Despite posting a 13% rise in net profit at Rs 2,321 crore on 9% higher sales of Rs 9,846 crore for the quarter ended September, Bharti

Airtel’s shares plunged over 6% on Friday. With the latest round of tariff cuts impacting the financials of all companies, Bharti Airtel’s CEO Manoj Kohli talks to ET NOW on the road ahead and how India’s largest telecom company plans to respond to competition. Excerpts:

Bharti Airtel’s shares crashed close to 7% despite posting profits. The stock has closed at year’s low and has lost 18% this year. Are you concerned?

At Bharti, we don’t look at our performance based on the reaction of the stock markets. We look at the real market and we are satisfied that we have improved our marketshare even as competition is heating up.

But, your market share has fallen over the past 12 months…

When we refer to market share, we refer to revenue share. Bharti accounts for about 32.7% of the mobile sector’s revenues. This indicates the quality of our customers are better and that their usage is higher. Over the next few quarters, our primary objective is to improve our revenue market share.

How long do you expect the ongoing price war to continue? What is Bharti’s strategy ?

The tariff war is set to continue for the next few quarters. This will lead to a natural [ ......... ]

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation
and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

“A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

The service seems to combine Gmail and Google Docs into an interesting free-form workspace that could be used to write documents collaboratively, plan events, play games or discuss a recent news.

Google Wave has been designed by the founders of Where 2 Tech, a start-up acquired by Google to create a cutting-edge mapping service, which later became Google Maps.

“Back in early 2004, Google took an interest in a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech, founded by my brother Jens and me. We were excited to join Google and help create what would become Google Maps. But we also started thinking about what might come next for us after maps. As always, Jens came up with the answer: communication. He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant [ ......... ]

India Sunday expressed disappointment over the outcome of the recent climate change summit in Copenhagen.

“We were able to make only limited progress at Copenhagen summit and no one was fully satisfied with the outcome. Yet there is no escaping the truth that the nations of the world have to move to a low greenhouse gas submissions and energy efficient development path,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in the southern Indian state of Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram.

India and developing countries wanted developed nations like the United States to make commitments on the Kyoto Protocol but that failed to materialize at Copenhagen.

The prime minister said that global warming has been posing fresh challenges to India.

“Climate change is a problem that is challenging the knowledge and wisdom of humankind. India now faces new challenges of climate change and the management of our scarce water resources,” he said.

“As far as energy is concerned, renewable and clean energy supplies will need to play a much bigger role that what they do currently. Nuclear and solar energy supplies will need to increase considerably,” Singh said. [ ......... ]

The BMW X6 , is something even nastier than its brother X5!The X6 M is a piece of automotive engineering that shouldn’t exist, its total lack of practicality suggesting it is more about art than function, the automotive equivalent of Mount Everest–BMW built it because it could.

Upholding its engineering reputation, BMW fits the 4.4-liter V-8 with its double-VANOS continuously variable valve timing and direct injection, making for an engine that produces plenty of torque at low speeds. The twin turbos, one for each bank of four cylinders, force air into the engine at 22 psi, cranking up overall engine output to 555 horsepower and 501 pound-feet of torque which is incredible.

Given the similar power train and chassis, the X6 M should be virtually identical to the X5 M.The X6 M’s roofline, sloping radically down toward the hatchback, tortures rear-seat passengers with minimal headroom. Cargo space is also limited to things that can lie flat.

The X6 M seems designed with the sadist in mind, a person who would welcome people into the back seat, grin, then proceed to drive like a madman until the rear-seat passengers were suffering neck pains that would keep a team of chiropractors in business [ ......... ]