News makers:

Suraj L. Mehta is the vice president of the chamber.

16  December 1999

Narayana Murthy gets IBR award
New Delhi: Infosys Technologies chairman and chief executive officer N.R. Narayana Murthy has been adjudged as India Business Report's Businessman of the Year. Mallika Srinivasan, director of Tractors and Farm Equipment, has been named Businesswoman of the Year. The awards were presented to them by finance minister Yashwant Sinha.

India Business Report is a business-related programme produced by NDTV of Delhi and aired by BBC World. Members of the jury, which selected the awardees, were Scott R. Bayman, General Electric India's president and chief executive officer, Isher Judge Ahluwalia, director and chief executive officer of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, Anand P. Raman, Business Today's editor, and Tarun Das, Confederation of Indian Industry's director general.

India Venture 2000 constituted
New Delhi: McKinsey & Co has constituted an advisory board of "India Venture 2000", a scheme designed to help Indian entrepreneurs to start or grow their informtion technology businesses. The members of the board are are : N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman and cheif executive officer of Infosys Technologies, K.V. Kamath, chairman and managing director of ICICI, Dewang Mehta, president of Nasscom, Kanwal Rekhi, president of TiE, C.K. Prahlad, professor at Unviersity of Michigan Business School, Govardhan Mehta, director of Indian Institute of Science, Dalip Pathak, Asia head, Warburg Pincus, and L.N. Mittal, chairman of L.N. Mittal group.

14  December 1999

Branson plans to run British lottery
London: Richard Branson is planning to run Britain's National Lottery from 2001. He has announced that he will challenge Camelot by bidding for the rights to run the lottery. He says he will make use of all the profits from the business for good causes.