The launch of the computerized CAT involved the delivery of exams by Prometric into more than 360 testing labs at 104 individual locations. While a significant majority of the candidates successfully completed their exams on Day One, various technical issues arose at selected computers in approximately 50 labs that prevented approximately 2,000 exams from being delivered. Prometric has generated new appointments for these individuals and they are in the process of being contacted through SMS and email messages. Prometric technicians have been dispatched to address these isolated problems. To avoid candidate inconvenience and to allow for the necessary repairs to be completed at the impacted labs, Prometric has scheduled a closure of these labs on Sunday, 29 November 2009. Candidates affected by this closure will also be notified by Prometric in the manner described above and provided with new appointments within this year’s testing period.

City	Test Centre	Lab (referred to as Site Code on your Admit Card)
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IIL98
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IIL99
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILA0
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILA1
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILA2
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILDR
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILDS
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILZ6
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILZ7
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILZ8
Bangalore	Garden City College of Science And Management Studies	IILZ9
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IIL06
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IIL07
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IIL08
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IIL09
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IIL10
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IILCE
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IILCQ
Bhopal	TIT Group of Institutes	IILCR
Bhubaneswar	Silicon Institute of Technology	IILB1
Chandigarh	Rayat and Bahra Biotechnology Centre of Excellence	IILB4
Coimbatore	Karpagam University	IILD3
Ghaziabad	Hi Tech Institute of Engineering and Technology	IIL29
Ghaziabad	HR Institute of Technology	IIL59
Ghaziabad	IMS Engineering College	IILCT
Ghaziabad	IMS Engineering College	IILCU
Hyderabad	Siddhartha Institute of Engineering and Technology	IILE2
Hyderabad	Vidya Vikas Institute of Technology	IILV4
Kolkata	Heritage Institute of Technology	IILH9
Lucknow	Sahara Arts and Management Academy	IILAP
Lucknow	Sahara Arts and Management Academy	IILAQ
Lucknow	Sahara Arts and Management Academy	IILAR
Lucknow	Saroj Institute of Technology and Management	IILCC
Lucknow	Saroj Institute of Technology and Management	IILW0
Lucknow	School of Management Sciences	IILI3
Mumbai	Fr Conceicao Rodrigues College Of Engineering	IIL46
Mumbai	Fr Conceicao Rodrigues College Of Engineering	IIL48
Mumbai	M H Saboo Siddik College of Engineering	IILQ0
Mumbai	Thakur College of Science and Commerce	IILBF
Mumbai	Thakur Polytechnic	IILEA
Nagpur	Priyadarshini College of Engineering	IILBQ
Navi Mumbai	Saraswati College of Engineering	IIL56
New Delhi	Asia Pacific Institute of Management	IILEB
New Delhi	Asia Pacific Institute of Management	IILK9
New Delhi	Delhi School of Professional Studies and Research	IILX4
New Delhi	Management Education and Research Institute	IILX1
New Delhi	Management Education and Research Institute	IILX2
Varanasi	School of Management Sciences	IIL81
Varanasi	School of Management Sciences	IIL82

Seems like Prometric has made a complete joke of CAT 2009. Funny stories and incidents are surfacing across the internet. I’ll post some selected ones here below. PLEASE note that these comments do NOT reflect my opinions / view and just indicate what students across India are posting on the online forums.

1)  So CAT 2009 started with a big crash. Today the server which was supposed to conduct the online CAT exam, crashed due to heavy load. It was the first time the CAT was conducted across India on online computer systems. Students are surprised to see the behaviour of much hyped Prometric online site. Now experts are questioning the technical feasibility of the online CAT. CAT 2009 exam was canceled at the centres in these cities- Bhopal, Lucknow, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkatta Indore and New Delhi. An American firm, Prometric, which has developed the online examination system for CAT, said it would be able to disclose the problem only after 2 P.M.

2)  … my friend in pune got 2 n half to answer… coz the paper dint strt at the same time… the invigilator told them to skip the tutorial if they want… so she got 2 n half hrs ….. and i am quite sure shes knows to read the time… the invigilator was not really bothered…… i spoke to another fren who told me tat the paper took 15 mins to load n therefore got 2 hrs to answer…

3)   They were around 200 ppl in Garden City college. Initially they were seated in an auditorium and divided in 6 slots. 3 slots didnt have names in the list of candidates. The rest of them were sent in and for them either the computer crashed or they were not able to login.

4)  …. Came back from my test center at Bandra, Mumbai, first day first show slot. The test registration started off almost smoothly (if you discount malfunctioning biometric devices and digital cameras used to profile candidates). After registration, the staff had no clue as to when the test might start. My room eventually started test roughly 20 mins behind schedule. The test ending showed just how poorly trained the Prometric/NIIT/center staff was. After the test was over, we were kept seated at our places for 1 hour extra because the staff didn’t know how to end the test. People started getting frantic, some people who had to catch trains left without saving the tests, signing a declaration that they didn’t care if their scores were lost. All in all, I was disgusted at how badly it was handled at my center. But after seeing how the situation is nationwide, my center looks like an ace show ….

5) At a centre in chennai some of the systems were not accepting the end of the exam after prolonged trying the end of the exam was finally accepted by the systen….LOLZ talk about fiascos.

6) … given the magnitude of the test takers its bound to happen.. but dint know it would be “first day first show”….. and i feel the guys who ve taken the test ll ve got a true feeling of cat… what to expect…… hope prometric gets into damage control mode real fast….. its about lakhs of lives they re dealing with …

7) … being a CAT aspirant doesn’t mean shutting your mouth up, and letting them test you any way they want. Yes, one wants to be a future manager here, and THAT would mean an ability to distinguish between right and wrong irrespective of your standing (in this case, we are test takers, and PROMETRIC is testing service provider). They are NOT gods to test aspirants on their fate. prometric has done a mistake (rather mistakes since registration till testing), and aspirants should definitely come out, blame them and tear them apart, so that next time one takes up a project to decide one’s future in India, he better be well prepared …

Are the Servers and Infrastructure meant to crash or tackle such disastrous situation bravely? PROMETRIC is not a novice institution in this field, in fact it bagged the contract only because it has been conducting GMAT & GRE worldwide. This is a FIASCO……really, not expected from them. They could have undergone demo tests for judging themselves…

9) … one of the headlines read “FIRST DAY FLOP SHOW”.How embarrassing for IIMs …

10) … THIS IS A FIASCO OF MAGNONIMOUS PROPORTIONS. I just want to put down whats happening with cat in the past 4-5 years….

• CAT 2003 exam paper leaked.reexam.
• cat 2006 an utterly ambiguous VA section a disaster to the students.No clarifications on why a particular answer was the right one.
• cat 2007 an encore w.r.t cat 2006
• cat 2008 a decent APTITUDE paper relative to previous years
• cat 2009 A FIASCO

11)  one of my friends was supposed to give cat exam at jankapuri centre , new delhi and what is being told by prometric to him that your exam will be rescheduled either next week or next year …

12) they should have given contract to TIME instead of prometric aimcats were pretty well handled, never got any problem….

13) Kapil Sibal: No rescheduling of CAT for students who were not able to give today. They can appear tmrrw…

14) We are being used as lab rats for their ‘experiment with pride’.

15) Nothing that the IIMs have said till today has convinced me about the CAT going online. As far as ‘Going Green’ is concerned I seriously doubt that the amount of paper used in the CAT is large enough to call for an online CAT. And, by the way the centers now waste more electricity, so that argument’s gone down the drain.

16) We all read the mail sent by prometric and also about their contingency preparations…when they had plans for earthquake and terrorist attacks..what the hell is this now….

17) jus saw NDTV side of the story, apparently people are discussing while writing the test!!

18) Who knws may b this is just a publicity stunt?lolz..

19) .. Fingers crossed…. ..  Ditched my engineering college (RVCE) and took Garden city college.. God bless me on the D- DAY… rather God bless the SERVER..

20)  Guyz among all the chaos there is another news that is raising its hairs that.. In Lucknow centers students were discussing their CAT exam…. wtf man ..  how can u discuss while giving the paper …. 

21)  … some students names were not there in roster and were not allowed to take test  … some cud not login and some cud not even see the options after logging …  all came on NDTV ..

22) … This is what we can expect from an extreme Autonomy of the Institute….They cant feel apathy of the students who are travelling across the different cities with their relatives and after that came to know that the exams are cancelled and rescheduled….i think in india the IIMs and IITs are are too much of autonomy….Govt should have control on this…. Restrict the actions of IIMs….Its because of some foolish people in the committee who decided to go for CBT CAT with an excuse of Time saving…. but where is time saving…previously in paper-pencil based CAT it takes almost 50 days to have results and now i will take 55 days to get the results….GOD Bless IIMs from such People …

23)  .. Prometric screwin up.. I like that.. i never thought they deserved to be chosen in the first place… how do american guys know the challenges in INdia.. WAKE UP PROMETRIC! ..

24)  as per CNN IBN …..11 centers cancelled der test… center in jasola south delhi 25 studentz could’nt giv da xam becoz der individual comp. were not workn…. more than 250 students affected…

25)  .. What next !! have they seen the Q-papers and then cancelled in between..if so then the paper is already leaked to them !!! if they appear for rescheduled Exam again then they already have the idea of format and Questions… which was not supposed to be disclosed as per Prometric instructions…

26) THE PROBLEM IS WID THE CENTER SERVERS. Now for this PROMETRIC IS RESPONSIBLE. So, did the centers not run any LOADING TEST?? Prometric dint trained centers???? Unfortunately the answer is YES. One more thing the quality/reputation of Test Centers in UP(particullarly LUCKNOW) is not good. Hav IIMs asked PROMETRIC to choose these type of centers???NO!!!!!!!!! Prometric could hav choosen top government colleges / top private colleges.  Anyway, I wish that IIMs come up wid a solution. I hope everything would b alright.(aur kar bhi kya sakte hain?)

27) There doesn’t seem any clarity. I can tell you that in Mumbai the exam was delayed by an hour, and to make things worse, my exam got hanged for about 20 minutes.

28)  Now, really all this wasnt expected. Have been following the news on all channels(CNN IBM, Times Now, NDTV) nd they r reporting a centre each in Kanpur, Bhopal, Bangalore, Chennai, Lucknow, Mumbai as of now. Though we should be waiting for concrete information nd candidates to second that. But this is really shocking. Is there a guarantee that the server problems will not happen in the future exams.. For how many candidates or centres can Prometric keep rescheduling d exam..

29) How do u reschedule d exams of candidates who have not been able to give it today? Every1 had preplanned nd booked d slot. They r office goers, engineering students who have their exams atleast in Mumbai university starting next week. They r guys who wud have planned official or leisure trips which cud go for a toss. I for one have to give this exam on Monday and my official presentations nd meetings have been planned for every dam day through this week. If i dont get to give it in my slot on Monday, i cud get screwd in Office..

30) What about students who started d exam nd mid way had technical problems. They wud’ve seen d paper pattern, markings, questions etc. Nd wudnt ut be unfair that when they give it again they will have a good idea abt what questions to expect.

31) It really does a lot of harm to d mental preparedness of d candidate who goes to d center experiences problems for no fault of his nd has to reschedule nd give it again.. All mental build up goes for a toss.

32) I’m really appalled at d preparedness of the IIMs and Prometric for the biggest exam in Asia atleast. They shud’ve rather continued with d paper pencil format than create these problems for students..

33) It is better CAT authorities tone down their language because in a democracy anybody can discuss anything and CAT is not some military secrets and the Indian sub continent is going to come down if somebody discusses CAT examiantion in public. The Pakistanis could enter Mumbai and kill with a useless Indian security and is CAT such a secret document or an examination?

34) The major drawback is the candidate will hv 2 click 60 times to go from ques 1 to 60…… Confirmed by a frnd who took d test frst day, frst show …

35) …  its realy pity thing to hear that these sorts of things happening to one of the most competitive exam across the world. ..

36) … first they messed up everything with online registration. then they extended the deadline to purchase the cat voucher ( i don’t know for what reason they felt like extending the dates ) and then editing options. then cat server failed … and problems are still coming and coming….. ppl were having username problems….ppl were leaving n entering… it was annoying….pages kept stuck for one person…

37)  Everything was fine in the process until the part that used technology arrived. They took 10 minutes to register me due to a server snag while allocating me a terminal. It was like waiting at an airline check-in counter with a failed computer. Anyway, once they got the network up, their biometric device and digital camera failed.

.

.

SOURCE: Compiled from various Online Forums !!!

DISCLAIMER: The comments above are collected from various discussion forums online, and we are not responsible for whatever has been stated here. If you are related to IIMs or Prometric, and feel that any of the above is a violation of your instructions, please notify us. We would take the post down!

<Last updated at 5:00 PM IST  i.e. GMT + 5.5 ….   KEEP Watching this Post for UPDATES>

As the news of CAT Servers crashing spreads worldwide, forums all across the globe are laughing at India. Here is an article I just stumbled upon.

Today is CAT 2009 first day in India and for the first day of the online exam itself, servers in Bangalore, Chennai, Bhopal and Lucknow have crashed! India being a very advanced country when it comes to technology really needs to stop making fun of itself like this.

CAT which means Common Admission Test is an exam which must be done by MBA aspirants aiming the top Business Schools in India. The exam has always been a paper and pencil one. However for this year, India decided to introduce an online exam for CAT!

A majority of students were not really convinced of this amateur online system and finally it showed on the first day itself how AMATEUR their whole network is! On the first day itself servers crashed due to the huge number of people participating in these tests. In a nutshell, this means bad planning and poor equipments!

Update: Apparently the whole network for this exam was set up by an American company “Prometric”. And we wonder why to allocate this job to a US company when India itself can do this work!

Many students prepared their exam having in mind that the exam will be a paper-pen one and only 6 months ago they were informed that the exam will be an online one. Finally many students were not able to do so as the system itself was unavailable due to server crash.

The number of students for CAT exam has also decreased this year in India due to the SUDDEN introduction of this online exam. Many poor student were mentally preparing for the normal pen and paper exam. However after hearing that the exam is online, some did not move forward for it.

And as the cherry of it all, these server crash is a sign of being a total clown on the international level. In the coming days we’ll say “India can’t even do anonline exam”. (Which is not true but is what many people out of India will think!)

Source:  Island Crisis

NEW DELHI: As the Common Admission Test or CAT went online for the first time on Saturday, servers crashed across the country at several centres. Hundreds of students in cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Lucknow and Chandigarh have not been able to take their exams and there is uncertainty as to when they will be able to sit for them again.

The test is being held between Nov 28 and Dec 7 in 32 cities at 105 testing centres connected to a main server. The CAT committee will meet in Ahmedabad or Kolkata later in the evening to decide whether the students will be allowed to appear for the exams in the days to come or will they have to wait for a year.

Nearly 250,000 students appeared for the test. The scores of this test will determine a student’s admission to a management institute, including the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). There had been a major change in the CAT this year as it has become a computer based test from an optical marker reading test.

Related: NDTV, Economic Times, Times of India, CL Blog !!

AHMEDABAD:  The Common Admission Test (CAT) is likely to see a high number of proxy candidates appearing in the initial sessions of the MBA entrance beginning Saturday. Since the prestigious test, that grants entry into the IIMs and 150 other B-Schools, will be held over 10 days through 20 sessions, the dummy candidates are expected to give cues to genuine aspirants taking the test later.

As reported by ET, apart from friends helping out candidates by appearing in the initial slots, a few of the lesser-known CAT coaching centres too would be fielding proxy candidates to help their students. At least, two CAT-training institutes based in Gujarat confirmed this to ET on condition of anonymity. “Yes, we will field two of our faculty on Saturday to know the pattern better,” said a CAT trainer. It may be mentioned here that the CAT question paper cannot be taken out of the exam hall, hence the pattern can be known to outsiders later only through memory. The detailed report can be had here: http://bit.ly/5IG4WE

To: SatyamAssociates (Global) 

Subject: Open communication : Today’s developments 

Importance: High 

Dear colleagues 

 
I write this mail to update you on some critical Board and Leadership level changes in our company, effective immediately. A series of extremely unfortunate events led to this, which I am sure you have seen covered in the media over the past few hours.

A SWAT team consisting of senior leaders has been formed. Many of them are Satyam veterans with a minimum of ten years experience in our company and more than twenty years in the industry. I have been requested to play the role of an Interim CEO and this team will support me, as we steer Satyam through this challenging phase. These are the leaders on the ground and have always had the final call on most customer and associate related matters in the company, so far. This team has committed to work together, to make it happen. The SWAT team represents all Customer Facing units, key Horizontal Competency Units and critical Support Units.

Over the past twenty one years, with your passion and commitment we have built significant customer assets, formidable service offerings, excellent delivery processes and scalable support systems. Satyam has been consistently acknowledged for our leadership bandwidth and has a demonstrated reputation for collaborative functioning. Our renowned Full Life Cycle (FLC) model encouraged ‘Distributed and Empowered’ leadership and prepared us for all situations. This is the time when we have to apply it in real life. What we have been trained for, we will now put to work. Let us continue to handle our respective areas with total autonomy, freedom and control. This is as good a time, as any, to remind ourselves that we have been acknowledged as being amongst the top three Best Employers in India by Hewitt and Mercer in independent surveys in 2007 and American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) named us as the best globally, for our Learning practices – the first company outside USA to be ever awarded this honor. Satyam continues to have everything that is fundamentally required for its success – a strong customer base and a committed universe of approx 53,000 associates.

What we are confronted with is the challenge of continuing our business operations, seamlessly. We will need your involvement and ideas to make it happen. This might involve even more effort at every level, in the near term. This is the time to prove to the world that we are united and will succeed in overcoming the challenges.

This quarter will be tumultuous for us. Rumors will abound and it would be fair to assume that competition will try and leverage it to their advantage. As a proactive measure, we have formed fully empowered Cross Functional Teams, headed by seasoned leaders in the respective areas, to address pan-organizational issues like Delivery Excellence, Customer & Associate Retention, Pipeline Management, Cost Controls, Collections etc. You have helped to build Satyam to be what it is today – and we believe that this cannot be allowed to fail, at any cost. I am confident that I can count on your continued support as I commit to our customers that we will ensure deliverables and commitments are serviced.

On behalf of our new leadership team, I apologize to you for the uncertainty and inconvenience that this incident has caused to you and your families. I assure you that we will emerge stronger, because of this. Increased focus on transparency at all levels, integrity and ethical functioning will be ensured. I want you to stand confidently in front of your families and friends and say that we will now be a better company and that we shall soon be a successful case study of how organizations have turned over a new leaf.

We will be conducting “U Speak” (our Meet-the-Leadership sessions) in each city in India starting next week and will have numerous Webinars to address associates in various countries. We will be meeting many of our customers in person over the next two weeks and will meet those of you onsite, at that time. In these sessions, we will explain to you what happened and articulate the actions that are being taken to retain your confidence in our company.

Let us fight this battle together. I am confident that we will emerge stronger, TOGETHER.

 
Ram Mynampati

——————–

Also Read:

1) The Satyam Fraud -2: Letter from Mr. Ramalinga Raju to its Board of Directors!

2) The Satyam Fraud -1: India’s biggest corporate scandal in history! Satyam chief resigns, admitting 823-million-dollar fraud !!    

     .

[UPDATE: The letter is now available for download in high resolution. Click on the thumbnails.]

For your convenience, the complete text is given below:

——————————————————

To the Board of Directors
Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Dear Board Members, It is with deep regret, at tremendous burden that I am carrying on my conscience, that I would like to bring the following facts to your notice:

1. The Balance Sheet carries as of September 30, 2008
   • Inflated (non-existent) cash and bank balances of Rs.5,040 crore (as against Rs. 5361 crore reflected in the books)
   • An accrued interest of Rs. 376 crore which is non-existent
   • An understated liability of Rs. 1,230 crore on account of funds arranged by me
   • An over stated debtors position of Rs. 490 crore (as against Rs. 2651 [cr.] reflected in the books)
2. For the September quarter (02) we reported a revenue of Rs.2,700 crore and an operating margin of Rs. 649 crore (24% Of revenues) as against the actual revenues of Rs. 2,112 crore and an actual operating margin of Rs. 61 Crore ( 3% of revenues). This has resulted in artificial, cash and bank balances going up by Rs. 588 crore in Q2 alone.

The gap in the Balance Sheet has arisen purely on account of inflated profits over a period of last several years (limited only to Satyam standalone, books of subsidiaries reflecting true performance). What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew significantly (annualized revenue run rate of Rs. 11,276 crore in the September quarter, 2008 and official reserves of Rs. 8,392 crore). The differential in the real profits and the one reflected in the books was further accentuated by the fact that the company had to carry additional resources and assets to justify higher level of operations — thereby significantly increasing the costs.

Every attempt made to eliminate the gap failed. As the promoters held a small percentage of equity, the concern was that poor performance would result in a take-over; thereby exposing the gap. It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.

The aborted Maytas acquisition deal was the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones. Maytas’ investors were convinced that this is a good divestment opportunity and a strategic fit. Once Satyam’s problem was solved, it was hoped that Maytas’ payments can be delayed. But that was not to be. What followed in the last several days is common knowledge.

I would like the Board to know:

1. That neither myself, nor the Managing Director (including our spouses) sold any shares in the last eight years — excepting for a small proportion declared and sold for philanthropic purposes.

2. That in the last two years a net amount of Rs. 1,230 crore was arranged to Satyam (not reflected in the books of Satyam) to keep the operations going by resorting to pledging all the promoter shares and raising funds from known sources by giving all kinds of assurances (Statement enclosed, only to the members of the board). Significant dividend payments, acquisitions, capital expenditure to provide for growth did not help matters. Every attempt was made to keep the wheel moving and to ensure prompt payment of salaries to the associates. The last straw was the selling of most of the pledged share[s] by the lenders on account of margin triggers.

3. That neither me, nor the Managing Director took even one rupee/dollar from the company and have not benefitted in financial terms on account of the inflated results.

4. None of the board members, past or present, had any knowledge of the situation in which the company is placed. Even business leaders and senior executives in the company, such as, Ram Mynampati, Subu D, T.R. Anand, Keshab Panda, Virender Agarwal, A.S. Murthy, Han T, SV Krishnan, Vijay Prasad, Manish Mehta, Murali V. Sriram Papani, Kavale, Joe Lagioia, Ravindra Penumetsa, Jayaraman and Prabhakar Gupta are unaware of the real situation as against the books of accounts. None of my or Managing Director’s immediate or extended family members has any idea about these issues.

Having put these facts before you, I leave it to the wisdom of the board to take the matters forward. However, I am also taking the liberty to recommend the following steps:

1. A Task Force has been formed in the last few days to address the situation arising but of the failed Maytas acquisition attempt. This consists of some of the most accomplished leaders of Satyam; Subu D, T.R. Anand, Keshab Panda and Virender Agarwal , representing business functions; and A.S. Murthy, Han T and Murali V representing support functions. I suggest that Ram Mynampàti be made the Chairman of this Task Force to immediately address some of the operational matters on hand. Ram can also act as an interim CEO reporting to the board.

2. Merrill Lynch can be entrusted with the task of quickly exploring some Merger opportunities.

3. You may have a testatement of accounts’ prepared by the auditors in light of the facts that.I have placed before you.

I have promoted and have been associated with Satyam for well over twenty years now I have seen it grow from few people to 53,000 people, with 185 Fortune 500 companies as customers and operations in 66 countries. Satyam has established an excellent leadership and competency base at all levels. I sincerely apologize to all Satyamites and stakeholders, who have made Satyam a special organization, for the current situation. I am confident they will stand by the company in this hour of crisis.

In light of the above, I fervently appeal to the board to hold together to take some important steps Mr T R Prasad is well placed to mobilize support from the government at this crucial time. With the hope that members of the Task Force arid the financial advisor, Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America) will stand by the company at this crucial hour, I am marking copies of this statement to them as well.

Under the circumstances, I am tendering my resignation as the chairman of Satyam and shall continue in this position only till such time the current board is expanded. My continuance is just to ensure enhancement of the board over the next several days or as early as possible.

I am now prepared to subject myself to the laws of the land and lace consequences thereof.

(B. Ramalinga Raju)
Copies marked to:
1. Chairman SEBI
2. Stock Exchanges

———————–

Also Read:

1) The Satyam Fraud -3: Letter From Interim CEO to the Employees

2) The Satyam Fraud -1: India’s biggest corporate scandal in history! Satyam chief resigns, admitting 823-million-dollar fraud !!

[Credits: Arun Prabhudesai]

Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, told the Bombay Stock Exchange that he did not profit from the accounting problems he disclosed Wednesday. (Adeel Halim/Bloomberg News)

NEW DELHI: The chairman of Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian information technology company that serves numerous Fortune 500 companies, resigned on Wednesday amid major accounting irregularities, roiling Indian markets and causing Satyam’s shares to plummet 78 percent.

Ramalinga Raju tendered his resignation after revealing that the company’s financial position had been massively inflated during the course of the company’s expansion from a handful of employees into an outsourcing giant with a workforce of 53,000 and operations in 66 countries. Of the 53.6 billion rupees in cash and bank balances the company reported at the end of its second quarter, which ended September 2008, 50.4 billion rupees were nonexistent, Raju said Wednesday.

In a four and a half page statement to the Bombay stock exchange, Raju described how the gap in the balance sheet had arisen on account of inflated profits over several years. “What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew,” his statement said.

Satyam provides systems and software, and serves as the back office for some of the largest banks, manufacturing and media companies in the world.

Clients include General Electric and General Motors. In some cases, the company is responsible for keeping track of clients’ own transactions with their customers, and the client’s own books.

Satyam, which in a separate statement said it was “shocked” by Raju’s revelations, has been listed on the NYSE since May of 2001, and listed on Euronext in January of last year. The company is audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which had no immediate comment.

Satyam has been under scrutiny in recent months, after an October report that the company had been banned from World Bank contracts for installing spy software on some World Bank computers. In December, the World Bank confirmed that Satyam had been banned but did not elaborate on the cause.

Also in December, Satyam’s investors revolted after the company proposed buying two firms with ties to Raju’s sons. That acquisition, had been “the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones,” Raju said in his statement Wednesday.

The scandal has immediately raised questions over accounting standards in India as a whole, as observers asked themselves whether similar problems might lie buried elsewhere. The risk premium for Indian companies will rise in investors’ eyes, said Nilesh Jasani, India strategist at Credit Suisse.

News of the scandal – quickly dubbed India’s equivalent to the Enron scandal in the United States – sent jitters through the entire Indian stock market on Wednesday, sending the benchmark Sensex stock market index down 7 percent by late afternoon.

“This was a company which had the most high profile independent director.

It had an auditor of significant repute,” Tarun Siodia, head of research at Andand Rathi, told Reuters. “Despite that, if such an event can occur, then why not other companies? That is going to raise bigger issues.”

R.K. Gupta, managing director at Taurus Asset Management in New Delhi, also speaking to Reuters, echoed this: “If a company’s chairman himself says they built fictitious assets, who do you believe here? Not only Satyam, this has put a question mark on the entire corporate governance system in India.”

Just a few months ago, Raju was trying to convince investors that the company was sound. In October, he surprised investors with better than expected results, saying he was “pleased” that the company had “achieved this in a challenging global macroeconomic environment, and amidst the volatile currency scenario that became reality.” But by late December, it seems he had little support from board members or investors: Four of the company’s directors resigned in recent weeks.

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Also Read:

1) The Satyam Fraud -3: Letter From Interim CEO to the Employees

2) The Satyam Fraud -2: Letter from Mr. Ramalinga Raju to its Board of Directors!

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Related Links:

1) India’s Satyam chief resigns, admitting 823-million-dollar fraud: http://bit.ly/16gIv

2) India’s Satyam chief quits, says profits inflated: http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE50616H20090107?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

3) Satyam chief resigns over inflated assets: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/07/business/outsource.php

4) Satyam does an Enron! : http://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/satyam-does-an-enron/

5) Satyam head quits after admitting massive fraud [Express Buzz]: http://bit.ly/LXmc

6) Satyam Chairman Resigns After Falsifying Accounts (Update1): http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a37YOX1irBus&refer=asia

7) India’s Satyam chief resigns, says profits inflated: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/07/AR2009010700220.html

[PS: A few links have been shortened using URL shorteners as they were too long to be displayed correctly.]

Matt of WordPress announced in his blog that Automattic, provider of WordPress blogs, has acquired Intense Debate, a portfolio company of the TechStars startup program out of Boulder, Colorado. 

” For those of you who aren’t familiar with the product, Intense Debate supercharges the comment section of WordPress blogs and other sites with cool features like threading, reply by email, voting, reputation, and global profiles …

Long-term, I think that comments are the most crucial interaction point for blogs, and an area that deserves a lot of investment and innovation. Comments really haven’t changed in a decade, and it’s time to spice things up a little … “

 This enables WordPress users to introduce comment threading in their blogs, a long-wished feature of mine as well as a large no. of other wordpress user, and the official announcement has come as really great news. In my view, this is one of the best aquisitions done by wordpress, and a large step in its mission of becoming the preferred blogging platform of the entire internet community.

 With this aquisition, Intense Debate has again gone into beta (invite-only mode) for sometime. This will not affect their existing users, but all new installs will require invite codes. Also, the users can look forward to a tighter integration of the IntenseDebate plugin with some of the other Automattic joints including Akismet and Gravatar.

 Related Links:

1) Intense Debate Blog:  .. We’re extremely pleased to announce that IntenseDebate will now be joining the Automattic team! ..

2) Ma.tt Says:  .. Going forward, the plan is to keep Intense Debate available as a platform-agnostic independent service, much like Akismet ..

3) Hack WordPress:  ..  a major step towards improving how comments work within WordPress ..

4) Social Median:  ..  a WordPress.com commenting system would dwarf disqus ..

5) Technorati Reactions to story from VCMike’s Blog

6) VCMike’s Blog:  ..  emergence of comments as an important piece of the blogging equation  ..

7) I Am Actually Not a Geek:  ..  Interesting to see where this leads  ..

A few hours back, when I opened the official GPGPU site, something strange happened. Instead of the usual clean homepage (yeah, i do admire the site) full of resources, I saw this (see image above). A black webpage claiming that some Iraqi hacker named Ahmed Ali has hacked into the official GPGPU website. Initially, i thought, someone is playing a prank on Lan, or it is something on my computer. I went to my friend’s computer and then opened the site from there, and omg! .. this was there too. We immediately googled for GpuGpu and found that the cache was intact. This meant that, the hacker had indeed recently broken into the site.

Trying to get some info about this person, we visited the link suggested by him through proxy, but it seems the webpage doesn’t exist. But in the end it is a sad news for the scientific community at large that a plain hacker could so easily break into such a reputed worldwide forum, tampering the homepage, and perhaps with the sensitive data too.