General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - May 2018

May 2018

Jan 27, 2022

Allcargo Logistics Appoints V. S. Parthasarathy as Vice-Chairman

Private logistics player Allcargo Logistics announced the appointment of Mahindra Group's former executive board member V. S. Parthasarathy as its vice-chairman with immediate effect.
His role as the company's non-executive non-independent vice-chairman will be to guide, mentor and help drive its transformation along with subsidiaries ECU Worldwide and Gati Limited.
In March last year, Parthasarathy had quit the group after serving it for over 21 years in various capacities.

PMC Bank's Branches Begin Functioning as Unity SFB Outfit

The branches of beleaguered Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) began functioning as branches of Unity Small Finance Bank (Unity SFB).
The Government of India notified the scheme of amalgamation of PMC Bank with Unity Small Finance Bank.
The scheme of amalgamation notified envisages takeover of the assets and liabilities of PMC Bank, including deposits, by the Unity Small Finance Bank in terms of the provisions of the scheme.
Unity SFB, which is a 51:49 joint venture between the Centrum Group and Bharat Pe, is making necessary arrangements to implement the provisions of the scheme.
Unity SFB started its operations in November 2021 after receiving a final nod from the central bank. The promoters of Unity Small Finance Bank along with the joint investor have infused a capital of Rs. 1,105.10 crore in Unity Small Finance Bank as on November 1, 2021.

TCS World's Second most Valuable IT Brand

According to Brand Finance, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) became the second most valued brand in the information technology (IT) services sector globally, while Accenture retained the title of the world's most valuable and strongest IT services brand.
Infosys emerged as the fastest growing IT services brand following 52 per cent brand value growth since last year and 80 per cent since 2020 to $12.8 billion, earning it third spot, the brand valuation consultancy said in its latest Global 500 IT Services Ranking report.
TCS and Infosys have pushed IBM to fourth spot from second. IBM's brand value now stands at $10.6 billion, a decline of 34 per cent from last year and 50 per cent since 2020. The US technology major's brand value has fallen significantly after the divestment of Kyndryl.

NSE IFSC Appoints Rajiv Mehrishi as Chairman of Governing Board

NSE IFSC, NSE's International Exchange in GIFT City, appointed Rajiv Mehrishi as the chairman of its governing board.
The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) had earlier approved his appointment as Public Interest Director (PID) on the Governing Board of NSE IFSC in December 2021.
Mehrishi, a retired IAS officer, was the 13th Comptroller and Auditor General of India and vice-chairman of the United Nations Panel of External Auditors.
Few of his prior roles include being finance secretary, home secretary and the chief secretary at government of Rajasthan.

Naina Lal Kidwai resigns from Cipla Board

Drug major Cipla said that Naina Lal Kidwai resigned as independent director on its board, with effect from March 31, 2022.
In a letter shared by the Mumbai-based drug firm, the veteran banker noted that she has put in her papers to fulfil several other responsibilities and professional commitments.

Amin Lakhani Elevated as CEO Mindshare, Parthasarathy Mandayam CSO GroupM

GroupM, the media investment group of WPP, announced the appointment of Parthasarathy Mandayam (Maps) as the Chief Strategy Officer – GroupM South Asia and Amin Lakhani was elevated to the role of Chief Executive Officer – Mindshare South Asia, which was earlier led by Maps.
With more than 25 years of experience in the advertising & communication industry, Maps has successfully managed multiple leadership roles in Mindshare – across Data, Analytics, Strategy, Client Leadership and Business Unit leadership.

Jan 26, 2022

Birla Corp Inaugurates Mukutban Plant, Takes Group Capacity to 20 mn Tonnes

M. P. Birla Group flagship, Birla Corporation, inaugurated a 3.9 million tonne greenfield plant in Mukutban, Maharashtra, taking the total group capacity to 20 million tonnes.
The Mukutban plant is being set up by RCCPL Private Limited (RCCPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Birla Corporation, at an investment of Rs. 2,744 crore, making it the largest greenfield investment in the history of the group.
The plant will be the fourth integrated cement unit of the group and the biggest single line/kiln cement plant in Maharashtra, by capacity. It will be powered by 2 x 20 MW thermal captive power plant, which is based on Air-Cooled Condenser (ACC) technology to minimize water consumption by 90 per cent.

City Union Bank Launches Fitness Watch Debit Card in tie-up with GOQii

City Union Bank, the oldest private sector bank in India, in association with smart-tech-enabled preventive healthcare platform GOQii and powered by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), launched a wearable payment solution called CUB fitness watch debit card.
Customers need to hold this wristwatch in front of the PoS device during payment like tapping the card on PoS. For payments above Rs. 5,000, customers need to tap and enter their PIN. The introductory price of a smartwatch debit card is Rs. 3,499, as compared to an actual cost of Rs. 6,499).
Customers can set limits for their payments using Net / Mobile Banking. Payments made using this Debit Card in a Fitness Watch are safe and secure, the bank said in a statement. For each transaction done using the watch, SMS will be sent to the registered mobile number.

Reserve Bank of India Imposes Penalties on 8 Cooperative Banks

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed penalties on eight cooperative banks for deficiencies in their regulatory compliances.
The eight banks are: The Jammu Central Co-operative Bank Ltd, Jammu and the Jodhpur Nagrik Sahakari Bank, Bhadradri Co-operative Urban Bank, Rajkot Peoples Co-operative Bank, Vasai Janata Sahakari Bank, Mogaveera Co-operative Bank Ltd, Varachha Co-operative Bank Ltd and Associate Co-operative Bank Ltd.
The penalities are based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the banks with their respective customers.

Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric Valuation Tops $5 bn

Ola Electric, the ride-hailing firm's electric vehicle (EV) arm, raised over $200 million from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others. The latest round values the company at $5 billion, an increase from its previous valuation of $3 billion.
In October last year, Ola Electric, raised over $200 million led by Falcon Edge, Softbank and others, tripling its valuation to $3 billion. In July 2019, Ola Electric raised $250 million from Masayoshi Son's SoftBank. It was just a two-year-old firm at that time. The investment made the fledgling venture a "unicorn", or a start-up valued at more than $1 billion.

Jan 25, 2022

Paytm, Fullerton Announce Partnership to Scale up Digital Lending to MSMEs

Paytm and non-banking financial company Fullerton India have announced a partnership to expand digital lending to MSMEs and consumers from smaller cities and towns.
Fullerton India and One97 Communications Limited, which owns the brand Paytm, India's leading digital payments and financial services platform, have announced a partnership to provide lending products to merchant partners and consumers. With the partnership, the two established institutions will leverage data-driven insights and wide reach to bring credit to new-to-credit users.
With this partnership, the fintech users will get Paytm Postpaid (buy-now-pay-later) feature on the Paytm platform. Besides, the partnership is set to offer lending products like merchant loans.

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank Launches Platina Fixed Deposit

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank launched Platina Fixed Deposit, which offers interest of 15 basis points in addition to the regular Ujjivan SFB term deposit rates.
The general FD for 990 days tenure gives 6.75% for general citizens and 7.50% for senior citizens, but Platina FD offers 15 bps over and above these interest rates, as per the company.
However, it comes with certain conditions. The minimum FD amount is Rs. 20 lakh and the maximum amount is less than Rs. 2 crore.
The Platina FD is a non-callable deposit, partial & pre-mature withdrawal is not applicable to this scheme.
The interest payout options can be availed on the monthly, quarterly and also at the end of the maturity period.
The deposit tenure ranges from one year to a maximum of five years.

Jan 24, 2022

Govt. Launches Portal to Share Key Performance Indicators of Coal Sector

The government announced the launch of a portal, 'Koyla Darpan', to share key performance indicators related to the coal sector.
The portal was launched by Coal Secretary Anil Kumar Jain.
As an initial step, the portal has key performance indicators like coal/ lignite production, coal/ lignite offtake, exploration data, central sector schemes, status of coal stock at thermal power plants, allocation of blocks, monitoring of major coal mines, and coal price.

KMBL Signs MoU with GIFT SEZ

To strengthen the presence in the country's new financial & technology gateway, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (KMBL) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with GIFT SEZ Limited (GIFT SEZ), enabling both to work together towards greater enhancement of the financial services eco-system in GIFT IFSC for AIFs and Global Custody Services.
Both Kotak Mahindra Bank and GIFT SEZ (a wholly owned subsidiary company of Gujarat International Finance Tech-City Co. Ltd), will cooperate towards wide-ranging activities to improve customers' overall financial services offerings.
According to the MoU, one area of focus will be to ease market access and cross border activities for the fund management community.
Both KMBL and GIFT SEZ will jointly work on promoting the GIFT IFSC jurisdiction for AIF fund structures, holding seminars and knowledge series, ease of doing business, expansion of financial infrastructure including the custodian activities like setting up of Global Custody services, etc.

PTC India's Independent Director Rakesh Kacker Resigns

Rakesh Kacker, Independent Director, PTC India Ltd resigned from board expressing anguish over serious governance issues at subsidiary PTC India Financial Services Ltd (PFS). Kacker was also independent director on board of PFS till December 31, 2021.
Despite best efforts, the Independent Directors could not convince the management of PTC and PFS to take proper action to run the company.
As a result, the company is now facing serious Governance issues with several defaults of the Companies Act, 2013 and regulation of the Securities & Exchange Board of India. Due to this, the operations of the company also must have been affected, he added.

Jan 23, 2022

IIMK LIVE and Indian Bank ink MoU to Disburse Loans for Start-ups

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode's (IIMK) Business incubator Laboratory for Innovation Venturing and Entrepreneurship (LIVE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Bank to financially support early-stage start-ups. Under the MoU, a start-up funding scheme, 'IndSpring Board' was launched. Under this scheme loans up to Rs. 50 crore would be disbursed to the start-ups.
The start-ups can use the loan amount to meet their operational expenditure and capital expenditure which includes working capital, purchase of fixed assets and other expenses.
The loan amount disbursed to start-ups under the IndSpring Board scheme from IIMK LIVE and Indian Bank can be used to meet a start-up operational expenditure and capital expenditure which includes working capital, purchase of fixed assets and other expenses.
Start-ups selected under this scheme would have to be committed towards working on innovation, development or improvement of products or processes or services, or present a scalable business model with a high potential of employment generation or wealth creation.

Three R&D Projects Approved under India-Israel Tech Innovation Fund

Deliberating on widening the scope of India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F), the two countries approved three joint R&D projects worth $5.5 million and suggested measures to create a broader India-Israel collaborative ecosystem.
The projects are 'Centrally monitored IoT nano-sensors for molecular diagnostics in healthcare and screening applications'; 'NoMoreMos' - a mosquito control biological solution; and 'IoT enabled satellite communication for real-time collection of agriculture and environment data across India'.

Fintech Association Applies to RBI for SRO Role in Digital Lending Space

Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment, or FACE as it is popularly known, has applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to take on the role of a self-regulatory organisation (SROs) in the digital lending space. This comes after a working group of the central bank, tasked with studying digital lending in the regulated financial sector as well as by unregulated players, recommended creation of SROs, among other things to keep a check on the activities of digital lenders.
Formed in September 2020, FACE is a not-for-profit industry association, intended to drive ethical lending practices among the digital lenders in the country. The organisation has been working closely with the regulator (RBI), industry players, and other stakeholders to address the need of consumer protection and dealing with fringe-elements that hurt consumer trust in the system. Digital lenders such as EarlySalary, Kissht, LoanTap, Cashe, KreditBee, PaySense, StashFIN, CredAvenue, and a few others are members of FACE.

ReNew Power Joins Hands with Fluence to Offer Energy Storage Solutions

ReNew Power formed a Joint Venture (JV) with US headquartered Fluence to form a new entity which will provide energy storage solutions in India. The 50:50 JV will target the country's storage market, which is estimated to grow to 27 GW by 2030.
Managed and operated by an independent management team and board, the JV aims to bring market-leading energy storage technology and global experience to Indian customers by localising and integrating Fluence's energy storage products and packages in India.
The first project the JV will cater to is a 50 MWh battery-based energy storage system (BESS) for ReNew Powers' 300 MW Peak Power Project in Karnataka.

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