LEADERSHIP CHANGES

ASIAN PAINTS APPOINTS K B S ANAND AS MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CEO

Asian Paints today has appointed K B S Anand as Managing Director and CEO of the company for three years with effect from April 1.

The company's board, , has appointed KBS Anand-President Decorative Business Unit, as an additional director and Managing Director and CEO of the company for a period of three years with effect from April 1, 2012, Asian Paints said in a filing to the BSE.

The term of current MD and CEO P M Murty will expire on March 31, 2012, and consequently, Murty will cease to be a director on the board of the company.

TOP EXECUTIVE DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE RETURNS TO COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

 Cognizant Technology Solutions has got back one of its key executives who had left last year to join rival IBM.

 After making a high profile exit barely a year ago, Debashis Chatterjee, the vice-president heading Cognizant's banking and financial services industry practice is now back as a senior vice-president leading activities around large transformational deals. 

"Yes, DC (Debashis Chatterjee) has returned to Cognizant. Cognizant enjoys tremendous goodwill among its former associates and we are happy to welcome back one of our top performers," said R Chandrasekaran, group chief executive, technology & operations at Cognizant. 

KINGFISHER INDUCTS THREE INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS ON BOARD

 Kingfisher Airlines has taken on board three independent directors to comply with the listing norms, a week after its lone independent director walked out citing poor health condition. 

According clause 49 of Sebi's Listing Agreement, at least 50 per cent of the Board of Directors should comprise of independent directors. After the exit of Anil Kumar Ganguly, the Kingfisher board was left with just three directors of whom none were independent directors. 

"The company, therefore, in order to comply with the Listing Agreement has to appoint three independent directors. The company proactively already taken steps and has obtained the consent of Manmohan Singh Kapur, Lalit Bhasin and Shrikant Ruparel to join the board o directors of the company as independent directors," KFA said in a filing to the BSE. 

SANJIV BAJAJ RESIGNS AS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF BAJAJ AUTO

 Bajaj Auto today said Sanjiv Bajaj has resigned as Executive Director of the company with effect from April 1. 

"Bajaj, in view of his appointment as Managing Director in Bajaj Holdings & Investment Ltd, has resigned as Executive Director of the company with effect from April 1, 2012," Bajaj Auto said in a filing to the BSE. 

He, however, will continue as a non-executive Director with effect from April 1, 2012, he added. 

In a separate filing, Bajaj Holdings & Investment said the Board of Directors in its meeting appointed Sanjiv Bajaj as Managing Director for a period of five years. 

Read more...

ECONOMY UPDATE!!

BRICS SUMMIT: NOT JUST TALKS, BUT SERIOUS ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

The leaders of Brics nations have adopted the idea - of conducting trade between the five nations in their own currencies. Two agreements, signed among the development banks of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, say that local currency loans will be made available for trade between these countries.

With five fast-growing nations participating in local currency trade, it is unlikely that the system will fall into the rupee-rouble rut into which Indo-Soviet trade sank in the 1980s. It will allow participants to diversify their foreign exchange portfolios, hedging against movements in, say, and the dollar. Higher intra-Brics trade, conducted in our own currencies will shield our economies from disruptions in the west.

How will the exchange rates between these five currencies be determined? In the short run, it will be determined by the rates at which these trade against liquid currencies like the dollar. But if the dollar peg is to be truly broken, then the Brics currencies will have to trade amongst themselves vigorously, creating anintra-Brics currency market which will set rates.

This will deepen demand for our currencies and spur further opening up of our trade and investment systems. With this, the annual Brics meeting evolves from an occasion for polite shop talk, to a forum to link our growing economic clout to global policy interventions. The group, which accounts for half of humanity and a fifth of the world's trade volumes, is now taken seriously by many.

 POVERTY DOWN, NO MATTER WHAT METHOD IS USED, ASSERTS MONTEK SINGH AHLUWALIA

Rejecting widespread criticism for pegging poverty line at Rs 28.65 daily consumption, Plan panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia asserted that the number of poor in the country has come down irrespective of the method of calculation.

".Whatever poverty line you choose. The question is poverty in the country is going down. Some people have said that it is not correct. Poverty is not going down..I reject that view...I categorically say whatever indicator you use things are getting better in this country," Ahluwalia said.

As per the Commission's estimates, based on the Tendulkar Committee formula, poverty ratio has declined to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05. But the ratio has been worked out based on a controversial per capita daily consumption of Rs 28.65 in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas.

TRADE DEFICIT MAY RISE TO $428 BILLION BY 2015-16: ASSOCHAM

Rising gold and crude oil imports are expected to push up India's trade deficit to $ 428.3 billion by 2015-16, industry body Assocham 

Oil and gold imports may increase to $ 243.7 billion and $ 83.3 billion respectively by 2015-16, it said.

During the first 11 months this fiscal, oil imports have increased 41 per cent to $ 132.6 billion. Gold imports were worth about $ 55 billion.

India's trade deficit could rise from $ 130.5 billion in 2010-11 to $ 428.3 billion by 2015-16 and become unsustainable with merchandise imports rising from $ 380.9 billion to $ 858.6 billion said. 

Read more...

INDIA'S TOP RECRUITERS

Business Today’s annual exercise of listing India’s top recruiters has highlighted that even in grim economic scenario in almost all big economies of the world, Job offers from Blue chip companies are on a rise and are offering  very high salaries and bonuses.

The top five among the companies that made offers to students at 18 B-schools and nine engineering colleges were considered.

Infosys Technologies and Cognizant emerged as the leading hirers.

Cognizant made a 1631 hires at the engineering colleges and another 99 from B-schools.

The average annual compensation offered in B-school campuses this year ranged from RS 8 Lakh to RS 13 Lakh.

The average offers at top three IIMS-BANGLORE, AHMEDABAD, CALCUTTA –were slightly higher ,at around RS18 Lakhs , according to industry observers.

However industry experts have also acknowledged that all major B-schools in India demand outstrips supply and they continue to ignore issues relating to faculty quality and making the curriculum more relevant.

Read more...

News Update -I.T/ ITES/ BFSI Sector

MARCH 30, 2012: NO HIKE IN H-1B VISA FEE FOR NEXT YEAR, SAYS US

The US government has clarified that there will be no hike in fee for H-1B work visa for professionals next year.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had on said in a press release detailed application procedure for H-1B visa for fiscal year 2013 which was wrongly interpreted as hike in visa fee.

Subsequently, USCIS as well as Indian IT industry body Nasscom have clarified that there is no hike in the visa fee.

MARCH 29TH, 2012: RBI ASKS BANKS TO IMPROVE NPA MANAGEMENT

The Reserve Bank today asked banks to improve their ability to manage stressed assets, but said there was nothing alarming about an unexpected rise in the NPA levels this fiscal.

"Concerns (on NPA) are there. Banks have to improve their ability to manage NPAs. We have told banks what is their lacuna. They have to improve their information system. But we see that the situation is not alarming. Though this is our concern. Hope banks will be able to manage them," said deputy governor KC Chakrabarty 

It can be noted that following the continued slowdown in economic activities on the back of rising interest rate regime, banks, especially the state-run ones, have been reporting higher NPAs in their books since the second quarter.

The country's largest lender SBI had reported record gross NPAs in Q3 at Rs 40,080 crore and saw an 87.5 per cent spike in its provisioning. But private lenders are better off.

The total NPAs in the system are set to top 3 per cent of the total assets this fiscal, against a 2.3 per cent last fiscal at Rs 98,000 crore.

MARCH 28TH 2012: BPOS LIKE EXL AND GENPACT FOLLOWING  IT FIRMS IN MANAGEMENT REJIG

 Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) firms are now IMPLEMENTING the management structure tried and tested by IT firms.

 Large BPO firms such as EXL and Genpact  are organizing their operations into specific industry-based verticals, with domain experts heading each vertical both at the developer-facing back-end as well as client facing front-end. 

Logic for such re-organisation is that sales heads for specific verticals - usually domain experts - would be in a better position to chase deals from clients within that industry, as opposed to the earlier structure where geography heads - usually generalists - used to have the primary responsibility of business development.

Genpact, India's largest third party BPO has an extensive structure having heads of different geographies such as Europe, Asia designated as chief executives for those geographies. But it has introduced heads for different verticals that are also responsible for business development.

Genpact has appointed geo heads such as Charles Hunting, as CEO Asia Business, Harpreet Duggal as head of India business. Patrick Cogny, serves as CEO of Europe besides being President for Manufacturing and Services. Genpact is one of the largest India-based BPO with revenues of around $1.6 billion in 2011. Recently, Genpact acquired IT services firm Headstrong for about $500million.

MARCH 27TH 2012: MAHINDRA SATYAM'S AUSTRALIA UNIT PLANS TO MAKE $50-100 MILLION ACQUISITIONS

 Mahindra Satyam's Australia unit plans to make acquisitions worth USD 50-100 million and become a USD 750-million company by 2015, a media report has said.

"We're on the lookout for major acquisitions, anywhere from USD 50 million to USD 100 million. The treasure trove is reasonably big and Australia is a big market for us on a worldwide basis," Mahindra Satyam Head (Australia and New Zealand operations) Venki Prathivadi said

Earlier this month, the diversified Mahindra Group announced the long-awaited merger of Mahindra Satyam with its another technology arm Tech Mahindra in an all-share deal that would create India's fifth largest software firm with an estimated annual revenue of about USD 2.4 billion. 

MARCH 26TH 2012: IGATE-PATNI TIES UP WITH RIO TINTO TO PROVIDE R&D AND ENGINEERING SERVICES

Patni Computer Systems Ltd, the software services provider controlled by  iGATE Corp, won an outsourcing order from Rio Tinto PLC, the world's third-largest mining company, the two companies said in a statement.

Rio Tinto expects to spend around $60 million to $80 million over the next five years of the partnership.

The partnership will focus on creating next generation technologies and contribute to global growth and development of Rio Tinto's 'Mine of the Future' program. Rio Tinto will leverage iGate Patni's technical capabilities to accelerate technologies globally in the mining industry. 

Read more...