and is tipped to be Hu’s successor when he completes his second term in 2012.

Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi accepted his invitation and agreed to visit New Delhi later this year. Wu Bangguo, chairman of the National People’s Congress, the Chinese parliament, is also scheduled to visit India this year.

According to Xinhua news agency, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi has hailed the comprehensive development of the China-India relationship, saying it was ‘at the best period of development in history’, and faced ‘important strategic opportunities’.

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Did China miss an opportunity when they reorganized their telecoms last week? Robert Clark of BusinessWeek thinks so. He says that the reshuffling has been so domestically focused that it has missed the chance to prepare China Mobile and China Unicom, China’s two largest mobile phone operators, to become global players.

The pieces of China’s telecom reorganization have fallen into their well-telegraphed place. But the exercise has been wholly focused on the domestic market with the aim of bringing China Mobile back to Earth. What it really misses is the chance to prep Mobile and rival China Unicom to become global carriers.

Clark points out that the most growth in the mobile phone industry is coming from the emerging markets – Africa, India and Southeast Asia. American, European and India mobile operators are already trying to situate themselves in these markets. Bharti Airtel—India’s biggest mobile service provider—recently tried to acquire Africa’s largest provider, MTN. Read the rest of this entry »