General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - February 2017

Feb 2017

Aug 01, 2018

Parekh Re-appointed Director of HDFC

Deepak Parekh was re-appointed as non-executive director on the Board of country's largest mortgage lender HDFC. JJ Irani and Keki Mistry too get re-appointment as directors to HDFC's board.

Myntra Acquires Pretr Online

Flipkart-owned fashion retailer Myntra has acquired omni-channel fashion marketplace Pretr Online Services Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed amount as part of its broader push towards establishing itself as a retailer across channels.

Core Sector Growth Jumps to 7-month High

Core sector growth jumped to a seven-month high of 6.7% in June due to pickup in growth of refinery products and steel and aided in part by a favourable base effect. The eight core sectors had expanded by 1% in June last year.

Paytm Stops Enrolment of New Customers on Platform

India's largest payments bank Paytm has stopped enrolment of new customers on its platform following observations made by the banking regulator RBI. Paytm stopped enrolling new customers on June 20 after an audit by the Reserve Bank of India, which made certain observations about the process the company follows in acquiring new customers and its adherence to know-your-customer (KYC) norms.

Paytm was also asked to remove Renu Satti as chief executive officer (CEO) of the payments bank following the RBI's objections about her ability to lead a banking services firm.

RBI also observed that Paytm should have better security mechanisms to store customer data and asked Paytm Payments Bank to have an office separate from that of One97 Communications Ltd.

RIL Regains Status as Country's Most Valued Firm

Reliance Industries (RIL) regained its status as country's most valued firm by market capitalisation, replacing Tata group's crown jewel TCS from the top slot. TCS is now at the second position in m-cap ranking followed by HDFC bank.

India Bans Import of Rabies Vaccine from China

The drug controller general of India banned the import of the rabies vaccine from Chinese vaccine manufacturer Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences, which was found to have faked records and ordered to stop production earlier this month by China's drug controller.On July 24, Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered a "thorough investigation" into widespread concerns that hundreds of thousands of infants might have been administered fake vaccines produced by one of the country's largest pharmaceutical firms.

According to official news agency Xinhua, Xi had termed "the illegal production of vaccines by Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Limited as hideous and appalling".

TRAI Unveils New Norms for 4G Network

Telecom regulator released new parameters for assessing call quality on the 4G network with a view to check problems like voice mute faced by the customers. TRAI has decided to measure call quality on 4G network in terms of data packets. The regulator has mandated telecom operators to ensure that not more than or equal to 2% of total data packets transmitted during uplink and downlink of calls should be lost so that customers get to experience better call quality. New norms would be applicable from October 1.

Jul 31, 2018

Draft E-commerce Policy

According to Commerce Secretary-Designate Anup Wadhawan, the draft e-commerce policy being formulated by the government will be in keeping with the recommendations of the Justice Srikrishna Committee report on data privacy.

The draft law recommended by the Srikrishna Committee has left it to the Central government to notify categories of personal data that will be considered as critical, and hence necessarily be located in India. Other personal data can be transferred out of the country, but a copy must be retained in India.

BEML and HEC sign MoU

BEML Ltd. and Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to manufacture and market heavy engineering and mining equipment.

The proposed collaboration would also extend to installation, commissioning and after-sales support for the mining products.

The move is aimed at countering competition from MNCs and resisting the entry of other global players for supply of equipment like rope shovels and walking draglines.

Punjab Okays Fiscal Incentives

The Punjab government gave its approval to detailed schemes and operational guidelines for availing of fiscal incentives under the new industrial policy.

The operational guidelines include schemes for exemption from payment of stamp duty or reimbursement thereof to the industrial units. The Cabinet also approved detailed guidelines for grant of exemption from payment of electricity duty, property tax and approving another scheme for investment subsidy by way of reimbursement of VAT-SGST. Operational guidelines have been also finalised for providing fiscal incentives, interest subsidy to MSMEs.

HSBC India Gets New CEO

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) has appointed Surendra Rosha as Chief Executive Officer for HSBC India. Mr. Rosha succeeds Jayant Rikhye, who is taking leave of absence for medical reasons. The appointment is subject to regulatory approvals.

Mr. Rosha is currently HSBC's Head of Financial Institutions Group (FIG) for Asia-Pacific.

He began his financial services career when he joined HSBC's Indian operations in 1991.

Export Controls Eased on India

In a major boost to India, the U.S. eased export controls on high-technology product sales to it by designating it as a Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 country.

Interest on Fixed Deposits Increased

The SBI hiked interest rates on fixed deposits (FDs) for select tenures. Interest rates have been hiked in the range of 5 basis points to 10 basis points, which translate to a rise by 0.05% to 0.1%. The new interest rates are applicable with effect from July 30.

Jul 29, 2018

Sirpur Paper Mills Gets New Lease of Life

Almost four years after the machinery fell silent, the Nizam-era enterprise Sirpur Paper Mills (SPM), is set to throb back to life with the National Company Law Tribunal's Hyderabad Bench approving a resolution plan submitted by JK Paper.

Making this happen for the integrated paper and pulp mill, established in 1936 by the Nizam of Hyderabad, is the modern-day Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the corporate debt resolution mechanism.

Jul 28, 2018

ICICI Bank's First-ever Net Loss

ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, reported its first ever loss amounting to Rs. 119.55 crore for the quarter ended June 30, due to higher provisions for bad loans.

SoftBank Partners Paytm

SoftBank Group Corp. will unveil a digital payments service in Japan, and has partnered Paytm for the service. The service PayPay will be introduced by SoftBank's JV PayPay Corporation. "PayPay will team up with Paytm, a SoftBank Vision Fund portfolio company, to utilise Paytm's technology and expertise in mobile payments.

Jul 27, 2018

NTT to Set up 2 India Data Centres

Japan's NTT Communications Corporation announced that the company will set up two new data centres in Mumbai and Bangalore, through Netmagic, a subsidiary.

The centres would deliver Netmagic's entire suite of services, including managed co-location and managed app hosting.

Birla to Acquire US Firm Aleris Corp

Hindalco will acquire US-based aluminium producer Aleris Corporation for $2.58 billion through its wholly-owned subsidiary Novelis.

As per reports, the deal will lead to the creation of second largest aluminium company in the world with $21 billion revenue, and 40,000 employees.

Aleris is a global supplier of aerospace and automotive aluminium rolled products.

Fan and Carpet Industry on Brink of Closure

Amritsar's once famous fan manufacturers and carpet weavers are on the verge of extinction due to high input cost, shortage of skilled labourers, lack of innovation and flight of production units to other states.

The number of fan manufacturers has shrunk to less than 70 from over 2,500 units in early 80s.

The carpet industry of the city has a similar story. It has been facing hard times because of acute shortage of trained manpower.

Government to Sell Stake in HUDCO and NTPC

The government is planning to sell up to 10% stake each in real estate firms HUDCO and NBCC as also 3% in NTPC through an offer for sale (OFS), which could fetch about Rs. 5,900 crore to the exchequer.

Vodafone-Idea Merger Gets Final Nod

The government gave final approval to the mega merger of Vodafone and Idea Cellular which will create the country's largest mobile operator with 35 per cent market share and around 430 million subscribers.

The final nod comes after Idea Cellular and Vodafone India made a joint payment of Rs. 7,268.78 crore 'under protest' to the Department of Telecom (DoT) for merging their mobile businesses.

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