Apex IT body shocked by Satyam chief’s confession

January 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Shocked by the revelations of Satyam co-founder and chairman B. Ramalinga Raju that the software services firm had overstated profits and hidden liabilities in a Rs.40-billion scandal, leading industry lobbies called for stricter corporate governance norms.

January 6th, 2009 HYDERABAD - Directors of the beleaguered IT major Satyam Computers Wednesday expressed shock the admission of founder-chairman B. Ramalinga Raju to committing a fraud to the tune of Rs.40 billion (Rs.4,000 crore or $823 million) before he resigned, along with Managing Director Rama Raju.

June 11th, 2009 MUMBAI - Between 7,000 to 10,000 Satyam employees have been put in a virtual pool, continuing their association with the company but with reduced pay, the IT firm said in a regulatory statement Thursday. The virtual pool programme is an innovative way of retaining the excellent human assets of Satyam despite the difficult economic situation, chairman Kiran Karnik said in the statement.

July 25th, 2009 LONDON - Social networking sites Twitter and Facebook are now being seen as tools of communication between Scotland's clans, with Scottish chiefs being told to use them to increase their ranks in the 21st Century. The gathering of chiefs on July 24 at Holyrood, heard Robert McWilliam, president emeritus of the Council of Scottish Clans and Associations, as saying that it was the best way of communicating with young people.

April 12th, 2009 BANGALORE - India's fourth largest software exporter Satyam Computer will get a new buyer Monday, a little over three months after its founder B. Ramalinga Raju shocked India Inc by admitting massive financial fraud of Rs.7,800 crore (Rs.78 billion).

February 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Satyam scam was a 'one-off, unfortunate case of failure of corporate governance', Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee said here Thursday. Addressing a meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Mukherjee said: '(Satyam) was an unfortunate case of failure of corporate governance… It was a one-off case.

January 20th, 2009 HYDERABAD - Disgraced founder and former chairman of Satyam Computer Services B. Ramalinga Raju has confessed that he diverted funds of the IT company to the two real estate firms promoted by his family, state police sources said here Wednesday.

January 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - As police investigated the murder of a software engineer from Hyderabad in the US, the Indian consulate in Houston sent an official to Little Rock, Arkansas to help arrange the transfer of the body to India. The body of Akshay Vishal, an employee of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services Limited who was on contract with US company Jet Falcon, has been sent for autopsy.

January 15th, 2009 HYDERABAD - The government-appointed directors of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services meet here Saturday for the second time in six days to assess the company's financial position and consider action to speedily put the firm back on rails as cooked up figures by founder B. Ramalinga Raju are making it difficult for the software industry to forecast the sector's growth for 2008-09.

January 7th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Accusing oil companies of committing a Satyam Computers-like financial fraud, striking truckers Thursday demanded 'thorough audit' of the oil firms and asked the government to issue a white paper on the matter. 'The government should come up with a white paper and there should be a thorough audit and investigation into the accounts of the oil companies.

January 16th, 2009 HYDERABAD - The government-appointed directors of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services began a meeting here Saturday with the focus on how much the company immediately needs to pay salaries and meet other expenditure and on finding a chief executive officer (CEO) to run its day-to-day operations. Satyam, India's fourth largest IT company, has been without a CEO and a group of senior staff members are running the show since Jan 7, when founder-chairman B.

July 2nd, 2009 HYDERABAD - The Andhra Pradesh government Thursday said the state has posted a 24.5 percent growth in information technology export revenues during 2008-09, higher than the projected national growth of 20.65 percent, but this includes the inflated figures submitted by the scam-tainted Satyam Computer Services. The exports during the year were Rs.32,509 crore (Rs.325.09 billion/$6.79 billion) against Rs.26,122 crore (Rs.261.22 billion/$5.45 billion) during 2007-08.

February 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Rs.70 billion (Rs.7,000 crore) accounting fraud at Satyam computer Services was not a corporate scam but a 'governmental scandal', senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani said.

January 9th, 2009 CHENNAI - If justice has to prevail, the government should establish a prima facie case against Satyam Computer's former chairman B. Ramalinga Raju and his brother B.

January 25th, 2009 HYDERABAD - The government-appointed directors of embattled Satyam Computer Services will meet here Tuesday to pick a new chief executive officer (CEO) and finalise funding arrangements to ensure the fraud-hit company's smooth operations in the next two months. The six directors, making up the new board, said last Friday that they had shortlisted three candidates for the posts of CEO and chief financial office (CFO) and they will finalise the names this week.