Benchmark index, Sensex is heading toward the highest fall in a span of four weeks as the fear of Greece default spooked investors amid loss in the Chinese stocks despite a decision by the central bank to cut interest rates to a record low.

Weakness in the rupee owing to persistent demand for the American currency from importers has further dampened the sentiments. The rupee is currently trading at 63.86 against the US dollar.

MUMBAI: "Have you seen the Matrix? Remember the scene where Neo and Trinity get into a helicopter and don't know how to fly it. So Neo just downloads the instructions into his brain and they're off ? This product is exactly like that," says Harrick Vin, vice-president and chief scientist at Tata Consultancy Services, describing the company's latest product.

The description itself is a shift for the industry. Indian IT firms, known more for their labour arbitrage model than innovative technology, rarely get to compare products to something seen in cult sci-fi films.

Are MNCs better at generating cash from their companies than their domestic counterparts? Data on dividend seem to suggest so - for FY15, there were four MNCs among the top 10 companies with dividend-earning promoters. While the Tatas topped the list with total promoter dividend earnings of Rs 12,018 crore, American tech giant Oracle was the second (Rs 4,193.4 crore), followed by Unilever (Rs 2,181.8 crore).

By contrast, many of India's prominent business houses earn low amounts as dividend from their companies, with the exception of tech majors. Azim Premji of Wipro was India's fourth-highest dividend earner in FY15, with dividend income of Rs 2,174 crore. He was followed by Mukesh Ambani, who earned Rs 1,464 crore as dividend from Reliance Industries.

In the run-up to primaries ahead of the US Presidential elections next year, two of India's largest information technology (IT) outsourcing services companies - Infosys Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services - have come under the scanner of authorities in that country for alleged violation of visa rules.

According to a New York Times report, the Department of Labour has opened an investigation against TCS and Infosys for "possible violations of rules for visas for foreign technology workers under contracts they held with an electric utility, Southern California Edison". This is based on the allegations that many of the 500-odd technology workers laid off by Southern California Edison were made to train their replacements, who were immigrants on temporary visas and brought in by these Indian companies.

BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty edged higher in a choppy session on Friday, while still on course for a third consecutive weekly decline, as gains in Reliance Industries after its annual shareholder meeting, overpowered falls in IT exporters for the day.

At 03.20 pm, Sensex was up 64.39 points at 26435.37, whereas Nifty gained 21.30 points at 7986.65 during the same time.

It pays to be at the helm of India’s largest information technology (IT) services provider. Literally. N Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services, received Rs 21.28 crore as total compensation in 2014-15, up 13.9 per cent from Rs 18.68 crore last year. This total remuneration for the financial year 2014-15 does not include dividends from 88,528 shares he owns in the company.

Chandrasekaran was also the highest salary receiver for FY15 when compared to CEOs of competing firms. His salary of Rs 21.28 crore (around $3.35 million) was higher than Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s $716,539 (around Rs 4.5 crore), T K Kurien, Wipro CEO’s annual salary of $1.5 million (around Rs 9.6 crore) and Cognizant’s Francisco D’Souza’s annual salary of $1.15 million (Rs 7.3 crore).

Bengaluru: On 4 June, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer of India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) flew to New York.

Unlike his earlier visits to the US—the largest market for TCS and other Indian IT firms—he was not scheduled to meet any clients. In the evening, Harrick M. Vin, TCS’s chief scientist and global head of innovation and transformation, and a few other executives joined Chandrasekaran at the upscale Mandarin Oriental hotel in Manhattan to showcase what some within the company bill as one of the most significant technological innovations to come out of the $15 billion company: An artificial intelligence (AI) technology platform.

World Consulting & Research Corporation (WCRC) has unveiled ‘Asia’s 100 Most Admired Brands’ list in Singapore that includes Honda, Hyundai, Samsung, Singapore Airlines, Emirates Airlines, Infosys, TCS, Alibaba.com.

Asia’s 100 Most Admired Brands is World Consulting & Research Corporation (WCRC) and ibrands360 research initiative involving the most significant brands from Asia.

Wipro, India’s third-largest information technology (IT) services company, announced a salary increase for its employees largely in line with those offered by its peers. The Azim Premji-led company, which follows a June appraisal cycle, said the average increase in salary for employees located in offshore locations was in the range of seven per cent while for those in onshore locations it was two per cent.

For high-performers, the quantum of raise was substantially higher, Saurabh Govil, global head (human resources), Wipro, said in a statement.

Bengaluru: Indian IT companies are looking to build up their presence in the social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) space, but they have a long way to go to catch up with their global outsourcing peers when it comes to offering elements of these new technologies to clients.

Infosys Ltd gets 8% of its $8.7 billion revenue from offering solutions to clients in the SMAC or digital space, a relatively small percentage when compared to global outsourcing giant Accenture Plc, which gets a fifth of its $30 billion revenue from client spending in that area.

Inviting Real Estate Agents, Job Placements Agents, Educational Institutes, Software Service Providers, Real Estate Builders, Marriage Bureaus, Travel Agents, Restaurant Owners, Health & Fitness Centers and other Local Businesses to Post a FREE Classified Advertisement on Cootera.com Classifieds Website.