Archives for January 2019

Nasheman News :  Positive global markets and a strengthening rupee, with its third straight session of gains, aided the key equity indices to trade on a firm note on Friday afternoon.

The Sensex was up over 160 points and the Nifty was trading after noon just short of the 10,900 point mark.

The rupee opened at Rs 70.98 from its previous close of 71.07. It was, however, flat at 1.25 p.m.

All the sectors on the BSE traded in the green except realty, basic materials and consumer discretionary goods and services.

At 1.22 p.m., the S&P BSE Sensex traded 167.79 points up or 0.46 per cent at 36,362.89 after it opened higher.

It touched an intra-day high of 36,474.48 and a low of 36,216.41.

The broader Nifty advanced 41.30 points or 0.38 per cent at 10,891.10. 

However, US-China trade tensions seemed to resurface after reports suggest that US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Washington was “miles and miles” from a trade deal with Beijing.

Financial markets across the globe have been struggling owing to the trade tensions between the world’s largest economies. This was cited as one of the reasons by the International Monetary Fund while revising the global economic growth forecast. 

Stock-wise, the top gainer was Yes Bank, up 6.78 per cent after the appointment of a much-awaited new MD-cum-CEO.

Other top gainers were Bharti Airtel, HCL Tech, Sun Phrama and Axis Bank.

In contrast, Hero MotoCorp, ICICI Bank, Asian Paints, Infosys and Tata Steel were the only losers among the 30 stocks on Sensex. 

Nasheman News : As Facebook turns 15 next month, its Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has once again defended the social media giant, saying the company is not selling its users’ data to anyone.

“We don’t sell people’s data, even though it’s often reported that we do,” he wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

“Clickbait and other junk may drive engagement in the near term, but it would be foolish for us to show this intentionally, because it’s not what people want,” he added.

The 1,000-word defence came after Facebook faced intense scrutiny over how it handled data of over two billion users amid several data scandals in recent years.

“Based on what pages people like, what they click on, and other signals, we create categories and then charge advertisers to show ads in that category,” he said.

“You have control over what information we use to show you ads, and you can block any advertiser from reaching you,” the Facebook CEO added.

In December, the social media giant said it never allowed its partners to access users’ private messages without their permission, after a New York Times report claimed that Facebook allowed large technology companies and popular apps like Netflix or Spotify to access its users’ personal information.

Zuckerberg said people “consistently tell us they don’t want to see this content”.

“Advertisers don’t want their brands anywhere near it. The only reason bad content remains is because the people and artificial-intelligence systems we use to review it are not perfect — and not because we have an incentive to ignore it. Our systems are still evolving and improving,” he added.

On collecting personal data, the CEO said: “There’s no question that we collect some information for ads but that information is generally important for security and operating our services as well.”

Facebook had said it never gave large tech companies access to people’s data without their permission as its integration partners “had to get authorisation from people”.

 Nasheman News : In a significant development, the CBI on Thursday lodged an FIR against former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar and industrialist V.N. Dhoot besides four companies, and raided four locations in Maharashtra in connection with a Rs 3,250-crore loan involving the Videocon Group and the ICICI Bank, informed sources said here.

The raids were conducted after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered an FIR on Tuesday naming former ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, her husband and NuPower Renewables Pvt Ltd MD Deepak Kochhar, and Videocon Group MD Dhoot, and others in the case dating back to 2009-2012.

Interestingly, Chanda Kochhar’s role in the alleged irregularities committed has been highlighted in the CBI’s FIR ever since she assumed charge as the ICICI Bank MD and CEO on May 1, 2009.

Besides, four companies have also been named in the CBI FIR: NuPower Renewables Pvt Ltd (NRL), Supreme Energy Pvt Ltd (SEPL), Videocon International Electronics Ltd (VIEL) and Videocon Industries Ltd (VIL).

According to the FIR, they have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act as the accused allegedly “sanctioned loans to private companies in a criminal conspiracy with other accused to cheat ICICI Bank”.

The FIR comes in the wake of a preliminary enquiry (PE) instituted on March 31, 2018, against Deepak Kochhar, Videocon Group officials and others to determine whether any wrongdoing was involved in the sanctioning of loan by the ICICI Bank as part of a consortium, a senior CBI official said.

The raids were carried out simultaneously at the offices of the four companies in south Mumbai and one location belonging to Videocon in Aurangabad.

The Bureau initiated the PE after news reports raised questions about Videocon’s Dhoot allegedly providing crores to a firm promoted by Deepak Kochhar and a few relatives six months after the former’s Group received the Rs 3,250-crore loan.

The CBI probe said that a complaint was received regarding the Rs 3,250-crore loan to five of Dhoot’s companies by the ICICI Bank violating banking norms and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.

As part of a quid pro quo, Dhoot invested Rs 64 crore in NRL and SEPL and also transferred SEPL to Deepak Kochhar’s Pinnacle Energy Trust through a circuitous route between 2010 and 2012.

Between June 2009 and October 2011, the ICICI Bank also sanctioned six high-value loans to different Videocon Group companies and on August 28, 2009, Rs 300 crore was sanctioned to VIEL in contravention of various rules, with Chanda Kochhar being part of the loan sanctioning committee.

She has been charged with criminal conspiracy to cheat the ICICI Bank, abusing her position. The loan was disbursed to VIEL on September 7.

The very next day, on September 8, 2009, through SEPL, VIEL transferred Rs 64 crore to Deepak Kochhar’s NRL by which it (NRL) acquired its first power plant.

“Thus, Chanda Kochhar got illegal gratification through her husband from VIL and Dhoot, for sanctioning Rs 300 crore to VIEL,” the CBI complaint said.

The CBI has also detailed the manipulations how the NRL and SEPL’s control was handed over to Deepak Kochhar, where the subsequent alleged frauds were committed.

In violation of several norms, the ICICI Bank also sanctioned various loans to Videocon Group companies which was utilised by them to repay their unsecured loans taken from VIL, while VIL took a loan to refinance its existing loans.

The loan sanction committees had ICICI Bank’s senior officials like Sandeep Bakshi, K. Ramkumar, Sonjoy Chatterjee, N.S. Kannan, Zarin Daruwala, Rajiv Sabharwal, K.V. Kamath and Homi Khusrokhan.

“These loans have turned NPAs resulting in wrongful losses to the ICICI Bank, and wrongful gains to the borrower/ accused persons. The role of these senior officials of the sanctioning committees may also be investigated,” said the CBI FIR.

It added that the ICICI Bank had released the security of Rs 50 crore in the form of FDR available for two of the borrowing (Dhoot) companies “without any justification”.

After Chanda Kochhar took charge at the bank’s helm, the credit limits and loans were sanctioned to Videocon Group companies, with her as part of the sanctioning committees.

Following the controversy over the alleged “conflict of interests” and “non-disclosure” in the loans sanctioned by the ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar, 56, quit her post seeking premature retirement on October 4, 2018.