• Six developing countries, including India, will join the US and Britain, among others, in a $350 million World Bank project to combat climate change by managing forest resources better.
• The Ministry of Human Resource Development has said that it is open to the Indian Institutes of Management setting up campuses abroad.
• India has outpaced China as the world’s fastest growing telecom market, according to credit rating agency Moody’s. In the last 18 months, India’s net additions averaged 10 million subscribers per month, compared to China’s 8 million.
• The government has approved the part-sale of its stakes in two power companies—NTPC and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVNL). The 5% disinvestment in NTPC and 10% in SJVNL is likely to fetch the government around Rs 10,000 crore this year.
• Six Indian cities—Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune—are among the eight top global destinations for outsourcing of services, according to the Tholons-Global Services Survey.

The Bad...

• Mahindra Satyam has served a two-month notice to about 5,000 employees. An email to the employees from the management stated they would not be a part of the company after December 18.
• The number of applicants for the Common Admission Test for admission to the IIMs and 150 other B-schools has dropped by 12% over last year. This is its first annual dip in over a decade.

And The Ugly

• The labour unrest at auto-component manufacturer Rico Auto and other auto-part companies on October 20 caused a production loss of about Rs 25 crore,according to industry estimates.
• For the first time in the last seven years, farm sector growth in 2009-10 will turn negative (-2%), because of the poor monsoon. In 2008-09, the farm sector had grown by 1.6%.
• Fraud is increasing twice as fast in financial services as in other sectors, according to the Kroll Annual Global Fraud Report. Financial services firms lost an average $15.2 million to fraud over the last three years—a 22% rise as compared with 2008.