Low demand due to decline in construction activities, high freight charges and rising input costs caused Ambuja Cement to post decline of 25 per cent in the net profit for the financial year ended December 31, 2008.

The company's net profit declined to Rs 1,390 crore in the reporting period as compared to Rs 1,846 crore in the financial year 2007. The company posted 9.5% increase in net sales during the period which stood at Rs 6,261 crore as compared to Rs 5,718 crore in the same period last year.

Vodafone Essa

Country’s premier software industry, Sun Microsystems is all set to organize its global annual developer conference at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), Hyderabad February 18-20 for the third time in a row.

Apart from Hyderabad, the conference would also have its supporting sessions in Pune and Chennai.

In its press release, the company said that the three day event is fundamentally designed to display how developers can leverage Sun technologies, services and products to drive the next generation of technology innovation.

Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nomura Holdings Inc., has finally rolled out its equity sales and trading and investment banking operations in India.

It may be noted that, last year in October, Nomura, a global investment bank, bought the majority of Lehman Brothers' employees in India, including the equities sales and trading, equity research, fixed income liquid markets sales and trading, and investment banking teams.

Larsen & Toubro (L&T), the diversified conglomerate has revealed its plan to recruit nearly 10,000 people over the next three years for executing its various projects.

Out of total workforce, 5,000 employees would be recruited for the $7 billion group's power equipment manufacturing facility and other units at Hazira, Gujarat. The employees would be deployed for projects like mono rail, power reactors and turbines.

L&T plans to invest Rs 4,500 crore in Hazira, where the company has heavy engineering manufacturing units.

Reliance Communications, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has finally launched its GSM services in over 50 towns and more than 5,000 villages in Jammu and Kashmir.

With the launch, the subscribers in J&K can now experience best-in-class telephony services at the most friendly price points, including local calling and SMS, STD, ISD, roaming and Value -Added Services.