General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - August 2016

Aug 2016

Jun 28, 2021

GAME Partners with SIDBI to help MSMEs Revive Business

The Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) and the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) have signed a pact to help micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) address their challenges that were accentuated during the pandemic.
The broad themes covered under the partnership include expanding credit access, increasing formalisation, building competitive clusters, and improving the legal framework for ease of doing business.
The two organisations have committed that at least 25 per cent of the beneficiaries from the partnership would be women entrepreneurs.

Policybazaar.com Forays into Insurance Brokerage

Leading web aggregator Policybazaar has embarked its insurance broking journey with 15 outlets and aims to expand it to 100 locations.
Insurance regulator IRDAI had approved insurance broking licence proposal of the company and will undertake business including insurance aggregation under the broking umbrella.
With this development, the company surrendered its web aggregator licence to Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).
As a first step, the company is launching offline retail stores across India, it said, adding, the brand has set up 15 stores and will eventually expand to 100 locations.

Toshiba's Board Appoints CEO Tsunakawa as Interim Board Chairman

Toshiba's board appointed CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa as interim chairman after investors voted to oust his predecessor in a stunning rebuke for its collusion with the Japanese government against shareholders.
Tsunakawa's appointment came after shareholders delivered a clear message to management by voting out Osamu Nagayama as chairman and another director over the handling of the scandal, which has put Japan's corporate governance under the microscope. The company recognises the seriousness of the rejection, of the two.
The board said that it would would identify a permanent successor for Tsunakawa and would consider external candidates and use a global executive search firm.

Indians Invested $40 bn in Cryptocurrency in 2020

As per Chinalysis report, Indians who are known to traditionally invest in gold are now investing into cryptocurrency.
India is home to world's biggest holders of gold (25,000 tonnes).
Now, Indians are shifting towards cryptocurrency and have invested billions in it.
Investments in cryptocurrency has increased from $200 million $40 billion in last one year.
This investment has increased even though Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not inclined towards digital currency. RBI had banned banks from supporting cryptocurrency transactions in 2018 following several digital currency frauds. However, in March 2020, Supreme Court struck down the ban and prompted RBI to notify that its earlier order has been reverted.

World Bank Board Approves $125 Million Support Program to Kerala

The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved a $125 million program to support Kerala's preparedness against natural disasters, climate change impacts, disease outbreaks and pandemics.
The heavy monsoons of 2018 were the worst Kerala had seen in nearly a century, triggering devastating floods and landslides which impacted more than five million people, mainly in the Pamba River Basin.
In a statement issued by the World Bank, the Resilient Kerala Program will focus on two key areas which includes incorporating disaster risk planning in the master plans of urban and local self-governments to ease financial constraints on the state government when faced with unexpected shocks.

Jun 27, 2021

Seven-member Panel to Manage Jet Airways under Resolution Plan

A seven-member monitoring committee, including members appointed by the winning bidder Jalan Kalrock Consortium and the lenders, will soon start managing the day-to-day affairs of Jet Airways till the resolution process is complete.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) approved the consortium's resolution plan for grounded Jet Airways, subject to certain conditions.
The full-service carrier, which suspended operations in April 2019, was undergoing Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP).

Tyre Industry Seeks Raw Material Partners to Unleash Growth

According to industry body Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA), India's tyre sector is seeking effective collaboration with raw material partners to harness its potential.
Last year, the growth plummeted in the first quarter in view of the lockdown. However the industry staged a strong recovery in the subsequent quarters and the supply side was under stress to meet the demand.
This year again the industry witnessed a slowdown in the months of May and June.

Hero Cycles Delivers First Batch of Made in India E-bikes to Europe

India's Hero Motors Company (HMC) Group has said that Hero Cycles has successfully delivered its first batch of Made in India e-bikes to Europe.
The shipment, under the HNF brand of Hero International (HIT), marks the start of the Indian bicycle major's plan to become a leader in the European Union (EU) market, the company said this week.
The first batch of around 200 units has been delivered to Germany, with further units planned for the EU in future.
The shipment marks a step forward to establish HMC as the largest fully integrated e-bike company in Europe, with a well-oiled manufacturing capability in India and brightens the prospect of India as a reliable supplier to the market other than China.

Jun 26, 2021

Adani Group Strikes First Coal from its Carmichael Mine

The Adani Group struck first coal from its Carmichael, Australia project and will start shipping to its customers according to schedule. With this, the project will not only lift the economic prospects of the hitherto barren Australian outback, but also help Indian power plants to source cheap coal.
The project had faced protests from a section of population with several banks even refusing to fund it.
India will be a foundation customer for the Carmichael mine and is the fourth largest global user of electricity as well as the source of the biggest growth in global energy demand.

Kotak Mahindra Bank Launches 'Pay Your Contact' Service

Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd (KMBL) announced the launch of the 'Pay Your Contact' feature on KMBL's mobile banking app that uses the Unified Payments Interface platform and allows customers to send money or make payments to any of their contacts across all payment apps simply by entering the beneficiary's mobile number.

Reliance to Conclude Aramco Deal this Year

Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as a precursor to a USD 15 billion deal that is now expected to conclude this year.
Al-Rumayyan will replace Yogendra P. Trivedi who has expressed a desire to retire.
RIL had inked an initial pact to sell a fifth of the unit that houses its oil refineries, petrochemical plants and fuel retailing business in August 2019, but the outbreak of global pandemic delayed the deal.

SBI Launches Aarogyam Healthcare Business Loan

To provide enhanced support to the healthcare sector amid the pandemic, the State Bank of India (SBI) has launched the Aarogyam healthcare business loan. Under this new product, the entire healthcare ecosystem such as hospitals, nursing homes, diagnostic centres, pathology labs, manufacturers, suppliers, importers, logistic firms engaged in critical healthcare supply can avail of loans up to Rs. 100 crore (as per the geographic location) repayable in 10 years.
The Aarogyam loan can be availed either as a term loan to support expansion or modernisation or as working capital facilities such as cash credit, bank guarantee/letter of credit.

$32 mn World Bank Loan for Improving Healthcare Services in Mizoram

The Indian government, the Mizoram government, and the World Bank have signed a $32 million Mizoram Health Systems Strengthening Project to improve management capacity and quality of health services in the northeastern state, particularly for the benefit of under-served areas and vulnerable groups.
The project will strengthen the governance and the management structure of the Department of Health and Family Welfare and its subsidiaries, improve the quality and coverage of services delivered by the state government health systems, and invest in a comprehensive Quality Assurance programme which would enable quality certification of health facilities.

Jun 25, 2021

Mastercard Brings on Board Nikhil Sahni

Mastercard has announced the appointment of Nikhil Sahni as its new division president, south Asia and country corporate officer, India.
Sahni will be taking over from Porush Singh, who is relocating to Singapore and assuming a new role within the company.
Sahni joins Mastercard with nearly 25 years of experience across strategy, investment banking, corporate, commercial, SME, retail, branch, and government banking. In his role, he will oversee the firm's operations, and position the company's extensive suite of products, solutions and services across the sub-continent, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan, in addition to India.

US Bans Imports of Solar Panel Material from Chinese Company

The Biden administration ordered a ban on U.S. imports of a key solar panel material from Chinese-based Hoshine Silicon Industry Co over forced labor allegations. The U.S. Commerce Department separately restricted exports to Hoshine, three other Chinese companies and the paramilitary Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), saying they were involved with the forced labor of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.
The three other companies added to the U.S. economic blacklist include Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Co, a unit of Daqo New Energy Corp; Xinjiang East Hope Nonferrous Metals Co, a subsidiary of Shanghai-based manufacturing giant East Hope Group; and Xinjiang GCL New Energy Material Co, part of GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd.

India-Bhutan: Tax Inspectors without Borders Initiative

India and Bhutan have jointly launched the "Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB)".
TIWB is a joint initiative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
TIWB seeks to provide support to the developing countries to help them strengthen national tax administrations by building audit capacity.
It complements the efforts of international community to strengthen cooperation on tax matters and contribute to domestic tax mobilisation efforts.
TIWB programme aims to strengthen tax administrations among developing countries by transferring technical know-how and skills to their tax auditors and by sharing general audit practices & dissemination of knowledge products with them.
The programme focuses on the area of International Taxation and Transfer Pricing.

LIC Introduces Technology Platform 'e-PGS'

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has launched a centralised web-based workflow-based IT platform called "e-PGS".
LIC launched this platform for its group business operations.
Project e-PGS was inaugurated by M R Kumar, Chairman of LIC, at Central Office, Mumbai.
New technology platform, e-PGS, has been designed to provide a centralized collection and payment accounting with high level of bank integration.
It will provide collection through host-to-host connectivity. It has been designed to provide very innovative features of seamless and integrated banking with automatic reconciliations.
This system is capable of providing comprehensive self-servicing capabilities through customer portal. On this portal, corporate customers will be able to view their data, initiate actionable processes and lodge & track claims.

Jun 24, 2021

Ex-Infosys CEO to Head Task Force to Help Govt.

Former Infosys CEO S. D. Shibu Lal was appointed chairperson of a three-member task force formed to help the government in bringing major bureaucratic reforms through its ambitious "Mission Karmayogi".
Besides Lal who is founder of ShikshaLokam and founder and ex-CEO of Infosys Limited, Govind Iyer, Consultant at global management consulting group Egon Zehnder, and Pankaj Bansal, Co-founder and Group CEO of HR tech company PeopleStrong, will be part of the task force.
Adil Zainulbhai, chairman designate, Capacity Building Commission, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) will be a special invitee to the discussions of the task force.

Centre Liberalises Guidelines for BPO Industry

To make India a favourable destination for expansion of voice-related Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), the Centre liberalised the guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs), removing the distinction between domestic and international OSP.
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the BPO centre with common telecom resource will now be able to serve customers located worldwide, including India.
The distinction between domestic and international OSP (Other Service Providers) has been removed.

Govt. Notifies Accounting Standards for SMEs under Companies Act, 2013

The government has notified the accounting standards for small and medium companies that revise the turnover and borrowing limits as well as help in making disclosure requirements less onerous.
Besides, the definition of Small and Medium Sized Companies (SMCs) under the standards has been revised.
The Companies (Accounting Standards) Rules, 2021 have been notified by the corporate affairs ministry under the Companies Act, 2013.
The latest notification mirrors the accounting standards that were in force under the Companies Act, 1956, which is no more there.
Under the revised SMC definition, the turnover limit has been increased from Rs. 50 crore to not exceeding Rs. 250 crore and with enhanced borrowing limits. This is in addition to the requirements that such entities should be unlisted companies, which are not banks, financial institutions or insurance companies.
The Companies Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of India on Indian company law which regulates incorporation of a company, responsibilities of a company, directors, dissolution of a company. The 2013 Act is divided into 29 chapters containing 470 sections as against 658 Sections in the Companies Act, 1956 and has 7 schedules. However, currently there are only 438 (470-39+7) sections remains in this Act. The Act has replaced The Companies Act, 1956 (in a partial manner) after receiving the assent of the President of India on 29 August 2013.The section 1 of the companies Act 2013 came into force on 30th August 2013 . 98 different sections of the companies Act came into force on 12th September 2013 with few changes like earlier private companies maximum number of members were 50 and now it will be 200.

Suraksha Group to Buy Jaypee Infratech

Mumbai-based Suraksha group received the approval of financial creditors and homebuyers to takeover debt-laden Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL).
In the 10-day-long voting process on the takeover proposals submitted by NBCC and Suraksha Group more than 98 per cent of the votes were in favour of Suraksha Group's bid.
This is the fourth round of bidding process to find a buyer for JIL, which went into Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) in August 2017.

Heineken Buys Mallya's 15% Stake to Take Control of United Breweries

Heineken, the second largest beer company in the world, increased its stake in United Breweries (UBL) to 61.5 per cent on Wednesday. The Dutch parent of UBL, which had 45 per cent stake prior this transaction, bought the 14.99 per cent stake worth about Rs. 5,825 crore held by the Debt Recovery Tribunal.
Given that Heineken received an exemption from making an open offer, it could also acquire the balance 11 per cent UB group stake pledged with banks through the same route. If this goes through, Heineken's stake in UBL, which has a 50 per cent share in India's beer market, will cross the 72 per cent mark.

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