Business Today brings you important news from the past fortnight, which you may have missed.
STATING THE OBVIOUS
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
"The banks and financial institutions should take all commercial decisions in the best interest of the organisation without any fear or favour? All decisions should be taken based on facts of the case and objectivity"
That's what the finance ministry said in a statement, as a follow-up to Gyan Sangam, the two-day brainstorming in Pune addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The statement is obviously welcome. But it is remarkable because somebody felt the need to state what should have been obvious.
Rural wages for men grew only 2.9 per cent in November 2014, according to the latest available data from the Labour Bureau posted on the Reserve Bank of India website. This is the lowest in nearly 10 years and presents a sharp contrast to the sustained high double-digit growth peaking at 43.7 per cent in November 2013.
Rural wages
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan counts rural wages as a big factor in food prices and overall inflation. This data will pile on still more pressure on him to cut rates.
CATCHING ITS BREATH
Leap second
This year will be a second longer. The Paris Observatory announced it was adding a leap second to clocks this summer, says The Telegraph of London. On June 30, dials will read 11:59:60 as clocks stop for a second to allow the Earth's rotation to catch up with atomic time. When the last leap second was added in 2012, Mozilla, Reddit, Foursquare, Yelp, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon reported crashes.
HOLD ON TO THE OLD
Banning private vehicles
The government has opposed banning private vehicles older than 15 years, calling it a short cut to control pollution, in an affidavit in the Supreme Court, reports The Indian Express. The affidavit is however open to accepting 15 years as the end of life for commercial vehicles.
BURNT, BUT NOT GUTTED"We are still reviewing the effects of the cyber attack. However, I do not see it as something that will cause a material upheaval on Sony Pictures business operations, basically, in terms of results for the current fiscal year"
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
Sony Corp Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 6, as reported by Reuters. Hackers attacked Sony's network just before the scheduled release of The Interview, a comedy about a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Soon after, embarrassing internal emails were leaked. Sony cancelled the Christmas release of the movie but later put it out in cinemas and online after criticism, including from US President Barack Obama, that the company had bowed to hackers.
