General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - February 2017

Feb 2017

Dec 22, 2020

US Telcos Ordered to Rip and Replace Huawei Components

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered certain US telecommunications companies to remove Huawei equipment from their network.
The FCC has also started the process of revoking China Telecom's authorization to operate in the US.
The rip and replace order is the latest US move against Huawei made on national security grounds.
The order includes subsidies for smaller carriers for removing and replacing the equipment.
However, the commission cannot actually implement the reimbursements without the approval of funding from congress.

European Union Gives Approval to Fiat Chrysler and PSA Merger

The European Union gave conditional approval to the mega-merger of car giants Fiat Chrysler (FCA) and Peugeot Citroen (PSA), after the firms promised to address competition fears.
The tie-up, which was announced late last year and planned to be completed in early 2021, will create Stellantis, set to be the world's fourth-largest automaker in terms of volume, and number three in terms of sales.
The combined company unites brands such as Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep, Alfa Romeo and Maserati into a global giant, each of which will continue under its own marque.
The decision to approve the deal came after it had carried out an in-depth investigation over concerns it might stifle competition.
The approval is conditional on full compliance with a commitments package offered by the companies.

Dec 21, 2020

ONGC Opens 8th Hydrocarbon Producing Basin of India

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) opened India's eighth hydrocarbon producing basin when it started oil flow from a well in the Bengal basin.
Oil production commenced from the well Asokenagar-1 in 24 Pargana district.
The well Asokenagar-1 was completed as an oil producer under early-monetisation plan issued by the Government of India.
With this ONGC has discovered and put to production seven out of the eight hydrocarbon producing basins of India, covering 83 per cent of established oil and gas reserves.
ONGC is India's largest oil and gas producer contributing 72 per cent of the country's hydrocarbon production.

Bank of Baroda Completes Integration of Erstwhile Dena and Vijaya Banks with Itself

State-run Bank of Baroda has completed integration of 3,898 branches of erstwhile Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with itself.
In a first three-way amalgamation, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank were merged with Bank of Baroda from April 1, 2019.
The bank has completed the integration of 1,770 erstwhile Dena Bank branches in December 2020, and had earlier completed the integration of 2,128 erstwhile Vijaya Bank branches in September 2020.
Over 5 crore customer accounts were migrated. In addition to branches, all ATMs, POS machines and credit cards have been migrated successfully.
The bank said that all customers now have access to a total of 8,248 domestic branches and 10,318 ATMs across India, which will provide them complete access to its entire suite of products and services.

RBI Seeks Applications under Second Cohort

The Reserve Bank announced the second cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox (RS) with the theme of 'Cross Border Payments' and also reduced net-worth requirement for entities interested in participating.
Regulatory sandbox refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which regulators may permit certain relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing.
The RS allows the regulator, innovators, financial service providers and customers to conduct field tests to collect evidence on the benefits and risks of new products and systems.
The central bank had announced the opening of the first cohort under RS with the theme of 'Retail Payments'.
It has also decided on 'MSME Lending' as the theme for the third cohort, details of which it will announce in due course.

GoldenTree and PIMCO Join Oak Hill Consortium for Vodafone Idea Funding

As per reports, US-based GoldenTree Asset Management and Pacific Investment Management Co (PIMCO) have likely joined a consortium led by investment firm Oak Hill Advisors, which is in talks to provide a $2 billion (Rs. 14,720 crore) credit line to Vodafone Idea.
The move to expand the global lender consortium is aimed at quickly filling up Vi's sizable funding requirement and also distributing the risk exposure across a larger pool of financiers.
The proposed funding model is likely to be a blend of convertible instruments, comprising bonds and warrants with a linked equity option that will allow the consortium members to turn a portion of the debt into shares of the telco.

PayPal Fined for Violating India's Anti-money Laundering Processes

American online payment gateway giant PayPal has been imposed a Rs. 96 lakh penalty by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) for alleged contravention of the anti-money laundering law and accused of concealing suspect financial transactions and abetting disintegration of India's financial system.
PayPal began India operations in November 2017.
The company has also been charged with defeating and frustrating the tenets of public interest and the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which aims to keep the country's financial system safe from economic crimes, terrorist financing and black money transactions.

Dec 20, 2020

Reliance Industries and BP Star Gas Production at Ultra-deep- water Field in KG D6

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and BP announced the start of production from the R Cluster, an ultra-deep-water gas field in block KG D6 off the east coast of India. This is the first in the trio of projects that account for 25 per cent of domestic production of these companies.
The three deepwater gas projects in block KG D6 are R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ. Together they are expected to meet 15 per cent of India's gas demand by 2023.
As per reports, these projects will use an existing hub infrastructure in KG D6 block. RIL is the operator of KG D6 with a 66.67% participating interest and BP holds a 33.33% participating interest.
The field is located about 60km from the existing KG D6 Control & Riser Platform (CRP) off the Kakinada coast. It comprises a subsea production system tied back to CRP via a subsea pipeline.

WB Comes Out with Corrected Doing Business Rankings

Coming out with corrected Doing Business rankings following review of data irregularities, the World Bank has said that China's ranking would have been lower by seven notches in the index for 2018.
Besides China's, the World Bank has corrected the Doing Business rankings of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.
In August, the World Bank had decided to pause the publication of its Doing Business report following a number of irregularities regarding changes to data in previous reports.
The review details the irregularities and required corrections affecting the data for four countries—China, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Azerbaijan.

RBI Extends Restrictions on Scam-hit PMC Bank

The Reserve bank of India further extended restrictions of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC Bank) till March 31 and said that the bank needs more time to reconstruct itself. Issuing a statement, the RBI said that four proposals have been received for the Expression of Interest (EoI) sought by the fraud-hit multi-state urban cooperative bank from potential investors for investment or equity participation in the bank for its reconstruction.
The proposals will be examined by the bank with regard to their viability and feasibility taking into account the best interest of the depositors and to undertake this process, the bank would need some more time.

Dec 19, 2020

Gucci Joins Alibaba's Luxury E-commerce Site to woo Chinese Consumers

Fashion label Gucci will open two flagship stores on Alibaba's online luxury shopping platform, underscoring the importance of the Chinese market for high-end brands seeking to reverse a revenue slide due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Gucci, the profit engine of French group Kering, is one of the most prized names to join the Tmall Luxury Pavilion platform, which was created in 2017 and now boasts more than 200 brands ranging from apparel to high-end cars.
Gucci's first flagship store, selling fashion and leather goods collections, will open on December 21. A second store focused on beauty products will be launched in February 2021 and will be operated by Gucci's license partner Coty.
Gucci has its own Chinese website, gucci.cn, and is present on all major Chinese social media platforms, including Weibo and WeChat.

IKEA Opens Store in Navi Mumbai

One of the world's largest furniture retailer Sweden-based Ikea opened its second store in Navi Mumbai. The first store in India was opened in 2018 in Hyderabad.
It houses a 1,000-seater restaurant. However, as of now, only 2,500 people will be allowed to visit the store daily adhering to the Covid-19 guidelines.
In India, Ikea has online stores in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.
As per reports, the Navi Mumbai store will provide more than 6,000 jobs of which 50 per cent will be women.
Ikea's next project will come up in Bengaluru, which is under construction. Then, it will open multiple format stores in Delhi-NCR — including a combination of a shopping centre, small stores and big centres.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Launches Guaranteed Pension Plan

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance launched a new plan that guarantees life-long income after you retire. The plan named, ICICI Pru Guaranteed Pension Plan is a non-linked non-participating individual annuity product that provides customers with the flexibility to choose between Immediate and Deferred Annuity.
The Immediate Annuity option enables customers to start receiving regular income immediately by paying a one-time premium. Meanwhile, the Deferred Annuity option gives customers the flexibility to start receiving the income much later, for example, when he or she is closer to retirement. Also, customers have the option to defer the start of the income for a period of 10 years.

Route Mobile Names Milind Pathak as Chief Business Officer

Route Mobile, a cloud communication service provider to enterprises, over-the-top players and mobile network operators, named Milind Pathak as its Chief Business Officer. Pathak will drive new product development, and support Route Mobile's next phase of growth as the company continues to expand globally, drive product innovation and enter new markets.
A senior leader with over 20 years of experience in blue-chip organisations across domestic and global markets, Pathak has held several key decision-making portfolios, especially in sales and marketing, new product development, involving both startups and growth organisations.

Dec 18, 2020

Government to Press Ahead with PSU Stake Sale

According to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the government will press ahead with the sale of public sector companies that have been approved by the Cabinet.
Highlighting that the FDI flow into India is much higher compared to other emerging economies, Sitharaman said that India's strong macroeconomic fundamentals, ability to do reforms and a stable government help attract long-term foreign funds into Indian businesses.
The government has set an ambitious Rs. 2.01 lakh crore disinvestment target in the current fiscal. However, COVID-19 pandemic has derailed the stake sale plans and so far over Rs. 11,006 crore has been mopped up from minority stake sale in various CPSEs.
The Cabinet has approved strategic sale, along with transfer of management control, in over 25 public sector companies, including Air India , BPCL, Pawan Hans, Scooters India, Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML), Shipping Corporation, Cement Corporation and some steel plants of SAIL.

BPCL Board Approves Buying out Oman Oil's Stake in Bina Refinery

Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) said that its board has approved buying out Oman Oil Company's stake in the Bina refinery project in Madhya Pradesh on mutually agreeable terms.
The BPCL board at its meeting also approved merging Bharat Gas Resources Ltd (BGRL) with itself.
BPCL holds 63.68 per cent stake in Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd (BORL), which built and operates a 7.8 million tonne oil refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh.

Tata Motors to Buy Partner's Share in Tata Marcopolo Motors

Tata Motors will buy its partner's stake in bus joint venture (JV) firm Tata Marcopolo Motors for around Rs. 100 crore. "After a successful venture in India, and as a consequence of its refreshed business strategy, Marcopolo S.A. has decided to exit from the JV and offered to sell its 49 per cent shareholding in the JV to the company.
Tata Marcopolo Motors is a 51:49 JV formed in 2006, which has manufacturing facilities in Dharwad and Lucknow.

RBI to Conduct 3rd OMO Purchase of SDLs Next Week

The Reserve Bank of India will conduct the third auction of state developments loans (SDLs) aggregating Rs. 10,000 crore under the Open Market Operations (OMO) next week..
The Reserve Bank has conducted two OMOs in SDLs covering all states/UTs for a cumulative amount of Rs. 20,000 crore. The first-ever auction under OMOs in SDLs was conducted in October and the second in November.
The central bank will purchase the SDLs through a multi-security auction using the multiple price method. There is no security wise notified amount.

IndusInd Bank Launches its First Metal Credit Card 'PIONEER Heritage'

IndusInd Bank in partnership with Mastercard announced the launch of its first metal credit card - 'PIONEER Heritage' for the bank's ultra-high net worth segment of customers. Equipped with best-in-class features & privileges across an array of categories like travel, wellness, lifestyle among others, the all-new credit card has been specially curated to match the requirements of affluent Indian professionals and entrepreneurs.
It is also part of the 'World Elite' platform by Mastercard comprising privileges that complement the lifestyle of the discerning few. The 'World Elite' platform is Mastercard's signature global program that offers the choicest benefits to HNI cardholders across their passion points.

EU Approve Google's Fitbit Takeover

Google's takeover of Fitbit has been approved by the European Commission, following a four-month investigation.
The search giant bought the fitness tracking company for $2.1bn (£1.5bn) in November 2019 - but the EU warned the acquisition could harm competition.
Google has made a series of pledges to address investigators' concerns.
Commission executive vice-president Margarethe Vestager said that the deal would keep the wearables market "open and competitive".
The European Commission had expressed concerns Google would:
use the tranche of Fitbit data for targeted advertising, making it harder for rivals to compete
exclude third parties from the Fitbit platform
disadvantage rival wearable device-makers by degrading their compatibility with Google's Android smartphone operating system
Google has promised not to use health, fitness and location data from Fitbit devices for advertising, for users in the European Economic Area, to store Fitbit data in a "silo", kept separate from any other data used for advertising, to maintain third-party access to the Fitbit platform, not to degrade the user experience of third-party smartwatches when paired with an Android phone.
The commitments must be kept for 10 years.

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