Policy bytes and People movement during The Week That Was

An IIFL round-up of key appointments, acquisitions and announcements based on media reports in leading publications.

An IIFL round-up of key appointments, acquisitions and announcements based on media reports in leading publications

People in and out

• Banking veteran and ex-ICICI bank Zarin Daruwala has been appointed CEO of Standard Chartered India.
• Deepak Tuli has been appointed Senior Vice President – growth business of online travel player MakeMyTrip.
• Bank of Baroda is planning to recruit a strategic advisor for its new MD and CEO P S Jaykumar as part of its restructuring initiative.
• Leo Burnett India CEO Saurabh Verma has been elevated as CEO for South Asia.
• Vishakha Mulye, MD and CEO of ICICI venture, has been appointed Executive Director at ICICI Bank.

Policy Bytes

• The Union Government is planning to set up a special fund as part of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) to combat the glaring issue of stressed assets of companies across sectors.

• India to resume bilateral trade talks with the European Union to discuss lower import duty for European cars and wines in return for inducting farm products, garments and IT services into the trading bloc.

• The Government is finalizing a new and improved exploration block option policy to be implemented in this fiscal year.

• Department of Pharmaceuticals to come up with a new medical device price regulation model in the near future.

• Cabinet has cleared 10% stake sale in Coal India and an IPO for Cochin Shipyard to collectively garner Rs.21, 000 crore.

• In a major boost to Road and Rail projects, the Cabinet has authorized the Road Ministry to independently approve projects up to Rs.1000 crore.

• The Government has decided to provide subsidy to the ailing sectors of export and sugar to collectively cost over Rs.3500 crore per year.

• The Finance Ministry to phase out several exception and sops of the next 16 months as part of its plan to cut corporate tax rate from 30% to 25%.

• The Pay Panel has recommended a 23.55% increase in the remuneration of Central Government employees.

• The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) to seek crystal clear plan from bank boards from the next financial year onwards on opening up branch networks to more than one insurer in life, non-life and stand alone health categories.

• The Government is planning to roll out Aadhaar –Based biometric authentication at all fare price shops across India by the end of 2016.

• The Finance Ministry has raised duty drawback rates on Engineering Goods, Leather hand bags and readymade garments made of cotton wool /cotton with lycra, shrimps to neutralize impact of import duty hike.