Oracle Corporation, an enterprise sotware company, will be ramping up the expansion of its operations in India to 10,000 people from the current 8,600 people in the next eight months, Charles Phillips, president of the company, said on Tuesday. These additional resources will be in the areas of sales and marketing, product development, consulting, product support and services.

Oracle in India employs 17 per cent of Oracle’s total worldwide staff of 51,000. "Under the new expansion plans, Oracle is scheduled to increase its presence into nine non-metro cities — Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Pune and Visakhapatnam," an Oracle India statement said.

"We have been in India for more than 19 years and the infrastructure we have put in place now enables us to go beyond the metro cities and into the cities that are the Emerging economic engines of India," Mr Phillips was quoted as saying at the Oracle Open World in Mumbai. "The fast rate of development, high literacy rates, and availability of IT skills in each of these cities represent an untapped reservoir of future economic wealth for India. We want to help make that happen."

In the past five years, Oracle has invested nearly $2 billion in India to support company initiatives, such as its development centres, in-kind education donations, and investments in companies like i-flex. "India is one of the two fastest-growing markets for Oracle in the Asia Pacific region," said Derek Williams, executive vice-president, Oracle Asia-Pacific. "We hope to grow the market reach for Oracle exponentially and accelerate Oracle’s growth in India."

IIM Ahmedabad is organising Amaethon 2006 to draw the focus of management students from across the country to the opportunities and challenges faced by the agribusiness industry in India.IIM Ahmedabad Amaethon, which began in 2005, is an annual student meet organised by the IIM Ahmedabad Agribusiness Club. The event this year will focus on the theme "ignite change" and will take an in-depth look at the future of agribusiness, the opportunities and the pitfalls. The Amaethon subjects will include agri-marketing, commodities trading and agri-financing.

Amaethon 2006 will provide a forum for students to interact with industry leaders of companies making forays into rural markets. The dignitaries who will interact with the students include managing director of Godrej Agrovet C.K. Vaidya, vice-president, operations ITC-IBD Rajnikant Rai and head operations of DSCL Sanjay Chhabra.

The events have seen active participation from management schools across India and the initial rounds of the competitions have already been completed.