Yash Chopra’s ‘Chak de India’ to be made in Australia

From Indian Post Bureau  

Indian film moghul Yash Chopra has once again selected Australia to make his next blockbuster ‘Chak de India’. 

Swish Black Cat Films division, owned by the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listed Swish Group, has been appointed by the Yash Raj Films to be the Australian Line Producers for the international shoot of the ‘Chak de India’ in Melbourne and Sydney.  

The Australian film production company expects the Indian contract to generate revenue of approximately $1.6m in the first half of the current financial year. 

‘Chak de India’ is likely to, according to a Swish Group company announcement to the ASX, to attract a worldwide audience of 300 million.  

Black Cat Films had also carried out production on the Yash Raj film, ‘Salaam Namaste’  which was the first Indian film to be shot entirely in Australia. Swish Group had acquired Black Cat last year.  

Salaam Namaste made by Yash Raj Films, the largest production and distribution company in India, is credited for triggering an Aussie fever in the second most populous country in the world.  

Melbourne, which provided picturesque backdrop to the Yash Raj blockbuster along with regional Victoria, had benefited hugely as thousands of Indian tourists swamped the capital of Victoria state after films was released worldwide.  

‘Chak de India’ would have Yash Chopra favourite Shah Rukh Khan as the male lead and would be directed by Shmit Amin of ‘Ab Tak 56’ fame.  

Vidya Malvade, who starred in ‘Inteha’ and ‘Mashooka’, would reportedly play the female lead opposite Shah Rukh ‘King’ Khan in a film plot reminding one of Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Bend It Like Bekcham’.

Telstra outsources to India

Australian government owned telecom company Telstra is outsourcing more information technology work to India.

The beleaguered telecommunication giant is reportedly outsourced work from Sensis directories division to India as a cost-cutting measure.

 The print directories project has been outsourced to Amdocs which has designing staff both in India and Australia and would likely affect scores of Sensis jobs.

 Telstra share prices have tumbled in recent days as the John Howard government has decided against divesting in the largest telecommunication company in the region. Sensis outsourcing move has come at a point when once lucrative print directories business has begun to decline.

 Beside outsourcing to India and other businesses, Sensis directories has also made design staff redundant.

 "We are pretty cost-focused and have been since the strategy last November," Sensis spokesman Stephen Ronchi has told News Corporation newspapers.

 "Overall staff numbers have remained stable - about 3500 employees across Sensis," he said.  

"We believe that Telstra's target of 12 per cent revenue growth for Sensis over the next five years remains a stretch in the absence of significant acquisitions," Macquarie Bank analysts Gary Pinge and Andrew Levy have been quoted as saying in a The Australian newspaper article.

 "A key trend within the Sensis business was declining print growth, offset by strong growth in the online segment," the statement further reads.

 The print directories project has been outsourced to Amdocs which has designing staff both in India and Australia. The Indian office of Amdocs would be primarily handling, according to a Telstra statement, new Sensis customers.

 The latest outsourcing move would definitely attract criticism from various lobby groups pitched against ‘off-shoring’ or sending Australian jobs overseas.

 Telstra had first outsourced to IT work to India in 2004 as a part of the overhaul of its contract system with IT services providers. Around 400 landline billing jobs were affected by the move which was slammed by various trade unions and political groups representing Telstra workers.

 According to unconfirmed reports, Telstra is also believed to be talking to Indian IT multinational Wipro and may award them few contracts in the near future.

 Telstra has been defending moves to outsource to India on the grounds that two of its main competitors in Australian telecom industry, Optus and Hutchison, have also sent huge IT workload to India to cut spiraling costs.

Alexander Downer urges closer Indian ties  

Canberra: Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has pressed the need for closer ties between Australia and India to counter the Chinese influence in the region. 

"The growth of the China's economy of about eight or nine per cent a year, a nation of 1.3 billion people, it is having a big impact on the Asia Pacific region," Mr. Downer said while addressing a meeting of the Australia India Business Council South Australian Chapter at Adelaide Friday. 

Mr. Downer, according to the Advertiser newspaper published from Adelaide, admitted that Australia and India have not always enjoyed a close political relationship. But, he urged, it was now in the interests of both the Indian Ocean rim countries to work together.  

"The growth of the China's economy of about eight or nine per cent a year, a nation of 1.3 billion people, it is having a big impact on the Asia Pacific region," Mr. Downer has been quoted by the newspaper as saying. 

The Australian Foreign Minister’s statement has come as a sort of surprise for the international affairs experts as China is Australia’s major trading partner. The Australian economy is becoming increasingly dependent on the surging demand from China hence such statement is being seen as a departure from the norm.  

But India, with its impressive GDP growth rate and second largest population in the world after China, is being seen as an ideal balance China's growing influence. 

India has also become a large consumer of Australia's natural resources so it is both countries common interest to "build solid relationship with China", Mr Downer told the AIBC meeting Friday. 

"We need a region that is well balanced" without one power that could "dominate the region", he told the council’s Adelaide chapter which was launched in Adelaide in August last year. 

 A trade mission to India in October is being planned by the SA Chapter of the Australia India Business Chamber.

Press Release