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Pune
Oxford of the East

By

Published: Tuesday 03 June 2008

What's so special about Pune?
It might not yet have the widespread fame of Bangalore but what Pune lacks in celebrity it certainly makes up for in brains.

The city, India's eighth largest, is about 120km down the highway from Mumbai, and is home to dozens of IT companies.

It is described by one of our Tech Hotspot judges Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, as "coming out of the shadow of Mumbai and with a young population it has a buzz in the air".

The city is renowned for its academic institutions, and there is plenty of research and development - as well as offshoring and business process outsourcing work in the city - with a number of companies now seeing it as an alternative to Bangalore.

Big employers in the area include Wipro with a campus that is home to 8,000 staff, and HSBC, which has its Global Technology Centre in the city to develop software for the whole HSBC group.

Pune has also unveiled big plans to offer extensive wireless access, and is working on e-government initiatives as well.

Key tech companies Accenture, IBM, TCS, Wipro, Xansa.

Key institutions Plenty. Pune is known as the Oxford of the East because of the number of academic research institutions. TCS has an R&D centre here and other institutions include the University of Pune and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.

Local salaries Project manager $26,000.

Famous faces The spiritual teacher Osho lived and taught in Pune in the 1970s and 1980s.

Population Five million.

iPod cost $183 Source: CommSec, Apple.

Time zone GMT +5 hours 30 minutes.

Voltage and plugs 230V.

How to get there Fly into Poona Airport.

Watch out for The auto-rickshaws - they move fast.

Places to stay, eat or drink silicon.com recently stayed at the Oakwood Hotel although there is plenty of choice. Jangli Maharaj Road, or JM Road, is famous for its restaurants.

What you might not know It's a sister city of San Jose, which seems pretty fitting.