GoM on GST Appellate Tribunal Set Up, Headed by Dushyant Chautala
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has set up a six-member group of ministers (GoM) to recommend necessary amendments required in the GST laws and other legal changes for setting up the GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT).
The GoM will be headed by Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala.
The 47th GST Council meeting, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, had last month decided to constitute a GoM to address various concerns raised by the states in relation to the constitution of the GSTAT.
Eureka Forbes Names Pratik Pota as MD & CEO
Private equity firm Advent International announced that it will be partnering with Pratik Pota to lead its portfolio company, Eureka Forbes.
Pratik Pota will have the title of Managing Director and CEO of Eureka Forbes.
Pratik will lead the management team to continue scaling the business, solidifying Eureka Forbes' market leadership position, and delivering innovative products for a growing customer base.
Axis Bank Signs MoU with Indian Air Force
Private sector lender Axis Bank signed an MoU with the Indian Air Force (IAF) to manage salary accounts of the defense personnel.
Offering benefits and features to Air Force personnel under its 'Power Salute' initiative, Axis Bank said that it will offer numerous benefits to all ranks of the defence staff, including veterans, cadets/recruits.
The salary account offered by Axis Bank will have benefits such as personal accidental cover of up to Rs. 56 lakh, total permanent disability cover benefit of Rs. 46 lakh, air accident cover of Rs. 1 crore among others.
RBI Allows Settlement in Rupee to Settle Trade with Russia, Sri Lanka
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed trade settlements between India and other countries, including Sri Lanka and Russia, in rupees.
Banks have to take approval on doing such transactions.
The exchange rate between the currencies of the two trading partner countries may be market-determined.
Jul 11, 2022
Max Life Launches Life Insurance Product, Smart Capital Guarantee Solution
Max Life Insurance rolled out a new market-linked life insurance product.
Named Smart Capital Guarantee Solution, it combines the features of two of Max's existing products – 'Max Life Smart Wealth Plan' and 'Max Life Flexi Wealth Advantage Plan'.
The product takes customers through three stages of on-boarding: pre-issuance, issuance, and post-issuance. The policy also comes with a unified issuance and unique identifier that simplifies premium payments, thus resulting in better customer experience. Buyers also have the flexibility to choose from different premium term payment options.
Maharashtra Leads States with 13,541 Govt-recognised Start-ups: DPIIT Data
Maharashtra has the maximum number of government-recognised start-ups, followed by Karnataka and Delhi, data shared by the industry department showed.
As many as 13,541 active Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) recognised start-ups were from Maharashtra, out of the total 73,205 such government-approved new age companies in the country. This means Maharashtra has a share of 18 per cent with respect to the total number of start-ups.
Karnataka with 8,902 start-ups was followed by Delhi with 8,670 enterprises as of July 2022.
These start-ups have created more than 750,000 jobs with an average of 11 jobs per enterprise, the data showed.
Panel on GST Appellate Tribunal Formed
The GST Council set up a Group of Ministers, chaired by Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, to suggest required changes in the law for setting up the GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT).
The GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and comprising state ministers, had ecided to constitute a Group of Ministers (GoM) to address various concerns raised by states in relation to constitution of the GSTAT.
As per the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the GoM, the panel would recommend required amendments in the GST law to ensure that the legal provisions maintain the right federal balance and are in line with the overall objective of uniform taxation within the country.
CoinSwitch Appoints Former Myntra VP as Head of Crypto Engineering
Crypto investing app CoinSwitch appointed Sudheer Tumuluru as its head of crypto engineering. His role includes leading the company's efforts to build the technology stack that drives crypto trading, exchange, and emerging crypto products.
Tumuluru joins CoinSwitch from Myntra where he was vice president of engineering. With over two decades of experience, he has built cloud, Big data and infrastructure platforms at tech companies in India and the US.
Founded in 2017 by Ashish Singhal, Govind Soni and Vimal Sagar Tiwari, CoinSwitch is backed by investors such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital.
Jul 10, 2022
Rajesh Nambiar Loses 'Executive' Role at Cognizant
Rajesh Nambiar, executive vice-president and president, digital business and technology at Cognizant has ceased to serve in the position.
Following the move, Nambiar is no longer an executive officer of the company. He would continue to serve as executive vice-president, chairman and managing director of Cognizant India.
Paritosh Tripathi New MD & CEO of SBI General Insurance
Private non-life insurer SBI General Insurance appointed Paritosh Tripathi as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
He succeeded P.C. Kandpal, who was posted as Deputy Managing Director (DMD)-(P&RE) at the Corporate Center, State Bank of India (SBI).
Mr. Tripathi has more than 32 years of banking experience and has worked in various departments including MSME, mid-corporate segment, international banking and bancassurance.
Before joining SBI General Insurance, he was general manager operations, internal banking group with SBI and was also on the board of Sterling Bank, Nigeria and SBI Canada.
Chhattisgarh Govt. Approves Electric Vehicle Policy to Create Employment
The Chhattisgarh government approved its Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy 2022 to make the state an EV-manufacturing hub, create employment, and reduce environment degradation.
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel gave approval to the policy at a cabinet meeting.
The government has set a target of five years in having EVs accounting for 15 per cent of the new registrations of vehicles, individual or commercial.
The policy ensures training in skills in EVs and encourages manufacturing in EV technology. It also calls upon existing automobile manufacturers to diversify into EV manufacturing.
Jul 09, 2022
RBI Liberalises Norms to Boost Forex Inflows
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) further liberalised norms to boost inflows of foreign exchange, including doubling the borrowing limit under the ECB route, amid the rupee falling against the US dollar.
The measures taken by the central bank comes in the backdrop of rupee depreciating by 4.1 per cent against the US dollar during the current financial year so far (up to July 5) amid the ongoing geopolitical tensions.
The measures include easing norms for FPI investment in debt market, and increasing the External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) limit under the automatic route from $750 million or its equivalent per financial year to $1.5 billion.
Sanjiv Puri Elected CII VP for FY23
ITC chairman and managing director Sanjiv Puri was elected the Vice President of CII for 2022-23, while TVS Supply Chain Solutions Executive Vice Chairman R. Dinesh has become the new President Designate.
Sanjiv was a member of CII National Council and has held several important positions in CII including Chairman of CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development and as the Chairman of CII Agriculture Council to name a few.
Dinesh was the Chairman of CII Southern Region during 2018-19 and has held several positions in CII, including those of Chairman of National Committees on Logistics, CII Family Business Network India Chapter Council, CII Tamil Nadu State Council and CII Institute of Logistics Advisory Council.
Kotak Mahindra Bank acquired the agri and healthcare equipment financing portfolio of global asset finance company De Lage Landen Financial Services India (DLL India).
DLL India is a subsidiary of De Lage Landen International B.V., owned by Rabobank.
With this acquisition, Kotak will gain access to over 25,000 customers with a total standard loan outstanding of around Rs. 582 crore.
Moreover, Kotak has also acquired the non-performing assets portfolio with a total loan outstanding of around Rs. 69 crore.
The operations related to DLL India will be transitioned to Kotak in a channelised way over the next few months. Until then, the portfolio will continue to be managed by DLL India.
Jul 08, 2022
MoD Allows 3 Private Sector Banks to Provide Financial Services in Overseas Procurement
The Defence Ministry allowed three private sector banks to provide financial services to it for overseas procurement of military hardware.
The banks are HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank.
Till now, only authorised public sector banks were utilised to provide services like issuance of letter of credit and direct bank transfers to the ministry for overseas procurement.
The selected banks may be allocated with LC business of Rs. 2,000 crore, each on the capital and revenue side, for a period of one year on concurrent basis.
NTPC and GACL Ink MoU to Produce Green Ammonia and Green Methanol
NTPC REL signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals (GACL) to mutually explore the opportunities for setting up India's first commercial-scale green ammonia and green methanol project.
NTPC REL is a subsidiary of state-run power Genco NTPC, while GACL, a Gujarat government PSU, is engaged in the production of industrial chemical products.
The MoU envisages to collaborate in the field of Renewable Energy, green ammonia and green methanol project and mutually explore opportunities for supply of 100 megawatt (MW) RE-RTC (Round The Clock) power and synthesising 75 tonnes per day (TPD) green methanol and 35 TPD green ammonia for captive use for production of various chemicals by GACL at its Vadodara and Dahej complex in Gujarat.
SoftBank's Rajeev Misra to Step Down From Executive Role
Rajeev Misra, CEO, SB Investment Advisers, which manages SoftBank Vision Fund, will step back from his executive role at the technology fund, as per a communication sent by SoftBank's founder Masayoshi Son, in what is being seen as a major rejig at the Japanese conglomerate.
This marks the exit of one of the key architects of the Japanese conglomerate's sometimes chaotic evolution into the world's largest technology investor.
A key lieutenant of the SoftBank founder, Misra will retain a senior position with the group's first $100 billion Vision Fund, but relinquish other roles.
Misra will move from CEO of SoftBank Global Advisers, which manages the second fund, to vice chairman while SoftBank's founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son, will take a more direct leadership role.