General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - August 2019

Aug 2019

Jun 27, 2021

Seven-member Panel to Manage Jet Airways under Resolution Plan

A seven-member monitoring committee, including members appointed by the winning bidder Jalan Kalrock Consortium and the lenders, will soon start managing the day-to-day affairs of Jet Airways till the resolution process is complete.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) approved the consortium's resolution plan for grounded Jet Airways, subject to certain conditions.
The full-service carrier, which suspended operations in April 2019, was undergoing Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP).

Tyre Industry Seeks Raw Material Partners to Unleash Growth

According to industry body Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA), India's tyre sector is seeking effective collaboration with raw material partners to harness its potential.
Last year, the growth plummeted in the first quarter in view of the lockdown. However the industry staged a strong recovery in the subsequent quarters and the supply side was under stress to meet the demand.
This year again the industry witnessed a slowdown in the months of May and June.

Hero Cycles Delivers First Batch of Made in India E-bikes to Europe

India's Hero Motors Company (HMC) Group has said that Hero Cycles has successfully delivered its first batch of Made in India e-bikes to Europe.
The shipment, under the HNF brand of Hero International (HIT), marks the start of the Indian bicycle major's plan to become a leader in the European Union (EU) market, the company said this week.
The first batch of around 200 units has been delivered to Germany, with further units planned for the EU in future.
The shipment marks a step forward to establish HMC as the largest fully integrated e-bike company in Europe, with a well-oiled manufacturing capability in India and brightens the prospect of India as a reliable supplier to the market other than China.

Jun 26, 2021

Adani Group Strikes First Coal from its Carmichael Mine

The Adani Group struck first coal from its Carmichael, Australia project and will start shipping to its customers according to schedule. With this, the project will not only lift the economic prospects of the hitherto barren Australian outback, but also help Indian power plants to source cheap coal.
The project had faced protests from a section of population with several banks even refusing to fund it.
India will be a foundation customer for the Carmichael mine and is the fourth largest global user of electricity as well as the source of the biggest growth in global energy demand.

Kotak Mahindra Bank Launches 'Pay Your Contact' Service

Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd (KMBL) announced the launch of the 'Pay Your Contact' feature on KMBL's mobile banking app that uses the Unified Payments Interface platform and allows customers to send money or make payments to any of their contacts across all payment apps simply by entering the beneficiary's mobile number.

Reliance to Conclude Aramco Deal this Year

Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as a precursor to a USD 15 billion deal that is now expected to conclude this year.
Al-Rumayyan will replace Yogendra P. Trivedi who has expressed a desire to retire.
RIL had inked an initial pact to sell a fifth of the unit that houses its oil refineries, petrochemical plants and fuel retailing business in August 2019, but the outbreak of global pandemic delayed the deal.

SBI Launches Aarogyam Healthcare Business Loan

To provide enhanced support to the healthcare sector amid the pandemic, the State Bank of India (SBI) has launched the Aarogyam healthcare business loan. Under this new product, the entire healthcare ecosystem such as hospitals, nursing homes, diagnostic centres, pathology labs, manufacturers, suppliers, importers, logistic firms engaged in critical healthcare supply can avail of loans up to Rs. 100 crore (as per the geographic location) repayable in 10 years.
The Aarogyam loan can be availed either as a term loan to support expansion or modernisation or as working capital facilities such as cash credit, bank guarantee/letter of credit.

$32 mn World Bank Loan for Improving Healthcare Services in Mizoram

The Indian government, the Mizoram government, and the World Bank have signed a $32 million Mizoram Health Systems Strengthening Project to improve management capacity and quality of health services in the northeastern state, particularly for the benefit of under-served areas and vulnerable groups.
The project will strengthen the governance and the management structure of the Department of Health and Family Welfare and its subsidiaries, improve the quality and coverage of services delivered by the state government health systems, and invest in a comprehensive Quality Assurance programme which would enable quality certification of health facilities.

Jun 25, 2021

Mastercard Brings on Board Nikhil Sahni

Mastercard has announced the appointment of Nikhil Sahni as its new division president, south Asia and country corporate officer, India.
Sahni will be taking over from Porush Singh, who is relocating to Singapore and assuming a new role within the company.
Sahni joins Mastercard with nearly 25 years of experience across strategy, investment banking, corporate, commercial, SME, retail, branch, and government banking. In his role, he will oversee the firm's operations, and position the company's extensive suite of products, solutions and services across the sub-continent, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan, in addition to India.

US Bans Imports of Solar Panel Material from Chinese Company

The Biden administration ordered a ban on U.S. imports of a key solar panel material from Chinese-based Hoshine Silicon Industry Co over forced labor allegations. The U.S. Commerce Department separately restricted exports to Hoshine, three other Chinese companies and the paramilitary Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), saying they were involved with the forced labor of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.
The three other companies added to the U.S. economic blacklist include Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Co, a unit of Daqo New Energy Corp; Xinjiang East Hope Nonferrous Metals Co, a subsidiary of Shanghai-based manufacturing giant East Hope Group; and Xinjiang GCL New Energy Material Co, part of GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd.

India-Bhutan: Tax Inspectors without Borders Initiative

India and Bhutan have jointly launched the "Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB)".
TIWB is a joint initiative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
TIWB seeks to provide support to the developing countries to help them strengthen national tax administrations by building audit capacity.
It complements the efforts of international community to strengthen cooperation on tax matters and contribute to domestic tax mobilisation efforts.
TIWB programme aims to strengthen tax administrations among developing countries by transferring technical know-how and skills to their tax auditors and by sharing general audit practices & dissemination of knowledge products with them.
The programme focuses on the area of International Taxation and Transfer Pricing.

LIC Introduces Technology Platform 'e-PGS'

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has launched a centralised web-based workflow-based IT platform called "e-PGS".
LIC launched this platform for its group business operations.
Project e-PGS was inaugurated by M R Kumar, Chairman of LIC, at Central Office, Mumbai.
New technology platform, e-PGS, has been designed to provide a centralized collection and payment accounting with high level of bank integration.
It will provide collection through host-to-host connectivity. It has been designed to provide very innovative features of seamless and integrated banking with automatic reconciliations.
This system is capable of providing comprehensive self-servicing capabilities through customer portal. On this portal, corporate customers will be able to view their data, initiate actionable processes and lodge & track claims.

Jun 24, 2021

Ex-Infosys CEO to Head Task Force to Help Govt.

Former Infosys CEO S. D. Shibu Lal was appointed chairperson of a three-member task force formed to help the government in bringing major bureaucratic reforms through its ambitious "Mission Karmayogi".
Besides Lal who is founder of ShikshaLokam and founder and ex-CEO of Infosys Limited, Govind Iyer, Consultant at global management consulting group Egon Zehnder, and Pankaj Bansal, Co-founder and Group CEO of HR tech company PeopleStrong, will be part of the task force.
Adil Zainulbhai, chairman designate, Capacity Building Commission, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) will be a special invitee to the discussions of the task force.

Centre Liberalises Guidelines for BPO Industry

To make India a favourable destination for expansion of voice-related Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), the Centre liberalised the guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs), removing the distinction between domestic and international OSP.
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the BPO centre with common telecom resource will now be able to serve customers located worldwide, including India.
The distinction between domestic and international OSP (Other Service Providers) has been removed.

Govt. Notifies Accounting Standards for SMEs under Companies Act, 2013

The government has notified the accounting standards for small and medium companies that revise the turnover and borrowing limits as well as help in making disclosure requirements less onerous.
Besides, the definition of Small and Medium Sized Companies (SMCs) under the standards has been revised.
The Companies (Accounting Standards) Rules, 2021 have been notified by the corporate affairs ministry under the Companies Act, 2013.
The latest notification mirrors the accounting standards that were in force under the Companies Act, 1956, which is no more there.
Under the revised SMC definition, the turnover limit has been increased from Rs. 50 crore to not exceeding Rs. 250 crore and with enhanced borrowing limits. This is in addition to the requirements that such entities should be unlisted companies, which are not banks, financial institutions or insurance companies.
The Companies Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of India on Indian company law which regulates incorporation of a company, responsibilities of a company, directors, dissolution of a company. The 2013 Act is divided into 29 chapters containing 470 sections as against 658 Sections in the Companies Act, 1956 and has 7 schedules. However, currently there are only 438 (470-39+7) sections remains in this Act. The Act has replaced The Companies Act, 1956 (in a partial manner) after receiving the assent of the President of India on 29 August 2013.The section 1 of the companies Act 2013 came into force on 30th August 2013 . 98 different sections of the companies Act came into force on 12th September 2013 with few changes like earlier private companies maximum number of members were 50 and now it will be 200.

Suraksha Group to Buy Jaypee Infratech

Mumbai-based Suraksha group received the approval of financial creditors and homebuyers to takeover debt-laden Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL).
In the 10-day-long voting process on the takeover proposals submitted by NBCC and Suraksha Group more than 98 per cent of the votes were in favour of Suraksha Group's bid.
This is the fourth round of bidding process to find a buyer for JIL, which went into Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) in August 2017.

Heineken Buys Mallya's 15% Stake to Take Control of United Breweries

Heineken, the second largest beer company in the world, increased its stake in United Breweries (UBL) to 61.5 per cent on Wednesday. The Dutch parent of UBL, which had 45 per cent stake prior this transaction, bought the 14.99 per cent stake worth about Rs. 5,825 crore held by the Debt Recovery Tribunal.
Given that Heineken received an exemption from making an open offer, it could also acquire the balance 11 per cent UB group stake pledged with banks through the same route. If this goes through, Heineken's stake in UBL, which has a 50 per cent share in India's beer market, will cross the 72 per cent mark.

Jun 23, 2021

Malaysia Becomes India's Top Palm Oil Supplier

Malaysia has surpassed Indonesia to become the biggest crude palm oil (CPO) exporter to top consumer India in 2020/21, after Indonesia imposed heavy taxes on exports of the edible oil last year.
Malaysia's palm oil exports to India surged 238% to 2.42 million tonnes in the first seven months of 2020/21 marketing year started on Nov. 1, according to data compiled by The Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA), a trade body of Indian vegetable oil refiners and traders.
During the period, Indonesia's palm oil shipments to India fell 32% to 2 million tonnes.

World's First GM Rubber Planted in Assam

Rubber Board has started field trial of world's first GM (genetically modified) rubber in the state of Assam.
GM Rubber was developed in biotechnology laboratory at Rubber Research Institute of India (RRII) in Puthuppally, Kottayam.
It was planted at Rubber board's Sarutari research farm in Guwahati.
Rubber Board launched field trial of GM Rubber in Assam a decade after Kerala Government denied permission for the same because of its adverse impact on environment.
GM variant rubber has the capacity to withstand adverse climatic conditions. It will give a big boost to rubber production in India. It will greatly benefit farmers after trials are over. The crop is resistant to reduced moisture or drought, low & high temperatures as well as high light intensity. It will also cut short the maturity period of rubber. It will result into early yielding.

NCLT Clears Kalrock-Jalan Resolution Plan for Jet Airways with Riders

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has cleared the Kalrock-Jalan plan to revive Jet Airways, while rejecting the consortium's demand for historicity of airport slots. The Naresh Goyal-founded airline was shut down in April 2019 under heavy debt.
The tribunal order comes exactly two years after the start of the insolvency proceedings. Jet is the first airline to see resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Even as the order paves the way for the grounded airline's revival, the resumption of operations hinges on negotiations between the consortium and the government on the issue of airport slots.
Jet Airways collapsed under a mountain of debt in April 2019. After two unsuccessful bidding rounds, the Kalrock-Jalan consortium was selected by a committee of creditors last October with over 99 per cent vote to restart the airline. Jalan is a Dubai-based NRI businessman and Kalrock Capital is a financial advisory and asset management company.

IRDAI Allows Home Treatment as add-on Cover in Health Insurance

The Indian insurance regulator IRDAI has allowed non-life insurers to offer "homecare/domiciliary treatment" or treatment at home as an add on cover afresh or to their existing policies.
In a circular to all non-life insurers including standalone health insurers, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) said that companies have to file their products with it, if home treatment is offered as an add-on cover.
IRDAI said that insurers can offer the cover to their existing policyholders by charging an additional premium for the residual period of time.

Wipro Lighting, IoT Firm Enlighted Tie Up

Smart lighting solutions provider Wipro Lighting, a part of the over $1-billion Wipro Consumer Care Ltd, has partnered with IoT solutions company Enlighted to deliver smarter workplaces. The Bengaluru-headquartered company has earlier partnered with global majors such as Schréder and Cisco in the space.
Both the parties are integrating their solutions and technologies to create smarter buildings across multiple customer segments. Enlighted IoT sensors are being integrated with Wipro's future-ready luminaires, forming the backbone for Wipro's Smart Space Solutions.
Wipro Lighting is a pioneer in offering Smart & Connected solutions on the platform of Internet of Lighting (IoL) across various customer segments in India.

Govt. Seeks to Appoint Advisors to Assist IDBI Bank Privatisation

The government has sought bids to appoint transaction advisor and legal advisor to assist it for the strategic divestment and transfer of management control in IDBI Bank. The appointment of intermediaries would help in taking the privatisation process of the lender forward as the government aims to close the transaction in this fiscal.
The government plans to sell its 45.48 per cent shareholding in the lender. Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), which owns 49.24 per cent, will also offload its stake to transfer management control to the new buyer.
The transaction advisor would be required to advise the government on the modalities and the timing of the strategic disinvestment of IDBI Bank, and prepare a scheme to successfully implement the sale.

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