The urban development ministry has cleared infrastructure projects worth Rs 5.24 billion in Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Indore, Surat and Rajkot.

Twelve projects under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission are to be undertaken in the five cities, an official statement said on Tuesday.

"In its second meeting held here on Monday, the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) approved over Rs 5.24 billion worth of infrastructure development projects for the five cities," the ministry said. "The total central assistance admissible for the projects is over Rs 2.15 billion and the first instalment recommended for release is over Rs 540 million."

The projects approved include water supply and underground draining facilities in Vijayawada, construction of flyovers, laying pipelines and augmenting sewage treatment in Hyderabad, water supply scheme in Indore, sewage treatment in Surat and water supply and sewage treatment in Rajkot. The urban development ministry will now send its recommendation to the finance ministry for the release of funds.

Under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission launched last year, central assistance for the approved projects is to be given to the concerned states in four instalments depending upon the implementation of the projects. The CSMC in its first meeting had given the green signal to 11 projects worth Rs 4 billion in Nagpur, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Bhopal.

The global market for full-track music downloads to mobile devices is rocking, and growing at a healthy pace. In fact, it was 20 times larger in 2005, compared to 2004, a new study by ABI Research says.The study found that global revenues from over-the-air downloaded full-track songs last year were $251 million, up from $12.4 million in 2004. ABI Research forecasts that by 2011 this figure will be $9.3 billion.

What drives a successful music download service? According to ABI Research, music download services essentially require a 3G network capable of delivering the product. The second requisite is a distribution mechanism, or a mobile music store that can deliver the content to the customer, verify that the handset can accept the content, and ensure that users are paying for it.

More important, the service requires an agreement between an operator, one or more record labels, and possibly a content aggregator, and a "robust DRM scheme that also allows users to move tracks easily between devices.Goes without saying that all of the abover would be of little use if handsets did not have sufficient memory and feature-sets to support music downloads and transfers. Again, obviously, this demand pleases handset manufacturers, who are only too happy to build high-margin extras into their new products.

"You also need people willing to buy OTA content," says the technology research firm. "Over-the-air downloads will be relatively less successful in North America because of the high penetration of PCs. Overseas (particularly in Asia), PCs are less prevalent and the mobile phone is more so. There wasn’t even a Japanese iTunes store until the fourth quarter of 2005. That’s part of the reason KDDI sold 30 million mobile tracks last year in Japan alone," it says.

Location-based search While on mobile devices, InfoSpace, Inc., a mobile media provider, has developed and launched a location-enabled search product that allows consumers to easily and quickly find everything from nearby restaurants and movie times to people, maps and driving directions all in one integrated application.

"Location-based mobile local search has been a promise for many years, and InfoSpace Find It! robustly delivers on the possibilities. InfoSpace Find It! is like having a concierge in your pocket," says Stephen Davis, president of InfoSpace Mobile and Online Media. When the service is eventually launched in India, you can keep track of where that pesky colleague is at any given time, until he/she switches off the gadget.

The state government on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with the MindTree Consulting Private Limited for setting up a development centre in Bhubaneswar. The company has been allotted approximately 30 acres of land in electronic complex Infocity and will be starting construction of the centre within the next financial year.

The centre is likely to come up within a period of 12-18 months. According to the MoU, MindTree will employ at least 1,000 software professionals within a period of two years of their operation and has long-term plans of employing about 5,000 people at Bhubaneswar over next five years. As the first step, MindTree has started recruiting from Orissa and recently recruited a few MBA graduates from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar. MindTree is billed to be the biggest IT recruiter in the state. The largest of them at present, Infosys, proposes to take its head count to 4,500 by 2008. The MoU was singed by Mr Subroto Bagchi, chief operating officer of MindTree, and Mr S.N. Tripathy, secretary IT department, Orissa government, in the presence of chief minister Navin Patnaik, IT minister S.N. Patra and chief secretary Subas Pani. Mr Bagchi said, MindTree, at present, is engaged in providing affordable business and technology solutions through its global software development.

While Infosys and Satyam are present in the city since 1996-97, TCS and Wipro have acquired land in Infocity recently.