MUMBAI: The $2.3 billion database marketing and customer relations management (CRM) solutions company, Wunderman Cato Johnson (WCJ), today formally launched its Indian operations. ``Huge business opportunity India provides for our products such as database management and CRM has made us to come to India,'' WCJ Asia Pacific region president Wolfgang Haf told newsmen here. The New York-based WCJ is the member of the Young & Rubicam group, which is into advertising and direct marketing as well. WCJ, which has 74 offices in 44 countries, would offer business services in CRM, technology driven marketing and customer equity management through its four offices in India, he said.

Gas cracker fire put out, says IPCL

AHMEDABAD: Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd (IPCL) said a fire in a section of its gas cracker at Gandhar in the western state of Gujarat had been put out and production was expected to resume on Tuesday. The ethylene fractionation column which caughtfire earlyon Monday was immediately isolated and all other plants in the complex were shut down, an IPCL statement said. The damage caused would be assessed in a few days, it said.

BSE, NSE change market timings

MUMBAI: The BSE and NSE have decided to suitably reschedule trading period for the current and next week in order to compensate the lost time as a result of `sun outage' affecting the vsat network.

Statements by both the exchanges said that the DoT and Network Operations Control Centre (NOCC) had informed them that there would be sun outage September 25 to October 9 between 1040 hours and 1115 hours in view of which the trading timings have been changed. While the trading on the BSE will be held between 0900 hours to 1600 hours, the NSE has revised market timing from 0945 hours to 1040 hours and 1125 hours to 1600 hours, keeping pre-open time from 1115 hours to 1125 hours for concellation of orders.

Wipro chief, Infosys chairman lauded

WASHINGTON: Azim Premji of Wipro and NRNarayana Murthy of Infosys were lauded by The Wall Street Journal as representatives of the new India determined to make good in the era of globalization. The paper noted that Premji, despite owning $5.5 billion in Wipro stock, does not demand a reserved parking space at work. Murthy's salary is only $36,000 to preserve profits for the benefit of shareholders, the paper said.