There are a few big news stories that have been the topic around the ol’ water cooler here in India – with significant ramifications.

The first involves Ramalinga Raju, the CEO and founder of Satyam, was arrested on charges of criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy, cheating, falsification of records and forgery. Raju resigned on Wednesday after revealing years of accounting fraud, including an admission that about $1 billion, or 94% of the cash balances on Satyam’s books at end-September, did not exist. This has big implications for India since Satyam was one of the largest IT outsourcing companies in the country. Not only will thousands lose their jobs (estimated at 10,000) due to the fraud, but it casts a large shadow of doubt for foreign investors looking to hire Satyam and other similar companies. The fraud, dubbed as “India’s Enron” will also have some impact on the accounting firms. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) was the auditor of Satyam, and is coming under heavy fire for not finding the fraud. From what I understand it would be difficult to “dissolve” PWC here in India, but I would put money on some sort of accounting reform.

The other big story in the news is the fact that India has run out of gas. Well, technically that’s not true. The country has gas, but those responsible for delivering it to the gas stations, airports, etc. are on strike. As you can imagine, the otherwise chaotic India was thrown into a fit as thousands of people flocked to the gas stations to fill up their cars before the gas ran out. As I write this approximately 60% of Delhi’s gas stations are out of gas. The president of India has vowed to take action today, so hopefully he does something soon otherwise the country will grind to a halt. GSS, for example, depends on dozens of cabs to pick up and drop off employees at work. If the cabs don’t have gas then the GSS employees will not be able to get to work. On the other hand, having a day off wouldn’t be bad.

Finally, I thought I would comment on the American food in India. Since my normal “food guide” left for the weekend I was forced to order room service from the hotel. However, since I’ve been eating nothing but Indian food since arriving, my stomach was very grateful for the break. I ordered a bit of everything since it would most likely be my only relief for the entire week – pasta carbonara, fried rice, cashew chicken, and chicken satay (ok, so I didn’t abandon Indian food entirely). Although very welcome, I find that American food abroad is, well…. not American. Even some pizza I had earlier in the week was much different. Most of the differences come not from the way the food is prepared, but in the ingredients they have available. For example, pasta carbonara is made with ham – but the ham was fattier and stringier than normal ham – almost like bacon that isn’t crispy. The fried rice was made with an Indian white rice that is thinner and longer than normal and contained tons of an Indian form of green onions. So although the American food was a great treat… it’s just not the same as home.

The company’s market value has shriveled to $330 million, from more than $7 billion six months ago.