“The special part for me is we’ve never played India. So we can pretty much play anything we’ve ever played,” guitarist Kerry King said at a press conference for the event.

Slayer began in 1981 when guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman met at an audition for another band and decided to form their own act. Bassist and vocalist Tom Araya, who had worked with King previously, was roped in and drummer Dave Lombardo was recruited when he delivered a pizza near the King household, and met the “boy with all the guitars.”

The band’s style is hard to duplicate: fast, slick guitar riffs backed up by Lombardo’s thundering double-bass drums and Araya’s shouted vocals. Slayer is the sort of band that stands astride the scale of noise to musical genius. People usually hate it or swear by it.

Their lyrics have gotten them into trouble over the years. Slayer’s songs are about war, serial killers, religion, Satan, post-traumatic stress disorder and the end of the world. A song about Nazi doctor and torturer Josef Mengele and the horrors he inflicted on Jews and other concentration camp inmates led to Slayer being branded pro-Nazis and racists. In its 31 years, the band has denied charges like these.

The band had a brush with India in 2006, when a Mumbai Christian group protested against the content and artwork of its album “Christ Illusion,” which featured Jesus missing an eye and both arms. The album was banned in India, and publisher EMI pulled all copies off the shelves. In America, “Christ Illusion” won Slayer its first Grammy awards for “Eyes of the Insane” and “Final six.”

“I don’t think that’s right when governments or countries ban any kind of music,” Lombardo said. “(But) we’re going to continue doing what we do, which is to offend the best way we can, and that is not going to stop.”

A staple question at nearly every interview the band has given is whether Slayer are Satanists, war mongers or racists.

“Any time we’re in this kind of situation, I’ll be the first to say, ‘I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in Satan.’  Satan’s just a nice topic, and everybody gets behind it because it’s fun,” King said. “If I had to pick something, I’d be an atheist. What I write is definitely not what I think. I think it (just) makes good songs and good entertainment.”

India has proven fertile ground for rock n’ roll of many kinds. Bangalore, with its education scene, workers from all over India and a well known pub culture, has spawned a metal scene of its own, mainly because many of the members come from the multiple colleges throughout the city. And when Iron Maiden played in 2007 it opened the floodgates for many other international acts. One of the biggest, Metallica, played to a 50,000-strong crowd in Bangalore in 2011 after a planned show in Gurgaon near New Delhi fell apart.

Lombardo, the only one of the four members who has left the band ( and since rejoined), and recorded albums with musicians from other genres, said he hadn’t heard any Indian bands, but was open to collaboration. “I mean, I would. I don’t know about Slayer.”

King’s advice to up-and-coming Indian bands is an extension of the philosophy towards his own work, he said: “Just play what you’re into. If you don’t, your fans will see right through it.”

Notoriously tight-lipped about their works-in-progress, the band did not divulge any details about the upcoming album, save that two songs have been recorded, but not mixed, and two more songs with no lead guitars or vocals recorded.

“We are way further ahead than we usually are… So hopefully, by next summer, it will be out,” King said.

Hard rock fans in the meantime have the promise of another treat to hold them over: Guns n’ Roses is scheduled to play Bangalore in November.

(Tom Araya, bassist of Slayer, performs during the Hellfest music Festival in Clisson, western France, June 20, 2010. Reuters photo: Stephane Mahe)

The company’s shares fell as much as 38 percent to a near
three-year low of 56 Canadian cents on Monday on the Toronto
Stock Exchange. The stock was one of the biggest percentage
losers on the exchange.

“The size of the increase is fairly large and comes as a bit
of a shock,” said Raymond James analyst Adam Low.

Baja said it expects spending on the Boleo project, which it
owns along with a Korean consortium, to be $246 million more
than the $1.14 billion estimated in 2010.

Baja, which owns 70 percent of the project, will finance
close to $172 million to $175 million of the shortfall, with its
Korean partners responsible for the rest.

Baja said it expects to secure funds within the next two
months.

Low said Baja may have to sell as much as 20 percent of its
stake in the project or opt for equity financing to bridge the
gap.

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based miner also said three
of its directors have resigned, bringing to four the number of
directors who have quit since shareholders voted to keep the
board unchanged in a special meeting earlier in April. The
company did not say why the three directors resigned.

The special meeting was the culmination of a long battle
between the board and Mount Kellett Capital Management LP,
Baja’s largest shareholder, which had called for a change in top
management.

Mount Kellett Capital, which owns 19.84 percent of Baja’s
outstanding shares as of April 5, was looking to place two of
its directors on the board.

Baja’s shares were trading down 32 percent at 62 Canadian
cents in late morning trade.

The assets being sold to Bakken Hunter had proved reserves
of 12.4 million barrels of oil equivalent as of Dec. 31, and
produce about 950 boe/d of Bakken light oil.

Baytex said the deal would lower its 2012 production by 500
barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) to between 53,500
boe/d and 54,500 boe/d.

“The Assets are not a primary focus of our U.S. business
unit as they are non-operated and generally have a lower average
working interest than our remaining lands,” the company said in
a statement.

Baytex said its exploration and development budget remains
at C$400 million ($405.04 million) and it still intends to drill
20 to 25 wells in North Dakota this year.

MorningStar analyst Robert Bellinski said selling the assets
is a prudent move for Baytex.

“It’s always good to prune your portfolio and make sure
you’re concentrating on your best assets. Baytex does a really
good job at that,” he said.

Baytex, which intends to use the proceeds from the sale to
pay down debt, said the assets represented about 40 percent of
its current U.S. production.

BMO Capital Markets-Canada analyst Gordon Tait said Baytex
got a very good price for what were essentially non-core assets.

“They got $327,000 per flowing barrel of oil equivalent
(boe) and Baytex is currently trading at $144,000 per flowing
boe,” he said.

A flowing barrel of oil equivalent corresponds to a
production rate of 1 barrel of oil equivalent per day (boe/d).

MAGNUM TO RAISE CAPEX

Separately, Magnum Hunter said it will now spend $50 million
more in capital expenditure in the Williston Basin area and
expects to increase its upstream capital budget to about $225
million from $150 million.

Magnum said it has secured commitment letters for a new $450
million loan to fund the acquisition, pay off an existing loan
and meet the higher capital expenditure target.

With the deal, Magnum Hunter’s non-operated working interest
in the acquired acreage will increase to 47.5 percent from 10
percent.

Baytex shares fell marginally to C$49.12 on Wednesday
morning on the Toronto Stock Exchange, while Magnum Hunter fell
4.5 percent to $5.90 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reuters) – BATS Global Markets Inc stripped Chief Executive Joe Ratterman of the chairman’s role on Tuesday, days after the No. 3 U.S. exchange operator’s botched initial public offering.

The board, however, said it unanimously supported Ratterman as president and CEO of the company and cited better corporate governance as the reason for splitting the CEO and chairman roles.

Ratterman, a founding employee of BATS, has led the company since June 2007. He will hold the chairman’s position until a successor is found. “You can’t ignore the timing of it,” said James Angel, a professor at Georgetown University who specializes in the structure and regulation of financial markets. “It is basically a very strong signal that mistakes of this nature can’t be tolerated.”

The decision comes after a series of glitches hit the market debut of BATS on its own exchange on Friday, causing the company to take the extremely rare step of withdrawing its initial public offering of shares.

The aborted listing also threw into question BATS’ growth plans, including its bid to compete with NYSE Euronext (NYX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Nasdaq (NDAQ.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in the listings business and expand in Brazil and Canada.

Over the weekend, disagreement emerged between Ratterman and Dave Cummings, the outspoken founder and director of BATS, over the future plans for the exchange.

Cummings called for the company to “develop a credible IPO plan” and “go public in the second quarter, if possible.” But Ratterman said there were no plans to try for another IPO in the foreseeable future.

BATS’ board met on Tuesday in an emergency meeting to deal with the fallout of Friday’s debacle.

While it is still too early to gauge the full impact of the failed IPO on BATS’ business, the company’s trading business remained on a sound footing.

The exchange was back up on Monday with volume in stock and equity-option trades virtually unchanged from levels before Friday’s hiccup.

BATS’ main business, the source of about 90 percent of its revenue, is trading U.S. securities listed on major exchanges. “I don’t think we’ll see much fallout,” said Larry Tabb, founder of research and advisory firm Tabb Group. “There might be one or two less programmers, but I think they’ll do that pretty quietly.”

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bangalore, and John McCrank and Paritosh Bansal in New York; Editing by Gary Hill)

The floods in Thailand, which is the world’s No. 2 exporter
of hard drives, disrupted production and pushed hard drive
inventories to historic lows worldwide.

“Third quarter, we will build 60 million (units) … ship 60
million … because we’ve depleted (inventory) to historically
low levels in the December quarter,” Seagate Chief Financial
Officer Pat O’Malley said on the phone to Reuters.

O’Malley also said there would be a severe-to-acute shortage
of cloud type drives in 2012 owing to high demand and the
severity of the floods’ impact on that supply chain.

Seagate posted higher-than-expected second-quarter earnings,
on strong margins, which O’Malley said would continue through
the rest of year.

O’Malley said margins would remain in the 33 percent range
through the March-June quarter and pricing would remain a bit
benign for the remainder of the year.

Tighter shipments have forced computer manufacturers to
scramble to secure supply and boosted hard drive prices 20
percent to 40 percent in recent months.

2nd QUARTER RESULTS BEAT

Seagate shipped 47 million hard drives in its fiscal second
quarter and posted revenue of $3.2 billion, up 17.5 percent from
the year ago. Gross margins came in at 31.6 percent, compared
with 19.5 percent in the year-earlier quarter.

The Ireland-based company said net income rose to $563
million, or $1.28 a share in the second quarter which ended Dec.
30, from $150 million, or 31 cents a year ago.

Excluding items, Seagate earned $1.32 a share, topping the
$1.08 a share estimated by analysts, according to Thomson
Reuters I/B/E/S.

On Jan. 23, Western Digital Corp (WDC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) reported
stronger-than-expected quarterly results and forecast a strong
current quarter. [ID:nL4E8CN80E]

Shares of Seagate were up 6 percent in trading after the
bell. They closed at $21.14 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday. Western
Digital shares closed at $36.35 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Himank Sharma and Abhiram Nandakumar in
Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Steve Orlofsky and Carol
Bishopric)

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Himank.Sharma@thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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News surfaced last week that HP was selling off a final batch of its ill-fated Touchpads on eBay. The heavily-discounted sale was first held in August, and people swamped online and physical stores to buy as many as they could. The brick-and-mortar stores got away with fewer bruises than their online counterparts as websites nearly froze because of demand.

When TechCrunch leaked the announcement of the intended sale – this time only on HP’s eBay store and with payment accepted only via PayPal – I wondered if things might go better.

They didn’t.

When the tablets went on sale, everyone tried to get another shot at buying the tablet that nobody wanted. Two minutes later, eBay crashed, then started crawling back to normal. Nearly all shoppers ran into error messages and “timeouts.” Most didn’t get to buy a TouchPad.

People on Twitter complained of being able to add products to carts, but not being able to pay. “My eBay touchpad experience was not a good one. Orders were reversed. No help, eBay, HP or PayPal” a shopper tweeted.

Some ploughed through and got what has been termed as the tech deal of the decade. One shopper wrote: “Got a 32GB Touchpad – eBay wasn’t bad; a lot of timeouts, but success after 48 minutes.”

The problem, it would seem, lies in the same reason the internet is so powerful – reach. I tried to buy a Touchpad from India and had planned to ship it to a friend in the United States. It would have worked, but for a mistake with the shipping address. The slow internet speeds in India didn’t help.

If a brick-and-mortar store decided to hold an everything-must-go sale, the shoppers, while wild, will still be local and therefore manageable. The store won’t look like the Mongol hordes marched through it.

There is no doubt that online retailers will, if not already, prepare for days like these to occur more often. Their real-world cousins are better versed with crowd control. How the virtual bouncers will operate is likely to play a part in the store’s reputation in the long run.

Infosys’ head honcho S.D. Shibulal revealed he is an INTJ type.  It is hardly surprising then that Shibu, as he likes to be called, was one of the pioneers of the Global Delivery Model – corporate speak for outsourced IT services.

INTJ (short for Introvert, Intuition, Thinking and Judgment) is a rare personality type based on psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s works. INTJ personalities are self-starters, preferring to work alone without an authority looking over their shoulders and meticulously plan their activities to achieve success.

Shibulal’s thoughts on M&A and his company’s margins reflect his INTJ traits.

“M&A is like falling in love. There is no plan like falling in love!” he said at the Reuters India Investment Summit.

Considering it has only made three acquisitions over the last five years, Infosys clearly doesn’t fall in love easily.

Still, Shibu said the Indian software services behemoth “is comfortable spending 10 percent of its revenue on acquisitions.”

Shibu, one of the seven founding members, always looks for high-margin contracts.

“The competition can fight for low-hanging fruit.”

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, one of India’s most influential businesswomen and among the world’s most powerful women, says she’s an accidental entrepreneur.

Mazumdar-Shaw has shown that modest garage start-ups can extend beyond software and hardware companies. She set up what is now India’s largest listed biotechnology company in 1978 and she encourages others to follow suit.

“Today a lot of early stage research work can be done in a garage,” she said at the Reuters India Investment Summit.

Mazumdar-Shaw reckons opportunities for bio-tech startups are huge, considering the demand for sophisticated technology like genomic based systems, diagnostics for cancer stem cells, and high-end synthetic biology. All these are usually developed in small labs across the country.

“What I find today is that there are a large number of very innovative young biotech entrepreneurs who are doing things in a very small way. CellWorks is doing very interesting work on drug design.”

Her advice to budding entrepreneurs – If you have a novel idea and are looking to set up a business, don’t think twice, just go for it.

“I think in the life of any entrepreneur, you start somewhere. You start small. I don’t think most entrepreneurs have the luxury of thinking big because you have very limited resources. “

“If you’re an entrepreneur with a concept, with some kind of idea which you can at least start something with, go for it. It might be something small, but you know it’s just building it up. I mean that’s what I did.”