Talk News India brings you a podcast interview with Mr. Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Ltd, from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Wall Street. Mr. Premji and Mr. Suresh Senapaty, CFO, rang the closing bell at NYSE this evening. Others who witnessed the ceremony included Catherine Kinney, President and co-COO of NYSE; John Thaim, COO, NYSE; Sudeep Banerjee; President, Enterprise Solutions, Wipro; Sridhar Ramasubbu, Investor Relations-US; Timothy Matlack, and CEO, Consulting Services, Wipro.

The occasion marks the fifth year since Wipro listed at NYSE, and earlier in the day the company held its 2006 Analyst Meeting.

The closing bell ritual is about 10 years old explained an NYSE media person. The room where the bell is rung is about 100 years old. The bell is rung at precisely 4.00 pm and it is a 10 second event. In fact, it was a bit of an anti-climax when the bell rang. I think you get a better sense when you this 10-second event on TV.

This was the fourth time that Mr. Premji rang the closing bell at the NYSE. "And, all four times we took the market up," commented Mr. Premji with a smile.

Afterwards Mr. Premji came to the members gallery and spoke to the media, where he answered question about Davos, Outsourcing trend etc.

(Mr. Premji a low-keyed billionaire rarely gives interviews. He took over his family's business when his father unexpectedly died in 1966. At that time he was studying Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, California, and did not get to complete his studies. The company has grown and expanded to offer BPO and IT services, and is today the third largest IT company in India.)

Wipro is focussed on non-linear growth commented Mr. Premji. Focussing purely on linear growth could eventually become a challenge he said. Recently Wipro acquired two companies, one in the US, and the other in Europe he said. While he resisted on giving any kind of figures on growth he did that the company plans to do better than the industry forecast of 28%.

Recently General Motors announced a $15 billion outsourcing deal, and has already awared 50% of the deal to various vendors including Wipro. When asked if he expects to bag any further order from GM all he would say is, "No comments."

Mr. Premji has been on the road for the past few weeks and attended the World Economic Forum event at Davos. "I think India put a very good show," he said. He specifically mentioned the bhangra dance event on the last night, and said that from 11.30 pm to 5.00 am about 500-600 Americans and Europeans were out on the dance floor dancing to bangra music. "It completely stood out in warmth...in comparison to China," he said.

He said that India has about 65% share of the outsourcing market currently, and expects to earn about $23 billion this year from outsourcing according to Nasscom and MacKenzie. He however cautioned that India needs to stay one step ahead of emerging competition from China and East Europe. Wipro recently opened offices in Beijing, China and Bucharest, Romania he said.

Besides me, others who asked Mr. Premji questions included Swapna Vora, Lalith Jha of Indian Express, Uttara Choudhary of Daily News and Analysis, Abha Singh and Anita Ghai Malhotra.

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In today's TechTalk we have 23-year old Sudar Muthu, a computer programmer, a power blogger, and a collaborator of KPing, a free pinging service.

Sudar lives in Chennai, India, and started working from May 2004, when he graduated from engineering school. What is interesting is that Sudar's collaboration wtih Fred Giasson of KPing happened in real-time over the Internet using chat and Skype. Currently, KPing has over 100,000 subscribers. Sudar says that it was the Internet that made it possible for him to work on KPing. "I used the internet for the first time in 1998 at an Internet cafe with 32kbps. And till few months back I was in dial-up and right now enjoying the luxury of broadband," he says.

Sudar reads about 75 blogs a day and his top 2 favorites blogs are from Jeremy Zawodny and Robert Scoble.

Sudar says that the Internet has changed his life, and his work habits. He is now is evaluating a couple of business plans to start a company, and don't be surprised if Sudar becomes the CEO of a company. Sudar, in many ways, represents the new, new way people are working and harnassing the Internet to their advantage.

It is an interesting time to be working in the automotive sector in India. The sector is going through rapid expansions, and has been identified as one of the fastest growing markets in the world.

In this one-on-one interview, Dr. Arun Jaura, VP, Engineering and R&D at Mahindra and Mahindra, Mumbai, talks to us about the autombile industry in India, and his charter at Mahindra and Mahindra.

Dr. Jaura joined Mahindra and Mahindra four months ago from Ford Motor Company, Michigan. At Ford he was heading the Vehicle Engineering platform for the Escape SUV hybrid project.

Rajesh Rao, CEO, Dhruva Interactive, Bangalore talks of the Gaming Industry in India.

This is the second part of our interview with Rajesh Rao, CEO, Dhruva Interactive.

In this installment Rajesh talks about the gaming industry in India. He discusses the challenges and opportunities for companies in the gaming industry. Rajesh says that the issue of piracy has stymied the growth of gaming industry, and he points out that neither Microsoft nor Sony have an India strategy on their radars.

But, there is a new market for gaming companies and that is in mobile gaming. Revenue from mobile gaming is expected to increase and this is because of the increase in sales of mobile phones in India.

Exclusive interview with Rajesh Rao. This is the first podcast interview by Rao. This is the first of two podcast interviews with Rao.

Listen to Rajesh Rao, CEO, Dhruva Interactive, Bangalore, India, talk about his company, and Thomas Friedman's book, "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century." Rao was featured in Friedman's book that talks about globalization, and its impact on government and people.

Friedman highlights how the world in some ways has become a level playing field, and how companies around the world in countries like India and China are competing in this new world.

Tune in again to listen to Rao speak about the Gaming Industry in India.