SATYAM CHAIRMAN RAMALINGA RAJU ARRESTED

The Andhra Pradesh police on Friday night arrested disgraced former founder-chairman of Satyam Computers B Ramalinga Raju and his brother and former company managing director B Rama Raju on charges of cheating and forgery.The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the state police arrested Ramalinga Raju and Rama Raju on charges of "criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy, cheating, falsification of records and forgery", Director General of Police S S P Yadav said.The two brothers accompanied by their lawyer S Bharat Kumar reached the state police headquarters and surrendered before the police. They were interrogated by CID personnel for some time before being arrested.Their move came after a criminal case was registered against them by the CID in the Rs70 billion financial fraud in the company.The case was registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).The CID sleuths will interrogate the two to ascertain the veracity of Ramalinga Raju's shocking admission on Wednesday of being behind the fraud. They are likely to be produced before a magistrate either late in the night or on Saturday morning.Raju quit as chairman on Wednesday while admitting that the company cooked its books resulting in an "inflated (non-existent) cash and bank balances" over several years. His brother Rama Raju has also quit as managing director.They had remained untraced ever since they sent their resignations to Satyam board. Their surrender and subsequent arrest by the CID came hours after Ramalinga Raju's lawyer told reporters that he would appear before market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Saturday.Meanwhile, police sources said the CID might also arrest Vadlamani Srinivas, who resigned as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) on Thursday. The whereabouts of Srinivas is not known.The Rajus were arrested hours after CID began the probe. Earlier in the day, a team of CID officials verified records at Satyam's headquarters here and spoke to a few employees.Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had ordered probe by CID on Wednesday to "look at the criminal angle into the entire episode".The CID stepped up investigations amid criticism by opposition parties that the Congress government was soft towards Ramalinga Raju.

ANOTHER AWARD FOR MAESTRO A.R.RAHMAN

Slumdog Millionaire, the rags-to-riches story of a Mumbai slum dweller, has bagged five prestigious prizes including the Best Composer Award for Indian music maestro A R Rahman at the Broadcast Film Critics Association's 14th annual Critics Choice Awards.British Director Danny Boyle's Indian drama was a big hit at the award ceremony last night. It won Best Film, Best Director for Danny Boyle, Best Writer for Simon Beaufoy, Best Young Actor for Dev Patel and Best Composer for A R Rahman.The Broadcast Film Critics Association's 14th annual Critics Choice Awards (BFCA), which took place at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium recently, is the largest film critics organization, with more than 200 members in the US and Canada.

MOTOROLA INTRODUCED CELLPHONE MADE FROM RECYCLED PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE

If recycled paper and plastic products were not enough, Motorola has now launched a cell phone made from recycled plastic water bottles.Called the MOTO W233 Renew, the mobile phone not only boasts plastic exterior made from recycled material, but also the device is the first "carbon neutral" phone, said the company."Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation," All Headlines News quoted Motorola as saying in a press release.In fact, the box that contains the phone is also made from recycled material, according to the media release.Another postage-paid box comes inside the package, which is also made from recycled paper, and can be used by customers to mail their old phones back to Motorola for recycling.With nine hours of talk time, the phone includes other features like ChrystalTalk technology and messaging capabilities.MOTO W233 Renew will hit the shelves during the first quarter of 2009 at T-Mobile stores.Motorola unveiled the phone at the 2009 International CES in Las Vegas this week.

ISRO TO LAUNCH 4 FOREIGN SATELLLITES THIS YEAR

Indian Space Research Organisation will launch four foreign satellites this year as it seeks to make further inroads into the international satellite-building and launch services market in 2009. Two weeks ago, communication satellite, W2M, built by ISRO on a commercial basis in partnership with EADS-Astrium of Europe, was successfully launched by the European Ariane-5 launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guiana.Managing Director of Antrix Corporation Ltd, the commercial arm of Bangalore-headquartered ISRO, K R Sridhara Murthy, said the Indian space agency is gearing up to launch four satellites of Singapore, the Netherlands, Italy and Algeria. (These contracts were bagged by ISRO independently and not in partnership with EADS-Astrium)."We have four commitments for Singapore, the Netherlands, Italy and Algeria. We want to complete it in 2009,""It (the four spacecraft) is a mix of nano and small satellites". Contractual obligations bar ISRO from talking about specific launch price but Sridhara Murthy said that the space agency's charge per kg of satellite (to be launched) is around Euro 20,000 per kg, quite cheaper than prevailing International prices.But, he stressed that the launch price is guided by competition, market conditions and demand-supply scenario