Technical staff and journalists will be based in Bangalore

The southern Indian city will employ 1,500 staff - or 10% of Reuters' total workforce - the UK-based company said.

The majority of the staff will be data and technical employees, but Reuters said it planned to employ up to 40 journalists in its Bangalore newsroom.

Bangalore is increasingly seen as a hot spot for jobs in information technology and back-office services.

Newsgathering hub

Reuters plans to have up to 400 employees compiling and analysing data in Bangalore by the end of 2004, the company's editor-in-chief and head of content operations, Geert Linnebank, said.

"What we are creating here is the largest single hub of information gathering" within Reuters, Mr Linnebank said.

The Bangalore office will employ 1,000 people by the end of 2005 and between 1,200 and 1,500 people over the next 18 months, he said.

Reuters, which has its headquarters in London, first began operations in India in 1866, providing news and commodity prices to European markets.