Citibank employee 'steals millions of dollars' !!

A Citibank employee in India has been accused of defrauding wealthy individual and corporate clients of millions of dollars.

The alleged fraud was discovered earlier this month in a branch of the global bank in Gurgaon, a wealthy suburb of the Indian capital, Delhi.

The employee solicited investment in a fictitious scheme, promising high returns in a short time, the bank said.

Police say the wanted staff member has now gone missing.

Earlier he was suspended after a complaint was lodged by the bank with the police.
'Fake investment scheme'

Citibank has refused to publicly put a figure on the alleged fraud but senior police officers told Indian newspapers that at least $20m (£12,951,188) was stolen.

According to the official police complaint filed by Citibank, which has been seen by the BBC, the suspicious transfer of funds at its branch in the wealthy Delhi suburb of Gurgaon, began in October 2009.

The US bank, which has a large presence in India, accused the missing employee of forging documents and persuading a number of clients to put money into a fake investment scheme.

But instead of making his clients a fortune as promised, the bank claims he channelled the money into accounts allegedly controlled by three of his relatives.

The police are now looking for the man, who they say has absconded.

Meanwhile Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee dismissed fears that the alleged fraud was caused by any systemic weakness in Indian banking, describing it simply as an "individual misdemeanour".

"We recently initiated an investigation into a certain set of suspicious transactions based on documents forged by an employee involving a few accounts in our Gurgaon branch," Citibank said in a statement.

"We immediately reported the matter to all the relevant law enforcement authorities.
Read more: Citibank employee steals millions of dollars

Tata Nano car sales sink by 85%

Sales of Tata Motors' Nano, the world's cheapest car, plunged by 85% in November compared with a year earlier, the Indian carmaker has said.

It blamed the slump on the difficulty potential customers had in accessing loans to buy the car.

However, analysts pointed out that a series of fires in the Nano, as well as price rises, had also affected sales.

Tata said its total sales across all models in November were 54,622, a rise of 1% on a year earlier.

The carmaker also said that sales of its Jaguar Land Rover-branded models "continued their upward trend".
Fire hazard

However, the company said it had sold just 509 Nanos during November.

During the month, Tata offered free safety upgrades for the model, which went on sale last year.

This came after owners of the hatchback reported about half a dozen fires since April last year. There were no injuries.

The Nano was introduced to India in April 2009 and there are now about 70,000 of them on the country's roads.
Read more Tata Nano car sales sink by 85%

Dell profits more than double on company upgrades !!

Dell has reported a 144% rise in third quarter net income to $822m (£511m), thanks to falling costs and a post-recession wave of IT upgrades.

Revenues in the three months to September rose 19% from a year ago, driven by corporate orders.

In contrast, the computer manufacturer reported only a 4% rise in takings from consumer clients, as household spending on laptops and PCs remained weak.

The US firm also said profit margins widened on a drop in component prices.
'Muted' consumer demand

"Dell is growing in the right areas, and I'm very excited about out momentum," said the company's founder, chairman and chief executive, Michael Dell, commenting on the company's third quarter results.

Regionally, revenue growth was strongest in the big emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which together rose 30% on a year ago, led by India which was up 55%.

Dell said revenues had also been helped partly by its refusal to be drawn into price wars, claiming to have turned down some contracts that would have been insufficiently profitable.

Sales to public sector clients were buoyant - up 20% - despite a recent warning from peer Cisco that its sales to the US government sector would suffer because of fiscal cutbacks.

Read More: Dell profits more than double on company upgrades

Lottery firm Camelot has record sales for the half-year !!

National Lottery operator Camelot saw a record £2.72bn spent on its games in the six months to 25 September.

Camelot said the 3.6% rise on the same period last year marked its highest half-year sales figure yet.

It meant that the returns to good causes rose £27.6m, or just over 3.5%, to £784.8m for the six months.

Chief executive Dianne Thompson said Camelot did well in spite of the poor economic climate and aworldwide trend of slowing lottery sales.

During the half-year, Camelot increased sales of both draw-based games and instant play games.

Sales of the former grew from £1.98m to £2.05m, while sales of the latter rose from £641.6m to £672.2m.

Sales of instant play games were boosted by the launch of new scratch cards and online games, including the introduction of the 3D game Monopoly.

The firm, which launched the first Lotto draw on 19 November 1994, was taken over by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in July in a deal worth £389m.

Camelot said it has increased sales by 14% over the past five years as it has driven growth across retail and direct sales channels.

Web and subscription sales grew to £369.2m in the half-year and Camelot said it runs the biggest online lottery in the world with more than five million people registered to play.

Ms Thompson said the results were an "extremely" good start to the year, and promised "lots of exciting plans in the pipeline" to boost sales further.

Read more: Lottery firm Camelot has record sales for the half-year

Indian industrial output growth slows for second month !!

India's industrial output grew 4.4% year-on-year in September, pointing to a shrinking of capital goods output for the second month in a row.

The growth figure marked a decline from 5.6% year-on-year in August, government figures showed.

The output of factories, mines and utilities was well below the 7% forecast by economists.

Indian PM Manmohan Singh has forecast an overall economic growth rate of 8.5% this year and 9% in 2011-12.

Federal finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said the industrial slowdown was a "matter of concern".

India's factory output has lagged far behind China's, which showed a 13.1% year-on-year growth in October, according to government data released this week.

Indian industrial output growth slows

Fox TV joins US networks to block Google TV !!

US TV network Fox has joined its rivals in blocking Google TV from airing its programmes to viewers.

Fox held out after CBC, ABC and NBC refused to let full shows air on Google's new platform - where users can view the web and video on home TV's.

The networks are concerned they will suffer because online advertising is less lucrative than TV commercials.

The Fox move will come as a blow to Google, which needs the backing of the major media companies to thrive.

Google TV was launched at the end of October and is available embedded in a Sony TV and also through a set top box made by Logitech.

Speaking at a TV conference in San Francisco, NewTeeVee Live, Google remained upbeat about the future.

"There are many content owners who are not blocking Google TV,'' said Rishi Chandra, product manager for Google TV.

"The web is a new technology and it's not unheard of whenever there is a new technology that a lot of the incumbents in the space are trying to understand what that technology is going to mean for them.

"We have seen it before whether it's VHS, DVD or DVR."

Mr Chandra also tried to downplay fears that Google TV is out to cannibalise the industry or "replace" cable TV in the US.

"We would like to make sure all that content on the web today is accessible through the Chrome browser which is effectively Google TV. It's up to the content owners to decide how they want to distribute their content to their users," he said.
Too complex?

While the battle to dominate the biggest screen in the home continues to heat up, the issue of what the ordinary consumer wants was also tackled at the conference.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, research carried out by Adaptive Path said ordinary users just want to watch TV, they want it to be simple and they want it to work.
Sony Google TV and remote control The remote control for the Sony Google TV needs to cover lots of bases

"People want to go home, lean back, hit the on button and be entertained. It's as simple as that," said Peter Merholz, president of Adaptive Path.

"All these tools, devices, settings, menus, configurations just get in the way of people's desire to just watch TV. Not everybody wants the latest whizzy, super-complicated set of features and functions."

Mr Merholz suggested the secret formula to success for those in the industry would be to provide TV's that almost hark back to a bygone era.

"When we were all kids, you turned on the TV and it just worked. About the only hassle was moving the rabbit ears to get reception."

He criticised the new Sony Google TV for its complicated remote control.

"I made fun of the Sony remote with all these buttons but my experience in talking to people is that they would pick that up and toss it away."

Mr Merholz said that he believed a clear win for Google would be for it to make it simple for users to search for content, and that this would be a key future in coming years.
Platform wars

TV has always been a social event with friends and family gathering around to watch a show together.
Apple TV Apple recently revamped its Apple TV - something the firm describes as "a hobby project"

The conference was told that the social aspect of TV has grown and morphed because users are increasingly sharing via Facebook and Twitter while watching TV.

"Twitter is not just supplementing content, it's changing it," said Robin Sloan, of Twitter's media partnership team.

"It's taking all this stuff and piping it back in."

These tools have been credited in large part for delivering some of the highest ratings ever for live TV events such as the World Cup and the Olympics.

Mr Sloan said a good percentage of the 90 million tweets sent each day were TV-related, with peaks evident during TV primetime.

MTV was the best at using social media to engage an audience, Mr Sloan said.

During the VMA awards the show saw over two million tweets and reached 11 million viewers, its highest since 2002.

"We've been talking about 'interactive TV' for 20 years, waiting for the magic box or platform to finally emerge.

"But maybe Twitter is actually the platform for interactive TV?

"It's simple, increasingly ubiquitous, works on any platform and everybody's already using it to talk about TV," added Mr Sloan.
'Exciting times'

Interactive TV was something writers Carlton Cuse of Lost and Tim Kring of Heroes have been credited with pioneering.

They both won an Emmy for their work and said that the web, mobile devices and social media made this one of the most exciting times to be a storyteller.

"I think in this new media landscape where there is this new element of interactivity, you will see a revolution in storytelling in the same way video games represented a different type of storytelling," Mr Cuse told BBC News.

Mr Cuse and Mr Kring said these tools allowed them to take their shows in new directions not possible before, because audiences wanted to be involved.

"The real essence of the revolution we're going through now is that the conversation is two ways now. So you have to think, how do you engage that audience that wants to talk back to you?"

Both shows created episodes for mobile phones and even used alternate storylines on other platforms.

Blogs and fan pages were also used and both harnessed the idea of "alternate reality games" where viewers could get involved in and help build.

"Some ideas worked great and some were terrible," said Mr Cuse.

"But it was really exciting to be the first people to be doing these new types of extensions of TV on these new media platforms."

source: Fox TV joins US networks to block Google TV

General Motors sees profits surge !!

The carmaker made a net profit of $2bn (£1.2bn) in the three months to 30 September, compared with a loss a year earlier.

Revenues at the firm, which last week unveiled plans for a $13bn share sale, totalled $34.1bn.

GM's third quarter profit was higher than rival Ford's $1.7bn.

GM has now reported three consecutive profitable financial quarters, as it continues to turn around its fortunes.

Last year, GM needed $50bn in government assistance as it went through bankruptcy protection, and Washington still holds a 60.8% stake.

However, GM has so far repaid the government $9.5bn, and aims to pay back more through a forthcoming share issue.

For its latest quarter, GM made a strong profit in all of its global regions except Europe, where suffered a $559m loss. Its GM Europe business operates the Opel and Vauxhall brands.

GM vice chairman Chris Liddel said the firm was continuing to make "significant progress".

Car industry analyst Jesse Toprak of TrueCar.com said the carmaker was also benefiting from lower manufacturing costs and higher profit margins.
source: General Motors sees profits surge

India orders may create 7 lakh jobs in US in 10 yrs: CII !!

Industry body CII today said sourcing of infrastructure equipment, nuclear hardware and military aircraft from the US by India could create over seven lakh jobs in America in the next ten years.

A CII survey of member firms with operations in the US clearly shows that Indian business is now engaged across a wide spectrum of sectors in America, and not just IT and ITeS.

The Report, 'India - A Growth Partner in the Indian Economy', estimates that, "India sourcing of US military and nuclear hardware and civilian aircraft could create over 700,000 jobs in the US over the next ten years."

Yesterday, US President Barack Obama had announced USD 10 billion worth of deals between Indian and US companies, including a USD 2 billion equipment order from Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Power and the purchase of 30 Boeing 737 aircraft by low-cost carrier SpiceJet .

These deals would create more than 50,000 jobs in the US. The report also said that Indian firms operating in the US have been aggressively hiring US workers and a large majority of the workforce for their America operations were local citizens.

It further said that Indian firms having operations in the US are actively engaged as stakeholders in community development programmes for development of libraries, health research and imparting skills to college graduates.

source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/jobs/India-orders-may-create-7-lakh-jobs-in-US-in-10-yrs-CII/articleshow/6884174.cms

Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer in sale of shares !!

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has sold $1.3bn (£800m) worth of shares in the firm, the first time he has sold its stock in seven years.

"Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion," Mr Ballmer said in a statement.

Mr Ballmer said he was "fully committed to Microsoft and its success".

According to SEC filings he sold 49.3 million Microsoft shares at prices between $26 and $28 per share.
Sell-off continues

Mr Ballmer still holds 359 million shares, worth $9.6bn at Microsoft's current share price, which closed down 1.36% at $26.77 in US trading on Friday.

He said the sale of shares was made to diversify his investments and help his year-end tax planning.

His statement, published on Microsoft's website, also says that he hopes to "sell up to 75 million shares by year-end".

Microsoft's share price has been hit this year as investors worry about its ability to adapt to new ways of computing.

However, last month the firm announced a 51% rise in first-quarter profit, thanks to higher sales of its flagship Windows and Office software.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11706067

US President Barack Obama announces $10bn India deals !!

US President Barack Obama has announced $10bn (£6.2bn) in new trade deals with India.

He was speaking in Mumbai at the start of a 10-day Asian tour designed to boost US exports and create jobs.

Obama also announced an easing of US export controls and rejected caricatures of India as a nation of "call centres."

Visiting the scene of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, he said India and the US were united against terrorism.

"We will never forget," he said at a memorial to victims of the attack by Islamic militants.

The outdoor memorial is a fountain with floating flowers just off the lobby of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where he and his wife are staying as guests.

He described the hotel as a symbol of India's "strength and resilience". He also wrote in a memorial book: "The United States stands in solidarity with all of Mumbai and all of India in working to eradicate the scourge of terrorism."

More than 170 people died in a series of co-ordinated attacks across the city in November 2008.
Big contracts

The White House said the deals for new export business with India would help to support around 54,000 jobs in the United States.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11703626