Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, or BSNL, a 100 per cent Central Govt. PSU is happy to announce introduction of High Speed Broadband with speeds up to 24 Mbps. This high speed broadband is made available with Very high speed Digital Subscriber Loop (VDSL) Technology. 16Mbps & 24 Mbps broadband is made available across the country. This service is available at Limited Usage tariff plans with monthly charges of Rs 4999/- fro speeds up to 16 Mbps and Rs 9999/- for speeds up to 24 Mbps. High speed broadband is available to customers, which are close to broadband exchange nodes. While 24 Mbps broadband will be available to customers up to around 500-meter cable route distance from the exchange, 16 Mbps broadband is available to customers up to around 1 Km. from the exchange. To avail the service, customers can dial 1504 or 1800-464-1600 or visit www.bsnl.co.in or contact their nearer customer service centre, a company release said.

The government has purchased 1.5 million doses of Pandemic HINI vaccine from M/s Sanofi Pasteur SA, Lyon, France. The quality of indigenous vaccine for Pandemic Influenza A HINI (swine flu) is assessed by the Drug Controller General of India, for which the Indian companies are presently undertaking clinical trials. On completion of these assessments, Drug Controller General would license the vaccine. The expected time when these indigenous vaccines are likely to be available is April or May 2010.

The world’s largest online fine-art auction house, Saffronart will host its annual Spring Online Art Auction of Modern and Contemporary Indian Art on March 10-11, 2010. Comprising 100 lots of exceptional quality and provenance by 47 leading modern and contemporary Indian artists. The sale will take place online. The Online Art Auction’s repertoire includes iconic works by modern masters FN Souza, SH Raza, Manjit Bawa, Ram Kumar and Akbar Padamsee alongside exceptional works by contemporary artists such as Shibu Natesan, Atul Dodiya, Subodh Gupta, Anju Dodiya and TV Santhosh among others, a company release said.

The government has cleared the cloud of uncertainty over the 3G spectrum auctions. The ministry of IT and Communications announced that the 3G auctions would be conducted on April 9. Earlier, the government had announced to hold the auction on January 14, 2010, but could not meet the target due to controversy over spectrum availability and allocation.