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Zurich Airport to develop India’s largest airport at Jewar

Swiss company Zurich Airport International has outbid Adani group and GMR group-led consortium DIAL to emerge as the highest bidder for the proposed Greenfield international airport at Jewar.

GMR, which runs the Delhi International Airport (DIAL), had the first right of refusal (RoFR) if the difference between its bid and the highest bidder was within 10%. This not being the case, the RoFR clause became redundant.

J&K: Govt employees get Rs 10 lakh accident insurance cover

More than 3.5 lakh employees of Jammu and Kashmir government will get a Rs 10 lakh personal accidental insurance cover with the administration approving a policy proposal on Tuesday.

The government accorded sanction to the implementation of the Group Personal Accidental Insurance Policy through Oriental Insurance Company Limited for a period of three years commencing from December 2, an order issued by the government said.

Tarun Garg appointed as Director – SMS Hyundai Motors

Hyundai Motor India Ltd has announced the appointment of Tarun Garg as Director – Sales, Marketing & Service, Hyundai Motor India Ltd. Tarun Garg brings 25 years of experience in marketing, sales, network development, used car business and has served as executive director - marketing, parts & logistics at Maruti Suzuki India Limited.

IT department processes refunds worth Rs 1.46 lakh cr till November 28

The income-tax department has processed refunds worth Rs 1.46 lakh crore till November 28 this fiscal, a growth of nearly 23% compared with the same period a year ago, tax officials said. This involved 2.1 crore refunds compared with 1.75 crore a year ago.

The department also expedited more refunds during this period with 68% of them being issued within 30 days from e-verification of the IT returns. In the same period last year, 57% of total refunds had been issued within 30 days.

Grofers loss rises to Rs 448 crore in FY 2019

Grofers' loss increased 73.44% year-on-year to Rs 448 crore in the year to March 2019. The Gurugram-based online grocer's total expenses shot up to Rs 531.62 crore in FY19 compared to Rs 311.77 crore in FY18, a rise of 70.51%, according to the company's RoC filings sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler.

United Airlines orders 50 Airbus aircraft

United Airlines said Tuesday it had ordered 50 Airbus A321XLR aircraft, to replace an existing fleet of aging Boeings. The new Airbus planes, which will be delivered in 2024, will allow United to retire its Boeing 757-200s, the company said. The Airbus order is the latest blow to the American manufacturer, already deeply mired in the crisis surrounding its 737 MAX.

Gold prices dip to Rs 39,140

In Delhi, gold price quoted at Rs 39,140 for 10g of 24 karat gold(99.9% purity). Gold prices in Delhi have fallen over 2% in the last one month.

Gold futures prices on MCX for December delivery were down 0.10% at 37,915 per 10 grams. In line with gold, silver prices too dipped marginally, with MCX Silver December futures declining 0.32% lower at 44,200.

GVK Power & Infra post net loss Rs 159 cr in Q2

GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd's net loss during the quarter ended September 30, widened to Rs 159 crore from Rs 110.6 crore in the second quarter of the last fiscal, the company said

Suzlon Energy's Q2 net loss at Rs 777 cr

Suzlon Energy reported widening of its consolidated net loss to Rs 777.52 crore in the quarter ended September 30, 2019. Its revenue from operations fell to Rs 803.09 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 1,194.99 crore in the year-ago period.

Sensex slides 336 pts

The S&P BSE Sensex lost 336 points or 0.82 per cent to settle at 40,794 with YES Bank (down 2.50 per cent) being the top loser and Bharti Airtel (up over a per cent) the biggest gainer. During the day, the index hit a low of 40,664.18 levels. Reliance Industries (RIL), ICICI Bank, Hindustan Unilever (HUL), and State Bank of India (SBI) contributed the most to the index's fall. 

Videocon's income declined to Rs 1,062.62 cr in 2019

Videocon Industries, reported a huge loss of Rs 6,760.75 crore for the fiscal ending March 2019 against Rs Rs 5,264.04 crore in the year ago period mainly due to a sharp fall in income. Total income declined to Rs 1,062.62 crore in 2018-19 from Rs 3,423.91 crore in the previous year.

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Over 80,000 employees of BSNL, MTNL apply for VRS

Over 80,000 employees of BSNL and MTNL have already applied for the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) notified by the companies last week. Going by the response, it seems that the firms are set to achieve their target of 94,000 employees.

BSNL had estimated that about 79,000 people will opt for the scheme while MTNL had set a target of 15,000 staff to take retirement. As per an official, over 72,000 employees in BSNL and 8,900 in MTNL have already applied for VRS.

After the retirement of excess staff, BSNL is likely to save over Rs. 7,500 crore per year in salary costs. The current salary outgo is over Rs. 14,000 crore for the company. The government had last month cleared a package worth around Rs. 70,000 crore, which includes Rs. 29,937 crore for VRS.

BSNL has about 46,000 executives, which include ranks of junior telecom officer (JTO) and higher. Non-executives staff count like junior engineer, accountant, technicians, etc, stood at about 1.18 lakh.

According to the VRS scheme, all regular and permanent BSNL employees aged 50 years or more, including those on deputation to other organisation or posted outside BSNL on deputation basis, are eligible to avail VRS.

Gold jumps Rs 225

Gold in the national capital rose Rs 225 to Rs 38,715 per 10 gram on Wednesday helped by wedding season demand and rally in international prices, according to HDFC Securities. On Tuesday, the yellow metal had closed at Rs 38,490 per 10 gram. HDFC Securities Senior Analyst (Commodities) Tapan Patel said, “Spot gold prices for 24 karat in Delhi rallied by Rs 225 on wedding season buying and rally in international gold prices. The weaker rupee supported the upside in gold prices which fell around 28 paise against the dollar.”

Britannia Industries reported a 33% jump in consolidated net profit

Britannia Industries has reported a 33% jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 402.73 crore for the second quarter. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 303.03 crore in the year-ago period. Britannia Industries share price closed 5% higher at Rs 3,270.25 on BSE. Meanwhile, Macquarie noted that the volume growth of the company remained weak at 3 percent and on the balance sheet side, inventory days have gone up significantly. The global brokerage firm has retained an 'underperform' rating on the stock. Britannia Industries reported consolidated revenue growth of 6% for the quarter ending September at Rs 3,023 crore. Britannia also reported sequential revenue growth of 13%.

India's standing in world mkt could be shaky: Vodafone

Vodafone Plc has reportedly served a hard-hitting warning to the government to either let it fight competition in a fair manner in the market or the country's standing in the international market would take a huge beating.

“Either they take their boots off the neck of the industry and allow it to better compete with Ambani on 5G, or Vodafone Idea is destined for a potentially chaotic final act with potential repercussions for India's international standing,” chief executive Nick Read has been quoted telling the authorities by the UK's Sunday Telegraph in a piece penned by its business editor, Christopher Williams.

By 2030 55% of the power will be from Renewable sources: R.K. Singh

India's Power and Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh sounded confident that the country will have over 200 GW of renewable energy capacity by mid 2022. “We have decided that by 2022 we will establish 175 GW of renewable energy capacity. We are close to achieving the target,” Singh said at BRICS Energy Ministers meet in Brazil. India has set an ambitious target of having 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022. 

“The renewable energy capacity which has been installed is 83 GW and under installation is 31 GW and 35 GW capacity is underbidding. So this becomes around 140-145 GW. In hydro, we have installed capacity of around 45 GW and under installation capacity is about 13 GW, which makes it (hydro) around 60 GW. So we will cross 200 GW capacity of renewable energy by 2022,” the minister said. Singh said that more than 55 per cent of installed power generation in India will be from renewable sources by 2030.

GAIL's Q2 profit down 47%

GAIL India , despite steady volume growth, operating performance was impacted by one-offs in the trading and gas transmission segments. This coupled with poor LPG & liquid hydrocarbon segment profitability resulted in a sub-par performance. Operating profits which were down 30.8 per cent sequentially slid by 47 per cent year-on-year.

Britannia Ind Q2 net profit rises 33%

Britannia Ind posted a profit before tax (PBT) of Rs 498 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2019 (Q2FY19), up 8.5 per cent when compared with the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. The net profit for the period grew 33 per cent to Rs 403 crore on a yoy basis on account of re-measurement of deferred tax in accordance with lower corporate tax rate. It reported a consolidated revenue growth of 6 per cent for the quarter at Rs 3,049 crore on YoY basis, in line with industry estimates.

Hind Rectifiers EBITDA increases to 13.47 cr

Hind Rectifiers operating profit (EBITDA) more-than-doubled to Rs 13.47 crore in Q2, as against Rs 5.57 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. Net sales grew 40 per cent year-on-year (YoY) at Rs 83.18 crore during the quarter. Net profit increased an over three-times from Rs 2.35 crore to Rs 7.52 crore.

Hind Rectifiers is engaged in designing and manufacturing industrial power electronics and power conversion equipment.

TamilNad Mercantile Bank profit rises to 151 cr

Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB), one of the oldest private sector scheduled commercial banks in the country, is betting on technology to expand its business in a big way. The net profit of the bank for H1 was at Rs. 151.07 crore as compared to Rs. 62.74 crore in the same period last fiscal, registering growth of 141%.

SHF raises Rs 680 cr from banks

Shriram Housing Finance (SHFL), a subsidiary of Shriram City Union Finance, has raised about Rs. 680 crore from various public and private sector banks and the National Housing Bank. The company received Rs. 100 crore each from Indian Bank and United Bank of India, Rs. 150 crore from Canara Bank through a securitisation deal, Rs. 150 crore from Syndicate Bank via term loans, Rs. 50 crore from ICICI Bank via PTC and Rs. 130 crore from NHB through a refinance scheme.

Stop labeling the demonstrators as rioters, Protestors in Hong Kong

Protesters and police faced off again on Tuesday too in and around several university campuses as classes were cancelled. Recent weeks have been marked by escalating protests by both protesters and pro-Beijing supporters on the other side.

The Hong Kong hospital authority said both were in critical condition. Video of another incident showed a policeman on a motorcycle riding through a group of protesters in an apparent attempt to disperse them.

One of their demands is for the government to stop labeling the demonstrators as rioters, which connotes that even peaceful protest is a criminal activity.

Protestors other demands are for democratic changes in Hong Kong's government, criminal charges to be dropped against protesters and for police actions against the protesters to be independently investigated.

In Washington, the US government said it is watching the situation with "grave concern." "We condemn violence on all sides, extend our sympathies to victims of violence regardless of their political inclinations, and call for all parties — police and protestors — to exercise restraint," State Department said in a statement.

In a widely distributed video of the shooting, an officer shooed away a group of protesters near an intersection, then drew his gun on a protester who approached him. It was the second police shooting of a protester since the demonstrations began, although police have repeatedly drawn firearms to ward off attacks. 

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Ajay Kumar Singh is new Press Secretary to President

Ajay Kumar Singh appointed as Press Secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind. He is currently associated with the Firstpost as a contributor. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the appointment of Singh as Press Secretary to the President on contract basis initially for a period of one year He succeeds Ashok Malik.

BPO: Front of Back Office

How the Philippines beat India in call centres

 

At the Worldwide Corporate Centre office  block, thousands of young Filipinos are  crowding into endless open-plan offices. Once seated, they quickly start answering the questions and calming the frustrations of vexed consumers. To outsiders it is hardly a glamorous profession, yet despite the antisocial hours these men and women have every reason to be as well-motivated and cheerful as they seem. They are well paid and know that they work at the heart of their country's most dynamic industry. The rise of what is known as business-process outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippines has been nothing short of phenomenal. The very first calls were taken in 1997; today the sector employs 638,000 people and enjoys revenues of $11 billion, about 5% of the country's GDP. Last year the Philippines even overtook India, long the biggest call-centre operator in the world, in “voice-related services”. The country now employs about 400,000 people at call centres, India only 350,000.
The South-East Asian upstart is unlikely ever to surpass the South Asian behemoth (1.2 billion) across the entire range of outsourcing offerings, which also include all kinds of information-technology services. Yet given the extraordinary growth so far it is hard to gainsay the Philippines' own projection that its BPO industry could add another 700,000 or so jobs by 2016 and generate revenues of $25 billion. At that point, the industry would make up nearly a tenth of GDP and be bigger in value than the remittances from the 10m Filipinos working overseas.
As in the call-centre business so far, some of these new jobs will come at the expense of India. Yet India's relationship with the Philippines in back-office work is more complex than the numbers suggest. The main reason for the success of the Philippine call centres is that workers speak English with a neutral accent and are familiar with American idioms—which is exactly what their American customers want. Of these, many have taken to complaining bitterly about Indian accents. As a result, the Indian firms themselves have been helping to move jobs to the Philippines by setting up call centres in Manila and other parts of the country. Infosys and Wipro, as well as scores of other Indian firms, now have substantial operations there. And they aren't drawn to Manila by cheap labour. Wages in the Philippines are higher than in India since the Filipino accent commands a premium.
It also helps that the country has a big pool of well-educated workers. The million or so Filipinos who graduate every year have few other options to choose from, besides emigrating. And working in a call centre is considered a middle-class job (new recruits start at $470 a month). The big question is whether the Philippine BPO industry, having conquered the call-centre market, can now move up the value chain. To keep growing rapidly—and profitably—it needs to capture some of the more sophisticated back-office jobs, such as those processing insurance claims and conducting due diligence. 
Integreon offers a glimpse of what the future may hold. The firm occupies just a few discreet, very secure offices. “It makes it very easy for us to do legal research for American firms,” says Benjamin Romualdez, the firm's country manager. This sort of operation is new in Manila, but Mr Romualdez expects that he can find the skilled workers to double his workforce over five years. Western banks have also discovered the Philippines. JPMorgan Chase now has over 25,000 workers on its own payroll in the country, many of whom do much more than answering phones. The Philippines is set to compete with India across the BPO board.

Strangers by Choice

India and China

FEW subjects can matter more in the long term than how India and China, with nearly 40% of the world's population between them, manage to get along. In the years before they fought a short border war, in 1962, relations had been rosy. Many in China, for example, were deeply impressed by the peaceful and successful campaign led by Mohandas Gandhi to persuade the British to quit India. A few elderly people in China yet talk of their admiration for Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali writer who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1913. And though Nehru, India's first prime minister, was resented as arrogant and patronising by some Chinese leaders, the early post-war years saw friendship persist and some popular respect for him too. 
The past half-century has produced mostly squabbles, resentment and periodic antagonism. India felt humiliated by its utter defeat at the hands of Mao's army in the 1962 war. China's long-running close ties to Pakistan look designed to antagonise India. In return India is developing ever warmer relations with the likes of Vietnam and Japan. An unsettled border in the Himalayas, periodic incursions by soldiers into territory claimed by the other side and China's claim—for example—that India's Arunachal Pradesh is really a part of Tibet, all suggest that happier relations will be slow in coming. Even a booming bilateral trade relationship is as much a bone of contention as a source of friendlier ties, given India's annoyance at a yawning deficit.
One glimmer of hope, in theory, is that ordinary people of the two countries might start to understand each other better as levels of education, wealth and interest in the outside world all grow. As tourists, students and business types visit each other's countries, perhaps they will find that they have more in common than they believed. In fact, judging by a sharp and well-crafted memoir by an Indian journalist who was posted in Beijing for four years, ignorance and bafflement are likelier to persist.
Most entertaining, from an Indian point of view at least, are her accounts of Chinese ignorance about India. She visits a centre in Beijing devoted to learning cricket in case it ever becomes an Olympic sport, whose players have never heard of Indian stars, or of the cricket world cup, and who appear to prefer playing ping pong. During numerous forays to universities she finds students learning foreign languages who routinely dismiss India as dirty, poor and irrelevant. A wide misapprehension, she says, is a belief that India is Buddhist. Officials and journalists tell her that India suffers from an “inferiority complex”, that it is so backward  that there can be “nothing to learn” from the country. She suggests that one Indian drink, the mango lassi, has become popular in China, but otherwise the Chinese she meets mostly have little interest in Indian products or culture. Indian traders are famously stingy. Its brands, such as those of big outsourcing firms, are poorly understood or assumed to be of low quality. Persistent racism towards dark-skinned Indians is broken in only one case, by the head of a Chinese modelling agency who says he is fond of Indians who can pull off a “Western look”.
India meanwhile makes pitifully little effort to correct Chinese misunderstandings. As well as few journalists, India had only 15 diplomats based in Beijing during President Patil's time, most of them inactive. Only two had any economic expertise, and most only started learning Mandarin after their arrival in the country. A big Indian business lobby group had a single representative based in Shanghai. She estimates that only a few hundred Indian businesses, in any case, are active in China (with even fewer Chinese ones in India), and few of the Indian ventures are led by Mandarin-speakers or local hires. As an example of ignorance, she mentions a Chinese business reporter who has never heard of Infosys, a $33 billion Indian IT firm. India's low profile in China, she argues, “prolongs the shelf-life of anti-India propaganda”. For if most Chinese are merely ignorant, many are troublingly nationalistic where their neighbour is concerned. Sometimes India ships a low-cost dance troupe to China. Most such exchanges of students, journalists and others end up in mutual frustration; a failure to communicate; and terrible hunger among vegetarian Indians horrified by Chinese cuisine.
A Chinese artist, lauds the freedom of speech that exists in India and says he hopes India will grow strong and prosperous. He also points out that Chinese security agents like to mention the chaos of India as an example of why democracy is not worth attempting. Some Chinese businessmen, as well as reporters, who return from trips to India praise the openness and free speech there, or point to the “inner peace” and happiness that they discern among even poor Indians. Others mention the relative openness of Indian courts, the mass anti-corruption protests that would be impossible in China, and the fact that poor rural migrants are allowed to use hospitals in the cities, unlike those in China. 
China is still experimenting with its use of soft power. In one striking detail our former President relates a visit to China Radio International's Hindi service, where she is told that the station is popular in rural India and receives over 100,000 letters from enthusiastic listeners a year, some of whom receive radios in return. She also finds ten universities in China that teach Hindi. India, by contrast, fails to broadcast much worth listening to beyond All India Radio's Chinese- and Tibetan-language services. Very few Indian students are learning Mandarin.
Analysts frequently point to the military imbalance between the countries: China's armed forces have a budget three times larger than India's and enjoy far superior infrastructure near the mutual border. Nationalist Chinese bloggers mock Indian aspirations to military strength as all talk and little action—“loud thunder, tiny rain”. The launch, in 2013, of India's first home-built aircraft carrier drew some attention in China, but officials point out that China's navy, with 150 ships, is already three times the size of India's. Naval clashes seem a more likely risk even than those on the border: India's defence ministry claims that in 2012 there were 22 “contacts” with suspected Chinese attack submarines outside of Chinese waters. 
A mutual perception of being threatened by the other country is growing. One poll in 2013 found that 83% of Indians see China as a security threat. Large numbers of Chinese similarly think nuclear-armed India is hostile, even if it is not taken as an immediate threat. When Chinese soldiers cross the disputed border into India—a report on August 19th suggested a fresh incursion in Ladakh—reporters in Beijing are promptly instructed by officials not to mention it. An Indian journalist who dared to ask a Chinese politician at a press conference why official maps, digital maps on iPhones and other devices show Indian territory as part of China was told furiously to “shut up”.
Official Chinese hostility towards Indian journalists is well-documented. A constant gripe from China's government is that India's politicians fail to keep their media in line. Yet freedom of the press and communication is one obvious area in which India has a great advantage over its big rival. India has over 85,000 newspapers (it is not clear if that includes digital outlets) to just 2,000 in China. As micro-bloggers and users of social media get a louder voice in China officials there have to devise ever more elaborate means of restricting unwelcome messages; by contrast institutions in India, as in the West, are far more confident about allowing more transparency. India could do much more to present itself in China, sending better-trained diplomats and better-prepared businessmen. She sees enormous potential benefits if, for example, suitably trained Indian graduates and cleverly devised Indian software could somehow be made to work with Chinese infrastructure and hardware. The growth of China, its huge cities and big economy has to be an opportunity for India, she suggests. In turn, the Chinese population—at an average age of 35 years old, compared to India's 26—will grow old far sooner than India's, which suggests a demographic advantage to India. Sheer numbers also suggest advantage tipping towards India: by 2028, says the UN, India's population will outstrip China's. By then, will the two countries have managed to move on from being strangers to something more like friends? 

M K Jain appointed as ED

Public sector Indian Bank said Mahesh Kumar Jain has joined the bank as its Executive Director with immediate effect. Prior to taking up the new role, Jain was the General Manager of Syndicate Bank, Mumbai branch, the city- headquartered Indian Bank said in a statement. Jain was also a member of the Steering Committee on Risk Management, Indian Bank Association and also a member of IBA Working Group on Risk Management and Implementation of Basel II and III, it added. 

PK Sinha appointed as OSD in PMO

Pradeep Kumar Sinha, IAS officer of 1977 batch, UP cadre has been appointed as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in PMO on August 30, 2019. He has been appointed at this position after the resignation of Nripendra Mishra. The announcement came after Principal Secretary to the PM expressed his intention to be relieved of his assignment.

Sunil Gaur appointed NEW Chairperson of PMLA Appellate Tribunal

Sunil Gaur, the former Delhi HC Judge who had rejected Chidambaram's anticipatory bail in the INX Media case, has been appointed as the Chairperson of the PMLA Appellate Tribunal. Sunil Gaur was elevated to the High Court in April 2008 and was designated as a permanent judge on April 11, 2012. He retired as a judge of the Delhi High Court on August 23, 2019.  

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Ashutosh Karnatak as interim CMD

GAIL (India) Limited's Director (Projects) Ashutosh Karnatak has been appointed as the interim Chairman and Managing Director of the company. He has been serving as the Director (Projects) since March 2014.

Karnatak is an Electrical Engineering alumni of Harcourt Butler Technical University, Kanpur and a post graduate from IIT, Delhi. He is also a Fellow Doctorate of UPES, Dehradun, a company statement said.

Arvind Kumar becomes IB director

BJP Government has appointed senior IPS officer Samant Goel as the new Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief on June 26, 2019. In another move, government has appointed senior IPS officer Arvind Kumar as the director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

Gehlot replaces Arun Jaitley as Leader of Rajya Sabha

Thawarchand Gehlot, the Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, has been appointed as the new leader of Rajya Sabha. The position was previously occupied by senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley under the first Narendra Modi-led government. The Union Minister has been elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state of Madhya Pradesh. An experienced parliamentarian, Gehlot represents the Dalit community in the Bharatiya Janata Party. 

Ajit Doval reappointed as National Security Adviser, gets Cabinet rank

India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has been reappointed to the post for another five years. Ajit Doval has also been given Cabinet Rank for contribution to national security. NSA Ajit Doval's quality of work in his previous term has earned him the Cabinet rank in Modi Government

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Sunil Mittal appointed co-chair of India Africa Business Council

The India-Africa Business Council (IABC), announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the India-Africa Forum Summit in May 2011 with an aim to provide an institutional platform to strengthen economic ties between business communities of Indian and the African continent, will hold its inaugural meeting on March 17, 2012 in New Delhi. 
The Prime Minister has appointed Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman & group CEO, Bharti Enterprises, to be the co-chair from the Indian side. The Council will be formally launched by Anand Sharma, minister of commerce & industry, Government of India, and Dr Maxwell Mkwezalamba, commissioner for economic affairs, African Union Commission. 
Top business leaders from India and Africa will be a part of this meeting. There will also be representation from the African Union Commission, Pan-African Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Africa's regional economic groupings and the African Development Bank. Bilateral trade between India and Africa has grown from $967 million in 1991 to over $39 billion in 2009/10. Amongst other things, the Council will facilitate a consultative process to address issues standing in the way of economic and commercial relations. 

Educomp: Sanjay Jain appointed as Group CEO

Educomp appointed Sanjay Jain, a former top executive of Tulip Telecom, as Group Chief Executive Officer.  “In his new role, he will lead the growth and profitability of the business, consolidate operations, drive synergies across business...” Educomp Chairman and MD Shantanu Prakash said in a statement. The appointment of Jain is with immediate effect, he said. Before joining Educomp, Jain was working as CEO of Tulip Telecom, an enterprise communications service provider. 

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Offering a Strategic Edge

Aircraft carriers, despite their great cost, have always been seen as strategically important by the Indian Navy due to what must be a misplaced sense of grandeur. Today, they are seen as vital for India to establish a naval presence as a world power.

The fading away of the old British aircraft car rier and the commissioning of Russian made  44,570 tonne INS Vikramaditya (R33), and the likely induction of indigenously built 37,000- tonne INS Vikrant by 2018 represent a symbolic coming of age for the Indian Navy. The twin carriers are expected to serve the navy for the next 40 years. The fleet may see a probable addition of a nother 65,000-tonne indigenous vessel after a gap of 10 years or so. Despite the impressive numbers, one remains sceptical about the strategic thought behind the Indian Navy's perspective planning. The only visible novelty in Indian naval thought is the use of postmodern symbolism to sell its modernisation plans to the public at large. Till a few years ago, the navigation track of a warship at sea was a highly guarded secret. In the age of transparency, the full electronic track of R33, from Russia to India, is now available on social media for the military-machine enthusiasts to speculate on all the minor and bold alterations of courses ordered by the command. However, what is more crucial is that despite the decline in universal appeal of aircraft carriers, they continue to be the “queen ship” of the Indian Navy. Over the past half a century, besides laying the foundation of the Indian naval air arm, the two ex-British carriers have given India no tactical or strategic advantage in the Indian Ocean. In fact, the history of the aircraft carrier purchases by India clearly suggests that they were bought for considerations other than the strategic.
Misplaced Ambitions In 1956, when India decided to buy the redundant British light fl eet carrier HMS Hercules, there was neither any justification nor any reason for a nine-year-old infant nation to catapult itself to great power status by spending precious foreign exchange in times of extreme food shortages in the country.3 The cost of the old English carrier was close to one instalment (£50 million or Rs 65 crore) of what the British had promised to pay the Indians under the Indo-British sterling agreement. Interestingly, the Indian Navy's aircraft carrier dreams were drawing funds from the Second Five- Year Plan that had envisaged a foreign exchange shortfall of Rs 11,000 million and was looking at raising Rs 1,000 million through new private foreign investment.
The mid-1950s was the time when India was demanding the delinking of the rupee from the plummeting sterling and converting the £542 million Indian sterling reserves into dollars. Fearing damage to the international role of the sterling, the Bank of England and the Chancellor of the Exchequer pleaded with India to refrain from taking any drastic step. It is in this period of financial stress that both India and Britain initiated the Gnat fighter and aircraft carrier deals.
Perhaps the only solace was that India was not the only third world nation on which an old aircraft carrier was being dumped. Debt-ridden nations – Argentina, Brazil and Thailand were the other gullible buyers in late 1950s and early 1960s. India's second aircraft carrier INS Viraat came along with British Sea Harrier aircraft. The deal for Harriers for the Indian Navy had started as early as 1970s. In 1972, the British aerospace industry as well as their government pitched for the sale of 100 Sea Harriers to the Chinese. The Chinese who had a more urgent strategic requirement of getting Margaret Thatcher to sign an agreement for return of Hong Kong indulged the British till 1979 and finally refused to buy the Harriers. India had no substantial aim vis-à-vis Britain, yet, misplaced ambitions of grandeur led New Delhi to inadvertently pay for Thatcher's extravagance in 1982 Falklands war through the purchase of Hermes and Harriers.
The third Indian carrier, INS Vikramaditya, was built by the Soviets towards the fag end of the Cold War. The issolution of Soviet Union and the declining Russian stature in international politics in the Boris Yeltsin era made the Russian distaste for aircraft carriers even more pronounced. The Russians offered the raw platform to the Indians free of cost. The deal was signed with the Russians in 2004. The Indian naval planners' dogmatic allegiance to aircraft carriers has led to the refurbishment of Vikramaditya at a cost of $2.33 billion. Such spending is being justified in terms of India's growing economic reach and the global gaze shifting to the Asia-Pacific region. According to Kaplan, of late, a greater interest is being evinced in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The European interest in IOR is being fuelled “as a result of what is perceived to be a growing mixture of shiny gunboats, new naval stations and geopolitical intrigue among countries of the IOR such as India, China,the United States and Iran”. Admiral (retd) Arun Prakash posits, “The surge of interest in the Indian IOR, of which India is a major geographical constituent, is a new phenomenon.” Some Chinese scholars see “a progressively assertive India, setting the pace of the impending maritime rivalries among the great powers”. Contradicting the Chinese, former naval chief, admiral Sureesh Mehta feels that India “lacks strategic thinking in terms of maritime affairs, and also paucity of planning to counter Chinese moves in the IOR”. This growing mismatch between the Indian and Chinese perceptions of maritime security in the IOR is being aided and exploited by the America's “Asia pivot” and their resolve to maintain their predominance in the region.
The current debates based on booming Indian economic might and intensification of competition with China are indicative of a fresh urge among the maritime strategists to resurrect Mahanian concepts of sea power and naval strategy. What is discernible in these trends is that there is a growing salience of strategic theories that are pushing India to look beyond their borders, and move into a global arena using their sea power. As a former naval officer says, The advocates of a Realist foreign p olicy see Indian Navy's proactive operations in IOR and South China Sea as an instrument to achieve great power status for India. The key tenets of Realist thought on Indian maritime security are: (1) maritime security is intrinsically linked to trade and commerce; (2) the impact of national sea power is best felt beyond the exclusive economic zone (EEZ); the Indian Navy should be the net security provider in the IOR; (4) naval bases on foreign territory are a must to exercise sea power; and (5) the Indian Navy is the foremost instrument of Indian military diplomacy. This seeming theoretical clarity is largely based on western scholarship on maritime affairs. Behind such formulations is a belief that the next stage of capitalist development in India and China will lead to imperialism – a competition for colonies. And since historically, force at sea has been a quintessential ingredient for any imperial powers, therefore, India must be a sea power to be a great power.
Such delusions of grandeur lie behind the borrowed strategic themes as “out of area operations”, cooperative security at sea and the support they render to the concept of aircraft carrier as the bulwark of Indian naval strategy. Subsidising the Imperium However, what is normally overlooked is that theories which are applicable for truly great sea powers like the US may not fi t the medium power requirements.
The reach and range of American maritime assets places it in an absolutely different league. Despite this common knowledge, naval planners continue to insist on making Indian Navy a miniaturised version of the US navy. Fifty years ago, India paid to bail out England, and now, once again, India is digging deep into its pockets to sustain the dwindling fortunes of the falling American Empire. In the next couple of decades, India is not likely to reach a stage where it would be able to exercise any maritime adventure on its own steam – position its CBG to launch its fi ghters for fi ring missiles on enemy land from the sea. Operating any aircraft carrier in close proximity to e nemy territory enhances its vulnerability manifold. Establishing sea control even for a limited time of period is a diffi cult proposition in the age of sophisticated submarines and nano-technology. Therefore, the only o ption for the Indian Navy to use its costly carrier and its organic air is to operate under guidance and cover of the US military diplomacy, a proposition that would not only curtail strategic a utonomy, but create conditions for the Indian fl eet to be constantly in tow of the US fleet.
It is now well established that the US navy is shrinking under the burden of budget cuts. To obviate this difficulty, the US wants to broaden its military alliance base beyond the Atlantic. The game plan as enunciated by US military strategist Thomas Barnet is “We want to administer the global security system, not rule it. Like those 'system administrators' that keep the Internet up and running, America needs to play system administrator to the global security network. We need to keep globalisation up and running – to be, in effect, its bodyguard.” Rekindling the imperial desires of France, Japan and the Indian elite is part of the global security structure envisaged by the US.
The Indian strategy disregards facts and relies on theories that make it don an oversized jacket designed to fi t an imperial power. Strategies for medium powers need not always rely on marrying military means with political objectives. The problem arises because conventional strategists are preoccupied with “use of force” and its calibration to achieve national objectives. This assumes that the state's monopoly over means of violence is absolute and the only restraining factor is the adversary's military strength. Therefore, adroit management of limited wars or threat of use of force is considered to be the lynchpin of strategy. It is such thinking that makes costly platforms like aircraft carriers look attractive national weapons and disregard all military lessons that a medium power like India must learn from the experience of invaded nations. What prevented the sophisticated, modern military machines in Iraq and Libya from offering resistance against their invaders is a question that needs to be studied in greater detail. Spending money on techniques to penetrate no-fly zones created by a big power and jamming the incoming missiles of an invading airpower should be the strategic imperative rather than splurging money on gaining a false sense of prestige.

Vikram Kirloskar is elected new SIAM President

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Vice-Chairman Vikram Kirloskar has been elected as the new President of automobile industry body SIAM. Ashok Leyland MD Vinod Dasari has been elected as the new VP, while General Motors India President and MD Lowell Paddock is the treasurer, the SIAM said in a statement. Commenting on his new role, he said: "Our effort will continue to strive towards building a brand for the Indian auto industry which not only leads the manufacturing landscape of the country, but grows in a responsible manner keeping the customer benefits in view." 

Anuj Agarwal new MD of Bajaj Allianz

Private sector insurer Bajaj Allianz said it has appointed Anuj Agarwal as the Managing Director and officiating Chief Executive Officer. Agarwal takes over from V Philip, who is moving to an Allianz Group company, the insurer said in a statement. Mr. Agrawal was associated with Bajaj Allianz from 2001 to 2004 and prior to joining back the firm, he was the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer at P T Asuransi Allianz, Indonesia.

Biswal appointed New Director (F) at NTPC

Kulamani Biswal  has taken over as Director (Finance) NTPC on the Board of NTPC Limited. A  Commerce Graduate from Utkal University and fellow member of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India Shri Biswal has done LL.B. from Sambalpur University and Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management from Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi. He is MBA from New Port University, California, USA.
Biswal ( 52 years)  has rich experience of 28 years both in coal and power sector. He was Director (Finance) in Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) since October 2010 managing finance, accounting and corporate governance functions of the Company. He played a pivotal role in making MCL as second largest coal company in India in terms of production and profitability. He was Chief (Finance) at Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and contributed to drafting of various regulations and policies for smooth functioning of the power sector from year 2004 to 2010,

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THE RISE OF COMMUNAL POLITICS

The riots in Uttar Pradesh following the killing of two Jats sharpen the communal polarisation in western Uttar Pradesh. 

One of the largest villages in Muzaffarnagar district,  divided into two distinct halves, in western Uttar Pradesh. The land-holding Jats in the north are separated from the affluent Muslim households in the south by a cluster of houses belonging to Dalit and Muslim agricultural workers. Kawal, had earned the reputation of being a harmonious and business-friendly village.
In the first week of September, however, high tension following clashes in the village snowballed into a major communal riot, claiming 36 lives and injuring many. Many Muslims have fled the village. The village, which was populated by Muslims and Hindus in equal numbers, was now a Hindu-majority village. In fact, Kawal is not the only village in Muzaffarnagar to have witnessed such communal polarisation and a resulting demographic transformation. In most of the riot-affected villages, these two facets of the riots that continued for two days are visible. In all the villages where the Hindus were predominant, the Muslims have left their homes. And the reverse has happened in Muslim-majority villages. 
On August 27, a Muslim mob lynched the two Jat men. The Jats of the region rallied in thousands for the cremation of the two community members. On their way back from the cremation, the Jats entered the Muslim colony of Kawal in tractors and motorbikes and allegedly looted and vandalised Muslim houses and shops. A Muslim resident of Kawal told : “the whole episod started after killing of two innocent Hindu boys. The police too mishandled the entire things. The police should have arrested those who were involved in killing of two Jats and could have averted the entire riots. I agree the Jat boys should not have been killed. The culprit should be booked and convicted. We got entrapped in the whole fight. And now we have nowhere to go except to live in fear.”
Clearly, the Jat rally was spontaneous and it was reactionary, the administration must have handled efficiently intead took instructions from a very influencial Samajwadi Party Leader. On August 29, a video circulating among the Hindus showed two men being beaten to death by a Muslim mob, creating the impression that it was the recording of the killing of the two Jats in Kawal. The police claimed that it was a two-year-old video from Pakistan available on Youtube.
According to the locals, the incident is the result of the Muslim boy teasing the minor sister of the two slain Jats. Muslims of Kawal agree to this.  Some in the village, however, told that the boy and the Jat girl were in a relationship and that the Jats tried to prevent him from meeting her. It could be a case of honour killing, they say. However, at the mahapanchayat, the leaders called the Jats to defend the honour of “their women”. The mahapanchayat came to be known as Bahu, Beti Bachao Mahasammelan (Save your daughter-in law and daughter). After the meeting, the dispersing crowd attacked Muslim homes en route to their respective villages. The violence gradually spread to Muzaffarnagar town and other villages. The Muslim leadership, in response, organised its own panchayats to counter the violence and to organise themselves.
In the aftermath of the riots, the people in the region are clearly divided on communal lines. Taking advantage of the demographic transformation, the Samajwadi Party (S.P.), in order to consolidate its image as a pro-Muslim party, has been organising relief camps for the displaced Muslims. As many as nine concentrated relief camps organised by Muslim leaders of the S.P. are functioning in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts. Yadavs are not predominant in the western districts of Uttar Pradesh, including Shaamli, Meerut, Baghpat, and Sahranpur. The S.P., which is generally seen as a party dominated by Yadavs, is hawkish to consolidate the 40 per cent Muslim vote in the region in its favour, with an eye to the next parliamentary elections.
“Narendra Modi is the only leader in India who can show the Muslims their place. We are determined to put up a united fight or our women will not be able to step out,” a Jat in Muzaffarnagar said. This sentiment was reflected in almost all the villages visited. “The Hindus have come together. We do not believe in caste identities such as Jat and Harijan,” a local in Kawal said. The BJP, clearly, is trying to forge caste unity aggressively within an overarching Hindu identity. Since it already has the traditional support of the trader communities and upper castes, it is trying to win over the other backward classes and Dalits. Since western U.P. is a non-Yadav belt, it will not face any direct clash with the S.P.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), headed by Ajit Singh and traditionally considered a Jat party, has lost much of its steam. It had to contend with 10 seats in the 2012 Assembly elections. It could win only one of the three seats even in its stronghold, Baghpat. “Ajit Singh has evidently parted ways with Muslims. The first instance of it was when he allied with the BJP in 2001 and kept shifting sides since then. Over the last few years, the Jats have been drifting towards the BJP. 
Following a tiff between a Valmiki and Muslims in Shamli on September 4, a few Valmikis were arrested. A few members of the Valmiki community beat up some Muslims. After the incident, the traders of the area, on the BJP's diktat, downed shutters demanding the release of the arrested Valmikis and sought the transfer of the Shamli Superintendent of Police, who was a Muslim. A few months ago, BJP leader Hukum Singh organised a massive dharna when a Valmiki minor girl was raped, and demanded the police officer's transfer saying that he was partial towards Muslims. Fearing another backlash, the government transferred the officer on September 10.
According to many Muslim locals “The leader of the riots was Hazi Yaqoub Qureshi in Sardhana near Muzaffarnagar. He is the one who issued a fatwa against the Danish cartoonist who had shown the Prophet in a bad light and had also announced a reward of Rs.50 crore for anyone who could get his head.  The recent riots were different from the earlier ones in that almost all of them were triggered in rural areas and advanced to cities and nearby towns. In the history of riots in independent India, riots have been known to advance from cities to villages. In western U.P, the BJP has institutionalised two aspects of its communal programme centred on the honour of rural Jats. It is a general saying that good-looking Muslim young men are identified and trained in madrassas to woo Hindu women. They are given mobile phones and motorbikes, which they can use to pursue Hindu women who eventually fall for them as they are also trained to be modern. If the Hindu woman resists, the Muslim youth will indulge in rape, molestation or eve-teasing, the locals claim. 
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ashok Singhal, in a press statement, reiterated this hypothesis while justifying the riot: “The stalking and felonious behaviour of the 'love jehadis' with a Hindu girl student returning from Kisaan Inter-College was the immediate provocation for the grave incidents that took place in Kawal on August 27. The root cause is the 'lust jehad' being conducted under the garb of Muslim religion. This incident gave birth to the convening of the Bahu, Beti Bachao Mahapanchayat. When society could no longer bear the 'love jehadists' outraging the modesty and dignity of Hindu women and girls in rural and urban areas of U.P., the corrective movement in the form of the Bahu, Beti Bachao Mahapanchayat came into being.”
Most Jats in Kawal knew that the population of Muslims, who were fewer than the Hindus during the 2007 parliamentary elections, had increased now. “In Kawal, there are 7,300 voters now and Muslims have 900 votes more than the Hindus,” one Jat woman said. This fact was supported by other Jat and Muslim households. A closer look at the riots also reveals that most rioting happened where Muslims and Hindus are almost equal in numbers, and not in villages where one community is in a clear majority. The people are now looking the S.P government as a namazwadi sarkar, that is anti-Hindu government. The destruction of property and loss of lives has irked many Muslims and most of them feel the previous BSP government was better in terms of providing security. Darul Uloom Deoband has criticised the State government for failing to check the violence in Muzaffarnagar. It said that the administration allowed the tensions to simmer and that conditions were created for a full-scale riot.
Communal Violence
Communalism cannot be fought without acknowledging caste, class and patriarchal oppressions.
The communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring areas is a warning of the days to come. Uttar Pradesh (UP) is crucial to all as all the parties are chasing their votes, the Congress, the BJP, Samajwadi Party Chief Minister was seen addressing the press conference wearing Muslim Cap. The electoral fortunes of many Azam Khan, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Salman Khursid and many other largely depends. There has been a rise in incidents of communal violence since the Samajwadi Party (SP) government was elected to office last year, but the “riot” earlier this month – when close to 50 people were killed, a few hundred injured and tens of thousands fled from their homes – stands distinct in its scale and is clear evidence of what has termed the “institutionalised riot system”. The model of using the terror of communal violence to forge communal unity among “Muslims” to build an invincible vote bank appears to be the strategy that has been employed.
There have been analyses of the political calculations of the Congress, BJP and the SP in these riots, and of the break-up of the political alliance between Jats and Muslims in western UP and what impact this will have on the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal. In all this there have been calls to expose the communal games, book the guilty and provide relief and rehabilitation to the victims. It was good that the prime minister and the chief minister visited the violence-affected areas and promised justice and a return to normalcy. Hopefully, the governments at the centre and in the state will not forget these promises; perhaps the impending elections will help them remember.
However, viewing this violence only in terms of religious communities may not help us to either fully understand what has happened or enable political and administrative interventions which can prevent repetitions. That the “Hindus” in this riot are largely Jats has been acknowledged. However, Muslims too have caste and class markers. Some reports talk about Muslims being farm labourers, carpenters and blacksmiths to the landowning Jats. That clearly indicates a subservient relation with the dominant caste. In fact, one report quotes a Hindu Jat villager, “There will be no peace until the balance of power is sorted out. One community in each village will remain dominant.” This then raises the question of why the dominant agricultural caste would want to drive out farm labour at the very time when agricultural operations are at their peak and the harvest is only weeks away. There have been reports of Hindus protecting Muslims and asking them to return, but some reports suggest that this was among Hindu Jats and Muslim Jats, which would indicate a certain caste solidarity more than an attempt at building communal harmony.
The shifting of communal violence to rural areas perhaps cannot be understood without understanding the major changes in agriculture over the last few decades and there seems insufficient work on that, both in newspaper reports and academic research. At present, media and fact-finding reports do not provide a clear picture of the caste, class and property issues involved. But it is equally clear that after the Nellie and Bhagalpur killings of the 1980s, this is perhaps the first large-scale rural communal violence and a warning about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's new strategy of breaking out of its urban enclaves.
The whole episod started when two hindu boys were brutally killed by other community people and resulted into trajectory of reactionary politics in the region. 2014 Parliamentary elections may be fuelling Hindu-Muslim violence in Uttar Pradesh. Those who ran were Muslims, mostly field labourers. Those who remain are Hindus, wealthier landowners of the Jat group. Both lots prospered, if unequally, over the past decade. Nobody recalls violence of this sort before.

India-US: Diplomatic storm

Though India has taken a tough stand against the U.S. over the arrest of its diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York, the government's muted response to other provocations such as spying shows that it is keen to remain America's “global strategic partner”. 

THE arrest and strip-search of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade by the New York Police  on December 12 has expectedly evoked strong reactions in India. The political parties were united in defending the honour of Devyani, who is accused of committing a “visa fraud” and of making a false declaration in connection with the employment of her Indian housemaid, Sangeeta Richard. Under the United States' law, the charges against the Deputy Consul General at the Indian Consulate in New York could lead to a jail term of more than 10 years.
The manner in which the middle-level diplomat was arrested came in for particular criticism. She was first detained and handcuffed outside her daughter's school by U.S. Marshals and later strip-searched. The Indian government had to post a $250,000 bail bond to have her released. Devyani has since been reassigned to India's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, where she will enjoy full diplomatic immunity. But there are no signs yet of the U.S. authorities contemplating a climbdown in the case. The maid's version of the story was not given too much coverage in the Indian media initially. Besides raising the salary issue, she had also complained about being overworked and mistreated.
India continues to claim that the treatment accorded to the diplomat was in violation of the Vienna Convention, which has governed international diplomatic practice. The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations states that diplomats are immune from prosecution in a host country if they break the law, but under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, individuals are protected from the host country's laws only when the offences are related to their consular duties. The U.S. law enforcement officials, led by Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, are of the view that hiring a maid is not part of the Consul General's job.
According to documents filed in a New York court, Devyani's visa application for the maid stated that she would be paid $4,500 a month. New York crime investigators found that she was actually paid $573 a month, or around $3 an hour, much lower than the New York State minimum wages of over $7 an hour. However, it has been common practice for Indian diplomats to take domestic help with them on foreign assignments. A separate contract is signed in India where the wages are in accordance with the prevalent rates in the country. Sangeeta was being paid Rs.30,000 a month over and above the lodging, and health expenses she incurred in the U.S. She was also given an official white passport.
The U.S. authorities knew all the while about the peculiar arrangement of the Indian Foreign Service regarding household help imported from India but chose to ignore it until now. Many of the middle-level Indian diplomats posted in the U.S. make slightly more than the official minimum wages in the U.S. The Indian government seems to have realised the gravity of the situation and has since provided documentary evidence of the diplomat having been concurrently accredited to the United Nations at the time of her arrest, thus making her eligible for diplomatic immunity.
Other governments choose to have different yardsticks when dealing with cases involving diplomats. In late December, the Indian government allowed a senior Bahraini diplomat heading the kingdom's consulate in Mumbai to exercise his diplomatic immunity even after he was charged with two counts of violent assaults. American diplomats have escaped after committing far worse crimes, including killings, in third countries. The case of Raymond Allen Davis, an American contractor involved in the killing of two Pakistanis in cold blood, is an example. The U.S. administration gave him diplomatic cover and ensured his release from Pakistani state custody and safe passage back to America.
The Indian government never expected that its closest “strategic ally” would spring such an unpleasant Christmas surprise. But it should have seen the writing on the wall as the case had reached the courts in New York and Delhi in the middle of the year. The maid hired by the Indian diplomat had fled her employer's house in June and the Khobragade family had filed a case against her in a Delhi court. The U.S. State Department had alerted the Indian authorities about the case in September. American officials have said that they could very well have declared Devyani “persona non grata” and expelled her from the country. They claim that they did not take this extreme step because the Indian diplomat is married to an American citizen. the Indian government should have also taken cognisance of the fact that the American authorities had facilitated the entry of the husband and two children of Sangeeta Richard to the U.S. just before the arrest of Devyani. This move was undertaken evidently to ensure that they do not come under retaliatory legal pressure from the Khobragades in India. The evacuation of the Richard family to New York was done without keeping the Indian government in the loop.
The Americans had got one of its senior intelligence assets in the Indian establishment, Ravinder Singh, out of India in 2004 in a clandestine manner. The senior official in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was on the verge of being arrested at the time on charges of spying for a foreign power. India had not raised the issue seriously with the U.S. as it was involved in negotiating the civil nuclear deal with the Bush administration at the time. Devyani's father, Uttam Khobragade, a retired Indian Administrative Service officer, has suggested that Sangeeta could have been a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “spy” who chose to disappear at the opportune moment. Devyani's arrest came soon after Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh ended her official visit to the U.S.
Senior Indian government officials, starting with the Prime Minister, have, after a long time, been openly critical of the U.S. government's handling of the situation. Manmohan Singh said that the treatment accorded to Devyani “was deplorable” and duly authorised retaliatory measures. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid even refused to receive a call from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry did talk to India's National Security Adviser and expressed his “regret” over the incident. Khurshid emotionally urged the Indian Parliament to “speak in one voice” against the violation of diplomatic norms by Washington and vowed to return to Parliament only after the diplomat's “dignity” was restored. There were loud demands from politicians cutting across the political divide for an official apology from the U.S. government.
Feelings seem to have ebbed considerably since then. India now is quietly negotiating with Washington on the status of domestic helps working with 14 Indian diplomats stationed in the U.S. New Delhi wants household helps to be treated as Indian government employees. The Indian government has, meanwhile, symbolically downgraded the privileges accorded to American diplomats. U.S. Ambassador to India Nancy Powell no longer has “special airport privileges”. Henceforth, Indian officials say, all privileges will be on basis of reciprocity. The concrete barricades around the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, which made it a virtual fortress, have been removed. This move was welcomed by pedestrians, motorists and the other embassies in the diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri, as the road had once more become accessible to the public. New Delhi, however, insists that the timing of removing the excessive security cover had nothing to do with the incident involving the Indian diplomat. Indian officials say there are no similar facilities accorded to the Indian Embassy in Washington.
Khurshid has claimed that the spat did not occur “out of the blue” and there is a “history” behind it. But he has refused to divulge any reasons for his assertions. There is some speculation that the U.S. was upset with India's refusal to goad the government of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh to rescind its ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami and put in place a caretaker government that would supervise the general elections to be held in early 2014. There were also reports that the Obama administration was not too happy with New Delhi's tacit support to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign the bilateral security pact, which is essential for the U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
The U.S. has been courting India assiduously for the last three decades. During the Bush presidency, bilateral relations were the warmest ever with the passage of the Nuclear Liability Bill and enhanced defence cooperation. India was designated as America's “global strategic partner” and encouraged to project its force in the Indian Ocean. It was obvious that the U.S. viewed India, along with Japan, as an important counterweight to China, as the American military pivots to the East. The Indian establishment has so far been basking in the importance that is being accorded by the U.S. and its allies like Japan. At the same time, India has been careful in ensuring that relations with China are not impacted adversely. Both sides have signed a Border Defence Cooperation Agreement and are moving ahead with the implementation of the BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India, and Myanmar) economic corridor. Unlike the U.S.' other allies such as Japan, India has been careful in taking a position that does not identify itself totally with U.S.' pivot to the East. Manmohan Singh, in a recent address to the annual commanders' conference in New Delhi, remarked that the U.S.' “pivot” to Asia “is a development fraught with uncertainty”. India also has good relations with countries such as Venezuela and Iran that are not in the good books of the U.S. administration.
All the same, India has not been as vociferous against the Obama administration on more important issues such as the spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on Indian missions and its use of New Delhi as a major hub for spying on China. Latin American and European governments have taken much stronger positions. Brazil cancelled a multibillion-dollar defence deal with the U.S. after the information was revealed that the U.S. was listening in on the private phone calls of the Brazilian President. Indian diplomats have admitted that the bugging by the NSA has caused “extensive damage” to the conduct of the country's foreign policy. When Edward Snowden first revealed that India was among the key targets of the NSA, Khurshid had tried to play down the issue by claiming that only metadata was targeted and not individuals. He even credited U.S. intelligence agencies with providing information that helped the Indian government thwart domestic terrorist plots. India, unlike Brazil, has decided to continue doing business as usual with the U.S. Even as the impasse over the diplomat's case remains unsolved, India has signed another contract worth over a $1 billion for the purchase of six additional Super Hercules Transport planes from the U.S. In the last decade, the U.S. has already bagged defence deals worth more than $10 billion. India is in advanced stage of talks with the U.S. to buy another $4 billion worth of American defence hardware. A preliminary agreement has been signed for the supply of American nuclear reactors for nuclear plants in India. That deal alone would be worth more than $14 billion. India's special relationship with the U.S. continues, notwithstanding the Devyani Khobragade affair.

 

 

Anuj Agarwal new MD of Bajaj Allianz

Private sector insurer Bajaj Allianz said it has appointed Anuj Agarwal as the Managing Director and officiating Chief Executive Officer. Agarwal takes over from V Philip, who is moving to an Allianz Group company, the insurer said in a statement. Mr. Agrawal was associated with Bajaj Allianz from 2001 to 2004 and prior to joining back the firm, he was the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer at P T Asuransi Allianz, Indonesia. 

HPCL gets new Director (F)

State-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) today said K V Rao as taken over as the company's new Director (Finance). Rao replaced B Mukherjee, who retired on May 31 on attaining superannuation age of 60 years. "Prior to his taking over as Director (Finance), Rao was Executive Director (Corporate Finance)," the company said in a press statement here. A Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Rao has wide exposure to the oil industry spanning over 31 years in the areas of corporate finance, treasury management, internal audit and marketing and refinery finance in HPCL.

BOOK BY NTPC, CMD SOLD OUT

The book Management by Idiots, written by Dr Arup Choudhury, CMD, NTPC has been sold out. According to McGraw Hill, the book which was launched on Nov 8th by Padma Bhushan Dr. E Sreedharan is being reprinted now so that the book is available in the market by the first week of December. Dr. Choudhury presented copy of his book to Sushil Shinde, Union Minister recently. Written for today's reader who is hard-pressed for time, the book is dotted with enriching thoughts and striking illustrations The book reaches out to anybody who is willing to think differently, students, young executives, and anybody striving to cope with the demands of the corporate world. Dr Arup Roy Choudhury has an illustrious career spanning more than 34 years, and has been holding the position of CEO for over 12 years. The book shares his experiences that has helped him at work.

Biswal appointed New Director (F) at NTPC

Kulamani Biswal  has taken over as Director (Finance) NTPC on the Board of NTPC Limited. A  Commerce Graduate from Utkal University and fellow member of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India Shri Biswal has done LL.B. from Sambalpur University and Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management from Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi. He is MBA from New Port University, California, USA.
Biswal ( 52 years)  has rich experience of 28 years both in coal and power sector. He was Director (Finance) in Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) since October 2010 managing finance, accounting and corporate governance functions of the Company. He played a pivotal role in making MCL as second largest coal company in India in terms of production and profitability. He was Chief (Finance) at Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and contributed to drafting of various regulations and policies for smooth functioning of the power sector from year 2004 to 2010,

M K Jain appointed as ED

Public sector Indian Bank said Mahesh Kumar Jain has joined the bank as its Executive Director with immediate effect. Prior to taking up the new role, Jain was the General Manager of Syndicate Bank, Mumbai branch, the city- headquartered Indian Bank said in a statement. Jain was also a member of the Steering Committee on Risk Management, Indian Bank Association and also a member of IBA Working Group on Risk Management and Implementation of Basel II and III, it added. 

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