Offer to quit in India gods row
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India's culture minister offers to resign in a row over whether Hindu gods are mythological figures.
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The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said Tuesday he will quit the human rights organisation Amnesty International in protest of its change of policy on abortion.
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After regulators unveiled a plan to ban anonymous investment and curb derivatives, some foreign investors may consider leaving Indiaâs red-hot stock markets.
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Comment is free: Madeleine Bunting: Gordon Brown is one of many using religious shorthand to show moral purpose. Can he square it with his faith in markets?.
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INDIAN takeaway ordered from a British restaurant by Barmy Army fans in Australia will be destroyed when it arrives by plane.Comment
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Britons have been advised by the Foreign Office to leave three states in Nigeria.
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The Story: Silicon Valley businesses have long argued that changes in the immigration laws are needed to ensure a continuing supply of highly skilled workers. The current limit of 65,000 under the standard H1-B visas is not enough, they say. (The quota was filled in less than a month in 2007.)[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    But that number obscures an important fact: The real total of visas issued to highly skilled workers is closer to 400,000 annually, according to the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) agency. And that, say some critics, may mean that the law is being abused.There are two reasons the number is so large.First, the H1-B visa cap has a built-in exemption that allows an additional 20,000 workers who have graduated from U.S. universities with an advanced degree (master?s or higher) to enter every year.Second ? and the biggest reason ? is the use of L-1 visas, which are granted to executives and workers with specialized skills employed by multinational companies. Because there is no cap on L-1 visas issued each year, the numbers have soared. In the last three years, an average of 315,000 L-1 visas have been issued each year.Unlike the H-1B visas, the L-1 visas are not intended to be a springboard to possible permanent residency and a coveted green card. In essence, the L-1s are intended to allow multinational companies to rotate staff across national borders, so they can transfer foreign managers and specialists within the company to U.S. offices for a limited period of time.But the vast number of workers admitted with L-1 visas has critics suspecting that companies ? Indian outsourcing firms in particular ?are using them as a back door to bring in lower-paid workers to do jobs that could be performed by Americans, rather than for the intended purposes of staff rotation."It's clear that foreign outsourcing firms are abusing the system, and we can't let that continue," Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said earlier this year as Congress debated immigration reform. Here?s what upset him: According to immigration records, 14 of 20 companies whose employees were granted the most L-1 visas were offshore outsourcing firms, including Tata Consultancy, Satyam Computer Services, Wipro, and Infosys Technologies.Tata Consultancy obtained 4,887 L-1s in fiscal 2006 ? the most of any company ? and 3,601 in fiscal 2007, second only to Cognizant (4,869), a U.S.-based outsourcer with a major presence in India. "I find it hard to believe that any one company has that many individuals ? legitimately being transferred within a single year," Durbin said in Congress. (Tata declined to comment to InfoWorld, but a spokesman told BusinessWeek, "We're complying with the law and with the regulations. We want to work with Congress to address any issues they may have.")Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Tata, and Cognizant also appear on the CIS?s top 10 list of companies obtaining H-1B visas for employees in fiscal 2007, along with Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Motorola, and Intel. Those facts further raise critics? suspicions.Bob Meltzer, who heads the VisaNow firm that helps applicants obtain visas, says there?s a growing belief that the L-1s are being abused today, though he can?t tell if that belief is justified. He does note that the L-1s had been abused in the early 1990s in the manner that critics suspect is happening today.The Bottom Line: Immigration is a tough issue. And it?s even tougher when we don?t have all the facts, as is the case on employers? claims of labor shortages requiring more foreign hires and employees? claims of being replaced by foreign workers by companies looking to save a buck. When you?ve figured out the right balance, let the pols know what you think.Complete list of 2007's underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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Engineering star Ashok Krishnamurthi quit his job at Juniper Networks with more than &#36;2 million in gains from exercising options and selling shares in his final weeks with the Sunnyvale networking company.
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Don't put all your eggs in one basket India will likely remain the offshore king when it comes to firms farming out IT skills abroad, but businesses are increasingly looking to spread the risk by adopting several locations, according to Gartner.â¦
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India's Narain Karthikeyan has accepted an offer to drive for Jordan in 2005, according to his manager.
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LIVERPOOL was today braced for massive job losses after Royal &amp; Sun Alliance announced it was shifting 1,110 posts to India. A spokesman for the insurance firm said it was too
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At some stage in everyone&#39;s career  comes a desire to throw down tools and walk away, and plenty of  motivational books say you should resist that temptation. Now,  a new book says quitting can be a good strategy.
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NEW DELHI: A Zee official told TOI, &quot;Our message to all those who are trying to unlawfully take the rights that we had won is - lay off our rights or be prepared to pay the price.
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Eric Simons, South Africa&#39;s coach, is seriously considering giving up his job. Upset with the performance of his team in the recent Test series against Sri Lanka, Simons has decided to assess his position at the end of the ICC Champions Trophy in England.
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PLEADING they cannot properly defend an unwilling client, Slobodan Milosevic&#39;s court-appointed lawyers have asked to quit, leaving the UN tribunal in a dilemma over how to conclude the most important war crimes trial in half a century in a way history
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AHMEDABAD, India  - Five years after their loved ones were brutally killed and they were forced to flee, thousands of Muslim victims of one of India's worst religious riots have pleaded for help to return home.
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LONDON  - British insurer Royal &amp; SunAlliance said Monday it plans to transfer more than 1,100 jobs to India over the next few years in a bid to cut costs.