1. Tata Sons Names TCS Chief N Chandrasekaran as New Chairman
Tata Sons has named Natarajan Chandrasekaran as its new chairman, the company said in a media statement. Chandrasekaran, who is the chief executive officer of TCS, will take over from 21 February as the head of the $100-billion salt-to-software conglomerate from interim chairman Ratan Tata.
Chandrasekaran’s name was recommended unanimously by a search panel, which was set up after Cyrus Mistry’s surprise ouster, to select the next Tata Sons chairman.
“Chandrasekaran has demonstrated exemplary leadership as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services. We believe he will now inspire the entire Tata group to realise its potential acting as leaders in their respective businesses, always in keeping with our value system and ethics and adhering with the practices of the Tata group which have stood it in good stead,” Tata Sons said in the statement.
(Source: Bloomberg Quint)
2. TCS Profit Rises 11% to ₹6,778 Cr in Q3
N Chandrasekaran’s last quarter as the CEO of India’s largest software exporter TCS turned out to be better than estimated with the company reporting a 10.9 percent growth in net profit for the third quarter ended 31 December, growing to ₹6,778 crore from ₹6,110 crore in the same period last year due to rapid growth in digital revenues.
Chandrasekaran acknowledged possible headwinds that may arise due to restrictions on H-1B work visas in the US but said TCS is well prepared to handle those issues.
A new bill in the US seeks to raise salary benchmark for H-1B visa holders from $60,000 to a minimum of $1,00,000 while also restricting the number of H-1B visas given out. Indian IT companies are the largest beneficiaries of H-1B visas.
(Source: The Hindu Business Line)
3. Telecom Department Can Levy Penalty On Airtel, Vodafone, Idea: Attorney General
Paving the way for a Rs 3,050-crore cumulative fine on telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular, the Attorney General is learnt to have opined that the Department of Telecom has power to impose penalty on grounds of poor quality of service.
“AG has opined that DoT can impose penalty on telecom operators for violating quality of service rules,” a source told PTI.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended imposing Rs 1,050 crore penalty each on Airtel and Vodafone and Rs 950 crore on Idea for violating quality of service rules. The regulator, in its recommendation to the Department of Telecom (DoT), said it has found the trio non-compliant with licence conditions and service quality norms, given the high rate of call failures and congestion at interconnect points for Reliance Jio.
(Source: Bloomberg Quint)
4. Industrial Output at 13-Month High in November
Industrial activity rose to a 13-month high of 5.7 percent in November, belying expectations of an adverse impact from demonetisation. It had contracted 1.8 percent in October, revealed the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data released on Thursday.
However, the sharp rise was also due to a statistical illusion – low industrial numbers in November 2015, called the base effect (the IIP fell 3.4 percent last November), and sharp reversal of a 12-month declining trend in capital goods, helped by highly volatile cable and insulated rubber. If capital goods are taken out, IIP rose 4.7 percent in November, against 2.1 percent in the previous month.
If the trend prevails in the coming months, Advance Estimates of 7.1 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2016-17 would not be revised drastically, beating popular perception.
(Source: Business Standard)
5. Niti Aayog Set to Redraw the Poverty Line
Niti Aayog, the government’s premier think-tank, has decided that the country needs a freshly defined poverty line to help track the success and outreach of its poverty alleviation measures after a year-long deliberation of the task force on poverty failed to arrive at any other acceptable measure.
“We will soon set up an expert committee to narrowly look at the poverty line issue only, as most states are politically not in sync with each other,” a senior government official said.
According to the official, the government has yet not finalised the constitution of the committee, but as and when it is formed, its sole responsibility will be to arrive at the number of poor in the country.
(Source: The Economic Times)
6. R Gopinathan Takes Over From Chandrasekaran As New TCS CEO
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) has appointed R Gopinathan as its new chief executive officer and managing director, the company announced in a media statement on Thursday.
Gopinathan, currently the CFO, will take over from Natarajan Chandrasekaran who has been named chairman of parent Tata Sons.
Before becoming the CFO of TCS in February 2013, Gopinath was responsible for financial management of the company's individual operating units. He had joined TCS in 2001. Like Chandrasekaran, Gopinath too has an engineering degree from Regional Engineering College in Trichy. He then completed a post-graduate diploma from Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad.
(Source: Bloomberg Quint)
7. Airtel Payments Bank Launched, With Vow to Shake up Old Banking System
Airtel Payments Bank (APB), a joint venture between Bharti Airtel Ltd and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd, said it will spend Rs 3,000 crore to develop a pan-India banking network and digital payments ecosystem.
Through their 80:20 joint venture, Bharti and Kotak aim to disrupt a banking system that has gradually woken up to changing technology and yet incurred heavy costs in serving customers.
“I have seen the insides of traditional banking. I understand that the cost to open a bank account and serve a customer is significantly higher. Airtel Payments Bank with its reach can do so with significantly lower costs, which traditional banks cannot compete with,” Uday Kotak, executive vice-chairman and managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank told reporters at the payments bank launch event.
(Source: Livemint)
8. Budget 2017: Will Arun Jaitley Opt for Universal Basic Income?
Days before the Union budget, which will be presented in the backdrop of disruptions caused by the demonetisation drive, the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) government became the first to commit to a Universal Basic Income for all citizens living below the poverty line by providing direct benefit transfers, raising expectations that finance minister Arun Jaitley may follow suit.
In his third budget speech on Wednesday, J&K finance minister Haseeb Drabu said he would want to create a social security fund and provide a “Universal Basic Income” to all those living “below the poverty line” through a direct benefit transfer system. “Not only will it eliminate all the leakages, the cost of delivery will also be reduced dramatically,” he added.
However, what is more interesting is Drabu putting the onus on the Central government for initiating the process to implement UBI in the state.
(Source: Livemint)
9. Reliance Jio Free Offer Is Unfair Competition: Sunil Bharti Mittal
Sunil Mittal termed Reliance Jio Infocomm’s voice and data offer “unfair”, and said the entire telecom industry was impacted due to the rival’s freebies.
“There is an impact on the whole industry,” Mittal said on the sidelines of the launch of Airtel’s payment bank on Thursday. “Anything being offered free would have an impact on revenue and margins. This is unfair competition.”
Reliance Jio launched commercial fourth-generation services on 5 September with a Welcome Offer of free voice and data services for three months. On 5 December, it announced extension of free services until 31 March under what it called the Happy New Year offer.
Meanwhile, incumbent telcos including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular cried foul over the extension of the freebies, amid immense market pressure and competition.
(Source: The Economic Times)
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