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In one of India's largest-ever cases of corporate fraud, the founder and chairman of failed outsourcing giant Satyam Computers and nine others defendants have been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of stealing millions from shareholders.

An Indian court in the country's tech hub, Hyderabad, ruled Thursday that B. Ramalinga Raju, his two brothers and seven other officials of Satyam – which collapsed in 2009 — used forged documents and fake bank accounts in a scheme that cost the company's shareholders $2.28 billion.

They were convicted of criminal conspiracy and fraud and Raju was also fined the equivalent of $806,000 in what has been touted as the country's biggest accounting fraud.

According to the BBC:

"The scandal emerged in January 2009 when Mr Raju, one of the pioneers in the Indian IT industry and Satyam's founder and then chairman, confessed to manipulating his company's accounts and inflating profits over many years to the tune of about $1.15bn.

"In a letter to the board he claimed he had fudged the numbers in order to be in the top four of the Indian IT industry."

The Associated Press adds: "Satyam - which means 'truth' in Sanskrit - was once India's fourth-largest software services company, counting a third of Fortune 500 companies and the U.S. government among its clients."

In a special court overseen by India's Central Bureau of Investigation, roughly equivalent of the FBI, the agency "accused Raju and associates of inflating revenues, faking fixed deposits, falsifying accounts and fabricating invoices in a bid to project the company as enjoying sound financial health and deceive the investors," The Economic Times of India writes.

In 2010, what was left of Satyam was sold off to software services company Tech Mahindra Ltd.

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India

Iran's president says his country will only sign an agreement restricting his country's nuclear program if economic sanctions are lifted. The remarks on state TV came as Iran's supreme leader said he's neither for nor against the deal.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said that any arrangements must respect Iran's interests and dignity. He also questioned the need for talks if they don't trigger the removal of sanctions. And he reiterated his distrust of the United States.

From Istanbul, NPR's Peter Kenyon reports:

"Today is national nuclear technology day in Iran, and President Hassan Rouhani used the occasion to tout Iran's nuclear achievements and to promote the framework for a nuclear agreement with six world powers, reached last week in Switzerland.

"Both Iran and the U.S. have been emphasizing the most favorable aspects of the framework from their perspective, including on issues that have not been resolved, such as the scope and timing of sanctions relief for Iran.

"Rouhani says Iran will only sign a deal if 'all sanctions are lifted the first day of implementation.' U.S. and European officials have been clear that sanctions relief will come after Iran's nuclear restrictions and other commitments have been made and verified.

"In the same speech, Rouhani called for an end to airstrikes in Yemen."

Speaking about those same issues later Thursday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that he's "neither for nor against" the framework deal that was negotiated in a marathon session in Lausanne.

"In a speech carried by state TV," Peter reports, "Khamenei says there is no agreement until every point is written down and signed, and thus no need for his approval or disapproval before then. He adds that he still supports his nuclear negotiating team, and still distrusts the United States and its allies."

On Twitter, Khamenei elaborated on those ideas, saying of an American fact sheet about the agreement, "most of it was contrary to what was agreed."

He continued, "They always deceive and breach promises."

I trust our negotiators but I'm really worried as the other side is into lying & breaching promises; an example was White House fact sheet.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) April 9, 2015

Khamenei also touched on Iran's nuclear ambitions, saying, "Islam & reason forbid us from acquiring nukes but nuclear industry is a necessity for country's future in energy, medicine, agriculture,etc."

The leader also said that special monitoring of Iran's nuclear program isn't acceptable, stating, "Foreign monitoring on Iran's security isn't allowed."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iran nuclear

Iran

As Hillary Clinton is expected to officially launch her presidential campaign in the next couple of weeks, her famous, former president husband talked to Town & Country magazine, which went along with him to Haiti in February.

Here are four takeaways from that interview:

1. The Clinton Foundation is not going away — even if Hillary Clinton wins.

"Whether I'm running it or not," he told Town & Country, which described it as a "priority" for the 42nd president. "I've told Hillary that I don't think I'm good [at campaigning] anymore, because I'm not mad at anybody. I'm a grandfather, and I got to see my granddaughter last night, and I can't be mad."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and husband Bill Clinton at an event for the Clinton Global Initiative. Mark Lennihan/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Mark Lennihan/AP

The Clintons have been criticized for taking donations for the foundation from foreign governments, even while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. It's no surprise that Bill is out front defending the foundation, which encapsulates so much of his legacy and the kind of work he wants to do in his post-presidency.

2. He's attempting to take some of the slings and arrows for the foundation.

"[O]ur plan is to spend this whole year working on the foundation, which is, by a good long stretch, the most transparent of all the presidential foundations and more transparent than a lot of other major foundations in the country," he tells the magazine. "It should be, both because I believe in it and because Hillary is in public life, and we'll get criticized, as some people are criticizing me, for taking money from a foreign government. We did a review of the whole foundation last year. ... We got suggestions from a great law firm that also does pro bono counsel for Doctors Without Borders, and we implemented every single one of them."

Politically, Bill Clinton is attempting to redirect any criticism of the foundation away from his wife and onto him. That's no accident at the precipice of another Hillary Clinton presidential run.

3. He affirmed the rumors of how Hillary Clinton will run in the presidential primary.

Despite his claim to recede to the background — busy with running a foundation and being a doting grandfather — don't expect him to take a back seat in his wife's run. In the same interview, he was offering up strategic advice for how she should campaign.

"I think it's important," he told the magazine, "and Hillary does too, that she go out there as if she's never run for anything before and establish her connection with the voters. And that my role should primarily be as a backstage adviser to her until we get much, much closer to the election."

Bill Clinton's comments also affirm reporting that advisers are telling Hillary Clinton she should not take anything for granted. That means campaigning frequently — even without strong primary opposition — in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

And why not? They are swing states in a general election, and it doesn't hurt to build up some energy and a base of activists and supporters. Hillary Clinton was also criticized early on in the 2007-08 primary race for running on name recognition. By the time she found her voice as a candidate, the math was against her, and Barack Obama had all but sewn up the nomination.

4. He's still not sure what kind of "first dude" he'd be.

Bill Clinton also weighed in on his potential role as "first dude."

"First, I would have to assess what she wants me to do," he said. "And second, we might have to change the [foundation] rules again. But we haven't talked about that yet, and I don't think we should. You can't. It's hard for any party to hang on to the White House for 12 years, and it's a long road. A thousand things could happen."

2016 Presidential Race

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Democrats

Bill Clinton

Hillary Clinton

President Obama is in Jamaica Thursday, meeting with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and more than a dozen other leaders from throughout the Caribbean. It's the first stop on a three-day tour that also includes a hemispheric summit meeting in Panama. Topping today's agenda is a looming energy crunch in the Caribbean, and a chance for the U.S. to seize the initiative there from leftist leaders in Venezuela.

Unlike the United States, which is suddenly awash in cheap oil and natural gas, countries like Jamaica and the Dominican Republic are heavily dependent on imported oil, not only to run their cars but also to keep the lights on.

"The economic achilles heel for these small islands is really electric power generation," says Jorge Pinon, who directs the Latin America and Caribbean Program at the University of Texas. "That's very important for their tourism and for hotels. So affordable and reliable electricity has a very high economic value for those small islands."

For years, Venezuela has offered an energy lifeline to the Caribbean, selling oil to countries there and in Central America on very favorable terms. The program known as "Petrocaribe" was launched a decade ago by Venezuela's anti-American president Hugo Chavez.

"Back then, because of the high price of oil, Venezuela had a lot of extra money to throw around," says Jason Marczak, Deputy Director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council. "And it was using that extra money to try to secure support from different governments across the hemisphere."

The picture today is very different. Chavez is dead. The price of oil has fallen sharply in the last year. And with Venezuela's economy in deep trouble, the flow of cheap oil to the Caribbean is in danger of running dry.

"That's going to create a huge economic hardship," says Pinon, who's also a veteran oil industry executive. "As you well know, with economic hardship comes social disruptions that the United States certainly doesn't want in the Caribbean."

Analysts warn a sudden energy shortage could create security problems not far from U.S. shores and even trigger mass migration. But thanks to its domestic energy boom, the United States has a rare opportunity to get out in front of the crisis and possibly build some goodwill of its own.

"Ten years ago, we never would have thought about being able to export U.S.-produced gas or oil," Marczak says. "We were frankly just worried about having enough gas and oil ourselves."

The federal government still prohibits U.S. companies from exporting crude oil. But the United States has become a big supplier of refined products to the Caribbean. And liquid natural gas could be next.

"Central America and the Caribbean will be a perfect candidate for that fuel," Pinon says. "It is clean — certainly cleaner than oil. And there's going to be plenty of that around."

Vice President Biden launched an effort last summer to diversify the Caribbean's energy supplies. And President Obama is expected to announce additional measures in Jamaica. The moves are partly a strategic tug-of-war for influence with Venezuela, though the Administration will be careful not to couch it that way.

"The U.S. is billing this as a Caribbean initiative," Marczak says. "This is not an anti-Venezuela initiative."

That's important because Obama's next stop on this trip is a weekend summit in Panama with leaders from throughout the western hemisphere. Venezuela and its leftist allies typically use these gatherings to try to paint the United States as an imperial power, riding roughshod over its neighbors.

"These governments really are always looking for an opportunity to kick dust in the face of Uncle Sam," says Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. "But I think it's also important to keep in perspective the moment today."

The U.S. comes into this summit less isolated from its neighbors, thanks to the diplomatic thaw with Cuba. Cuban President Raul Castro is attending the summit for the first time, setting the stage for a historic handshake with Obama.

What's more, it's now the U.S., not Venezuela, that's set to use its newfound energy strength as a diplomatic weapon.