(Current Affairs For SSC Exams) Economic September: 2014

September 2015

United Bank of India declares Vijay Mallyawilful defaulter

United Bank of India (UBI) has declared Vijay Mallya and three directors of Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) as wilful defaulters. The development was confirmed by the bank’s executive director Deepak Narang.
Besides Mr. Mallya, three other directors — A.K. Ganguly, SubhashGupte and Ravi Nedungadi — have also been declared as wilful defaulters, Mr. Narang .
The bank has an exposure of between Rs.350 crore and Rs.400 crore to KFA, which was given by the Bangalore branch of UBI.
It may be mentioned that UBI filed a caveat in the Supreme Court against KFA on August 29, 2014, after the Division Bench of the High Court dismissed a KFA appeal against UBI.
Earlier, UBI had identified Mr. Mallya as a wilful defaulter, and asked him to appear before the bank’s panel to hear him out before declaring him as a wilful defaulter.
Mr. Mallya later moved the court seeking exemption of his appearance before the panel.

Flipkart invests in ngpay

e-commerce firm Flipkart has made a strategic investment in mobile payments firm ngpay. Terms of the deal are not disclosed.
ngpay was founded in 2008 by Sourabh Jain. Meanwhile, Flipkart also said it would phase out its own payment product Payzippy launched last year.

Basel III capital norms revised

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued revised and final guidelines for raising non-equity regulatory capital instruments by banks under the stringent Basel III framework under which lenders can issue Tier-2 capital with a minimum original maturity of five years as against 10 years now. It further said banks could issue Tier-2 debt capital instruments to retail investors, subject to board approval.

TCS opens Saudi Arabia’s first all-women BPO centre

India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Sunday said it has opened Saudi Arabia’s first all-female business process centre, which will provide employment to up to 3,000 women in three years.
Saudi Aramco and GE are the centre’s first customers, TCS said in a statement in Mumbai.
Both the clients have already surpassed their target of recruiting 100 women each, while the total number of those employed at the centre stands at 300, it said.
The Riyadh-based 3,200-sq mt facility will offer customers specialised finance and accounting, human resources, materials supply and office services to improve their operational efficiency, it said.
Global auto makers seek friendly policy
As India moves towards becoming a hub for production and exports for global car manufacturers, the latter said India needed to make more business-friendly policies if the country wanted foreign companies to invest here.
Chairman of Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) Fumihiko Ike, who is also the Chairman of Japan’s Honda Motor Co, added another major challenge was to improve the business environment for investing into India.
Protection to auto industry cannot be forever: Commerce Secretary
In a veiled warning to the domestic auto sector, the Commerce Ministry, said it could not continue providing protection to the industry while duty barriers were coming down all over the world.
India is protecting the domestic auto industry from overseas competition while signing free trade agreements with different nations and groups.

New VP for Renault India

Renault India Pvt. Ltd., a fully-owned subsidiary of Renault s.a.s, has appointed Rafael Treguer as Vice-President (Sales and Marketing).
He has worked in varied roles at different locations with the Renault group. — Special Correspondent
Bajaj Auto launches two supersport KTM bikes
Bajaj Auto, launched two supersport motorcycles from the KTM stable — KTM RC390 and KTM RC 200.
KTM bikes have won more than 240 World Championship titles.
According to a company statement, the KTM RC390 is priced at Rs.2.05 lakh while the KTM RC 200 is priced at Rs. 1.60 lakh (both ex-showroom Delhi).
Both bikes will be backed by KTM’s 140 exclusive dealer network across the country and will be available from September 10 with dealers.

Microsoft unveils new look for MSN in India

Aiming to offer a comprehensive and seamless experience to users to access content via its website and apps across screens (PCs as well as mobiles) and operating platforms, software giant Microsoft unveiled the new look of its MSN website in India.
The preview in India had been made live for users starting Monday and Microsoft was inviting people to try out the new web experience, he said, adding they could also leave feedback on the site.

Lupin tied up with Merck Serono

Lupin has tied up with Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck, to support the expansion of Merck Serono’s general medicines portfolio in emerging markets.
A statement from Lupin said the tie-up would address the local needs for affordable, high-quality medicines.
While no financial details of the tie-up were available, Lupin said it had an established working relationship with Merck and the agreement could add up to 20 new products to the current portfolio.
Lupin will receive an upfront and milestone based licensing fee. The first launches are expected in 2016.

Infosys global partnership with Huawei

Infosys announced a global partnership with Huawei to offer enterprise customers big data and communication solutions besides expansion of its existing engagement with Microsoft and Hitachi Data Systems.
Providing details, in separate press releases, Infosys said the IT solutions to be developed with Chinese multi-national ICT firm Huawei would be for enterprise customers looking to modernise operations with cloud infrastructure.
Both the companies will build reference architectures and standardised solutions for big data platforms on Huawei hardware infrastructure.

Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) partnered Snapdeal

Ahead of the launch of its new generation Scorpio, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) has partnered online marketplace Snapdeal for booking the sport utility vehicle (SUV).
Scorpio has been Mahindra’s one of the highest selling SUVs and the homegrown auto giant is to launch the refreshed version on September 25.
According to the details made available to users, the new generation Scorpio will be available in six variants.

Reserve Bank of India unlikely to cut policy rate

While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to maintain its policy rate at current levels, the financial markets expect that the central bank would reduce the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) further.
In the last bi-monthly policy review on August 5, amidst uncertainty over the progress of the monsoon, the RBI had kept the short term indicative lending rate (repo) at the current level of 8 per cent and the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) unchanged at 4 per cent. However, SLR was reduced from 22.5 per cent to 22 per cent with effect from August 9. In the June bi-monthly policy also, the central bank had cut SLR by 50 basis points from 23 per cent to 22.5 per cent.
SLR is the portion of deposits banks are required to maintain in the form of gold or government securities, before providing credit to customers. CRR is the portion of total deposits of customers, which commercial banks have to hold as reserves either in cash or as deposits with the central bank and the repo rate is the rate at which the central bank lends money to banks.
In the last policy review, Dr. Rajan said that “The idea behind the SLR cut is that if government finances are improving and the government is on a fiscal consolidation mode, we can afford to liberate more access to government financing and make it possible for the private sector and public sector firms to get access to that financing.”

India support exchange information on black money

India will support the proposed international automatic exchange of tax and banking information that is expected to aid unearthing and retrieving black money stashed offshore.
Forty-six countries, including India, have agreed to set rolling by 2017 the automatic exchange of information on tax evaders
; At present, countries exchange information on the basis of requests and that too only on suspected tax evasion and other financial crimes.
The proposed global standard would facilitate a systematic and periodic transmission of bulk taxpayer information by the source country of income to the country of residence of the taxpayer.
The implementation of these standards by developing countries could also improve domestic tax compliance as substantial amount of data received from financial institutions by the tax administration could be used for domestic tax purposes also.

Government decided to give boost to inland waterways

The Union Government has decided to give a boost to inland waterways in a big way to reduce the cost of transportation as well as to curb pollution. This was stated by Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Shipping, Rural Development and Drinking Water & Sanitation NitinGadkari.
He said that the ministry had also been focusing on the ports sector. He said for road development the government was considering to use cement instead of bitumen to bring down construction cost.
The Minister also said private sector was shying away from public private partnership (PPP) projects primarily because of high interest rates and reluctance of banks to fund such projects.
MCX-SX is going to change name
The Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has approved a new name for MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX) which will now be known as ‘Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India Ltd’, abbreviated as ‘mSXI’.
The exchange is in the process of making an application to Registrar of Companies (RoC) for registration of the new name,” MCX-SX said in a statement