I signed the letter, took the cheque and walked out... it was over in five minutes

Sandeep Jadhav, a 27-year-old professional in India’s outsourcing industry, had only seen the good times. He worked hard as a support technician in the local subsidiary of an American software company and took home an annual salary of about Rs 5 lakh.

He frequently bought expensive sarees for his wife, toys for his eight month-old son and cricket gear for himself, maxing out on his two credit cards. In December, he planned to take a home loan and buy an apartment in the Kanakapura suburbs of Bangalore. Last week on Tuesday, Jadhav was called in by the vice-president of his company, handed a month’s salary and sacked on the spot.

“I signed the letter, took my cheque and walked out without speaking a single word. It was all over in five minutes,” said Jadhav, reliving the moment.

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Thaksin seeks to nurture Asia’s future leaders

Thailand’s fugitive ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has launched a foundation that aims to nurture Asia’s future leaders, a spokesman said Tuesday. ‘The Building a Better Future’ Foundation opened offices on Monday in Hong Kong and Dubai, said Pongthep Thepkanjana, a Bangkok-based spokesman.

Thaksin was in Dubai and planned to travel elsewhere next week, said Pongthep. He, however, declined to say where the destinations would be.

In an open letter on the foundation’s Web site, Thaksin said he wants to recruit Asia’s “rising stars” to tackle the economic crisis in the region and confront other pressing issues faced by developing nations.

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Now, Japan falls into recession

Japan became the latest major economy to fall into recession on Monday with France close behind, and the IMF said it needed at least $100 billion to fight an economic crisis enveloping the world.

Meanwhile, the battered auto industry came into focus. The US Senate was to begin debating a bailout later in the day, Germany was to hold talks with General Motors unit Opel, and Japan’s Toyota came under ratings scrutiny.

Wall Street looked set for a poor start to the week to follow sharp losses on Friday and European shares were down 2 per cent.

In something of a surprise, figures showed Japan, the world’s second biggest economy, sliding into its first recession in seven years in the third quarter as financial crisis curbed demand for Japanese exports. The 0.1 per cent contraction in July-September was worse than consensus forecasts.

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Hyderabad cops want to question Purohit on Mecca Masjid blast

The Hyderabad police, which has so far failed to find any evidence to back its earlier claims that the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and Harkat-ulJihad-al-Islami (HuJI) were behind the Mecca Masjid blast — nine people were killed in the explosion on May 25, 2007 — is now looking to interrogate Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, arrested in connection with the Malegaon blasts. The CBI, entrusted investigation later, too drew a blank and the case remains unsolved till date.

A team of Hyderabad Police is camping in Mumbai, awaiting an opportunity to question Purohit who is in the custody of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). Last Friday, the team missed a chance to question Purohit as he was taken to Bangalore for a narco-analysis test.

“We will interrogate Purohit about the Mecca Masjid blast which remains unsolved,” a Hyderabad police officer told The Indian Express. “We have only exchanged information with the ATS so far, we will interrogate Purohit in a day or two.

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Tricolour is set to hit the Moon this evening

The Tricolour will be on the lunar surface on Friday evening when the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on board Chandrayaan-I is ejected from the mothership, ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters today. This will pave the way for future touch downs, including manned missions.

Apart from the symbolism that the flag bears, the 35-kg MIP has the scientific objectives of learning and perfecting pin-point accuracy in landing, studying the atmosphere during its descent, and to qualify technologies related to soft landings for moon rovers.

After its journey that started October 22, the main orbiter has zeroed in on the moon at an altitude of 100 km to study its poles through a mission period of two years. The landing would be on the southern pole.

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Ties very good, let’s do better: Prime Minister to Obama

US President-elect Barack Obama has described the India-US strategic relationship as a “very important partnership”, and said his administration would like to work with New Delhi on all important global issues.

Obama called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this morning, the PMO said. The PM had earlier clarified that Obama and he had been unable to talk because of scheduling constraints.

The PM congratulated Obama warmly and said that his “historic victory was a source of inspiration for oppressed people all over the world”, a PMO statement said. Obama “praised the Prime Minister’s contribution to the progress of India both as Minister of Finance earlier and now as Prime Minister”. Singh told Obama that “relations between India and the United States were very good, but we cannot be satisfied with the status quo”.

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Obama-Prime Minister call scheduled today, Singh says time restraint earlier

To dispel all speculation over “no phone call” from Barack Obama to India after becoming the US President-elect, the government is firming up arrangements to schedule a call tomorrow between him and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Official sources said there was nothing beyond scheduling issues that had prevented the call from taking place so far. In fact, India was in the first list of countries that Obama wanted to reach out but the proposed time slot was too close to the PM’s departure time for Oman and Qatar on November 8.

Singh too mentioned this to reporters on board the special Air India aircraft last night while flying home from the Gulf. “This is not true (that he chose to ignore India). He wanted to talk to me the day before yesterday (Saturday).

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