Xiaomi to Set up India Data Centre over Security Concerns

Worried over allegations levelled against it over data security, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc said it plans to set up a data centre in India next year to store local user data.

Xiaomi last week said it was migrating some data on non-Chinese customers away from its servers in Beijing due to performance and privacy considerations and the process would be completed by the end of the year.

The Chinese company also said that it was attempting to contact Indian authorities for more details on local media reports, adding that it did not collect user data without permission.

Xiaomi, whose low-priced but feature-rich smartphones have made it the biggest smartphone vendor in China, entered India this year with plans to invest heavily to secure rapid growth in the world's third-largest smartphone market.

It sells its phones in India via Flipkart.com, the country's biggest online retailer, and said last month it planned to sell 100,000 phones a week in the country in October.

Xiaomi has faced several privacy controversies, including accusations from international security researchers and a government agency in Taiwan that it funnels unauthorised user data back to its servers in Beijing. Indian media reported last week that the country's air force had issued alerts to its personnel and their families against using Xiaomi phones on security concerns.

WB Says India GDP to Grow By 5.6 Per Cent This Fiscal

World Bank said Asia’s third largest economy, India’s GDP is likely to expand by 5.6 per cent this fiscal as reforms gain momentum and the growth is expected to accelerate as proposed measures such as GST will give a boost to manufacturing sector.

In a report, titled 'India Development Update' the WB said, in the following years, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is likely to rise further to 6.4 per cent and 7 per cent in FY16 and FY17 respectively.

"India's economic growth is expected to rise to 5.6 per cent in FY15, followed by further acceleration to 6.4 per cent and 7 per cent in FY 2016 and FY 2017," said the World Bank report.

India's growth is likely to accelerate towards its high long-run potential and implementation of GST as well as dismantling of inter-state check posts can significantly improve the global competitiveness of Indian manufacturing firms.

"Implementing the GST will transform India into a common market, eliminate inefficient tax cascading, and go a long way in boosting the manufacturing sector.

Long term growth potential in India remains high on favourable demographics, high savings and recent policy and efforts to improve skills and education, it added.

"Improved growth prospects in the US will support India s merchandise and services exports, while stronger remittance inflows and declining oil prices are expected to support domestic demand," the report said.

The projections may face risks from external shocks, such as financial market disruptions on the back of monetary policy changes in high income countries, slower global growth, higher oil prices, and adverse investor sentiment on geo-political tensions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

In the domestic front energy supply, fiscal pressures from weak revenue collection in short term can pose challenges.

Modi Visit Brings $10 billion Worth Japanese Investment

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Japan visit, India received the first Japanese investment as telecom giant SoftBank pledged an investment of $10 billion in India's IT, communications and e-commerce sector, including $627 million in Indian online retailer Snapdeal.

The proposed investment was committed by SoftBank chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son in a meeting with Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. "Mr Son assured the Minister that SoftBank would like to invest approximately $10 billion in India in the coming years. He placed it on record that India is the top most priority for SoftBank," the Telecom Ministry said in a statement.

The visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Japan has created a climate of hope and optimism about greater economic cooperation between the two countries, Mr Son said.

SoftBank sees immense potential in India's e-commerce sector, with Mr Son estimating it to become a $500 billion (Rs. 30.5 lakh crore) business in the next 10 years. SoftBank's investment in Snapdeal comes in the wake of another Indian retailer Flipkart recently attracting record funding of $1 billion (Rs. 6,100 crore) from overseas investors.

SoftBank already has investments in many Indian companies, including mobile advertising firm InMobi and instant messaging service provider Hike. With a market value of $92 billion (Rs. 5.6 lakh crore), SoftBank has operations in broadband, fixed line telecom, e-commerce, finance, media and marketing.

Mobile App to fight Ebola

As the West Africa Ebola continued to wreak havoc among global community, A new mobile telephone-based mapping service has been created in a bid to track the deadly disease and better help communities hit by the virus in the region.

The system, collaboration between IBM, mobile telephone companies and academics, allows people in affected areas to send free text messages about Ebola to track problems and trends, with the program mapping the exact location from where it is sent.

"It has already brought to light specific regions with growing numbers of suspected Ebola cases which require urgent supplies like soap and electricity, as well as faster response times for body collection and burials," IBM said.

The company claims it can create a range of maps to track needs and problems, to better allow health workers and governments tackle them.

"We saw the need to quickly develop a system to enable communities directly affected by Ebola to provide valuable insight about how to fight it," IBM Research Africa's chief scientist Uyi Stewart said in a statement.

"Using mobile technology, we have given them a voice and a channel to communicate their experiences directly," Stewart said.

More than 10 000 people have contracted the deadly virus in West Africa, according to the latest World Health Organisation figures.

Kerala Tourism Forays Further Into Asia Pacific

To promote "God's Own Country" further in Asia Pacific, Kerala Tourism has successfully conducted two road shows across Australia and made a successful foray into New Zealand, inviting the travel and adventure loving people there to the state.

Australia and New Zealand are fast-growing markets for Kerala Tourism, with the number of visitors to the state from Australia up 60 percent and from New Zealand rising 68 percent in the past four years. The recently granted visa-on-arrival facility for citizens of New Zealand added strength to Kerala Tourism's promotional campaign in Auckland.

As many as 102 Australian tour operators took part in a roadshow in Sydney, while 60 buyers participated in a roadshow in Melbourne. A total of 46 buyers attended the roadshow in Auckland, the first by Kerala Tourism in New Zealand.

"Both Australia and New Zealand represent a vast market for Kerala because of the high percentage of its residents willing to travel and experience new destinations across the world," said Kerala Tourism secretary Suman Billa, who led a delegation comprising industry representatives from the state.

Billa invited the tour operators to take a look at the variety offered in Kerala's hills, waterways as well as wildlife and authentic cuisine.

India Mars Success Depicted On Google Doodle

A month after India succeeded in putting the Mangalyaan on Mars orbit, Google has marked the success in its famous daily doodle.

On October 23^rd, doodle depicts the Mangalyaan probe, which has been studying the planet's atmosphere. Only the US, Russia and Europe have previously sent missions to Mars.

Google doodles, which began in 1998, depict famous and lesser known notable people, events, anniversaries and tributes.

India has succeeded on its first attempt - an achievement that eluded even the Americans and the Soviets.

Mangalyaan - more formally referred to as Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) - was launched from the Sriharikota spaceport on the coast of the Bay of Bengal on 5 November 2013.

Last month the satellite joined four other missions that are circling the planet: Maven (US), Mars Odyssey (US), Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (US) and Mars Express (Europe).

At 4.5bn rupees ($74m; £45m), Mangalyaan is also one of the cheapest interplanetary space missions ever.

Google has done a number of doodles on a variety of Indian subjects, including marking the country's Independence and Republic Days, the festivals of Holi and Diwali, the cricket World Cup and the birth anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.

Transfer 1 TB Hard Drive Data in 2 Seconds

A joint group of researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and University of Central Florida (CREOL) have smashed the world speed record for a fiber network, pushing 255 terabits per second down a single strand of glass fiber.

This is equivalent to around 32 terabytes per second — enough to transfer a 1GB movie in two milliseconds, or alternatively, the entire contents of your 1TB hard drive in under two seconds.

To put 255Tbps into perspective, the fastest single-fiber links in commercial operation top out at 100Gbps, or 2,550 times slower. 255Tbps is mind bogglingly quick; it’s greater, by far, than the total capacity of every cable — hundreds of glass fibers — currently spanning the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, 255 terabits per second is similar to — or maybe even more than — the total sum of all traffic flowing across the internet at peak time.

How did the researchers do it? Multi-core fiber, of course! As it stands, the entire internet backbone consists of single-mode glass and plastic fiber. These fibers can only carry one mode of light — which, in essence, means they can only carry the light from a single laser. (It’s a bit more complex than that, but it’s beyond the scope of this story to explain it any further.) You can still use wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) to push insane amounts of data down a single fiber (a few terabits), but we will eventually run up against the laws of physics.

Multi-core fiber — literally a strand of optical fiber that has multiple cores running along it — allows for multi-mode operation. It has historically been hard (and costly) to make high-quality multi-mode fiber, but it seems those barriers are finally starting to fall. In this case, the TU/e and CREOL researchers used a glass fiber with seven individual cores, arranged in a hexagon. They used spatial multiplexing to hit 5.1 terabits per carrier, and then WDM to squeeze 50 carriers down the seven cores — for a total of 255Tbps. This wasn’t just a short-range laboratory demo, either: The multi-mode fiber link was one kilometer (0.62 miles) long. [Research paper: doi:10.1038/nphoton.2014.243]

Eventually, multi-mode fiber will most likely replace the internet’s current single-mode backbone — but considering such an upgrade would require millions of miles of new multi-core cabling, and lots of new routing hardware to handle the multi-mode connections, we’re talking very long-term here. Still, with internet traffic continuing to grow at an alarming rate — mostly fueled by the popularity of streaming video, and smartphones and tablets bringing billions more people online — it’s nice to know that we now have the necessary technology to make sure that we don’t run out of bandwidth any time soon.

Alibaba to Talk To Apple on Mobile Payments

China’s largest internet based business firm, Alibaba Group said it would like to working with Apple Inc on mobile payments

Alibaba affiliate Alipay is China's largest payments service; while Apple just this month debuted its own version of a mobile wallet, letting iPhone 6 users make payments at retailers with their smartphones.

Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd executive chairman Jack Ma said he's open to working with Apple Inc on mobile payments and he holds tremendous respect for Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Alibaba, which handles more e-commerce transactions than Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc combined, does not have much of a presence among American retail customers and Ma said his focus for now was on serving his Chinese clientele.

Ma added that he wanted to work on selling American and European products to 

China, reversing the typical flow of goods over the past 10 to 15 years.

Alibaba has acquired some smaller American companies such as niche online retailer 11Main and Ma said he will continue to invest in the United States.

Xiaomi Offers Talk on Security Concerns

After being alleged of collecting and sending user’s data to China, smartphone maker Xiaomi said it will engage with Indian authorities to address the concerns about security of user's data.

Stressing that it does not collect any user data without permission, Chinese smartphone makers Vice President Hugo Barra said "We are trying to get to the bottom of this. So far, we have not heard anything from the IAF or any other authorities and have only read media reports. We will reach out to authorities and engage with them to address any concerns that they might have,"

"We don't have a revolutionary product. Like many other messaging services, we also offer messaging, backup, cloud services to our customers. We also have the highest standards of encryption to ensure that users' data is safe," he added.

He said the company has already started migrating data of its international users (non-Chinese) to data centres in the US and Singapore.

"The migration process, which began earlier this year, will be completed by the end of October and will benefit users in international markets, including our customers in India, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan," he added.

Last week, in an advisory, the Indian Air Force asked its personnel and their families to desist from using Chinese 'Xiaomi Redmi 1s' phones as these are believed to be transferring data to their servers in China and could be a security risk.

Earlier this year, security solutions provider F-Secure had, in a report, demonstrated how a Xiaomi Redmi 1S phone was sending data, including the user's IMEI, phone number, and phone numbers of contacts added to the phone book to a remote server.

Xiaomi entered the Indian market in July this year with its Mi3 smartphone priced at Rs 13,999 through e-Commerce major Flipkart. It currently has another device Redmi 1S in the country. It is estimated that the firm has sold about half a million Redmi devices and 1.2 lakh Mi3 handsets.

Tata Motors Raise $750 Million from Bond Sales

After its $300 million worth bond sales in April, Tata Motors has raised another $750 million from Asian and European investors by selling a dual tranche bond issue which got an over subscription of six times at $4.5 billion.

The company has priced the 5.5-year benchmark senior unsecured notes of $500 million at 4.625 per cent, while the coupon for the 10-year $250 million notes is fixed at 5.750 per cent per annum.

The proceeds from the recent issue will be used to refinance external commercial borrowings, capital expenditure and for general corporate purposes, the company said in a statement.

Global rating agency Standard & Poor has assigned BB long-term issue rating to the issue while highlighting Tata Motors' increased dependence on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) while rival Moody's has assigned Ba2 to the notes with a stable outlook.

Moody's also based the ratings to the continuing good show by its British arm JLR which has contributed over 90 per cent of group operating profit in FY14. "The phenomenal success of JLR continues to buy time for Tata Motors' weak domestic operations to turn around, and these are now showing some improvement."

Sony to Launch First Underwater Store in Dubai

In yet another experiment to boost sales, Sony Corporation has announced the launch of a new underwater store for its Xperia products in Dubai.

The Middle East and Africa subsidiary of the Tokyo-based company said the world’s first Xperia Aquatech store in Dubai is nearing completion and will open on December 3.

However, the company did not reveal any further details about the location of the store or if it is going to be a temporary or a permanent one.

At its opening, Sony said that it will provide a chance to some of its select VIP customers and members of the press to go underwater to view the Sony Z3 Series of waterproof smartphones, tablets, and accessories. Sony also said that an interactive competition will be held prior to the opening, giving customers an opportunity to win access to the underwater store.

Presently, Sony Mobile offers a wide range of Xperia smartphones, tablets, and accessories with the highest waterproof rating.

Sharjah Airport Opens New A380 Compliant Runway

To target high-spending premium passengers, Sharjah International Airport has opened a second runway spanning 4,060 sqm which can handle A380s.

It has the twin advantage of enabling the airport to target more A380 carriers globally and thereby increase passenger volumes. The Dhs500 million runway took two years to complete.

Sharjah handled more than 7.2 million passengers in the first seven months of the year although the bulk of them arrived on low-cost Air Arabia’s A320s. The prospect of three-class A380s touching down provides the airport and duty free with more opportunities.

Falling Commodity Prices To Hit Malaysia

Southeast Asian nation Malaysia’s economy is struggling after the regions major commodity exporter continued to suffer from falling global commodity prices.

Several economists have in recent weeks flagged their concerns over the potential negative impact the current trend, if prolonged, could have on the country, which relies on oil for revenue and a wide range of other commodities such as crude palm oil for export earnings.

They note that Malaysia, as a major commodity exporter, could likely see lower export earnings under the present environment and this could add pressure on the country’s current account.

At present, major commodities that concern Malaysia, such as crude oil and crude palm oil, are hovering at their four-year lows.

The prices of crude palm oil are already weak at RM2,171 per tonne as of Thursday, compared with the year’s peak of RM2,901 per tonne on March 10.

For Budget 2015, the Malaysian Government has allocated RM37.7bil for total subsidies, of which fuel accounts for a major portion based on its expectation that the Brent crude oil price would average at US$100 per barrel next year.

“Hence, in this scenario, even if the government were to restrict the supply of subsidised fuels to lower income households, it should have negligible impact on headline inflation,” it adds.

Meanwhile, CIMB Economics Research argues that falling oil prices may not be all bad for Malaysia’s economy. The institution points Malaysia can benefit from the recent fall in global oil prices, particularly if global demand is aided by higher discretionary incomes, which then feed into export demand.

While CIMB Research acknowledged that Malaysia’s government oil revenue would be affected by weaker global oil prices, it argues that there would not be a real risk to the fiscal deficit target of 3 per cent of GDP next year, given the stable dividends from Petronas.

HMT Watches May Get Another Chance

HMT Watches Limited, a wholly owned Subsidiary of HMT Limited is gaining from a buzz in the business circle that India government might put on hold the decision to close the Watches division.

Shares of HMT has surged 13 per cent to Rs 34.55 on back of heavy volumes. The stock opened at Rs 31.75 and touched high of Rs 34.85 on NSE. The trading volumes on the counter have jumped more than three-fold with a combined 417,645 shares changed hands in first hour of trading on BSE and NSE.

After reports that HMT Watches may be wound up made headlines, there has been an unprecedented demand for timepieces manufactured by the country's first watch-maker. The nostalgia-driven clamour has led the government to rethink its decision to close the loss-making public sector company, a Times of India report suggests.

The company has been incurring cash losses since last 15 years.

France Retains Top Spot in Global Wine Production

France retained its number one position in global wine production in 2014 after Italy suffered from a poor harvest in the season, said International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV).

France produced 46.2-million hectolitres of wine this year, a rise of 10 per cent on last year, the OIV said.

This was nearly 2-million hectolitres above Italy’s production, which fell 15 per cent to 44.4-million hectolitres after unseasonably bad weather across much of its wine-producing territory hit its grape harvest.

Spain was this year’s third-largest wine producer with output at 37-million hectolitres, down 19 per cent from its record production of more than 45.6 million seen in 2013.

In the United States, the world’s fourth-largest wine maker, output fell 4 per cent to 22.5-million hectolitres compared to last year after an earthquake in August and poor weather last month in California, OIV said.

Large producers Bulgaria and Romania saw their output plunge by 30 per cent and 20 per cent year-on-year respectively, having suffered particularly adverse weather conditions.

The OIV said total global wine production fell 6 per cent to 27-million hectolitres in 2014 compared to 2013.

OIV did not give definitive consumption forecasts for 2014 but said initial trends pointed to around 243-million hectolitres, which should be sufficient to meet both consumer and industrial needs. These include spirits and vinegar output.

Apple Inc Registers Record Revenue Jump in India

Apple Inc’s revenue from India jumped about 10 times in the financial year ended March 2014 to Rs 4,500 crore from Rs 446 crore in FY10.

In FY14, Apple's India unit has spent Rs 4,318 crore, which includes all operational expenses, in the country, from Rs 387 crore in FY10. The company recorded a profit of Rs 312 crore in FY12, which shrunk to Rs 113 crore in the next year. In FY12, Apple India's revenues rose 223 per cent to Rs 2,004 crore and net profit soared 431 per cent to Rs 312 crore, according to a filing by the US based company to the registrar of companies.

While the company does not reveal its India sales numbers, industry estimates indicate it sold 1.02 million iPhones between October 2013 and August 2014.

In the smartphone market, Apple had a mere 1.5 per cent share (volume) in India, at the end of the July-September quarter, down from 2.4 per cent in the previous one, according to estimates by independent research agencies. In value terms, its share was estimated at 5.5 per cent in the July-September quarter in the estimated Rs 40,000-crore smartphone market in India, down from 9.2 per cent in the previous quarter. The market is dominated by South Korea's major Samsung Electronics, followed by domestic firms Micromax and Karbonn.

This year, Apple launched iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in India just before Diwali, only 28 days after it started selling the device in the US. With increasing sales numbers, Apple has also reduced the time-gap between availability of iPhone in the US and India, by 91 per cent. This is a notable development, considering the fact that iPhone 4 came to India 337 days after its US launch, while iPhone 4S came 164 days later, and iPhone 5S and 5C by 42 days later.

P&G TO Exit from Duracell Business

Procter & Gamble announced exiting from the Duracell battery business as the consumer products company reported a mixed bag of quarterly results Friday morning. P&G has held the 50-year-old battery brand since it acquired Gillette in 2005. (Gillette acquired Duracell in 1996.)

P&G said that it does not know what form its exit of the Duracell business will take — i.e, whether it will be a split-off, spin-off, divestiture or some other scenario. The company’s current preference is a split-off in which P&G shareholders would be given the option of exchanging their P&G shares for shares in the newly formed Duracell Company.

P&G reported $20.8 billion in first quarter fiscal 2015 revenue, a figure that is essentially flat compared to the year-ago period and in line with the analyst consensus. Net income dropped 34 per cent to $1.99 billion, resulting in earnings of 69 cents per share. Excluding one-time items like restructuring costs and expenses associated with “remeasuring” the company’s Venezuelan balance sheet, P&G recorded $1.07 in earnings per share, a penny below the Street consensus.

India to Join Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank

India is set to sign a memorandum to be one of the 21 founding members of the newly established Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), an initiative by China.

An Indian finance ministry delegation has arrived here to take part in the signing ceremony of the memorandum to set up the bank to be attended by top Chinese leaders.

Representatives of 21 Asian economies including India who are willing to be AIIB founding members finalised a draft memorandum during a meeting in September,

The details of the memorandum are not known. China may retain substantial voting rights while India too was expected to get a fair amount of voting rights commensurate with its size.

A number of South Asian countries including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives were expected to join the list of founding members besides some of the South East Asian countries.

The AIIB will carry out close cooperation with other bilateral and multilateral institutions and promote regional initiatives and partnership and jointly deal with common challenges in the filed of development.

The bank was expected to be formed with capital of US$ 50 billion mostly to be funded by China has created big buzz as it was projected to be a rival to Asian Development Bank (ADB) in which Japan plays a key role as well as World Bank and IMF.

China was keen about Indian participation and invitation in this regard was conveyed by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his first meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of BRICS summit in Brazil in July this year where a decision to set up the BRICS Bank was also made.

India would head the Presidency of the BRICS bank whose headquarters would be based in Shanghai.

China to Further Cut Petrol, Diesel Price

China is likely to reduce petrol and diesel prices again as global crude prices continue their southern journey. Data from JYD suggests that gasoline and diesel retail prices are likely to be cut by between 290 yuan and 350 yuan per tonne.

Last week, light, sweet crude for December delivery moved down $1.08 to settle at $81.01 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange, while December Brent crude dropped 70 cents to close at $86.83 a barrel.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, has cut retail gas prices for six times since the beginning of July, the last cut on Oct. 17.

China adopted a pricing regime last year that adjusts domestic fuel prices when international crude prices change by more than 50 yuan per tonne for 10 working days. This currently represents a change of around 1.15 dollars per barrel, depending on the grade of crude.

Russia Launches Natural Gas Trading At SPIMEX

World’s second largest natural gas producer, Russia has launched its first auction of natural gas on Oct 24 at the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX). It will be Europe’s largest natural gas trading post.

The project is intended to create a more competitive market for natural gas prices, which at present are more-or-less tied to oil. Now, independent producers will have access to a broader range of buyers.

The exchange will facilitate up to 35 billion cubic meters of gas annually, with Gazprom, Russia’s largest producer, maintaining the right to sell a half of that, and independent producers the remaining 17.5 billion cubic meters.

During the first trading session, Gazprom and eight independent gas producers will sell 882.6 million cubic meters of gas for November volumes. The gas will be delivered to two compressing stations - Nadym (552.6 million cubic meters) and Vyngapurovskoye (270 million cubic meters), which are connected to Russia’s gas transportation system (GTS). The supplies are not eligible for re-sale.

SPIMEX is the largest commodity exchange in Russia. SPIMEX was first registered in May 2008, receiving its official license to trade the following month. In September 2008, the exchange registered its first trades in diesel and jet fuel. It now offers spot and derivatives contracts, and covers a wide variety of petroleum products.

Oil Recovers above $ 82 from Two-Year Low

Global oil prices recovered Thursday from a two-year low in New York on encouraging Chinese and German economic data and reports of Saudi Arabia cutbacks.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for December delivery advanced $1.57 to close at $82.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The WTI futures contract closed Wednesday at its lowest level since late June 2012.Brent North Sea crude for December jumped $2.12 to settle at $86.83 a barrel in London trade.

British banking giant HSBC's preliminary manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) for China showed a slight uptick, to 50.4 in October from 50.2 in September, easing concerns about slowing economic growth in the world's largest energy consumer.

On Wednesday the market tanked after the US government reported a large increase in crude-oil inventories, 7.1 million barrels, last week in the United States, the biggest consumer of crude.

China Launches Moon and Back Space Mission

After India’s successful Mars mission, China launched its first space mission to the moon and back early on Friday. The unnamed, unmanned probe will travel to the moon, fly around it and head back to Earth, re-entering the atmosphere and landing, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) said in a statement.

Launch of the Chang’e-5-T1 mission took place at 1800UTC, utilizing a Long March-3C/G2 launch vehicle from the LC2 launch complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province. The mission is aimed at testing the technologies that are vital for the success of the future Chang’e-5 sample return probe.

In another flagship mission for the Chinese, the orbiter will head into Lunar Transfer Orbit (LTO), before performing a flyby around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere after a 9 day flight.

The module will be 413,000 kilometres from Earth at its furthest point on the eight-day mission, it added.

Beijing sees its multi-billion-dollar space programme as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

The military-run project has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon. China currently has a rover, the Jade Rabbit, on the surface of the moon.

Nokia Takeover Dents Microsoft Profit

The takeover of Nokia’s smartphone business and job cuts have made a significant dent in profit for Microsoft as the software giant made $4.5bn (£2.8bn) in the three months to September, 13 per cent lower than the same time last year.

But the new Nokia business also boosted revenues. They climbed 25 per cent to $23.2bn, beating expectations and sending shares higher in after-hours trading.

In July Microsoft announced plans to cut 18,000 jobs, including 12,500 in the Nokia unit it bought in April.

Earlier this week, Microsoft said it would no longer use the Nokia name, selling future Lumia smartphone models as Microsoft-branded phones.

In a statement accompanying earnings, Microsoft boss Satya Nadella said the company was being "positioned for future growth and our teams are delivering on our core focus of reinventing productivity and creating platforms that empower every individual and organisation,".

Microsoft makes most of its money selling software to companies. The results show a strong growth in its business selling cloud computing to companies - an area Mr Nadella has cited as important for the future of Microsoft.

But the business has continued to place great importance on its consumer products like the Xbox games console, its Surface range of tablet computers, and smartphones.

Stronger sales of phones and tablets helped boost revenues, with total consumer revenue up 47 per cent.

HDFC Q2 Profit Hits Rs 1358 Crore

HDFC, India’s largest private sector mortgage lender posted a 7 per cent year-on-year rise in standalone net profit to Rs 1,358 crore during the second quarter against Rs 1,266 crore in the year-ago period.

Standalone revenue was up 12 per cent to Rs 6,635 crore in the July-September quarter.

On a consolidated basis, HDFC’s net profit gained 9 per cent to Rs 2,064 crore and total income was up 16 per cent to Rs 11,608 crore. The company’s major subsidiaries include HDFC Standard Life Insurance, HDFC Ergo General Insurance and HDFC Asset Management.

At the end of September 30, HDFC had a loan book of Rs 2.12 lakh crore, compared with Rs 1.85 lakh crore in the year-ago quarter.

“Of the total loan book, individual loans comprise 71 per cent. Further, 81 per cent of the incremental growth in the loan book during the period came from individual loans,” HDFC said.

Its total assets increased 13 per cent to Rs 2.38 lakh crore. As of September 30, its gross non-performing loans stood at Rs 1,472 crore, equivalent to 0.69 per cent of the loan portfolio, versus 0.79 per cent a year ago.

China Economy to Grow 7.4 Per Cent In 2014

World’s second largest economy China’s economy is likely to grow by 7.4 per cent this year, slightly below the government's target, and expand 7 per cent in 2015, according to China’s Development Research Centre (DRC).

DRC said China can still maintain annual average growth of 7 per cent in the next 10 years. Data this week showed China's annual economic growth slowed to 7.3 per cent in the third quarter – the weakest pace since the depths of the global financial crisis, and down from 7.5 per cent in the previous quarter.

China's exports are likely to grow around 6 per cent this year from 2013, Yu said. He also predicted that China's combined exports and imports could grow 5-10 per cent in the coming years.