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Murdoch plans more investments in India

BANGALORE: Media group News Corp Ltd plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming years in India in television services as well as technology firms, its chairman Rupert Murdoch said.

"We expect over the next couple of years, we will be spending several hundreds of millions of dollars in India," Murdoch told reporters late on Saturday in the southern Indian city.

"We have a lot of plans and I think starting in April you'll see us announcing a lot of important initiatives," the media tycoon said.

Murdoch said News Corp would first work on "beefing up" its television services in the country and chase a bigger share of the market.

News Corp is represented in India through News Television India, an arm of Hong Kong-based Star TV which is a unit of News Corp.

Star TV operates half-a-dozen satellite television channels in the country that offer news, entertainment and sports broadcasts predominantly in English as well as India's national language Hindi.

Murdoch said Star TV intended to have services in six main Indian languages but did not give details of when they would be launched.

"When we expand our television services to the whole of India, we will certainly expect to do a great deal more than one or two languages," he said.

Earlier on Saturday, a News Television (India) official said that Murdoch was in Bangalore, India's technology hub, scouting to make investments in technology firms.

"He is basically here in Bangalore as it is the IT (infotech) city and he is interested in investing in the IT industry," said Yashpal Khanna, head, corporate communications, News Television (India) Ltd.

Khanna said Murdoch would meet Wipro Ltd chairman Azim Premji and N.R.Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief executive officer of Infosys Technologies Ltd

"There is tremendous excitement and possibilities in technology more than anywhere else in Bangalore and I have just come to see for myself and learn," Murdoch said.

"By initiatives I mean investments and I don't think we will be acquiring whole companies."

Murdoch's high-technology venture capital company eVentures, formed jointly by News Corp and Japan's Softbank Corp, launched an investment arm "eVentures India" in October 1999.

eVentures India is an alliance between eVentures and P.K.Mittal of the Ispat Group and was formed to focus on investments in Internet properties.

Last week, another Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, a business rival of Murdoch, picked up a ten percent stake in leading Indian technology firm Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) and announced joint ventures related to e-commerce.-Reuters