Business & Finance - Current Affairs for July, 2015

The court also quashed the Union Government’s decision of 15 July 2015 wherein Red FM was denied security clearance due to its association with Sun TV promoted by Kalanithi Maran who along with his brother Dayanidhi Maran is being prosecuted in cases of money laundering.

On 23rd July’15 the FT Group’s current owner, Pearson, a British education and media conglomerate, said it would sell the paper to Nikkei for £844m ($1.3 billion).

It received in-principle approval for operation in April 2014 and obtained the final approval on 24th July’15.

The Companies Act 2013 provides that every listed company having paid up share capital of 100 crore rupees or more or turnover of 300 crore rupees or more, shall appoint at least one women director.

Mumbai based Sharekhan has been valued at Rs. 2200 Crore.

Volkswagen surpassed Toyota as the world's largest automaker in the first half of 2015, fulfilling a long-held goal, but the achievement came at a cost. Volkswagen sold 5.04 million vehicles in the first six months of the year, edging Toyota's 5.02 million.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has cancelled Sahara asset Management Company’s license. The market regulator in its order said that the company is not fit and proper entity to carry out the business of mutual fund. It said, Sahara’s fund management license would stand cancelled after 60 days from the date of the order. It has directed Sahara AMC not to take any new subscription from the investors including existing investors in systematic investment plans and also not to levy any penalties on the investors for not depositing the installments.

Google is bidding adieu to Google Plus, a social network that the American search engine had launched four years ago hoping it would become a serious rival to Facebook. The company announced its most drastic step for breaking up Google Plus on 27thJuly’15. The reason being it did not perform up to the mark as expected.

The Commission found that the company is guilty of indulging in anti-competitive practices as it did not make genuine spare parts freely available in the open market.

Walmarrt retail giant has topped the list. The Indian companies on the 2015 Fortune Global 500 list are Indian Oil ranked 119 on the list with revenues of about 74 billion US dollars, followed by Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, State Bank of India, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum, and ONGC. Companies are ranked by total revenues for their respective fiscal years ended on or before March 31, 2015.

Suspecting tax evasion of at least 5,000 to 6,000 crore rupees, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has clamped down on a large number of organised syndicates who had set up shops to convert black money into legitimate-looking funds through the stock market platform.

The White-shipping refers to commercial shipping information about movement of cargo ships. The Singapore Navy and the Indian Navy conduct the Singapore-India Maritime Bilateral Exercise (SIMBEX) together annually. In 2015, the SIMBEX was held in May, this was the 22nd in the series.

Aimed at enhancing awareness on digital technology, an online quiz was designed to create awareness on benefits and threats of internet based interactions amongst children from classes 6 to 12.

Under the existing RBI norms, only a minimum know your customer (KYC) of the mobile number and e-mail ID verification is sufficient to hold Rs. 10,000 in a mobile wallet. For anything higher, a full KYC, similar to what is required for opening of a bank account, is mandatory. This maximum cash limit of Rs. 10,000 was set by the RBI some years ago.

The Satpayev oil block is an offshore field (1582 sq km) in the Northern Caspian Sea, in water depths of 6-8 m. It has a potential reserves estimated at 1.8 billion barrels crude oil and natural gas.

SBI is seeking the government's permission to dole out up to 3% of its annual profits to staff in incentives in an attempt to draw top talent that normally make a beeline for private sector behemoths such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank.

The Committee unhesitatingly recommended for adherence of the core principles of Net Neutrality, it also suggested few exceptions in the interests of national security and businesses.

This award is organized by The Institute of Cost Accounts of India. RailTel has won the award in the category of Public- Service Sector (Medium). RailTel Corporation a "Mini Ratna (Category-I)" PSU is one of the largest neutral telecom services providers in the country owning a Pan-India optic fiber network covering all important towns & cities of the country and several rural areas covering 70% of India’s population.

Earlier, the apex court had issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Mallya's plea against the Delhi High Court order turning down his appeal for quashing criminal proceedings in a trial court for alleged wilful disobedience of summons issued to him by the ED. The ED had alleged that Mallya violated the provisions of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) in arranging funds to advertise his liquor products abroad over a decade ago.

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju inaugurated the first commercial flight of TruJet, promoted by a group of investors including Tollywood actor Ram Charan Teja.

These companies are National Insurance, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance. In its order, the fair trade regulator also asked them to cease and desist from anti-competitive. The present case relates to bid rigging in public procurement for social welfare schemes Rashtriya Swashtya Bima Yojana and Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme of Kerala government. The beneficiaries of the schemes were BPL families.

The investigation by the CCI concluded that the insurance companies colluded with each other and manipulated with tendering process initiated by the Kerala government.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will lay the foundation stone for a project in Agartala on 12th July’15 that aims to strengthen telecom services in the North Eastern states. Under the project, an international gateway for broadband connectivity will be set up at Agartala in which connectivity will be provided through Bangladesh under an agreement between state-run BSNL and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company limited.

The airline, subsidiary of Bangalore based Decor Aviation, commenced operation on 12 April 2015 with inaugural flight between Bangalore and Hubli. Initially it is going to serve 3 southern cities (Bangalore, Hubli and Thiruvananthapuram) with a fleet of ATR 72-500.

IFSC has become operational at GIFT City in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. IFSC rules allow companies incorporated outside India to raise money in foreign currencies by issuance and listing of their equity shares on stock exchanges within the IFSC, where individual and institutional investors from India and abroad including NRIs, would be allowed to trade.

Malajkhand Expansion Project will be largest underground base metal mine of the country. Five lakh ton iron ore will be extracted every year from the mine.

India has agreed to buy 36 multi-role Combat Aircraft in a flyaway condition as soon as possible. The two countries also agreed on setting up of six units of nuclear power plants totaling 1650 MW at Jaitpur in Maharashtra.

The decision was taken by the Home Ministry on 9th Apr’15 after it was found that the NGO has prejudicially affected the public interests and economic interests of the country in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. According to the show cause notice served by the ministry, the licence of Greenpeace India will be cancelled permanently if it fails to make a satisfactory presentation to the government.

The Rs 1,550-crore share sale in Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) was subscribed more than 5.5 times thanks to demand from domestic institutions and investors.

Sri City is situated in Andhra Pradesh.

The policy document was released by the Minister of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. While releasing the FTP, Mrs Sitharaman said that the new policy will support both manufacturing and service sector with special emphasis on improving the ease of doing business.