General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - March 2018

Mar 2018

Mar 17, 2022

MCL Becomes the Largest Coal Producing Company in India

The Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), a unit of the CIL, crossed 157 million tonne (MT) in coal production in the financial year of 2021-22, to become the leading coal producing company in the country.
Chairman-cum-Managing Director of the company, OP Singh congratulated all officers, staff, employees of contracted companies and other stakeholders for their contribution in making MCL the leading coal producing company in the country.
Surpassing all previous records, MCL despatched over 166 MT dry fuel to the consumers, registering 22 per cent growth over a previous financial year while it has also removed 195 MCuM (million cubic meters) of over burden registering 19 per cent growth over the last financial year.

BBB Recommends A. Manimekhalai to MD & CEO Post at Union Bank of India

The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) recommended A. Manimekhalai for the position of managing director and chief executive (MD & CEO) of Union Bank of India. She is cuurenty Executive Director at Bengaluru-based Canara Bank.
Rajkiran Rai. G, the incumbent MD & CEO of Union Bank, will complete his term by May end. The government had extended his term beyond June 30, 2020.
BBB also recommended Ajay Kumar Srivastava's name as MD & CEO in Chennai-based Indian Overseas Bank and Swaroop Kumar Saha for post of MD & CEO in Delhi-based Punjab & Sindh Bank.

DBS Bank India Launches Green Deposits Programme

In line with its focus on responsible banking, DBS Bank India announced the launch of its Green Deposit Programme for corporate clients providing a simple way for companies to support environmentally-friendly projects or avenues.
DBS Bank is one of the few banks globally to integrate Sustainable Development Goals by offering lending & trade credit solutions to sustainable and environmentally-friendly green sectors and now offering a Green Deposit product.
The Green Deposits proposition combines all the benefits of a regular fixed deposit with a commitment from DBS to support green and sustainable loans disbursed by the bank. Green Deposits serve as an ideal opportunity for corporates looking to include sustainability agenda into their treasury activities or those having limited options for investing in environmentally-beneficial projects.

Highest Number of Frauds at Kotak Mahindra Bank in 2021, followed by ICICI Bank

As per Govt. data, Kotak Mahindra Bank was hit by the highest number of frauds at 642, involving Rs. 1 lakh and above, in the first nine months of 2021-22, followed by ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank at 518 and 377, respectively.
Directions issued by the Reserve Bank of India to banks, and the government instituted wide-ranging structural and procedural reforms have helped check frauds in banks over the last five years and the amount involved has come down sharply.

Softbank Representative Munish Varma Resigns from Paytm, PB Fintech Boards

Softbank managing partner Munish Ravinder Varma has resigned from the board of the digital financial services company One97 Communications, which operates under the Paytm brand, and PB Fintech.
Softbank Vision Funds India Holdings (Cayman) holds a 17.47 per cent stake in Paytm.
PB Fintech owns brands like Policy Bazaar, Paisa Bazaar.

Mar 16, 2022

LivQuik, First to Achieve RBI's PPI Interoperability Guidelines

Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) issuer LivQuik achieved full Interoperability as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India for their Prepaid payments Instruments.
The company is also the first PPI issuer to have achieved full interoperability.
RBI guidelines mandate PPI Issuers to facilitate interoperability for full-KYC wallets by March 31, 2022.

Myanmar to Initiate Rupee Convertibility for Trade along Indian Border

The Myanmar government intends to initiate the currency convertibility for the Indian rupee for trade along the border it shares with India, following the Southeast Asian country's agreement this month to deal in Thai baht with neighbours and the kyat-baht initiative for border trade with China.
The Myanmar government has agreed to accept the Thai baht as an official currency for settling border trade starting this month. Thailand is the second country after China to permit its national currency to be exchangeable with the Myanmar kyat for border trade activities.
Myanmar and China commenced kyat-renminbi settlement for border trades in January 2022.

Flipkart Health+ Names Prashant Jhaveri as CEO

Flipkart Health+ appointed Prashant Jhaveri as its chief executive officer (CEO) to lead Flipkart's foray in the fast-growing healthcare sector in India.
Prior to joining Flipkart Health+ Jhaveri was the chief business officer at Apollo Health and Lifestyle Limited, where he was responsible for growth, partnerships and creating cross-functional synergies across different consumer-facing businesses and touchpoints. He also served as the chief executive officer of MediBuddy, and chief business officer for the Medi Assist Group in his earlier stints.
Jhaveri has over 17 years of experience in the health, health insurance and other allied healthcare sectors.

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance's MD & CEO, Tapan Singhel Gets 5-Year Extension

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance announced a five-year tenure extension of its managing director and CEO Tapan Singhel.
The new term will be effective from April 1, 2022.
Under Singhel's leadership, the company has emerged as one of the largest and most profitable private general insurers in the country ensuring growth, profitability and customer-centricity.

ICICI Bank Launches Co-branded Credit Cards with Emirates Skywards

ICICI Bank launched 'Emirates Skywards ICICI Bank Credit Card' in partnership with Emirates Skywards, the loyalty programme of Emirates and flydubai. The bouquet of cards allows the customers to earn reward points – called Skywards Miles – on travel, lifestyle and everyday spends.
These cards offer best-in-class rewards and benefits and are a perfect fit for affluent customers who regularly travel abroad.
ICICI Bank is the first Indian lender to partner with Emirates Skywards to offer the exclusive range of credit cards in the country.
Powered with Visa, the co-branded credit cards are available in three variants – 'Emirates Skywards ICICI Bank Emerald Credit Card', 'Emirates Skywards ICICI Bank Sapphiro Credit Card' and 'Emirates Skywards ICICI Bank Rubyx Credit Card'.

Mar 15, 2022

HAL Signs Pact with SASMOS to Work Together in Aerospace Domain

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) signed an MoU with Bengaluru-based company SASMOS to work together on advanced electronics, electrical and fibre optic interconnections in the aerospace domain.
HAL's subsidiary Naini Aerospace Limited (NAeL) was also a signatory to the MoU.
The MoU is intended to explore business cooperation, especially in the northern India, through utilization of capacity and capabilities of NAeL to bring their expertise in fibre optics, electronics and electrical interconnected system in the aerospace domain through the support from HAL and SASMOS.
Under the MoU, HAL and SASMOS will "work together in the field of advanced electronics, electrical and fibre optics interconnections in the aerospace domain.

N. Chandrasekaran, Tata Sons Chief, is Chairman of Air India

N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, was appointed as the chairman of Air India by the airline's board.
Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group had in October 2021 won the bid to acquire debt-laden state-run Air India by offering Rs. 18,000 crore for it.
Tata Sons is yet to appoint the chief executive officer and managing director (CEO&MD) of Air India.
Chandrasekaran's appointment as the chairman of the airline was cleared by its board last week.

Paytm Payments Bank Can't Onboard New Customers

RBI banned Paytm Payments Bank from onboarding new customers with immediate effect, citing 'material supervisory concerns' observed at the bank. It has also directed the payments bank arm to appoint an external firm to conduct a comprehensive IT audit. RBI indicated it will make a call on allowing the onboarding of customers by Paytm Payments Bank only after reviewing the IT audit report.
According to the RBI, the action followed material supervisory issues at the payments bank.
The latest bar on the Paytm Payments Bank will not have any impact on the existing Paytm users. They will be able to do their app-related transactions as usual.
However, the latest RBI action comes at a time when Paytm was eyeing to upgrade its payments bank to a small finance bank licence, after completing five years of operation in May this year.

BoB, BNP Paribas Announce MF JV with Suresh Soni as CEO

Bank of Baroda and BNP Paribas announced a joint venture to form 'Baroda BNP Paribas Mutual Fund'.
Bank of Baroda will have a 50.1 per cent stake in the asset management company (AMC), while BNP Paribas Asset Management will hold the remaining 49.9 per cent stake.
Suresh Soni was appointed the CEO of the merged entity.
The new entity will leverage on the strengths that each partner has developed, to offer products specifically designed for retail and institutional clients in India.
In 2019, Bank of Baroda had announced the merger of Baroda Asset Management India with BNP Paribas Asset Management India and there was no cash consideration in the proposed transaction.

Mar 14, 2022

Tech Mahindra to Completely Acquire Thirdware

IT company Tech Mahindra will acquire 100 per cent stake in Mumbai-based enterprise application company Thirdware for USD 42 million (about Rs. 322 crore) in an all-cash deal.
The acquisition is expected to bolster Tech Mahindra's digital solutions and services in automotive consulting, design, development and implementation in areas like enterprise resource planning, industrial internet of things etc.
Thirdware Solutions has over 850 employees. It closed the financial year 2020-21 with a revenue of Rs. 210.6 crore and recorded a turnover of Rs. 226.5 crore in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.

SoftBank in Talks with Tatas, Mahindra for Stake Buy in Subsidiary

Japanese investor SoftBank Investment Advisers is in talks with Tatas and Mahindras for a stake buy in one of their subsidiaries.
The talks have been on for the last six months and both the conglomerates represent an interesting opportunity to invest, courtesy strong brand presence and an offline sales network, Rajeev Misra, the chief executive for the investor.
SoftBank has billions of dollars invested across the world and its domestic bets include payments focused Paytm and other unicorns.

Tamilnadu Petroproducts Becomes World's First LAB Manufacturing Company to Get BIS Certification

In a significant development, Chennai-based petrochemicals manufacturer Tamilnadu Petroproducts Ltd (TPL) became the first company in the world to have its product linear alkylbenzene (LAB) conferred with IS12795:2020 certification by the Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, Government of India. TPL is a part of the petrochemicals division of AM International, the Singapore-headquartered diversified, multinational group of companies with a federated operating architecture.
The company is India's leading manufacturer of LAB and the only producer in South India. LAB is a crucial raw material used in the manufacture of synthetic detergents and industrial cleaners. Around 40% of the fabric detergents used in Indian households constitute TPL's products. Its 'Superlab' brand is among the most trusted LAB brands in the country.

Govt. Appoints Debasish Panda as IRDAI Chief

The government appointed former financial services secretary Debasish Panda as chairman of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).
Panda's appointment as chairperson of the insurance regulator is initially for a period of three years.
Panda, a 1987-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, retired as financial services secretary in January this year after a two-year stint.
IRDAI is entrusted with the task of protecting the interest of insurance policyholders and bringing about speedy and orderly growth of the insurance industry (including annuity and superannuation payments), for the benefit of the common man and to provide long term funds for accelerating growth of the economy.

IIT Bombay Alumnus Ranjit Rath Selected to Lead Oil India

Government headhunter Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) picked a non-upstream executive, Ranjit Rath to head India's second largest state oil and gas producer, Oil India Ltd.
Rath who is currently chairman and managing director of Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd (MECL), was selected after interviews of five applicants.
He was selected for the post of chairman and managing director ahead of two directors on the Oil India board and another executive director of the company.
Oil India's current chairman and managing director Sushil Chandra Mishra will superannuate on June 30, 2022.
A Geoscientist, Rath is an alumnus of IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur and Utkal University. Prior to his appointment to MECL, he was the General Manager with Engineers India Ltd, New Delhi and was posted with Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd.

Punjab & Sind Bank to Buy 2% Stake in Bad Bank NARCL

Punjab & Sind Bank entered into an agreement to buy 2 per cent stake in asset reconstruction company NARCL for Rs. 55 crore.
The equity investment would be done in tranches, with the first investment of Rs 28.18 crore expected to be completed by March 31, 2022.
The financial investment is being done to ensure prompt resolution, including recovery of NPA (non-performing assets) accounts.
NARCL was incorporated on July 7, 2021 with a total authorised share capital of Rs. 2,750 crore to act as a bad bank for speedy resolution of bad assets of the banks.

RBI Lifts All Restrictions on HDFC Bank's New Digital Launches

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lifted the restrictions imposed on HDFC Bank regarding its business generating activities planned under the Digital 2.0 programme.
In December 2020, RBI had directed HDFC Bank to temporarily halt all digital launches as well as new sourcing of credit card customers, following various outages the bank faced due to technical glitches in the past two years. The RBI action came after the bank's customers faced a number of incidents of outages in internet banking, mobile banking, and payment utilities of the bank over the past two years.

MCL Becomes Largest Coal Producing Company in India

The Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), a unit of the CIL, crossed 157 million tonne (MT) in coal production in the financial year of 2021-22, to become the leading coal producing company in the country.
On March 2, 2022 the company produced 7.62 lakh tonne of dry fuel which is the highest in a day during the current financial year reaching 157.7 MT with a growth of around 16 per cent over the last financial year.
Surpassing all previous records, MCL has despatched over 166 MT dry fuel to the consumers, registering 22 per cent growth over a previous financial year while it has also removed 195 MCuM (million cubic meters) of over burden registering 19 per cent growth over the last financial year.

Mar 13, 2022

CCI Approves Acquisition of L&T AMC by HSBC Asset Management

Fair trade regulator CCI approved the acquisition of L&T Investment Management Ltd by HSBC Asset Management (India) Pvt Ltd.
Commission approves acquisition of 100 per cent share capital of L&T Investment Management Ltd (L&T AMC) by HSBC Asset Management (India) Private Limited (HSBC AMC).
The transaction involves the acquisition by HSBC AMC and its nominees of 100 per cent share capital of L&T AMC from L&T Finance Holdings Ltd and its nominees.
Simultaneously, there will be a change in the sponsorship, trusteeship, management and administration of the L&T Mutual Fund schemes managed by L&T AMC.

Neelachal Ispat JV Partners in Share-purchase Pact with Tata Steel Arm

Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd's JV partners signed a share purchase agreement (SPA) with Tata Steel Long Products, paving the way for NINL privatisation.
NINL is a joint venture of MMTC, NMDC, BHEL, MECON and 2 Odisha government PSUs - OMC and IPICOL.
Tata Steel Long Products emerged as the highest bidder with Rs 12,100 crore for the acquisition of the 93.71 per cent equity stake of NINL.
NMDC executed definitive agreements for the sale of its entire equity in NINL to Tata Steel Long Products Limited.

Tata Power Partners Enviro to Install EV Charging Points in Gurugram

Electric-vehicle charging infra provider Tata Power collaborated with Enviro - the facility management wing of real estate developer Vatika Group - to install 59 EV charging points at its properties.
The EV chargers will be installed at 18 locations across the properties of Vatika Group in the city.
These chargers will be made available as public charging stations and semi-public based on the nature of the premises.
Tata Power has been rapidly setting up EV charging infrastructure across the country, helping India adopt environment-friendly mobility.

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