Stockholm - Swedish engineering group Sandvik said Thursday it planned to cut 1,040 jobs and reduce production over weakened demand mainly in the automotive and engineering industries.

The group has some 47,000 employees worldwide and operations in 130 countries.

Its core operations include tools for metal-working, machinery and equipment for rock excavation, as well as stainless and high-alloy steels and other metals.

ZTE Corporation, the leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has signed up a 1.33 billion ($194.73 million) RMB deal with China Telecom Corporation Limited for the initial phase of a CDMA network construction project starting this year, which will cover both wireless and service networks.

Global financial crisis has created a tough situation for industry and it is adopting various measures to save itself from long term losses. The Pawan Ruia-controlled tyre major, Dunlop India, has decided to close production in its mother plant in Sahagunj at West Bengal, in line with its cost cutting measures. The company had resumed operations at the production plant in January, after five year closure.

The officials of company said that it would utilize the time to reshape its production strategy and revival of plans. Dunlop would work on making the brand more popular across the country.

The ongoing world economic crisis has widely impacted the real estate sector. The largest real estate company in India, DLF has announced various measures to cut costs and reduce unnecessary expenses. DLF would terminate services of some of company's employees and stop working on some of its projects.

Unitech and Parsvnath Developers also retrenched their staff last month in line with cost cutting drive due to global meltdown.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), largest IT services provider in India, has further expanded its operations in China by inaugurating its fourth global delivery centre at Tianjin, which will have capacity of 300 seats. The other centres in China are at Bejing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. With this, the company will have a staff strength of over 1,300 in the region.

Public sector major NMDC Limited has signed a MoU with the West Bengal Mineral Development & Trading Corporation Ltd (WBMDTC) to explore, develop and mine Deocha-Pachmi coal block in Birbhum.

The area stretches to about 9.7 sq km, but initially, mining will be carried out only in 3.2 sq km area, which has a coal reserve of 450 million tonne, 100 metre deep. Both companies shall have 50-50 stake in the venture.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, by NMDC Director (Technical) P S Upadhyay and WBMDCTC CMD Arun Kumar Sen.

A wholly owned subsidiary of JSW Steel, JSW Building Systems, has announced to form 50:50 joint venture with Severfield Reeve Structures. Severfield Reeve Structures is a UK based company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Severfield-Rowen. It is known for high quality structural steel across the world.

Suzlon Energy, the biggest player in the wind turbine business in Asia and the fifth-largest worldwide, has decided to set up Solar Power Plant. 

At the Indian Economic Summit, Tulsi R Tanti, Suzlon Energy chairman and Managing Director stated, "We are exploring the solar energy sector as India has enormous opportunity in solar and wind power." 

Although he did not give any other financial details, he did mention identification of probable sites in Gujarat and Rajasthan, with an area of 10 acres required for one MW of solar power generation.

Tokyo - Mazda Motor Corp plans to buy back a 20-per-cent stake from Ford Motor Co during Wednesday trading at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Japanese automaker said Tuesday.

With Mazda's buyback, Ford's stake would reduce to 13 per cent from the current 33.4 per cent in order to raise funds by selling Mazda shares.

Mazda was expected to purchase 96.8 million shares for 184 yen per share, worth a total of about 17.9 billion yen (185.18 million dollars), the company said.

But the two companies would continue their 30-year business partnership while keeping their joint ventures, Mazda said.

NETGEAR®, Inc., a global provider of technologically innovative, branded networking solutions, declared that The Tolly Group, the industry’s premier independent IT test lab, certified two of its Fully Managed 10/100/1000 Switches for growing Small- to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) as "Up to Spec," a designation that indicates these products perform "as advertised."

Alcatel-Lucent has chalked out a plan to expand its business in highly potential Indian market. The company is a leading global communication solution provider, which has already significant presence in the market. It has 5,000 employees in India and would start a recruitment drive to satisfy its manpower needs.

Alcatel-Lucent CEO, Ben Verwaayen said that the company sees a huge potential in India due to availability of resources, talent and big market. The country would grow despite uneven global financial condition and economic slowdown.

Beverages and snack foods major, PepsiCo, would continue its expansion in India, irrespective of global financial crisis and slowdown in industry. The company has recently decided to invest $500 million in India in next three years.

PepsiCo India Chairman, Sanjeev Chadha ruled out slowdown in FMCG sector and said that only banking and insurance sector is widely hit by financial crisis. He was speaking to the reporters in the side lines of function of World Economic Forum (WEF). He was recently elected as head of beverages and food industry of Indian region.

Indian tyre manufacturer Apollo Tyres, has announced an investment of Rs 3,000 crores in the next five years to establish greenfield plants in India as well as abroad, along with expansion of existing production units.

The company, by doing so, is targeting to join the league of top six tyre makers internationally. Apollo is aiming at a $4 Billion turnover in the next five years, by setting up units in Chennai and East Europe.

In "a very sharp review" of its investment plans over the last 60 days, UTV Software Communications Ltd has taken steps to cut costs in its broadcasting division.

The company said in a statement on Monday that by phasing out its Delhi operations, it has consolidated its operations for four television channels - Bindass, Bindass Movies, UTV Movies and World Movies - from the Mumbai office only.

informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that it has bagged three orders worth Rs 937 crore in water business, during September and October 2008 in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh.

This order is in addition to the EPC project worth Rs 582 crore that the engineering major secured from the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board; and two EPC projects worth Rs 355 crore from the Delhi Jal Board.

Building up the first serious challenge to Sun TV's dominance in the southern cable television market, News Corp's Star India Pvt. Ltd and Bangalore-based entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced a joint venture (JV) on Friday, for enhancing viewing experience of audience in South India.

Though the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Star will hold a majority stake in the JV - named 'Star Jupiter Entertainment Television Ltd' - which will also pick up a majority stake in Chandrasekhar's Asianet Communications Ltd which currently broadcasts general entertainment channels (GECs) in Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam. Star's existing channel in Tamil Nadu - Vijay TV - will now be part of the new JV.

Leading railways equipment manufacturer, Bombardier Transportation, has decided to increase its presence in India. It would develop India as a metro car production hub for the Southeast Asian region, in the next 4-5 years. 

The company launched a new railway vehicle-making facility at Savli, Vadodara in Gujarat. It would produce stainless steel car bodies and bogies and carry out final assembly at Savli plant. It would start operation very soon, after orders of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

SKF India, the largest supplier of automotive bearings, has announced the postponement of its new manufacturing facility at Haridwar, which was to be set up at a cost of Rs 150 crore. 

Rakesh Makhija, Managing Director, SKF India stated “We have decided to postpone work at the Haridwar plant due to a slowdown in market demand. However, there is not much impact on the demand for industrial products and our Rs 300-crore investment in the other plant at Ahmedabad, which will make equipment for the industrial sector, is on track. The plant will be operational next year.”

State-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has made announcement that the company has linked up with IT products company Novatium Solutions to offer Nova netPC enabled with the BSNL broadband. 
 
According to sources, the key factor that will allow broadband penetration is an affordable computing access device and Nova netPC provides the customers to get home a personal computer at just Rs 2,999.

Valecha Engineering announced that the company has pocketed two orders worth Rs 160 crore for construction-related work in Delhi and Mumbai.

The source close to the company said that first contract of Rs 110 crore has been bagged for a bridge project in Delhi.

Further, the company secured another project worth Rs 50 crore to execute the sky-walk projects in Mumbai.

According to reports, the sky-walk is an elevated walk-way connecting the railway station and points where there are high concentrations of pedestrians.