People Business
Persons of Interest
Chetan Ghate, Ravindra Dholakia and Pami Dua have been appointed by the government as members of the new Monetary Policy Committee that will decide the interest rates. The committee has three other members from RBI, including Governor Urjit Patel. All the three government-nominated candidates are economists from the academic world. Ghate, who has worked with the RBI and is on the technical advisory committee that used to provide advice on interest rates to the governor, is an associate professor at the Indian Statistical Institute. Dholakia has been a faculty at IIM-A since 1985. Dholakia has also been part of various government and RBI committees including the panel that suggested the creation of a postal bank. Dua, a Director at the Delhi School of Economics since 2013, was the head of the Department of Economics at the institute from 2010 to 2014. The six-member Monetary Policy Committee will decide on interest rates from the October 4 policy meeting onwards.
Telecom Wars
Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel and Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio have locked horns over points of interconnection (PoIs). The matter escalated when newly launched Jio blamed Airtel, Vodafone and Idea for not providing adequate PoIs needed for its users to complete calls to the rival networks, to which Airtel responded that the fault was with Jios network as it was under-prepared. The telecom industry was also abuzz with Vodafone India MD and CEO, Sunil Sood, announcing that its parent company had infused Rs 47,700 crore into the Indian arm for the upcoming spectrum auctions. Meanwhile, Anil Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Communications, said that RCom has 'virtually' merged with his elder brother Mukesh Ambanis Reliance Jio Infocomm.
Onto Another Billion
Rajan Anandan, Google's Vice President of South-East Asia & India, along with senior executives of Google, unveiled a host of initiatives and products specifically for India. The new launches include free Wi-Fi at popular places, a new version of YouTube and messaging app Allo. "We have a very simple mission in India. We want to get a billion Indians online," Anandan says.
New Beginning
Mohit Kampani, Former Managing Director of Spencer's Retail, was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Aditya Birla Retail, recently. Kampani will head the food and grocery retail business of the firm and will report to Pranab Barua, the group's director for retail and apparel business, a new report said. Aditya Birla Retail currently runs 489 supermarkets and 19 hypermarkets in the country.
The Debutant
Sandeep Bakhshi, MD and CEO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, successfully led the listing of ICICI Prudential on the NSE to become the first listed life insurer in India. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance raised Rs 6,057 crore, becoming India's biggest IPO (initial public offering) in the past six years and was oversubscribed 10.48 times. However, the stock slumped post-listing owing to subdued market sentiment.
