General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - December 2018

Dec 2018

Sep 03, 2022

Reckitt Benckiser CEO Laxman Narasimhan Steps Down

Reckitt Benckiser Group announced that its CEO Laxman Narasimhan will step down from his position on September 30, 2022, and would relocate to the United States, for personal and family reasons. He was also approached for a new opportunity. Narasimhan had previously worked at PepsiCo and McKinsey, before joining Reckitt in September 2019.
The maker of Dettol and Lysol disinfectants, in the announcement, said that Nicandro Durante who is the current Senior Independent Director, would step into the role of CEO, as the Board evaluates and selects the future leadership.

Indian-origin Laxman Narasimhan is New CEO of Starbucks

Indian-origin Laxman Narasimhan was named as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of coffee giant Starbucks. Laxman Narasimhan was the CEO of Reckitt, which also makes Durex condoms, Enfamil baby formula and Mucinex cold syrup. The 55-year-old, who previously worked at PepsiCo as its global chief commercial officer, replaced Howard Schultz.
Laxman Narasimhan will join the company on October 1 but will take the helm in April 2023. Until then, interim CEO Howard Schultz will continue to lead the company and Laxman Narasimhan will work closely with Howard Schultz through April 1.

Rajasthan Announces Amnesty Scheme for Mining

The Rajasthan government announced an amnesty scheme for miners.
The mines department's Arrears and Interest Waiver Scheme, 2022, would be applicable to the outstanding dues of those in the business of minor minerals.
This scheme is being implemented on mining leases, quarry licences, dead rent on a temporary work permit for river sand, royalties, penalties, etc up to March 31, 2021.
A maximum relief of 90 per cent and a minimum of 40 per cent on the principal in different slabs would be given in accordance with the outstanding period.

Ashok Leyland Bags Order for Supplying 1,400 School Buses in UAE

Ashok Leyland, the flagship brand of the Hinduja Group, would supply 1,400 school buses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the company's largest ever such deal in the West Asian nation.
The 55-seater Falcon and 32-seater Oyster models will be supplied from Ashok Leyland's $50 million manufacturing facility in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, which is the only certified local bus-making facility in the entire GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council).
The fleet deal was bagged by Ashok Leyland's UAE distribution partners, Swaidan Trading-Al Naboodah Group.

Sep 02, 2022

LIC Not among Top-10 Valued Companies

State-run insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is no longer part of the top ten companies by market capitalization as it was replaced by Bajaj Finance and Adani Transmission. LIC holds 11th spot in the list, whereas Bajaj Finance and Adani Transmission took 10th and 9th spot, respectively, in the overall ranking.
Adani Transmission entered the coveted list of top 10 most valued companies with a market value of Rs. 4.43 lakh crore on the BSE, higher than Bajaj Finance's total mcap of ₹4.42 lakh crore and LIC's Rs. 4.26 lakh crore.

Kerala's Alappuzha Declared Full Digital Banking District

Alappuzha became the fifth fully digital banking district in the state of Kerala.
A declaration in this regard was made by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Kerala and Lakshadweep Regional Director Thomas Mathew.
As part of the initiative, at least one digital transaction facility, such as debit-credit card, Internet banking, mobile banking, unified payment interface, and so on, has been enabled in 26 lakh savings/current bank accounts in 29 banks in the district.
Banking services in Thrissur, Kottayam, Palakkad and Kasaragod have already become digital.
The project was initiated by the RBI with the support of the State Level Bankers' Committee (SLBC) and respective district administrations as part of the Union government's Digital India project.

Sep 01, 2022

Reliance Industries to Build World's Largest Carbon Fibre Plant

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani announced to build India's first and one of the world's largest Carbon Fibre plants at Hazira, Gujarat. The plants will have a capacity of 20,000 MTPA based on Acrylonitrile feedstock. Overall, in the Oil to Chemical segment (O2C), Ambani Ambani announced an investment of Rs. 75,000 crore over the next five years to expand capacities in existing and new value chains. These value chains are – Polyester value chain, Vinyl chain, and New Materials. The first phase of the plant will be completed in 2025.
The company will further integrate its composites business with Carbon Fibre to produce Carbon Fibre composites. Apart from other applications, Carbon Fibre composites are also used to meet the rapidly growing light-weight requirements of Mobility and Renewable Energy. Thus, Carbon Fibre promises to be a multi-decade growth engine for O2C, Ambani highlighted. Reliance has commenced its journey to becoming net carbon zero by 2035 with a set of concrete actions.

Virgin Atlantic Expands India Presence with Codeshare Agreement with IndiGo

The country's largest airline IndiGo and British carrier Virgin Atlantic announced a codeshare agreement.
The agreement will allow Virgin Atlantic to sell seats to passengers connecting onto IndiGo flights.
The initial codeshare destinations in India include Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa, Delhi and Mumbai.
The additional destinations will include Kochi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Pune, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Vadodara, Indore and Visakhapatnam.
Under the codeshare partnership, customers booking a Virgin Atlantic ticket will be able to fly on the airline's London Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai flights and connect to and from 7 additional cities in India.
Codesharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers and provide seamless travel to destinations where it has no presence.

ONGC Gets Rajesh Kumar Srivastava as Third Interim Chairman

India's top oil and gas producer ONGC got a record third interim chairman in Rajesh Kumar Srivastava as the government has not made a full-time appointment yet.
Srivastava, who is the senior-most director on the ONGC board, has been given additional charge of chairman and managing director after current acting head Alka Mittal superannuated.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is without a regular chairman and managing director since April 2021. Subhash Kumar, the then senior-most director on the company board and the director for finance, was named officiating head after Shashi Shanker superannuated on March 31, 2021.

Telangana Tops Inflation Chart At 8.32%

India's retail inflation has been a bugbear for the economy since it surged past 6% in January, but there are wide disparities in the pace of price rise experienced by consumers across the country, with a dozen States clocking an average inflation of less than 6% and another 12 States averaging over 7% through 2022 so far.
As many as 14 States, along with the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir, have witnessed price rise higher than the national average through 2022, with all but two of these States seeing higher than 7% inflation. Consumers in Telangana, West Bengal and Sikkim faced the steepest spike in prices, with their combined retail inflation for rural and urban areas averaging 8.32%, 8.06%, and 8.01%, respectively.
Some of the other major States where inflation has stayed sharply elevated include Maharashtra and Haryana (7.7%), Madhya Pradesh (7.52%), Assam (7.37%), Uttar Pradesh (7.27%), Gujarat and J&K (7.2%), as well as Rajasthan (7.1%).

Aug 31, 2022

Govt. Terminates Ranganathan as GAIL Director; Repatriates Him to ED Post

The government terminated E. S. Ranganathan as director (marketing) of GAIL (India) Ltd and repatriated him as executive director of the company.
Ranganathan was in January arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly taking bribes to give discounts to some private companies on the petrochemicals products that GAIL sold to them. Following this, he was placed under suspension.
He got bail in March.
He was executive director when he was appointed director (marketing) in July 2020. He will now revert to that position.
He will superannuate in May next year.

Mercedes-Benz India Appoints Santosh Iyer as MD and CEO

Mercedes-Benz India announced the appointment of Santosh Iyer as the new Managing Director and CEO, he will be the first Indian to hold the post. He succeeds Martin Schwenk who will take up the position of President and CEO, Mercedes-Benz Thailand. Both these appointments will be effective starting next year, i.e. 1st of January 2023.
Santosh Iyer has been working at Mercedes-Benz India since 2009 and has held executive positions in a variety of departments, including sales, marketing, customer care, communications, and customer relationship management.

Zomato Launches 'Intercity Legends', Now Order from Anywhere in India

From biryani from the Land of Nizams and Kolkata's spongy sandesh to Lucknow's juicy kebabs, Zomato is 'tasting' the waters with its Intercity Legends. Its new intercity service allows foodies to order popular authentic dishes from across the country and have them delivered to their doorstep the following day.
The restaurant aggregator will pilot the initiative in Gurugram and South Delhi.
Food is freshly prepared by the restaurant and packed in reusable and tamper-proof containers to keep it safe during air transit. State-of-the-art mobile refrigeration technology (tech) preserves the food without the need to freeze it or add any kind of preservatives.

Gautam Adani Becomes 3rd Richest Person in World

Gautam Adani now became the world's third-richest person. It's the first time an Asian broken into the top-3 of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a net worth of $137.4 billion. He is now just behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the global ranking.
Telsa CEO Elon Musk has a net worth of $251 billion, while Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has a total worth of $153 billion. Gautam Adani, co-founder and chairman of the Adani Group, has left behind in the ranking business magnate Bernard Arnault.

L&T Technology Wins 5-year Deal with BMW Group in Infotainment Sector

Engineering services firm L&T Technology Services won a five-year, multi-million-dollar deal from European luxury automaker BMW Group to provide high-end engineering services for its suite of infotainment consoles targeted for its family of hybrid vehicles.
The LTTS team of engineers will be providing services in the areas of software build and integration, infotainment validation and defect management.
The large deal was awarded to LTTS because of its deep domain expertise and engineering leadership in transportation technologies and LTTS' proven ability to offer unique opportunities to scale up existing projects and work on new ones.

Aug 30, 2022

Tata Steel Inks MoU with Punjab Govt. to Set up Steel Plant in Ludhiana

Tata Steels signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Punjab for setting up a 0.75 million tonne per annum (MnTPA) long products steel plant with a scrap-based electric arc furnace (EAF).
This initiative to set up the greenfield facility at Kadiana Khurd, Hitech Valley, Ludhiana in Punjab is a part of Tata Steel's commitment to investing in a circular economy and transitioning to low-carbon steelmaking through the steel recycling route. It is a step aligned to the Company's goal of achieving Net Zero carbon emission by 2045.
The state-of-the art EAF-based steel plant would produce construction grade steel rebar under the company's flagship retail brand 'Tata Tiscon', which would enable Tata Steel to further augment its market presence in the construction segment.

Harsh Shah Steps down as CEO of Azure Power

Harsh Shah has stepped down from the position of CEO of New York Stock Exchange-listed renewable energy company Azure Power, in just two months of taking up the role. The company has now appointed Rupesh Agarwal as the acting CEO. Agarwal had joined Azure in the capacity of Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer.
Shah was earlier CEO of IndiGrid, India's first power transmission InvIT. In an exchange notification, IndiGrid said it has reinstated Shah as the CEO.
Azure was founded by Inderpreet Wadhwa in 2008 and was listed at NYSE in 2016.

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