An agreement has been signed with Asian Development Bank (ADB) for a loan of US$ 50 million to SIDBI on 19th March, 2010. ADB has also approved a Partial Credit Guarantee (PCG) facility of US$ 250 million for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
At the outset, I extend my warm greetings and thanks to our hosts for organizing the Annual meeting in this beautiful city of Tashkent. Uzbekistan is special to India because of its close historic and cultural ties. A memorial to our former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, who breathed his last here, stands in this city. So does the Mausoleum of Yunus Khan, the grandfather of Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty. It gives me great pleasure to be here today.
A bill to raise the ceiling of gratuity for employees to Rs 10 lakh from Rs 3.5 lakh was passed by the Lok Sabha without discussion today. The House, which witnessed an opposition furore over the 2G spectrum “scam” and reports about alleged involvement of a central minister in an illegal arms deal, also adopted the Employees’ State Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2009 without any debate.
The government today informed the Rajya Sabha that it has asked Sebi and Irda to expeditiously get a binding legal order over the jurisdiction of unit-linked insurance products (Ulips). “The Sebi has moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of various proceedings pending before the high courts …So that the highest court of the land can determine and settle these disputes,” minister of state for finance Namo Narain Meena told the Upper House in a written reply.
Retail and institutional investors will be treated alike in terms of bidding for shares in public offers, a move also likely to bring down the exorbitant levels of over subscriptions in the primary market. A new directive from the market regulator SEBI is coming to effect, as per which institutional investors will have to pay upfront 100 per cent money in primary issues, just like the retail investors.
Petitioners who have filed public interest litigations (PILs) on unit linked insurance plans (Ulips) with various High Courts, plan to oppose capital market regulator Sebi’s plea that all those cases be transferred to the Supreme Court. Sumedha Rao, lawyer for Rajendra Thacker, one of the litigants, said that they wouldbe deprived of one level of appeal if the matter is heard in the Supreme Court. A verdict by the Supreme Court is final.
The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked the government to refund Rs.80 lakh fine to the heirs of Maharani Gayatri Devi of the erstwhile Jaipur royal family, which was penalised 35 years ago for possessing undeclared gold. The income tax department had seized 800 kg of undeclared gold which was listed as the private property of Gayatri Devi’s husband, the late Maharaja Sawai Man Singh in 1975.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested today a Branch Manager, Indian Overseas Bank, Berhampore Branch (under suspension), Chartered Accountant and four other private accused persons for defrauding Indian Overseas Bank, Berhampore Branch to the tune of Rs. 5.38 crores.
Investor Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst. The Shanghai Composite Index has failed to regain its 2009 high while industrial commodities and shares of Australian resource exporters are acting “heavy”, Faber said. The opening of the World Expo in Shanghai last week is “not a particularly good omen”, he said, citing a property bust and depression that followed the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna.
Insurance regulator IRDA, locked in a turf war with capital market watchdog Sebi over regulation of unit-linked policies, has reemphasised that insurers should offer assured life insurance cover with ULIPs. Reiterating its December 2005 order on ULIPs, IRDA in an order late last night said: “All Unit linked Insurance products (ULIPs), including pension/annuity products must have a minimum assured sum payable on death.”
