WASHINGTON -- Kicking off a high-profile U.S. visit, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid out his vision for "mutually beneficial" economic ties with the U.S. and said officials this week will sign a new memorandum of understanding on energy security and climate change.

Prime Minister Singh speaks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

BANGALORE // The success of a chain of Indian business schools is making the country’s MBA graduates global targets.

Despite the lack of jobs for graduates throughout the world, students at the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore (IIM-B) and its six associated schools have no shortage of offers.

Handset maker consolidating sites globally as part of business transformation plan.

The move by mobile handset maker Sony Ericsson to close its product development site in the southern Indian city of Chennai will affect the jobs of less than 60 employees at the site, a company spokesperson said Friday.

Sony Ericsson Thursday said it was moving its North American headquarters from North Carolina to Atlanta and closing a half-dozen sites worldwide as part of a global consolidation that will cut about 2,000 jobs.

MELBOURNE - Australian mobile phone retailer Crazy John’s is reportedly offshoring about 150 jobs to India’s commercial hub Mumbai where its parent company Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) operates a call centre.

According to ‘The Australian’, around 200 employees of Crazy John’s will face redundancy as part of its restructuring program in the first half of 2010, when over 150 jobs will be shifted to Mumbai.

The remaining staff of Crazy John’s that will be made redundant later would initially come from finance, credit management and customer relations departments, sources said.

COIMBATORE, India -- This ancient city has turned itself in recent years into a manufacturing dynamo emblematic of India's economic rebirth. But a homicide case playing out in an auto-parts factory here is raising concerns about whether the Indian industrial miracle is hitting a wall of industrial unrest.

India is targeting generation of 20,000 megawatts of solar power by 2022, joining China as the two Asian nations that resist emission caps draft plans to boost renewable energy before next month’s global climate change talks.

India, Asia’s third-biggest energy consumer, is set to unveil its national solar energy plan “in about a week,” Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said in Mumbai today.