Hi frnds we know about the very recent satyam matter. Now the govt has said that "satyam closes to naming new head".
Satyam Computer Services is close to finalising a new head to help the government-appointed board put the fraud-hit outsourcing firm back on track, a minister said on Wednesday.
Corporate Affairs Minister P.C. Gupta said the new head of Satyam would would not be called a chief executive, but declined to name the identified candidate.
"This gentleman has a vast experience of running large multinational and national companies in India," he told television news channel CNBC TV18.
CNBC TV18, citing sources, later said that Homi R. Khusrokhan, a former managing director of Tata Chemicals, was the frontrunner to head Satyam.
The new head would need to work closely with the board, lift employee morale and stop key customers from joining State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. in cancelling contracts.
Satyam's new board, which last week said it had narrowed the shortlist for CEO and chief financial officer to three, has said it would outline the proposed management structure this week.
Satyam, India's No. 4 software exporter, has been battling for survival since founder Ramalinga Raju resigned as chairman earlier this month, saying profits had been falsified for years and $1 billion of cash on the books did not exist.
Since then the government has stepped in and appointed a new board to try to resolve India's biggest corporate fraud.
On Tuesday, the board named Boston Consulting Group as management advisor to help revive the firm, with Goldman Sachs and Indian firm Avendus appointed as investment bankers to identify strategic investors and obtain expressions of interest.
BIDDERS APLENTY
Satyam shares rose nearly 18 percent on Wednesday, an eighth successive rise, driven by expectations of potentials bidders for the firm. The rise took the shares to 55.45 rupees, their highest close since the fraud was revealed.
Despite the gains, the shares are only worth about $1.10, and are down 90 percent from their 2008 high of 544 rupees.
"The market is expecting some kind of an open offer," said Gajendra Nagpal, CEO at Unicon Financial.
"We are hoping that it won't be less than 90 rupees. So it's a punter's call to make some quick money," he said.
Engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro, which also runs a small software services firm, trebled its stake in Satyam to 12 percent last Friday.
On Tuesday, L&T's chairman said it would not be averse to raising its stake further, to 15 percent. Under Indian law, this would trigger an open offer for a further 20 percent.
The open offer is usually based on the average price over the last six months, which would be about 335 rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data, but Nagpal said there was a possibility the market regulator could relax rules as Satyam shares had plunged.
U.S. based outsourcer iGate said last week it would be interested in buying Satyam with help from private equity funds.
On Wednesday, a Hyderabad court dismissed bail petitions of Raju, his brother and former managing director Rama Raju, and former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas. They are currently being held in a Hyderabad jail.
Microsoft has warned computer users against downloading the latest test version of Windows, for it might harm their computers.
The firm today released a "beta" version of Windows 7, which allows expert users to try the product and highlight any glitches.
However, owing to the soaring demands for the new version, Microsoft has put a 2.5 million limit on the number of copies available until January 24.
And today, the firm has made it clear that the product is not meant for every user, but is only aimed at computer experts.
Microsoft, which designed the product to make everyday tasks easier and to allow better access to entertainment content such as music and films, currently offers no technical support to those testing the product.
Laurence Painell, a product manager for Microsoft, said the company was "genuinely surprised" at the number of users vying to test Windows 7 Beta, but he asked home PC users to stay away from it for the time being.
"We don''t recommend that if you''ve got one PC at home and you''re an average consumer that you install a beta product because it''s unfinished. It can have bugs and issues with it,” The Independent quoted him as saying.
John Bogue from consumer magazine ‘Which? Computing’ said the average PC user "should not go near it".
"They make it quite clear there''s no point if you''re not completely self-sufficient with computers. You shouldn''t go near it otherwise, because anything beta by definition is not a complete product. It''s a testing product and it could crash any machine at any time," he said.
He added: "There''s no guarantees with a beta, it could completely ruin your computer. It''s only for the enthusiasts who have a spare computer to install it on. You wouldn''t ever install it on your main machine."
A final version of Windows 7 is expected to go on sale before January 2010.
The Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (CIXS), one of the 11 payloads onboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, jointly developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation and the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, has successfully detected the first X-ray signature from the Moon, ISRO announced on Friday.
"This is the first step in its mission to reveal the origin and evolution of the Moon by mapping its surface composition", Bangalore-headquartered ISRO said in a statement.
Chandrayaan-1 was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on October 22 last year and it entered the lunar orbit on November eight.
In orbit around the Moon, Chandrayaan-1 CIXS detected the X-ray signal from a region near the Apollo landing sites on December 12 last year.
"The solar flare that caused the X-ray fluorescence was exceedingly weak, approximately 20 times smaller than the minimum CIXS was designed to detect", ISRO said. "The X-ray camera collected three minutes of data from the Moon just as the flare started and the camera finished its observation".
"The joint development and operationalisation of CIXS in Chandrayaan-1 between ISRO and RAL, the UK, is a major achievement", ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said. "First signatures obtained from CIXS are highly encouraging".
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the junior Senator of New York and the US Secretary of State in President Barack Obama’s upcoming government. Hillary Clinton is the wife of Bill Clinton, 42nd President of USA, and remained First Lady from 1993 to 2001.
Known for her intelligence, political sensibilities and outspokenness, Hillary wanted to become the first female President and campaigned alongside Barack Obama in order to win the Presidential nomination of Democratic Party in 2008. However, it turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt where in the end, Hillary asked for party unanimity. Meanwhile, she looked forward to the Vice-Presidential campaign that finally went to Joe Biden, a seasoned statesman and a veteran in foreign policy.
As a powerful orator, Hillary is known for her debates at par with that of Barack Obama. However, critics questioned her Presidential run her as a Senator without any executive role in politics.
As a Senator, Hillary Clinton championed the cause of women’s rights, education, job creation and healthcare. She was a strong supporter of US military action in Afghanistan during 2001. For Hillary, America’s military action in Afghanistan could help in debilitating the Taliban and improving the life of Afghan women struggling under the yoke. She was also a vocal figure for Iraq War Resolution of 2002.
Nevertheless, Obama’s choosing Hillary shows his faith in the lady and the crucial role she can play in his team.
Barack Obama the tall, ‘black’ and handsome Senator from Illinois whom the Time magazine in 2005 dubbed as among hundred most influential persons in the world, is poised to make history by becoming the first African-American to rise to the Presidency.
Perhaps because of that unexplainable something called charisma, Obama draws huge crowds to his campaign rallies. From Oprah Winfrey to Robert de Niro, the list of his celebrity supporters seems unlimited.
Son of a Kenyan father and an American mother, Barack Hussein Obama II was born at Honolulu, Hawai in 1961. Having lived mostly with his mother after his parents separated, when he was barely two years old, Obama’s first emotional meeting with his father was just before the latter died in an accident. Obama attended schools in Jakarta and Honolulu where he stayed with his maternal grandparents for some years. After graduating from Columbia University and being trained as a lawyer, Obama went to work as an attorney with Miner, Barnhill & Galland from 1993 to 1996. He also served as a lecturer of constitutional law at the Chicago Law School for sometime.
He married Michelle Robinson in 1992 who is also a Harvard Law School graduate. The couple have two young daughters, Malia Ann and Natasha ("Sasha").
Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, 1998 and 2002. But in early 2000 he failed in his bid for the US House of Representatives. He came in the limelight for the first time in 2004, when during his campaign, he delivered an address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston for which he received a standing ovation. The speech is likely to go down in the history of America as one of the finest.
A strong critic of the Iraq War and Bush’s other key policies, Obama’s main focus in foreign affairs has been arms control for which he travelled extensively across the world.
As Illinois Senator, Obama has focused on areas as diverse as the challenges of globalization, economic upliftment of low income groups, poverty and the bitter aftermath of hurricane Katrina, genocide in Darfur, tax cuts and use of alternative fuels.
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has been marked by the extensive use of a logo consisting of letter ‘O’ with the centre suggesting a sunrise and his emphasis on his patriotism. Obama has been able to create a tremendous fan following due to his magnetic personality, brilliant oration and ability to connect to the youth. Obama is the image of youthful America with ideas as fresh and contemporary as his age. In the three presidential debates between him and Mc Cain, Obama has mirrored his brilliance and this ‘man from nowhere’ now really seems set to rule the most powerful state of the world.
Drinking apple juice helped mice deliver above average performances in maze trials, which maintained the same level of mental fitness that was otherwise observed as these mice aged.
Thomas B. Shea, of the Centre for Cellular Neurobiology, University of Massachusetts, and his team showed that mice receiving human equivalent of two glasses of apple juice daily for a month produced less of 'beta-amyloid,' responsible for forming plaques, commonly found in Alzheimer's disease, said a Massachusetts release.
Shea commented that 'these findings provide further evidence linking nutritional and genetic risk factors for age-related neuro degeneration and suggest that regular consumption of apple juice not only can help to keep one's mind functioning at its best, but may also be able to delay key aspects of Alzheimer's disease and augment therapeutic approaches.'
The study was published in the January issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Less than six weeks. That’s all that’s remaining until broadcast analog TVs all over the country go noisy if they haven’t already received their AD converter boxes. It’s not like there hasn’t been warning, or even billions in aid to help those who can’t afford to pay for the new boxes – which aren’t even that expensive to begin with. But President-Elect Barack Obama thinks the timing is all wrong and is asking Congress to delay the big handover.
Citing a lack of funding and poor education of the populace, and the majority of those to be left behind being from low income and rural areas, the new incoming administration now believes that with the state of the world and our economy, switching off the analog broadcast signal could be a bad idea – one with epic consequences.
Recent reports have stated that demand is so high, that the program will be depleted and forced to shut down nearly a month before the transition. And it worries the new administration that barely a few weeks into their reign, that Americans all across the country will wake up to no TV.
“The program designed to provide consumers with a coupon to defray the cost of the digital-to-analog converter necessary for analog TVs to continue to work as run out of funds. As of today, over 1 million coupon requests ssit on a wait list, unable to be fulfilled … projections suggest that number could climb to over 5 million un-honored requests,” stated transition co-chair John Podesta. “All of the above leads to the conclusion that the February 18 cutoff date for analog signals should be reconsidered and extended.”
Experts believe moving the date to mid-summer would not only give the incoming administration more face time, but also allow for part of the upcoming stimulus package Congress is already considering to be applied to budget shortfalls in the converter box program.