MUMBAI: IDEA Cellular, one of the leading telecom operators in the country has announced the launch of its GSM mobile services in Chennai Metro today. With this, IDEA?s mobile network now covers all the service areas in South India, as it expands its national footprint to become a pan-India operator this year.

IDEA?s 2.75G EDGE enabled network will now cover entire Chennai Metro, in addition to its expanding network coverage in the Rest of Tamil Nadu. The warm yellow of IDEA logo, symbolizing strength, vibrancy and vitality, will now be seen across the rural and urban landscape of the state, including Chennai Metro.

Chennai Metro, with a population of 7.2 million and teledensity of over 130% is a strategic market in the South. With 25% of its overall subscriber base coming from three service areas of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, IDEA is a strong player in the South, and will leverage this strength to become the Operator of Choice for mobile users in the region.

IDEA plans to set up a network of 2400 cell sites across Tamil Nadu & Chennai, covering 1200 towns by the end of March ?10.

According to Mr. Sanjeev Aga, Managing Director, IDEA Cellular said, ?Chennai is a strategic market for IDEA, and we are happy to launch our services in this metro city. This not only provides us a platform to further strengthen our market position in the South, but is also a key milestone in our national roll-out plan.?

IDEA Cellular, an Aditya Birla Group Company covers 90% of the telephony potential of the country, and is the 3rd largest private GSM player with over 47 million subscribers across 18 telecom circles.

Speaking on the occasion of launch of services in the city, Mr. Himanshu Kapania, Director - Operations, IDEA Cellular Ltd., said, ?IDEA aims to provide the citizens of Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu, superior connectivity, whisper clear audio quality, zero call congestion and high capacity, ahead of time. IDEA?s 2.75G capable & 3G ready core network provides for all future technological enhancements. We welcome the people of Chennai and other towns and villages of Tamil Nadu to join IDEA?s pan-India network.?

IDEA will develop customer service with a robust retail network comprising of exclusive ?My Idea Stores?, ?Idea Points? and other outlets. The service network will be expanded to over 25,000 retail outlets and 60 IDEA showrooms in the state, shortly. Aimed at achieving visibility and real time experience, these customer touch points will significantly enhance IDEA?s distribution network and help reach out to its discerning customers across all segments.

IDEA is the leader in the introduction of value added services in the Indian mobile telephony market. With the launch of IDEA in Chennai and Rest of Tamil Nadu, mobile users in the state will have a rich experience while watching movie previews on IDEA TV, Voice chats, Instant Messenger, multimedia messages with video attachments, web-infotainment, high-speed video downloads, Java game downloads and other Internet-based multi-media experiences on their EDGE-enabled mobile phones.

As part of the inaugural offer, IDEA will introduce multiple tariff plans ranging from competitive special tariff vouchers, to variable talk time and validity offerings, based on the consumption and usage patterns of customers in Tamil Nadu.

Special Value Added Services being made available for IDEA subscribers in Tamil Nadu, including Chennai are ? Idea Vanavil, Tamil Ullagam, Thirukural Alerts on SMS, Rahu Kalam, Background Music, and Ring Back Tunes. ?Say Idea?, an exclusive product offering wide range of services like Dialer Tones, Star Special, Music Directors? Special, Song & Dance, Latest Movies, Jokes & Comedy Special and Devotional is also being introduced for IDEA subscribers in the state.

West Indies are smarting under a one day series defeat at the hands of the Indians and will look to prove a point against the visiting Bangladeshi?s albeit in a Test series first. They are looking at building a match winning Test squad and have drafted in a couple of batsmen in good nick. Adrian Barath, Runako Morton and Narsingh Deonarine have earned their caps for the first Test. After losing the two-match Test series away in England, the Windies want to get back in the form which helped them win the Test series against England at home. They will miss their match winning bowler Fidel Edwards in the first Test due to a back injury but Ravi Rampaul who made a great return to one day cricket against India recently will shore up the bowling attack.

Bangladesh meanwhile is on a rebuilding phase. They have appointed paceman Mashrafe Mortaza in place of Mohammad Ashraful who has been asked to concentrate on his batting skills. It?s a long march up the ladder for Bangladesh as they still need to earn a single Test ranking point. The last Test series for Bangladesh was at home in January 2009 against Sri Lanka which they lost two nil.

Ten Sports? coverage will be bolstered by the former wicket keeper batsman of the Windies? golden era Jeffrey Dujon, who will take up his second assignment as a commentator. Former paceman Ian Bishop and longstanding cricket commentator Tony Cozier will lead the West Indies point of view. India?s former ace leg spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan will bring the sub continental perspective on the action and cricket writer and commentator Fazeer Mohammad will pitch in with his expert comments.

So watch out for all the action from the picturesque Bridgetown, Barbados because cricket is on a roll on Ten Sports with a packed cricket calendar.

MUMBAI: Text 100 has announced the appointment of Amit Chaudhery to the position of managing director for Text 100 India. Chaudhery joins Text 100 from Motorola India where he was Head of Communications & Corporate Affairs. He will report directly to Rowan Benecke, Text 100 Regional Consultancy Director for APAC.

Amit joins Text 100 with over 20 years experience across many communications disciplines and sectors including advertising, journalism, public relations, corporate affairs, television producing and acting. He also brings extensive client-side experience to his role as Managing Director providing great insight and value to Text 100?s clients and consultants.

As Managing Director for Text 100 India, Amit will be responsible for the overall leadership, strategy and direction of the business in India incorporating Text 100, GRO and sister agency Vox.

The Text 100 India Group (including Vox and GRO) has over 140 employees and presence in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. GRO (Global Resource Optimisation), located in Mumbai, provides high quality, low cost content development, account administration and secondary research for Text 100 clients in markets such as the UK and USA. Key clients of Text 100 and GRO include Microsoft, Nokia, Nasscom, Cisco, Lenovo, Virgin Mobile, American Express, Lupin Pharmaceuticals and Xerox. Key clients of Vox include: IBM, Paypal, ICICI Pru Life Insurance, BMW, Salesforce.com, VMWare, Sybase and Symantec.

Says Text 100 Regional Consultancy Director, APAC Rowan Benecke, ?It?s a great pleasure to welcome Amit to Text 100. We are all excited about the prospect of working with, learning from, and growing the Indian business together in what is going to be yet another demanding year ahead. Amit?s experience, maturity and profile within India will ensure our clients and prospects continue to prosper with Text 100 India.

?We conducted a wide search in order to fill this role, both externally and from within Text 100. Acknowledging Amit?s diverse background, what he will bring is experience from a senior in-house role of a global company. His experience cuts across various industry sectors outside the tech industry which fits perfectly with the vision for Text 100 India.?

Added Chaudhery, ?Text 100 has had a strong name in the Indian market place for over 10 years, along with its impressive client portfolio. Taking on a new role at such times as these will have its challenges, however, I?m looking forward to working with such an experienced and dedicated team to continue to deliver and develop the great client work that Text is known for.?

MUMBAI: Zee TV urges its viewers to see the world of a special child in ?Aap Ki Antara?. A world where there is no discrimination, no deception, no corruption and no violence. It?s a world inhabited by innocence, excitement and astonishing talent. In its attempt while addressing the issue of autism, the channel has taken a step further and has joined hands with Action for Autism NGO to create awareness.

Aapki Antara is designed to raise awareness about autism and to urge parents to learn the early signs/ symptoms of the disorder.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Nitin Vaidya, COO of ZEEL and Business Head of Zee TV said, ?Through this endeavor we intend to help spread awareness and hopefully help in changing the common misconceptions about autism. This unique concept, with its clear and simple message, holds great promise to help parents know the signs of autism. There?s 1 among 150 kids who gets affected by autism, and a majority of these children are gifted with some unusually special talent. Our goal was to couch that startling statistic in a story that pulls a viewer and sensitizes him/her about this human condition, cure for which is still unknown to medical science. By telling the story from the point of view of little Antara, we have tried to carefully bring to the forefront the various facets of an autistic child through extensive research.

MUMBAI: Test cricket returns for Pakistan as they get set to play a three match Mobitel Test and five-match One-day International series away in Sri Lanka. The first Test starts in the picturesque beach town of Galle on the 4th of July.

Pakistan is on a return tour of the Emerald nation just four months after the second Test match was abandoned in Lahore in March 2009 because of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team. The first Test had ended in a draw.

Pakistan are high on confidence with more than half the team comprising of the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup winning combination. Pakistan have been bolstered by the return of prolific batsman Mohammad Yousuf after he left the Indian Cricket League. According to Captain Younis Khan, ?The Sri Lanka tour will be a big challenge. We will have to leave our World Cup win behind and focus on what is a very tough assignment.?

Sri Lanka meet Pakistan less than a fortnight after losing the Twenty20 World Cup final to Pakistan. They will be led for the first time in Tests by Kumara Sangakkara who has been in superlative form in the last one year. Sri Lanka are at present ranked fourth in the ICC Cricket ratings and Pakistan lie seventh having played fewer matches than the Lankans.

It?s going to be a grand battle between spin soldiers on both sides. Pakistan have included off spinner Saeed Ajmal and leg spinner Danish Kaneria in the squad. Sri Lanka have world record holder Muthiah Murailtharan and the ever versatile Ajantha Mendis in their ranks.

The second Mobitel Test starts on the 12th of July in Colombo while the third one begins on the 20th of July at the same venue.

Ten Sports will have well known cricket personalities as part of the commentary team for the series. Legendary fast bowler Waqar Younis will be leading the commentary with former teammate Rameez Raja. Sri Lanka will be represented by former cricketers Ranjit Fernando and Ranil Abeynaike. Prolific commentator and former Australian first class cricketer Mike Haysman will anchor the pre and post match show ?Straight Drive?.

So get ready for some explosive action only on Ten Sports as cricket returns to the sub continent.

MUMBAI: ndia is not just about big industrial houses! It is known for its small and medium enterprises, the backbone of Indian industry, based out of small industrial towns like Ludhiana, Coimbatore and many more. We the SMEs highlight the issues affecting the SME sector and bring out their expectations from Budget 2009.

Join anchor Manvi Dhillon on We the SMEs as the show voices the demands of SME sector and its constituents this Thursday, 2nd July, 2009 at 8.30 pm with repeat on following Sunday at 5.30 pm only on NDTV Profit.