Business & Finance - Current Affairs for June, 2015

As per the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the top five passenger vehicle companies in India by sale are Maruti, Hyundai, Mahindra & Mahindra, Honda and Toyota.

The partnership between SBI and MakeMyTrip.com includes partnership with personal banking unit for consumer facing propositions – including EMIs on purchase of holidays & international travel, customized travel products.

Microsoft agreed to provide technology support for health care services in remote tribal areas; it will setup a pilot project at Melghat in Amravati district in this regard. Microsoft has adopted Melghat village.

U.S. Department of Defense is world’s largest employer with around 3.2 million employees on its roll. It is followed by People’s Liberation Army (the Chinese military) with 2.3 million. In 3rd place is Walmart (2.1 million). The Indian Railways is the 8th largest employer in the world with 1.4 employees.

FSA in its release said that levels of lead in the product are well within European Union permissible levels and would not be a concern to consumers. United Kingdom Food Standards Agency (UK FSA) decided to test a selection of Maggi Noodles as a precaution after the product was banned in India on 5 June 2015.

The Cafe Coffee Day, has filed a draft prospectus with SEBI for an initial public offering to raise as much as 11.5 billion rupees ($181 million). The application process with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) could take two to three months.

The MoU is signed to enhance cooperation in areas such as cancer research, infrastructure development, training, capacity building and better assessment and application of new diagnostic technologies.

Airtel has hit the 300 million mobile subscriber’s mark just six years after hitting the 100 million subscribers mark in 2009.

While continuing with the ban on sale of Nestle’s 2-minute Maggie noodles in India, Bombay High Court today granted permission to Nestle India to export the product. The court was hearing the petition filed by Nestle India against food safety regulator FSSAI's country-wide ban of Maggi noodles demanding revoking of the ban of the sale of Maggie in the country.

The MoU was signed during AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's meeting with an Australian delegation led by Steven Ciobo, Parliamentary Secretary to the Australian Trade and Investment Minister.

Indo Nissin Foods has ordered the withdrawal of its instant noodles brand Top Ramen from the Indian market following an advisory from central food safety regulator Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. A statement from Indo Nissin Foods Private Limited said, they had sought clarification from FSSAI since Top Ramen product approval is pending with them. It said, FSSAI has requested them to withdraw the product until it gives the approval.

The name of the service is SBI eforex . It is the Internet-based forex (foreign exchange) platform launched by the SBI that facilitates the customers of the bank to obtain forex rates without having to physically visit the branch and enable customers to book their foreign exchange transactions online.

Under this deal Cairn India will get one share in Vedanta Ltd for every held. This will result in merger of Cairn India in Vedanta, a move that is expected to streamline debt-burdened parent Vedanta Resources Plc’s operating structure.

This contract marked a major milestone in the ‘Make in India’ initiative. The parts will be produced at the new Mahindra Aerostructures facility located at Narsapura, near Bengaluru, with deliveries to Premium Aerotec’s facilities in Germany scheduled to commence this year. It is worth mentioning that Mahindra Aerospace started its operations in 2008 and is today the largest supplier to Airbus out of India.

With the government taking steps to improve ease of doing business and attracting investments, FDI inflows into the services sector grew by over 46 percent to 3.25 billion dollars in 2014-15. In step with the growth in FDI in important sectors like services, overall foreign inflows in the country too rose by 27 percent to 30.93 billion dollar during the previous fiscal. The amount was 24.29 billion dollar in 2013-14.

The MOU was been signed by Railway Board Advisior R K Verma and , IIT (BHU), Director . Professor Rajeev Sangal . The MOU envisages research and development work for upgradation of Railway tracks for High speed trains.

The scheme of awarding Navratna, Miniratna (Category-1 and 2) status to public sector undertakings (PSUs) was started by the Union Government vide a notification dated 22 July 1997 so as to grant greater autonomy to PSUs to become global giants.

Section 12(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 enables the government to approach Consumer Forum to protect interests of consumers.

Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) has broken new ground to gain substantially from the Automated Fare Collection (AFC) system by roping in a private partner to make necessary investments in hardware and software for sale of tickets besides getting assured annual royalty and a share in the business returns of the partner.

The Kerala Cabinet on 10th June’15 decided to accept the bid of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited. Adani Group was the lone bidder for the project, which had no takers in the previous rounds of tendering.

The first MoU between PNB and the Indian Army was signed in 2011 and was valid for a period of three years. The MoU is tailor made to suit the requirements of serving soldiers, pensioners and families. The number of additional facilities have been incorporated in the revised MoU after due consultation between Bank & Army authorities. Speaking on the occasion Lt Gen Sharma expressed confidence that the MoU will benefit a large number of serving and retired Army personnel who are having their accounts with PNB; and also provide them an opportunity to access modern banking facilities.

The restaurants without air conditioning facility will not charge any service tax from the customers while the ones with ACs will charge only on the 40 per cent of the total bill amount. Restaurants, eating-joints or messes, which do not have the facility of air-conditioning or central-heating in any part of the establishment, are exempt from service tax.

The Ministry had issued notices to the NGOs for not filing annual returns. In March this year, government banned 30 NGOs from receiving foreign funds after adverse reports about their activities. These are part of 69 NGOs which have been prohibited by the government from receiving foreign funds under Foreign Contributions Regulation Act.

LIC will start business as the joint venture entity called LIC Bangladesh Ltd with a paid-up capital of 1 billion Takas with LIC holding half of it. Bangladesh has over 77 local insurance companies in the market, the only other foreign insurance company is a US-based company which operates as a branch office, and not as a registered company.

The Court also ordered to go for arrest if required. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ramchandra Prasad directed Kazi Mohammadpur Police Station to register the FIR against the three film stars and two Nestle Officials and investigate the complaint. The case has been filed under IPC sections 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) 273 (sale of noxious food or drink) 276 (sale of drug as a different drug or preparation) and 420 (cheating and dishonesty).

It is a part of the digital initiative by the HDFC Bank, under which it had last year launched the ‘green PIN’ scheme wherein card-users were given the PIN numbers electronically rather than in a printed kit.

India-born Neerja Sethi, with a net worth of 1.1billion US Dollar, ranked 14th while London born Jayshree Ullal with 470 million US Dollar net worth comes at the 30th Spot on the list. Neerja Sethi, co-founded IT consulting and outsourcing company Syntel with her husband, billionaire Bharat Desai, in 1980. Jayshree Ullal is the president and CEO of Arista Networks.