Economy
Current Account Deficit to Remain Comfortable in FY16: India Ratings
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Drugmaker Abbott Healthcare tangles with Indian regulators over cough
syrup complaint
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Government developing framework for repowering wind farms: Piyush Goyal
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Audit Bureau of Circulation elects office-bearers
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SEBI asks Raju family to pay more than Rs 1,800 crore
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Gold Monetization scheme,Get Cabinet approval
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Current Account Deficit to Remain Comfortable in FY16: India Ratings
India’s current account deficit is expected to remain “comfortable” in
the current fiscal year even as it rose sequentially to $6.2 billion in the
first quarter, says a report.
Current account deficit for the first quarter of FY16 stood at $6.2
billion (1.2 per cent of GDP), sequentially higher than $1.5 billion in the
previous quarter, the report by India Ratings & Research said on Monday.
The current account deficit, however, was lower than $7.9 billion the
first quarter of FY15.
Current account deficit reflects a high outgo of forex and subsequently
weakens the domestic currency.
Invisible receipts were mainly instrumental in improvement of current
account deficit in the first quarter of current fiscal year, it said.
India Ratings said merchandise exports contracted for the third
consecutive quarter and a worrying trend is that the magnitude of the
contraction has been increasing with each quarter.
On oil, it said crude oil prices are likely to remain soft for remaining
part of 2015-16 due to the sluggish global recovery and demand-supply
situation in the crude oil market.
Drugmaker Abbott Healthcare tangles with Indian regulators over cough syrup
complaint
Drugmaker Abbott Healthcare is challenging a state’s accusation that a
sample of the company’s cough syrupcontained excessive levels of codeine,
the second multinational to question India’s regulatory testing regime in
recent months.
Whether the sample of Abbott’s popular “Phensedyl” was a genuine product
or a fake has not been established, but the suspect batch of 80,000 bottles
has not been recalled.
The state laboratory in West Bengal first raised the alarm last
November.
The previously unreported case underlines the weakness of India’s
unwieldy and poorly resourced drug and food regulatory system, the
uncertainty it creates for foreign and domestic companies operating there
and the potential risk to consumers.
Abbott Healthcare is a unit of U.S.-based Abbott Laboratories. Abbott
Laboratories also has a listed subsidiary in India, Abbott India Ltd.
Three months ago, Nestle was forced to withdraw its Maggi instant
noodles from Indian shelves because the food safety authority banned the
snack after its tests showed excess lead.
Government developing framework for repowering wind farms: Piyush Goyal
With a view to ensure better capacity utilisation of wind energy
projects, the Union Power Ministry is developing a framework for repowering
wind farms from 200-300 watt units to 2-5 MW that are available in the
market, Minister for Power, Coal, and New and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal
said at an Assocham event held in New Delhi on Friday night.
Discom resolution
Talking about the discom resolution, Mr. Goyal said, “We are not only
ceased of it but we are working relentlessly on a daily basis to fine tune
and refine our proposals on that without giving any subsidy again or any
grant/additional money (to the States).”
The Minister also said that government plans to bring down the cost of
each LED bulb to Rs.44 from a level of Rs.74 through competitive bidding.
Hydel power sector
Talking about the slow progress of hydel power sector, Mr. Goyal said at
the event that he had been able to get the Rs.9,000 crore worth Teesta power
project back on line and with work expected to start soon it is likely to
come on stream in a year’s time.
He also asked the industry associations to work in the national interest
and not to become postman for scamsters or those following bad business
practices.
Renewable energy sector
Talking about the poor progress of renewable energy sector in India, Mr.
Goyal said, “Effectively, what I inherited was a situation where the
industry had almost given up hope, you had anti-dumping looming large on
solar industry, wind industry was crumbling in the back of withdrawal of
certain fiscal benefits, bagasse based plants were almost dead or sick,
small hydel was already over.”
Over 50 Indian companies take part in India Expo exhibition in Sri Lanka
Over 50 Indian companies are participating in India Expo tradeexhibition
in Colombo.
The India Expo 2015, a multi product and services exhibition was
inaugurated by Sri Lanka’s Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen on Friday.
The India Expo has been organised by the Federation of Indian Export
Organisations (FIEO) in association with Indian Ministry of Commerce and
Industry and the High Commission of India in Colombo.
The companies that are participating represent various sectors,
including construction products, apparel and garments, cosmetics, agro
products, pharmaceuticals, power and electrical technology.
Audit Bureau of Circulation elects office-bearers
Shashidhar Sinha CEO, IPG Mediabrands, was unanimously elected as
Chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) for 2015-16, according to
an ABC press release.
He was elected at the bureau’s 67th Annual General Meeting.
I Venkat of Eenadu was unanimously elected as Deputy Chairman.
The members on the ABC Council for 2015-2016 are: Advertising Agencies
Representatives — Madhukar Kamath of Mudra Communications (as Honorary
Treasurer), Srinivasan K Swamy of RK Swamy BBDO, and CVL Srinivas of Group M
Media India Pvt Ltd; Publishers Representatives — Amit Mathew of Malayala
Manorama, Shailesh Gupta of Jagran Prakashan, Hormusji N Cama of Bombay
Samachar, Devendra V Darda of Lokmat Media, Sanjeev Vohra of Bennett,
Coleman & Co Ltd, Benoy Roychowdhury of HT Media, and Chandan Majumdar of
ABP Pvt Ltd; Advertisers Representatives — Hemant Malik of ITC (Honorary
Secretary)
Debabrata Mukherjee of Coca-Cola India, and Sandip Tarkas of Future
Retail.
Hormuzd Masani has taken over as Secretary General.
The ABC, which plays a key role in print measurement, will soon start
measuring digital audiences, according to the press release. In his new
capacity as Chairman of the organisation, Sinha will implement the digital
measurement project. The new services will available to all digital
properties which want to utilise them.
SEBI asks Raju family to pay more than Rs 1,800 crore
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on
Thursday asked ten entities connected to the Satyam scam case including the
ex-chairman of the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services Ltd., B. Ramalinga
Raju and other family members to disgorge over Rs.1,800 crore, which are
‘ill-gotten gains’ made by them.
The SEBI order said that pursuant to the SEBI order on
July 15, 2014, B. Ramalinga Raju and B. Rama Raju have to jointly and
severally disgorge Rs.56,16,85,195 (Rs.26,62,50,000 and Rs.29,54,35,195)
“which they had earned by sale/transfer of shares held by them in Satyam
Computers.” Further SEBI asked SRSR Holdings Pvt. Ltd. (controlled by Raju
brothers) to disgorge the wrongful gain of Rs.1,258.88 crore jointly and
severally with B. Ramalinga Raju and B. Rama Raju.
The other family members include, Chintalapati Srinivasa
Raju, Anjiraju Chintalapati (since deceased). Ms. B. Appalanarasamma, Ms. B.
Jhansi Rani, B. Rama Raju Jr., B. Suryanarayana Raju, B. Teja Raju and IL&FS
Engineering and Construction Company Ltd. (formerly known as Maytas Infra
Ltd.) were also asked to disgorge the amounts.
SEBI ordered that these amounts would be paid, along with
simple interest at 12 per cent per annum from January 7, 2009, till the date
of payment, within 45 days from the date of this order, that is, September
10, 2015.
Earlier, SEBI passed an order on July 15, 2014, wherein
it had barred B. Ramalinga Raju, B. Rama Raju (then Managing Director of
Satyam), Vadlamani Srinivas (ex-CFO), G. Ramakrishna (ex-VP) and V.S.
Prabhakara Gupta (Ex-Head of Internal Audit) from the markets for 14 years
and also asked them to return Rs.1,849 crore worth of unlawful gains with
interest.
Gold Monetization scheme,Get Cabinet approval
The government on Wednesday announced the launch of sovereign gold bonds
and a separate gold monetization scheme in a bid to lure away Indians from
buying physical gold.
Both the gold schemes announced today were part of the annual Budget
proposal.
Here are 10 things to know about the two gold schemes:
1) The sovereign gold bond will enable investors to buy gold certificates
from the government, which can later be encashed for money or physical gold.
2) Gold Bonds will be issued with a rate of interest to be decided by the
government. Interest will be calculated on the value of gold deposited at the
time of investment.
3) Gold bonds will be issued in denominations of 5, 10, 50, 100 grams of gold.
The cap per person per year has been set at 500 grams, the government said.
4) Duration of such gold bonds will be for minimum of 5 to 7 years to protect
investors from medium term volatility in gold prices, the government said.
5) Gold bonds are expected to reduce the demand for physical gold bars by
shifting a part of estimated 300 tons per annum for investment into gold bonds.
6) The gold monetization scheme involves mobilization of tonnes of the yellow
metal stored in households and temples. Ornaments will not be accepted under
gold monetization scheme, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.
7) The gold monetization scheme that will enable depositors to earn interest on
their on their gold accounts.
8) The gold monetization scheme will cut down on imports, thus reducing foreign
exchange outflows. According to estimates, India paid $34.32 billion to import
around 930 tonnes of gold in the year ending March 2015.
9) Gold monetization scheme, in long term, will reduce country’s reliance on the
import of gold & put it to productive use, the government said.
10) Though stocks of gold in India are estimated to be over 20,000 tonnes, most
of this gold is neither traded, nor monetized. Gold collected through the scheme
will be made available to jewelers for manufacturing of new jewellery and other
items.
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