The chairman of the outsourcing company resigned on Wednesday saying that profits had been falsely inflated for years, sending the company’s shares plunging nearly 80 percent.

Ram Mynampati was appointed the interim CEO.

“Our only aim at this time is to ensure that the business continues,” Mynampati told reporters at a news conference.

He said the company would help investigating agencies and had launched a process to assess its financial position.

For detailed coverage, see [ID:nBOM394323]. (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by John Mair)

“Infrastructure projects during this year have provided 800, 000 jobs, so expect a lot from infrastructure projects for next year,” the Jakarta Post daily on Saturday quoted the Indonesian Public Work Minister Djoko Kirmanto as saying.

Besides infrastructure, other sectors such as transportation, energy, agriculture are also expected to contribute to the creation of the 3 million jobs.

According to Djoko, the government urged regional administrations to facilitate land acquisition which has become a stumbling block in the country’s infrastructure projects.

He said that of the 3 million job opportunities to be created, 500,000 were needed in direct response to anticipated mass layoffs.

He said he was disclosing this because people might think the Centre had given a strong message through External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s November 9 statement at Tawang that “no power can snatch away Arunachal or any part of it.” “We want actions not words and rhetorics”, he said and added the Chinese were continuously grabbing Arunachal territory and “we have already lost our grazing fields at Samdrong Chu valley and Asha Pilla,” he said.

The BJP MP wanted the Centre to build roads and other infrastructures along the McMohan line to reopen traditional border trade closed since the 1962 war.

He said he did not want to make Arunachal a battle ground but there should be a bridge between the two largest economies of the world. “Though China is our largest trading partner, we are still number 13 on their list,” he said. PTI

He said he was disclosing this because people might think the Centre had given a strong message through External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s November 9 statement at Tawang that “no power can snatch away Arunachal or any part of it.” “We want actions not words and rhetorics”, he said and added the Chinese were continuously grabbing Arunachal territory and “we have already lost our grazing fields at Samdrong Chu valley and Asha Pilla,” he said.

The BJP MP wanted the Centre to build roads and other infrastructures along the McMohan line to reopen traditional border trade closed since the 1962 war.

He said he did not want to make Arunachal a battle ground but there should be a bridge between the two largest economies of the world. “Though China is our largest trading partner, we are still number 13 on their list,” he said. PTI

The Indian government announced an across-the-board cut in the ad valorem cenvat (central value added tax) rate on all products other than petroleum and products where the rate was already less than 4 percent.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (MAHM.BO: Quote, Profile, Research), maker of utility vehicles and tractors, would pass on the reduction across all its products, said Pawan Goenka, its president of automotive business.

“In fact for our high-end models we will try and see if we can do better than 4 percent,” Goenka said on CNBC TV 18.

Earlier India’s top vehicle maker Tata Motors Ltd (TAMO.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) said it would pass the excise reduction in central value-added tax on to its customers.

“Tata Motors will pass on to customers the benefit that will come in through the cut in cenvat. This is across products — passenger and commercial vehicles,” the company said in a statement. The details were still being worked out, it added.

Separately, top car maker Maruti Suzuki Ltd’s (MRTI.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) chief said on television the reduction in cenvat would lead to a reduction in car prices by 4 percent.

“So far as I understand it, it will be applicable on all products, and it should be applicable to automobile manufacturers, too,” Chairman R.C. Bhargava told CNBC TV18.

ndia’s automobile sector has been hit by the global and local liquidity crunch, rising interest rates and a slowing economy.

Maruti’s November car sales fell 24.4 percent from a year ago, Tata’s vehicle sales were down 30 percent, and Mahindra & Mahindra’s fell 39 percent. (Reporting by Janaki Krishnan, editing by Will Waterman)

Prices of cooking gas and kerosene were, however, left untouched. Fuel prices were last cut in February 2007. Prices have since been increased with crude oil prices doubling between July 2007 and July 2008. The government raised petrol prices by Rs 5 per litre, diesel by Rs 3 per litre and cooking gas by Rs 50 per cylinder in June this year. Global crude oil prices have fallen by around 70 per cent from its peak in July to its lowest in three years.

The price cut comes at a time when two phases of elections are yet to be completed in Jammu and Kashmir. Elections have already been completed in five states.

‘The home secretary stressed that all the 73 coastal security police stations, 97 check-posts and 58 outposts should become fully operational within the shortest possible time,’ the ministry said in a statement.

Gupta also asked the states and union territories to be ready with adequate and trained manpower so that they can be fully and optimally utilized once the delivery of 204 interceptor boats commences from March-April 2009.

‘It is likely that the delivery may commence even earlier and that the total time span for delivery of all boats would also be compressed,’ he stressed.

The meeting was attended by senior officials of nine coastal states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal and four union territories and representatives of ministries and organisations concerned.

As the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks used the sea route to enter the Maharashtra capital, Gupta emphasised the need for state governments and union territories to prioritise and focus on expeditious implementation of all components of the Coastal Security Scheme.

He reminded stakeholders to ensure operational efficiency and effectiveness.

The use of transponders and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) on registered boats and the issue of digitised identity cards was also discussed at the meet.

‘The need to enhance the capacity of security and surveillance agencies to undertake real-time exchange and use of information relating to fishermen and boats specifically and coastal patrolling was also discussed and appropriate strategies considered,’ the ministry said.

During the meet, some states sought sanction of additional coastal police stations.

Gupta asked the representatives of the Coast Guard and state governments to carry out a detailed vulnerability gap analysis to identify the requirements of additional police stations and their locations.

He also suggested that some police stations could be co-located with minor ports along the coast and asked the state governments to carry out an exercise in this regard in a time-bound manner.

The meeting also considered various aspects related to the issuance of identity cards to all fishermen and sea-faring personnel and for registration of boats.

State governments were asked to review their laws and regulations in this regard and also make available the details of the same so that uniform norms and policies could be determined as far as possible

Twitter was inundated with “tweets”–short bursts of information posted by users –Wednesday as mainstream media outlets struggled to catch up with the scope of the attacks on India’s financial capital.

It was Twitter’s moment. Users tagged posts with information or commentary on the crisis, turning a service that specializes in distributing short, personal updates to tight networks of friends and acquaintances into a way for people around the world to tune into personal, real-time accounts of the attacks.

Even in ordinary times, Indians have become infatuated with messaging. So it was no surprise that cellphones became the lifelines for those trapped in the two hotels. A businessman hiding in his room on the 28th floor of the Oberoi Hotel recounted that, by Thursday morning, the TV had gone off and the landline phones were dead.

The messages he received from his family on his cellphone kept him going. Several people who perished sent their last appeals for help via SMS. The cellphones used by the terrorists, gunned down by commandos, helped establish that they were from Pakistan.

The important role played by messaging technology also marked a redemption of sorts for the idea of citizen journalism. CNN was embarrassed in October when its experiment in citizen journalism, iReport, falsely reported that Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs had suffered a massive heat attack, causing Apple shares to plunge.

Social networks were flooded with bunkum about the events in Mumbai, to be sure. Cynics pointed out that much of the information was of questionable value. As one blogger pointed out, many tweets, particularly later on in the developing crisis, simply echoed the latest reports from mainstream outlets such as the BBC and CNN.

Better informed users, however, could respond via Twitter to the false reports with a few keystrokes. One blogger worked to try to uncover the source of one particularly troubling rumor–that terrorists were using Twitter to track the movements of law enforcement–updating his efforts regularly.

A writer with PoytnerOnline, a Web site run by journalism think tank the Poynter Institute, even weighed in with tips for journalists looking to get involved and improve the quality of information being blasted around Twitter.

And while some of the videos and pictures shared online were gruesome, Twitter users seemed to adapt. One user, for example, polled his followers to find out if they wanted to see pictures of the carnage. No need to guess at community standards here.

The question now is how to manage–if it is manageable at all–the information that comes to the forefront when anyone with a cellphone or a cheap laptop can blast information around the globe with a few keystrokes.

There are some reports that Indian authorities asked those in Mumbai to stop Twittering about the event in order to keep the activities of police quiet.

If true, that’s a breakthrough. It’s the sort of challenge journalists covering combat have long grappled with: What information should you share? Who decides what you can write? To what end?

In other words, we’re all journalists now. Let’s just hope none of us wind up being combat reporters, as so many in Mumbai did this week

production to cope with an industry slump.

About 8,700 managers in Japan will have their year-end bonuses reduced, company spokeswoman Kayo Doi said, as Japan’s leading automaker seeks to cut costs in the face of plunging profits.

Toyota so far has no plan to reduce the pay of its top executives.

“Nothing has been decided for our board members,” Doi said.

The company also will suspend a production line for its Lexus

brand at the Tahara plant in Aichi prefecture for an additional two days at year’s end.

“We have decided to suspend production at this factory since Lexus vehicles for both the overseas and domestic market are produced here and sales have worsened. We’re facing an inventory glut,” said Doi.

The firm also plans to suspend production at its subsidiary Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc. for an additional two days.

Toyota has embarked on cost-cutting measures in response to recessions in Japan and its major export markets in the United States and Europe.

It has already moved to reduce production at its US, Canadian and French factories, and plans to lay off 3,000 temporary workers in Japan.

The global slowdown has badly shaken Japan’s automakers, which in recent years have cashed in on worldwide demand for their cars.

Japanese new auto sales fell 27.3 per cent in November to hit the lowest since 1969, an industry group said Monday.