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Novak Djokovic from Serbia won the Australian Open 2008  men’s Singles final by defeating Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on 27 Jan,2008. The 20-year-old Serbian claimed the biggest win of his flourishing career on Day 12 at Melbourne Park, maintaining his record of winning each of his matches in straight sets with a 7-5 6-3 7-6 (7-5) win over world No.1 Roger Federer.

Novak Djokovic, 20, is the youngest player to win the Australian title since Stefan Edberg defeated Mats Wilander in 1985. Both players began the match nervously, with Tsonga dropping his serve after his opening salvo went long by about a metre, only for Djokovic to likewise surrender his own first service game.Both players came close to dropping their serves again. Games went with serve early in the second set until the seventh game when a couple of errors from the Frenchman and then a reflex, defensive return from Djokovic for a winner led to the break that eventually gave Djokovic the set. The momentum looked to have changed early in the fourth set though when Djokovic injured himself stretching for a volley, and he called for treatment while leading 3-2. With Djokovic trying to keep the points shorter in an attempt to win the match in four sets, Tsonga was nonetheless unable to make the most of the changed circumstances as his own weariness kicked in. The set eventually went to a tie-breaker after Tsonga held in the 12th game soon after calling for the crowd to make some noise, but it was Djokovic who raced away with it by winning five of the first six points and he fell to his back in delight when he sealed victory.

Novak Djokovic, seeded three, is the first ever Serbian to win a Grand Slam title and, at age 20, the youngest male champion to lay his hands on the silverware that matters at Melbourne Park. Novak Djokovic has won $1.37 million first prize but he is already worth almost five million in carrier. And he has won the title by just playing just 15 hours and 17 minutes. Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will get more than double his total career prize money. As an hourly rate, it equates to about $38,000 an hour as well as a dramatically improved ranking of No.18 in the world. And he has spent just 17 hours and 40 minutes on the court during Australian Open 2008.

Novak Djokovic is from a family of skiers on a mountainside in Serbia, yet as a hard-headed child, he picked out a flat, rectangular space in which to assert himself. He has since become one of the best defenders in tennis, and Sunday evening, he found a way to blunt Tsonga’s brilliant, unexpected run and win the Australian Open championship, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (2). Tsonga, world ranked 38 and playing in the second week of a Grand Slam event for the first time in his career, put on a remarkably nerveless display of attacking tennis but, in the end, the Frenchman’s relative lack of experience on the big stage made a huge difference.

Djokovic was Born on May 22 1987 in Belgrade. He turned professional in 2003 and wins first Futures title in Serbia. In 2004 he won the first Davis Cup,Janis Skroderis of Latvia. And Wins first Challenger Tour title, beating Daniele Bracciali 6-1, 6-2 in the final in Budapest. In 2006 he won two ATP titles and Wins five out of six Davis Cup matches losing only to Roger Federer. In 2007 he won first Masters Series title, beating Guillermo Cañas 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 in Miami. And now Wins first Grand Slam Title, beating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Melbourne, 2008. Djokovic won 136 points and Tsonga 122 in this Australian Open 2008.

Mobile phone-maker, Sony Ericsson, has launched two entry-level handsets, designed specially for the Indian market. The new radio phones R300i and R306i would be made in India and has been priced between Rs 3,500-5,000 respectively. Currently, the company manufactures three handset models in the country, but this is the first time the global phone-maker has launched a product specifically for the Indian consumers. The company also launched two other handsets T270 and T280 .

India is an important market for the company, and Sony Ericsson plans to achieve a sales target of 10 million handsets from the India by 2009, as said by Sudhir Mathur, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (India), General Manager.

R300i comes with Radio - FM and AM. And it is a portable radio. It also facilitates recording radio sounds. It has 8 MB memory space. It has a integrated 0.3 mega pixel Camera.It can play music in MP3 and AAC Format. It has Bluetooth Technonogy too. It has other features like Internet, MMS, Java and Music recognition. R306i is also a Radio Phone similar to that of R300i but it comes with the additional feature like Video Recording and has 1.3 Mega Pixel Camera. But it has the storage capacity of 5 MB.

All the new phones would be available in the market from January- March quarter this year. The new phones would provide advanced features including radio recording, VGA/1.3 megapixel camera, bluetooth and GPRS. The unique radio interface and the addition of an AM receiver in the new handsets show a specific focus on the Indian market specifically in rural areas.

Broadcast regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)  has proposed allowing 74 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in mobile television services and favoured bidding for allocation of licences for this service. It also fixed the tenure of the licence for 10 years.

According to TRAI, the telecom firms need not seek a fresh licence for starting mobile TV services on their own network. However, providing mobile television services through the broadcasting method will require a separate licence. The license fee should be charged at 4 % of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) for each year or 10 % of the reserve one time entry fee limit for the concerned license area, whichever is higher, TRAI said in its recommendations to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The recommendations sent to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting also said the choice of broadcasting technology should be left to the service provider with the condition that the technology to be deployed for providing mobile TV should follow a standard approved by a recognised standardisation body. In case the handset is provided by the licensee, it should be ensured that if the subscribers desire to migrate to any other licensee using the same technology and standards, they should be able to do so without changing the handsets.

The recommendations said about the criteria for the licencing process is minimum net worth requirements of Rs 40 crore for satellite-based mobile television licences and Rs 3 crore for each service area in terrestrial mobile television licenses should be laid down for being eligible to participate in the licencing process. The tenure of both terrestrial and satellite licences should be for 10 years.TRAI further suggested that no mobile TV licence would allow any broadcasting company to hold more than 20% of the total paid equity at any time during the licence period.

Mobile television allows the consumers to watch live as well as pre-recorded television content on a mobile handset using a specialised mobile television broadcasting technology. Currently, only video clips can be downloaded on mobile handsets. Mobile TV services are currently available in parts of Europe, US, South-East Asia and Japan among other developed countries. After winning the licence, each mobile TV operator can offer about 15 video channels through the terrestrial broadcast route. TRAI said that private operators should be assigned at least one slot of 8 MHz each for mobile TV operation using terrestrial systems.

Motorola said fourth-quarter profit was $100 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with $623 million, or 25 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 18 percent to $9.65 billion. The company’s income came to just $968 million in the third quarter, or $0.39/share, compared to $1.75 billion in the same period last year. The division posted an operating loss of $388 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $341 million a year ago. Mobile phone sales fell 38 percent to $4.8 billion, with 40.9 million units sold.

Avian Securities analyst Tero Kuittinen said the outlook reflected Motorola’s lack of a strong enough product line to beat rivals, such as Nokia and Samsung Electronics, to which Motorola has been losing market share. Motorola shares have fallen about 53 percent since October 2006. Motorola is blaming a slowdown in European GSM infrastructure sales, along with declining revenue from iDEN phones on the Sprint Nextel network, for a sharp decline in its third-quarter profits.

The company has sold more than 8 million Razrs, 3 million Krzrs, and 1.5 million Razr2s. But it struggled in sales of low-end phones; high-end, multifeature smartphones; and third-generation phones that download data at high speeds. The weakness was especially acute in places such as Europe and emerging markets. And Motorola is now progressing on a number of fronts. New products such as the Rokr E8 and Moto Z10 will help to fill gaps in music and video capabilities, respectively. User interfaces are being upgraded and 3G technology expanded.

Greg Brown, Chief Executive Officer, became CEO on January 1 and faces criticism of Motorola’s phone line up and its lack of a popular successor to the once-lauded Razr phone. Brown told analysts that the company would take cost-cutting actions that would create savings of $500 million. “The recovery in Mobile Devices will take longer than expected and there is a lot more work to be done” as told by Chief Executive Officer Greg Brown

Now Motorola plans to focus on cutting costs and getting mobile devices back to profitability. Management has restructured the business, cutting 7,500 jobs and seeking to reduce costs and boost margins as the division had an operating loss of $388 million and shipped just under 41 million devices.

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata unveiled on 10 th Jan 2008 the Rs.1-lakh car named ‘Nano’. Ratan Tata delivered on the promise he made four years ago with the launch of the “people’s car” at the inaugural day of the Auto Expo 2008. The world’s cheapest car from the Tata Motors comes with a rear mounted all-aluminium two-cylinder 623 cc petrol engine, promises a mileage of 20 km per litre, and meets all emission and safety standards.

Nano is 3.1-metre long, 1.5-metre wide, and 1.6-metre high. And it is eight per cent smaller than Maruti 800 and it is 21 per cent more spacious from inside. Nano comes in an all sheet-metal body, with safety features such as crumple zones, intrusion-resistant doors, seat-belts, strong seats and anchorages, and rear tailgate glass bonded to the body. It has a lower pollution level than two-wheelers.

Christened Tata Nano, the four-seater will be available in the market by the second half of this financial year in three variants, standard and two luxury models with an air-conditioner. The car will be sold with a four-speed manual transmission, but work is on for an automatic transmission as also for a diesel engine. The standard model will cost Rs.1 lakh while VAT and transportation costs are extra.

Ratan Tata said that Tata Motors had spent Rs 1,500-1,700 crore for this car project, including the proposed plant in Singur in West Bengal and the initial target production volume would be 250,000 cars per annum on two shifts and expandable to 350,000 per annum on three shifts.