GE Healthcare, on Tuesday, announced

GE Healthcare, on Tuesday, announced a tie-up with Hyderabad-based Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) to open 10 oncology centres in India at an investment of Rs 200 crore over next two years.

The first of such centre would come up at Vijaywada, followed centres in Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Thrishur, Raipur, Indore, Coimbatore and Patna.

Providing details of the facility, B Bhaskar Rao, managing director and chief executive officer, KIMS, said that these centres would also be capable of providing cardiology and neurology diagnostic services.

He said that “The idea is to cut costs. For example, we will set up only three cyclotrons for 10 centres and will depend on logistics planning to transfer the isotope.”

The medical technologies and services provider also announced its plans to invest $50 million (around Rs 231 crore) in developing a low-cost PET/CT scan system for diagnosis of various diseases, like early detection of cancer, heart diseases and brain disorders.

Speaking to pressperson(s), V Raja, president and chief executive officer (South Asia), GE Healthcare, and Managing Director, Wipro GE Healthcare, said that they plan to offer the facilities at around 40 percent less than the current market prices.

He said that GE Healthcare would carry out R&D on the new equipment at its existing facility in Bangalore and would be hiring another 30 people for the same, he said “the system should be ready in two to three years,” further adding that “GE Healthcare joined hands with Varian Medical Systems to provide turnkey assistance to equip the oncology centres.”

Varian Medical Systems is a California-based company engaged in manufacturing of medical devices for treating cancer.

Ms Terri S. Bresenham, Vice-President, Molecular Imaging, GE Healthcare, said that “The idea behind setting up the facility in India is that these medical equipment will cost about 30-40 per cent cheaper.”

“It is a high-end product. What we wish to do is design a product with the same capability but at a cheaper cost so that cancer detection and treatment becomes more affordable in India. We will be considering exporting some of the units we manufacture at the Bangalore facility to neighbouring markets,” said Raja

Push For Immigration Overhaul by Obama

It would be revitalization worthy of Lazarus; however, President Obama is making a rehabilitated push for an immigration overhaul, probably during a lame-duck session of Congress after the November election, when associates would no longer have to face a pending political risk for providing support to it.

Obama met with associates of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the State Dining Room on Tuesday and had discussions regarding a strategy for passing a bill that seemed to be lying dead for the year.

On Thursday morning, the President will place the problem before the American public. In a speech at American University, he intends to make the case for providing a path for the anticipated 11 million citizens who live in the U.S. without any legal sanction whilst strengthening border enforcement.

White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs said at his daily meeting on Tuesday that this continues to be an extremely significant national topic requiring Republican support.

Up to now, no Republican senators have consented to support an all-inclusive immigration bill. Nor has such a bill been brought in, in the Senate.

Farmville bestowed in iPhone

Zynga the game developer has offered its version of its virtual farming game Farmville for Apple's iPhone.

The iPhone game was publicized at the WWDC last month, and reports state that it has been specially tailored to work on Apple's new iOS 4 platform.

Farmville has gained fame on social networking platform Facebook, making it the most popular web-based game in the world. It allows user to create and manage virtual farms in real time, and has an estimated 70 million active users worldwide.

At the same time the company offers market items and gifts to iPhone and iPod Touch users who download the free application.

Google withdraws apps from Android phones

Google has withdrawn two applications from Android phones as they seem not to comply with Android Market terms and conditions.

The Android Security Lead, Rich Cannings, stated that the two removed applications were developed by security researcher for 'research purposes', were remotely removed from users' phones as they were virtually useless.

It still remains unclear as to why Google chose to publicize the matter. The industry insiders claim that company is aiming to demonstrate the level of security offered by its Android platform's enhanced application removal system, which can be used to remotely uninstall any application that poses a threat to user security.

IBM sues exec for joining Oracle

IBM has taken legal action against its ex-employee Joanne Olsen thus, trying to stop her from taking up a job with rival company Oracle.

According to company insiders it has been sated that Oracle pursued Olsen, who initially was general manager of IBM's services division, away from IBM after 31 years of service with the company.

It seems that the ongoing competition between the two companies is forming drastic figure, and supposed to have occurred following Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems earlier this year.

IBM blames that Olsen has gone against the terms of an anti-competition agreement she signed in 2009, forbidding her from taking a job in a rival company for at least one year after leaving the company.

A representative from IBM, Doug Shelton, stated that Joanne Olsen has secretive knowledge about IBM and our operations. This means that she is deprived of taking part in any of the senior positions at Oracle without conflicting obligations towards IBM.

Buy BPCL With Stop Loss Of Rs 575

Stock market analyst Sanjay Surekha is of the view that investors can buy Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) to achieve a target that lies between Rs 650 and 700.

According to analyst, the investors can buy the stock with strict stop loss of Rs 575.

The shares of the company, on June 25, closed at Rs 621.35 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 658 and a low of Rs 410 on BSE.

Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 42.53 and 15.16 respectively.

While talking over the government's decisive step towards decontrolling fuel prices, Mr. Ashok Sinha, CMD, BPCL stated that the company will start making adjustments on diesel rates by the next 20 days.

He added that the administration has formally expressed to oil marketing firms that diesel has been de-regulated and it will be fully-priced by the next 1-2 months.

BPCL is one of the country's biggest PSU oil and gas companies, with Fortune Global 500 rank of 287 (2008).

The company's corporate office is situated at Ballard Estate, Mumbai. As the name indicates, BPCL is engaged in the refining and retailing of petroleum products.

Sensex, Nifty Hold Early Gains

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today was holding on to morning gains even as signals from Asian markets remained calm.

The Sensex, which belled the day at 17,577.66, was trading 87.46 points up at 17,661.99 as against its last closure at 17,574.53.

The Sensex gained more than 126 points during the morning trade.

At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the broad-based Nifty stood at 5,296.35, up 0.52% as compared to its previous close at 5,269.05.

The BSE midcap index gained 0.59% and the BSE smallcap was up by 0.95%.

Oil and consumer durables scrips witnessed good buying activity.

On Friday (June 25), the Sensex ended the week 17,574.53 after falling 155.71 points. In contrast, Nifty shut the shop at 5269.05, down 51.55 points.

The BSE midcap index closed 0.7% down and the BSE smallcap index 0.54% lower.