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General Awareness

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BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - February 2017

Feb 2017

Jan 24, 2019

TCS Third Most-Valued IT Services Co

  •  Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been ranked third most-valued IT services brand globally in 2018-19, after Accenture and IBM, as per a report by Brand Finance.
  • Four Indian IT services companies — TCS, Infosys, HCL and Wipro — held spots in the top-10 global tally.
  • Valued at $26.3 billion, Accenture took the title of the world's most-valued IT services brand.
  • The tag was earlier held by IBM, which now occupies the second place with a brand value of $20.4 billion.

Cabinet Clears Setting up of Centralised GST Appellate Authority

  •  The Union Cabinet approved setting up of a centralised Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling (AAAR) under the goods and services tax that would decide on cases where there are divergent orders at the state level.
  • The setting up of a centralised AAAR would require amendments to the GST Acts.
  • The centralised authority as an appellate body will only take up cases wherein the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) of two states has passed divergent orders.
  • The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and comprising state counterparts, in December decided to establish the centralised AAAR.

Oracle Accused of Discrimination

  •  The US Department of Labor has accused US-based Oracle of discrimination against Indian, Asian and African Americans employees by paying lower wages of as much as 25% for comparable positions than white or non Asians in the company.
  • While Oracle favoured Indian nationals in Asians to hire for product development roles, they were being discriminated in wages along with African nationals and Hispanics compared to whites in its US operations.
  • It impermissibly denies equal employment opportunity to non-Asian applicants for employment, strongly preferring a workforce that it can later underpay.
  • Once employed, women, Blacks and Asians are systematically underpaid relative to their peers.
  •  The complaint is against Oracle in the US and refers to investigations done at its headquarters in Redwood Shores.
  • Oracle is among the earliest US product firms to set up development centres in India.
  •  The complaint said that non-white employees lost wages of around $400 million between January 2013 and December 2016.
  • The discrimination affected around 11,000 Asian nationals. Oracle had a programme to recruit engineers from campuses in India.

Jan 23, 2019

India to become 2nd largest oil-demand centre

  •  India will surpass China to become the second largest oil demand growth centre globally in 2019 on back of buoyant auto fuel and LPG consumption, according to research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie.
  •  India's oil demand growth recovered strongly in 2018, overcoming the aftermath of the implementation of GST and demonetisation, and contributed 14% of the global demand growth or 2,45,000 barrels per day.
  • According to the US Energy Information Administration, India is currently ranked behind the US and China as the world's third-largest oil consumer. It consumed 206.2 million tonnes in the 2017-18 fiscal.
  • During April-December, consumption of petroleum products has been 157.4 million tonnes, up 2.5% over year-ago period.

Government to Cap Profit on Cancer Drugs

  •  In a bid to curb profiteering on crucial medicines, the central government is set to cap trade margins charged by drug retailers and stockists at 25-30% for over 50 non-schedule medicines for cancer and rare diseases, which are currently exempted from price regulation.
  • These include 39 anti-cancer medicines and orphan drugs used in the treatment of rare diseases. 
  • PMO had asked the health ministry to prepare a list of non-schedule anticancer and orphan drugs which are currently outside price control but requires intervention to make them affordable for common man.
  • The list has been submitted and order in this regard will be issued very soon.
  • The government will use Para 19 of the Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO) to fix the trade margin under "extraordinary circumstances" in public interest.
  • The move assumes significance as many new cancer medicines, mostly patented drugs, and orphan drugs are exorbitantly priced but remain outside the purview of price regulation.
  • By capping trade margin of such medicines, the government aims to make them affordable while limiting excessive gains made by wholesalers, distributors and chemists.
  • At present the government caps the trade margin on schedule or price controlled medicines at 8% and 16%, respectively for wholesalers and retailers.
  • However, in case of non-schedule medicines, companies are free to negotiate with traders on margins. 

Anushree Jindal launches micro fin biz

  • Anushree Jindal, daughter-in-law of Sajjan Jindal, has forayed into business with the launch of Svamaan Microfinance, which has recently received the RBI clearance as an NBFC-MFI.
  • Svamaan will be headed by Kiran Kumar, who was formerly with PwC and Capital One. 
  • The company would be focusing on women entrepreneurs and providing loans with ticket sizes ranging from Rs 16,000 to Rs 25,000.
  • Svamaan aims to build a loan book of around Rs 25 crore in the initial months.
  • Jindal has a Master's in accounting, organisations and institutions from London School of Economics.
  • She recently completed a short course, Rethinking Financial Inclusion, from Harvard.
  • Svamaan plans to recruit nearly 100 employees by March 2019 and more than double the number of employees to 250 by 2020.
  • The company aims to empower its first 1,000 rural women customers by March 2019.
  • Former SBI Deputy MD Pradeep Kumar is a director on the board of the company.
  • The micro lender will initially operate in 16 locations including Nanded, Palghar, Thane and Latur in Maharashtra along with Bellary and adjoining districts in Karnataka.
  • Its target is to establish a presence in 50 locations across Maharashtra, Karnataka and eastern markets of Orissa and Chhattisgarh over the next one year.

JNPT Enters List of World's Top 30 Ports

  •  India's largest container port, JNPT, has made its way to the top 30 container ports in the world. Quoting a maritime ranking done by Lloyds Report, which is highly rated globally. JNPT notched up five spots to be 28th on the list.
  • The JNPT also launched their mobile application service to facilitate better tracking of consignments and ease the trade process for their EXIM partners.

SoftBank commits $400m for FirstCry

  •  Japanese internet and telecom giant Soft-Bank's Vision Fund is investing $400 million in baby and mothercare product retailer FirstCry. Of this, around $150 million has already been infused into the company.
  • After this investment, the company is estimated to be valued at around $850 million according to initial calculations by business intelligence platform Paper.vc.FirstCry had 330-350 offline stores.
  • The company, one of the largest in its space, sells just about everything a child and a new mother needs — apparel, footwear, toys, books, feeding & nursing products, soaps, oils, powders, baby monitors, strollers and baby bedding.
  • In 2016, it bought Mahindra group's babycare business BabyOye for over Rs 360 crore in a mixed cash-and-equity transaction. Hopscotch, The Moms Co and TinyStep are some of the other companies operating in the space.
  • Started in 2010, the company is said to have one of the largest parent communities in the country. Prior to this investment, the company had raised about $125 million from multiple investors.

TCS iON Announces Partnership with ASDC

  •  TCS iON has announced a partnership with the Automotive Skill Development Council (ASDC).
  • TCS iON will closely work with the Skill Council to understand the dynamic workforce requirements of the industry and accordingly develop classroom and digital learning modules based on its unique 'Phygital' Learning Methodology.
  • The Digital Assessment Platform will help conduct knowledge and skill assessments and an intelligent algorithm will carefully match the skilled youth to the right jobs.
  • TCS iON will also bring ASDC's training partner ecosystem onto the same platform.

Mastercard Fined by EU

  •  The European Union has fined global credit card giant Mastercard 570 million euros ($647 million) for limiting competition between banks offering cheaper payment fees. 
  • By preventing merchants from shopping around for better conditions offered by banks in other member states, Mastercard's rules artificially raised the costs of card payments, harming consumers and retailers
  • After Visa, Mastercard is the second largest credit card issuer in the European market.

K'taka LS Seats Worse in Child Nutrition

  •  Karnataka has more parliamentary constituencies (PCs) than Bihar and Odisha put together in the list of those with the worst child malnutrition.
  • Shockingly, 12 out of 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in Jharkhand and 19 out of 29 in Madhya Pradesh figure in this list making them the states with the worst record in childhood malnutrition indicators.
  • In contrast, 17 of Kerala's 20 constituencies figure in the list of the best and none in the worst.
  • This was revealed in a study done by a multidisciplinary team of academics from Harvard University, Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi, Tata Trust, and Niti Aayog.
  • The study, reported in Economic & Political Weekly, mapped data on childhood malnutrition from the national family health survey conducted in 2015-16 on to 543 parliamentary constituencies.
  • It provides estimates for four child malnutrition indicators (stunting, underweight, wasting, and anaemia) for each constituency.
  • A total of 72 PCs were in the top bracket of prevalence for all indicators — 12 in Jharkhand, 19 in Madhya Pradesh, 10 in Karnataka, six in Rajasthan and eight in Uttar Pradesh.
  • Of the 70 PCs with the best record on all four indicators, 17 were in Kerala, nine were in West Bengal, and seven each in Odisha and Tamil Nadu.
  • Overall, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Kerala showed low prevalence of the four conditions of malnutrition and Jharkhand showed high prevalence.
  • Interestingly, only 8 out of 80 PCs in Uttar Pradesh and 6 out of 40 in Bihar figured among the worst.

Jan 22, 2019

SHEROES Buys Women's Health App Maya

  •  Women-only community platform SHEROES has acquired Bengaluru-based women's health app Maya in an all-stock deal.
  • This platform helps deepen women's health offerings for the SHEROES community, which already has 14 million members, and aims to reach 100 million in 3-4 years.
  • Founded by John Paul, Maya enables women to keep track of their health via a mobile application.
  • Actively used by women in over 20 countries, Maya has been a game-changer in health tech, offering diagnostic tests, online doctor consultations, fertility predictions and pregnancy tracking.
  • The platform is accessible in 14 international and vernacular languages, including Hindi and Tamil.

Tirumala buys Prabhat's dairy biz

  •  Tirumala Milk Products, south India's second-largest player in the industry, has agreed to buy the dairy business of Navi Mumbai-based Prabhat for over Rs 1,700 crore, which will leave the latter to focus on its animal nutrition segment.
  • Prabhat will transfer the dairy products business to its wholly owned subsidiary Sunfresh Agro on a slump sale basis for Rs 473 crore.
  • It will also sell Sunfresh to Tirumala for Rs 1,227 crore. A slump sale means the transfer of a unit as a going concern along with its liabilities.
  • The proposed acquisition of Prabhat's dairy business will help in scaling up the operations of Tirumala, a unit of French giant Lactalis, in India — the world's largest milk-producing country.
  • Prabhat operates the third-largest cheese manufacturing capacity in India.
  • The Tirumala-Prabhat transaction, advised by Kotak Mahindra Capital and Veritas, is expected to close in the first quarter of next fiscal.
  • About four years ago, Lactalis had bought Tirumala for Rs 1,750 crore.

Manohar Parrikar to Present Annual Budget

  •  Ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar would be presenting the annual budget for the financial year 2019-20 in the state Assembly on January 30.
  • The Business Advisory Committee of the Assembly, which met under Speaker Pramod Sawant, approved the agenda for the three-day session starting from January 29. 

Google Hit with 50mn Euro Data Consent Fine

  •  France's data watchdog has announced a fine of 50 million euros ($57 million) for US search giant Google, using EU's strict General Data Protection Regulation for the first time.
  • Google was fined for failing to provide transparent and easily accessible information on its data consent policies. 

RBI Wants more Pvt Firms to Set up Payment Systems

  •  The Reserve Bank of India has outlined norms for private parties to apply for the development of retail payment systems in the country like IMPS, UPI and others.
  • The central bank has stated in a note that it could allow multiple entities to set up payment systems in India to encourage competition as there are very few players in this space at present.
  • The RBI has said that there is a need for multipronged action to strengthen the retail digital payment system.
  • It further stated the entry norms and processes could be simplified for parties interested in entering the multiple payment system of the country.
  • To encourage a consultative approach, the regulator has placed in the public domain its plans on the payment systems and has invited comments by February 20, 2019.
  • Highlighting the reasons behind this move, the RBI has said that there is significant concentration risk on the platforms since "(there are) only a few operators and a wide array of payment systems". 

Bihar Posts Highest GDP Among States

  •  Bihar topped the list of 17 states with a 11.3% expansion in terms of gross state domestic product (GSDP) growth in 2017-18, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, says a report by ratings agency Crisil.
  • Ranking on growth, inflation and fiscal deficit, Gujarat and Karnataka were among top three performers Jharkhand, Kerala and Punjab were at the bottom in terms of growth.
  • Crisil ranked 17 states, which are in the non-special category on parameters based on CSO data.
  • It left out Goa as it is a small state.
  • West Bengal entered the top three as GSDP grew 9.1% on-year in fiscal year 2018 compared to 4.8% earlier, even as inflation dropped to sub-4% from 7%, and fiscal deficit to 2.4% from 3%.

British Charity Oxfam Report

  •  Twenty-six richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up for the poorest half of the planets population, according to British Charity Oxfam Report released in January 2019.
  • In an annual wealth check released to mark the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the development charity said 2018 had been a year in which the rich had grown richer and the poor poorer.
  • Oxfam said the wealth of more than 2,200 billionaires across the globe had increased by $900 billion in 2018 — or $2.5 billion a day.
  • The 12 per cent increase in the wealth of the very richest contrasted with a fall of 11 per cent in the wealth of the poorest half of the world's population.
  • In the 10 years since the financial crisis, the number of billionaires has nearly doubled.
  • The world's richest man, Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, saw his fortune increase to $112 billion.
  • Just 1 per cent of his fortune is equivalent to the whole health budget for Ethiopia, a country of 105 million people.
  • The massive fall in the number of people living in extreme poverty is one of the greatest achievements of the past quarter of a century but rising inequality is jeopardising further progress.

China's Slowest Growth in 28 Years

  •  China's GDP grew at 6.6 per cent in 2018, its slowest rate since 1990,  stoking fears about the impact of sluggish growth in the world's second largest economy on the world as Beijing grappled with the effects of the trade war with the US. 
  • Signs of further cooling in China, which has generated nearly a third of global growth in recent years, are stoking worries about risks to the world economy and are weighing on profits for the firms ranging from Apple to big carmakers.
  • Fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) grew at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis, easing to 6.4 per cent from 6.5 per cent in the third quarter, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
  • That left full-year growth at 6.6 per cent, the slowest rate of expansion China has seen since 1990. 

German co Allianz enters reinsurance biz in India

  •  German insurer Allianz has set up a reinsurance arm in India with the primary objective of underwriting speciality risks such as cyber and financial lines of business.
  • The reinsurance branch is being set up by Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty (AGCS) with a startup capital of Rs 127 crore.
  • Allianz, which has partnered Bajaj Finserv for life and non-life insurance, has decided to go it alone in reinsurance. It has named C B Murali — a nonlife industry veteran — as CEO of AGCS India.
  • While AGCS is setting up shop in India for the first time, it has had a presence in the country through a 1,000-strong offshore centre, in Thiruvananthapuram, servicing global business.

Bihar Posts Highest GDP Among States

  •  Bihar topped the list of 17 states with a 11.3% expansion in terms of gross state domestic product (GSDP) growth in 2017-18, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, says a report by ratings agency Crisil.
  • Ranking on growth, inflation and fiscal deficit, Gujarat and Karnataka were among top three performers Jharkhand, Kerala and Punjab were at the bottom in terms of growth.
  • Crisil ranked 17 states, which are in the non-special category on parameters based on CSO data.
  • It left out Goa as it is a small state.
  • West Bengal entered the top three as GSDP grew 9.1% on-year in fiscal year 2018 compared to 4.8% earlier, even as inflation dropped to sub-4% from 7%, and fiscal deficit to 2.4% from 3%.

China's Birth Rate Falls Down in the 2nd Year

  •  China's two-child policy implemented in 2016 has failed to make an impact on the country's low birth rate as the number of new-borns dropped by two million last year in the world's most populous nation.
  • The figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the low birth rates coupled with the slowdown of the Chinese economy raised concerns as the country faced demographic crisis with the population of above 60 years making 249 million, accounting for almost 18 per cent of the total population.
  • After China implemented the comprehensive two-child policy that allows all couples to have two children, abandoning its decades-long one-child policy, in 2016, the country's health authority predicted that the fertility rate in 2017 and 2018 would be 1.97 and 2.09.
  • They predicted that the number of new-borns in 2018 would be 7.90 lakh more than 2017.
  • The steady increase in old age population raised concerns over mounting costs of health care for the elderly and the shortage of labour in the world's second largest economy which is also facing a slowdown.
  • A total of 15.23 million babies were born last year in China, a drop by about two million from that of 2017, the data said.
  • The birth rate also dropped from 1,243 to 1,094 per 100,000 population from 2017 to 2018.

Hitachi arm buys Stake in SBI Payment Services

  •  Hitachi Payment Services (HPSPL) will purchase a 26% stake in SBI Payment Services (SPS) by investing between Rs 1,250 crore and Rs 1,500 crore.
  • The investment will be through a combination of subscription to new shares and purchase of SBI's stake in the company.
  • HPSPL India was earlier Prizm Payments, which was rebranded after an acquisition by the Japanese tech giant.
  • SBI had carved out its merchant-acquiring business into a separate entity — SPS — before inviting potential investors to pick up a stake.
  • The merchant-acquiring business includes 5.74 lakh card-swipe machines as well as online merchants where the bank enables digital payments.

NCLT Approves Airtel's Merger with Tata Teleservices

  •  The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved merger of loss-making telecom firm Tata Teleservices with Bharti Airtel.
  • The merger is subject to the approval of the department of telecommunications (DoT).

IMF Revises Down Global Growth Projections

  •  The IMF lowered its global growth projections for 2019 and 2020 to 3.5% and 3.6%, respectively, citing slowdown in several advanced economies around the world more rapidly than previously anticipated.
  • The revised global growth rates are 0.2 and 0.1% point below the IMF's previous projections made three months ago.
  • According to the IMF, Global growth in 2018 is estimated to be 3.7%, as it was last fall, but signs of a slowdown in the second half of 2018 have led to downward revisions for several economies.
  • Weakness in the second half of 2018 will carry over to coming quarters, with global growth projected to decline to 3.5% in 2019 before picking up slightly to 3.6% in 2020.

Jan 21, 2019

India Signs 11 MoUs with Afghanistan

  •  Notwithstanding recent terror attack targeting Indian nationals in Kabul and US efforts to cut a deal with Taliban, India has signed 11MoUs worth $ 9.5 million with the Afghan government.
  • The MoUs were for infrastructure, public services such as health clinics and governance-related projects.
  • These projects include construction of classrooms, orphanages, health clinics, canal protection walls and enhancing economic opportunities for women for seven provinces of Afghanistan— Balkh, Ghor, Herat, Kabul, Bamyan, Badghis and Kapisa.
  • The projects will help local communities in education, employment and livelihood generation and capacity building.

Govt to give central institutes funds to roll out 10% quota

  • In a move to roll out the recently introduced 10% reservation policy for economically weaker sections (EWS) among 'forward castes' in centrally funded higher education institutions (HEIs)from the 2019-20 academic session, the Centre has decided to foot additional financial requirements for the same.
  • The government has also asked all 40 central universities, which includes JNU, DU, AMU, Jamia Millia Islamia and Visva Bharati among others, and 77 other government HEIs for details of seat availability and financial requirements.
  • The HEIs have been asked to respond by January 31 stating that the institutions are to implement the 10% EWS quota from the forthcoming academic session.
  • The government is keen on a rollout in the forthcoming academic session and is framing rules for implementation of the quota in private institutions as well.
  • The constitutional amendment passed by Parliament states the reservation will be applicable in aided as well as unaided educational institutions.

No e-way bill if GST return not filed for 6 mths

  •  Non-filers of GST returns for six consecutive months will soon be barred from generating e-way bills for movement of goods.
  • The Goods and Services Tax Network is developing such IT system that businesses which have not filed returns for two straight return cycles, which is six months, would be barred from generating e-way bills.
  • Touted as an anti-evasion measure, the e-way bill system was rolled out on April 1, 2018, for moving goods worth over Rs 50,000 from one state to another.
  • The same for intra or within the state movement was rolled out in a phased manner from April 15.

Toyota and Panasonic to Set Up EV Battery JV

  •  Toyota Motor Corp and Panasonic Corp are set to launch a joint venture in 2020 to produce batteries for Electric vehicles (EVs) in an effort to compete with Chinese rivals. 
  • The joint venture, to be owned 51% by Toyota and the rest by Panasonic, could also provide batteries to Toyota's EV technology partners Mazda Corp. 
  • The joint venture would build on the agreement that the pair announced in late 2017 on joint development of batteries with higher energy density in a prismatic cell arrangement. 
  • Under a planned joint venture, Panasonic would shift most of its prismatic battery related equipment and facilities in Japan and China to the joint venture, while those producing batteries for US. EV Maker Tesla Inc will remain under the company. 

Siddhartha to Sell Shareholding in Mindtree

  •  Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha is set to sell his 21% shareholding in Mindtree, triggering a takeover move on the Bengaluru-based mid-tier IT services company.
  • Siddhartha is in advanced talks with L&T Infotech, KKR, Baring Private Equity Partners Asia and Prem Watsa's Fairfax and is expected to conclude a deal with one of them in the next 10 days.
  • Siddhartha, the largest shareholder of Mindtree, decided to cash out after monthslong wait to carry the founders along as part of a broader M&A deal.
  • The four founders-—Subroto Bagchi, N S Parthasarathy, Krishnakumar Natarajan and CEO Rostow Ravanan, who together own around 13%—have rebuffed plans to sell or merge Mindtree to buyout funds or rival IT companies.
  • It left Siddhartha, who seed-funded and anchored the company as a passive investor for nearly 20 years, to script his own exit plans.
  • This not only throws open Mindtree to all possibilities, including 'hostile' moves, but has serious ramifications for the company's public shareholders and their wealth.
  • Most potential acquirers have indicated that they would offer a lower price, if founders are not part of the deal and management control doesn't come along.
  • The buyer would then acquire Siddhartha's stake and mop up some more from the stock markets to trigger an open offer, besides calling shareholders' meet to rejig the board.

Axis Bank's CEO in Talks to Hire FedBank's ED

  •  Axis Bank's new CEO Amitabh Chaudhry is in talks to hire Federal Bank's executive director Ganesh Sankaran and HDFC Bank's Ravi Narayanan as part of the broader strategy to strengthen the leadership team at the Mumbai-based lender.
  • Both Sankaran and Narayanan have quit their previous jobs recently and are likely negotiating the terms for joining Axis Bank.
  • Sankaran's exit from Federal Bank was announced to the stock exchanges on January 14. He will step down with effect from February 15.
  • Narayanan quit in December after spending almost two decades with HDFC Bank. His last role was as the head of branch banking and retail trade forex. 

FB and Google to Weed Out Fake Content on Food

  •  The government has instructed Google and Facebook to take down 'false and malicious' videos and other content that spreads misinformation regarding safety and quality of food in India, saying that 'fake' information is eroding the public's confidence in institutions tasked with food safety.
  • The IT ministry issued instructions to the global internet giants, asking them to immediately remove such content and block the accounts of people who are uploading the videos.
  • The order follows a complaint by Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) CEO Pawan Agarwal to IT secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney.
  • The ministry also told the companies to institute a system, as part of their due diligence, for prevention of uploading such imagery/video/text on their platforms.
  • FSSAI also suggested that the internet and social-media companies should appoint a nodal officer so that it can directly take up such issues with them for quick remedial action.

Jan 20, 2019

Ola Seeks to Take NBFC Route to Drive Growth

  •  Ola has applied for a permit to launch a non-banking finance company, as it bets on financial services to diversify beyond the core ride-hailing business where growth is slowing down.
  • Bengaluru-based Ola is looking to deepen a short-term credit service it currently provides on a pilot basis to riders on its app, launch a credit card in partnership with a bank and sell insurance to its driver-partners as well as riders.
  • It already offers a trip-insurance service to customers.
  • Ola has applied to the central bank for the NBFC licence so that it can expand the operations of Ola Money Postpaid, or Ola Credit, which is a buy-now-pay-later product.

Sebi denies L&T permission to buy back shares

  •  Capital market regulator Sebi has rejected a Rs 9,000-crore buyback proposal from engineering & construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) citing compliance issues with rules. According to Sebi, the company's financial ratio will be adversely affected.
  • In a filing to the stock exchanges, L&T said Sebi has asked the company not to proceed with the buyback proposal as its debt after buyback could translate to more than two times its equity capital and free reserves on a consolidated basis.
  • This is not in compliance with the Companies Act and Sebi rules. In other words, the company's debt-equity ratio will exceed 2:1(assuming full acceptance).
  • L&T was planning to buy back upto 6.1 crore shares from the market at a price of Rs 1,475 apiece, making it Rs 9,000 crore.
  • The buyback programme comprised nearly 19% of the company's net worth and 4% of its paid-up equity.
  • After closure of the buyback offer, the number of shares would reduce and accordingly, the paid up equity capital of the company would go down.

FB may have to Pay Fine over 'Privacy Breach'

  •  The Federal Trade Commission is in the advanced stages of its investigation into whether Facebook violated privacy rules and is expected to seek large fines from the company.
  • The investigation, which began in late March, is continuing, and the commissioners and staff have not reached a final conclusion, including how much the agency might seek in fines.
  • The highest financial penalty imposed on a tech company was Google's $22 million settlement in 2012 for privacy violations. In the December meeting, the commissioners discussed a higher fine for Facebook.

Samsung may Go Slow on Manufacturing

  •  Samsung Electronics has informed the government it will have to reduce mobile phone manufacturing in the country, stop local production of flagship models Galaxy S9 and Note 9 and curtail exports of smartphones unless it delays a Make in India plan for components such as display and touch panels.
  • MP, launched in FY17, promotes indigenous manufacturing of cellular handsets and their components to substantially increase value addition within the country.
  • Industry has been lobbying for the PMP deadline for display panels to be pushed back to the end of the next fiscal as there is no local production for these yet and production of other components are yet to be scaled up.

India's First Howitzer Gun-Making Unit

  •  Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Armoured Systems Complex of Larsen and Toubro in Gujarat, the first private facility in the country where the K9 Vajra self-propelled howitzer guns will be manufactured.
  • In 2017, L&T had won the Rs 4,500-crore contract from the Ministry of Defence to supply 100 units of K9 Vajra-T 155 mm/52 calibre tracked self-propelled gun systems to the Army under the Centre's "Make in India" initiative.
  • The company has set up the facility in Hazira, around 30 km from Surat, to manufacture and integrate advanced armoured platforms, such as self-propelled artillery Howitzers, future infantry combat vehicles, future-ready combat vehicles and future main battle tanks.
  • Spread over 40 acres within L&T's 755-acre Hazira Manufacturing Complex, the ASC is executing the K9 Vajra guns programme.
  • The K9 Vajra contract involves delivery of 100 such systems in 42 months, which is the largest contract awarded to a private company by the Ministry of Defence.
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