New Delhi : Hours after the Delhi High Court declared the two-day strike by Air India employees illegal, the state-owned airline, given a free hand by the government to deal with the crisis, cracked down this evening, terminating the services of 17 union leaders, suspending 15 engineers and penalising others who boycotted work.

By midnight, Air India was in the process of completing legal formalities to de-recognise the two unions who had called the strike.

Suspended Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi is in Delhi to put the finishing touches on his reply to the showcause notice issued to him by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Modi infact has to prepare his reply for a second showcause notice as well as for planning an IPL-like league in England.

Sources have told NDTV that Modi is now planning to take legal action against England and Wales Cricket Board Chairman Giles Clarke, and suing him for defamation.

India will soon enact a legislation to attract overseas investments in mining and make the sector more investment-friendly, reports say.

Ministry of Mines Special Secretary S. Vijay Kumar said in Toronto on Wednesday that the proposed bill would become operational by this year-end, and would address concerns expressed by foreign investors.

Kumar is currently in Toronto heading an Indian delegation to the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention. More than 22,000 delegates from over 100 countries, including 45 from India, are participating in the four-day convention.

NEW DELHI — India's government on Thursday announced a draft law to avert more corporate scandals like the massive fraud which embroiled outsourcing giant Satyam.

Satyam founder and chairman B. Ramalinga Raju stunned India's financial world in January when he declared he had overstated profits for years and inflated the company's balance sheet.

Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said the measure would protect investors and make it binding for unscrupulous companies to pay damages to shareholders.

MUMBAI -- Major Indian companies Friday said they have limited exposure to Dubai, and that they don't expect to be affected much by the troubles at Dubai World.

But investors, shaken by Dubai World Wednesday announcing a six-month standstill on its $59 billion debt, continued to sell down shares of engineering, construction, real estate companies and of banks.

The Dubai World conglomerate is the city-state's largest corporate entity, spanning the real estate, port and leisure sectors.

India plans to set up a centralized system to monitor communications on mobile phones, landlines and the Internet in the country, a minister told the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, on Thursday.

Indian laws allow the interception and monitoring of communications under certain conditions, including to counter terrorism.

FRANKFURT: The distressed German clothing group Escada has been sold to Megha Mittal, daughter-in-law of Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal,

Escada said without providing financial details.

An insolvency administrator signed late on Thursday a contract with Mittal Family Trusts, which represents Megha Mittal interests, a statement said.

"All key assets of Escada AG's operative business as well as shares in Escada AG's subsidiaries will be transferred to the Trust," it added.

A dispute between a Nashville firm and two key vendors located in India recently made its way into the court system here, illustrating some of the hazards inherent in the now common practice of offshore technology development and manufacturing.

Smartvue Corp., which produces wireless video surveillance systems, filed suit in Davidson County Chancery Court on October 19 against Bangalore-based Mistral Software Pvt. Ltd. and Nest Power Electronics Pvt. Ltd., headquartered in the southern Indian city of Cochin.

CHENNAI: In a setback to India’s largest drug maker Ranbaxy, the Company Law Board (CLB) has upheld the appointment of two directors on the board
of Hyderabad-based Zenotech Laboratories.

Ranbaxy had earlier objected to the appointment of two new directors to the board of Zenotech Laboratories, stating that the latter’s founder managing director Jayaram Chigurupati had no right to appoint directors and that he was attempting to control a company which is 47% owned by Ranbaxy.

International Law Firm Simmons & Simmons Signs Agreement with Integreon for
Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) Services
Integreon to Provide a Dedicated Team of Lawyers Based in Mumbai for Document
Review, Due Diligence, Document Production, and Research

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Integreon, the global leader in
integrated knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and legal process outsourcing
(LPO), today announced that international law firm Simmons & Simmons has
signed a 12 month agreement with Integreon to provide offshore legal support