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Inflation in India dropped to negative market recently. For the first time in last 33 years the inflation rate turned to negative in India.

Facebook would become the first social networking site to showcase apps in Hindi as it calls for entries in English and Hindi to showcase web development skills in two categories of Facebook apps & Facebook Connect Integrations

The day for which the Indian developer community had been waiting has finally arrived.

India’s software sector is likely to miss the much-touted target of touching 60 billion dollar exports by FY10, due to
unprecedented slowdown in key markets like the US and Europe, IT industry body Nasscom said.

“… the aspiration of $60 billion by December 2010 is likely to be delayed by at least three to four quarters due to unprecedented slowdown in 2009 in key markets, particularly the US and Europe,” a Nasscom-McKinsey report said.

The technology and business services industry grew substantially to $52 billion in 2008 including $12 billion in the domestic segment.

Now with the financial meltdown taking its toll, the software and services revenue outlook has been revised downwards.

Nasscom had earlier scaled down the growth rate for software exports to 16-17 per cent in FY09 as against 21-24 per cent announced earlier.

However, the report — Perspective 2020 — said the future of the IT industry remains secure in the medium to long term, even in the face of current macro-economic trends.

Agencies

Almost all the banks have slashed their fixed deposit rates. After this revision the interest banks are offering on the tenure between a month and 45 days is lower than the 3.5% minimum savings bank rate and some of the banks are not even giving any interest on short-term maturities.

Therefore at this time it is better to keep money in the savings bank account rather than investing in fixed deposits.

For instance amongst the private sector banks HDFC Bank is giving a 2.25% interest on deposits below Rs15 lakh for 15 to 29 days and only a 3% interest on deposits kept for 30 days to 45 days.

While the ICICI Bank is not giving any interest on deposits for 7 days to 14 days and offers only a 3.25% interest for deposits maturing between 15 and 45 days.

Whereas amongst the public sector banks State Bank of India (SBI) is offering only a 3% interest on deposits maturing in 15-45 days.

The savings bank account rate is fixed by the government therefore it can not be changed by the banks whereas it’s not the case with deposit rates.

Anindya Mitra, senior vice-president, retail liabilities, HDFC Bank explained, “We may think that the savings rate has to come down but we can’t tinker with it and why should we pay more than 3.5% for short-term money when we can borrow one day funds from the inter-bank call market at 3%”.

The government is thinking over of introducing a new tax-saving scheme to collect ‘idle money’ kept with households and elsewhere in the system mainly for building funds for infrastructure.

According to sources the tax benefits offered may be on investments up to Rs 5lakh and be involved in somewhat meeting the country’s infrastructure funding needs, which have been gauged at as high as $750 billion.

The scheme can provide multiple purposes including giving additional tax benefits to the public, channelizing the huge amount of money lying idle in saving accounts or with households for productive means, and this will also not add to the fiscal deficit, the sources said.

The sources added the government has already made an announcement of borrowing program of over Rs 3,00,000 crore for the current fiscal and if further there is any increase the liquidity will be made available to the drying up private sector and also add to the expansion of fiscal deficit.

Various sectors have been demanding for tax benefits for citizens and also garnering alternative resources for meeting the government’s spending needs.

At present, collective tax benefits are being offered on an investment of Rs one lakh in insurance, pension schemes, bonds, mutual funds, children’s education and housing loans, etc.

Bertrand Picard and his team is all set to fly an airplane of solar impulse. The initial version of the solar plane spans 61 metres, but weighs about 1500 Kilogram (Kg).

Adobe Inc, the world’s biggest maker of graphic-design software, shut down North American operations this week, part of a plan to cut operating costs as the recession crimps sales.

Adobe told employees in March it would impose one-week closures in the second, third and fourth quarters, and asked staff to take paid vacation time, the company said today.

“These are in addition to the normal holiday shutdown” between Christmas and New Year’s Day, San Jose, California-based Adobe said in an e-mail.

The company has frozen salaries, trimmed bonuses and variable compensation plans, and curbed travel expenses, Chief Executive Officer Mark Garrett said in an April interview.