SEBI gets powers to clamp down on fraudulent deposit schemes

Lok Sabha passes Securities Laws Bill

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

 

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will now have explicit powers to disgorge — recover — the illegal gains made through fraudulent deposit schemes and capital market offences. The assets recovered will be paid back by the market regulator to people who had lost their money in such schemes.

The Securities Laws (amendment) Bill, 2014, which was approved unanimously by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, allows SEBI to issue disgorgement orders.

SEBI, in its little over two decades of existence, has issued disgorgement orders only on two occasions; once, in 2006, during the IPO irregularities issue, and for the second time in the Satyam Computer scandal.

The money collected will now be parked in SEBI’s Investor Protection and Education Fund.

This fund should not be confused with the Investor Education and Protection Fund that has been set up under the company law, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley clarified during a parliamentary discussion on the Bill.

“They are two separate funds. The IEPF under SEBI will have disgorged monies from the regulator’s directions. The other investor protection fund maintained under the company law is mainly unclaimed dividends,” Jaitley said.

Currently, the Fund under the company law has a corpus of about Rs. 830 crore.

Over the last one year — since the promulgation of an ordinance to initiate action against illegal deposit-taking schemes — the IEPF under SEBI has garnered a corpus of Rs. 30 crore.

“This move to explicitly empower SEBI to issue disgorgement orders is a big thing and augurs well for investor protection. So far, SEBI saw it only as an implicit power. Now that it will be explicit, SEBI will, in all its actions, first look at the possibility of disgorgement from the offenders,” MS Sahoo, Secretary, Institute of Company Secretaries of India, told BusinessLine .

Financial inclusion

Jaitley also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will, in the next few days, announce a financial inclusion project that would seek to open two bank accounts in each of the 7.5 crore families identified for the exercise.

Once a financial inclusion project of this dimension is launched, the attraction of Ponzi schemes will come down, he added.

Based on businessline

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Sierra Leone declares emergency

Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) staff put on their protective gear before entering an isolation area at the ebola treatment centre in Kailahun, Sierra Leone.— File Photo: Reuters

Sierra Leone leader Ernest Bai Koroma declared a state of emergency on Thursday as the country struggled to contain the deadly ebola epidemic.

The impoverished country, along with neighbouring Guinea and Liberia, is struggling to contain an epidemic that has infected 1,200 people and left 672 dead across the region since the start of the year.

“Extraordinary challenges require extraordinary measures. The ebola virus disease poses an extraordinary challenge to our nation,” Mr. Koroma said in a televised address to the nation.

“Consequently... I hereby proclaim a state of public emergency to enable us to take a more robust approach to deal with the ebola outbreak.”

Mr. Koroma said he had cancelled a trip to a summit of around 50 African leaders in Washington DC next week.

He announced however that he would travel to neighbouring Guinea for a regional summit on the crisis gathering the heads of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Ivory Coast. Mr. Koroma announced a raft of measures as part of the state of emergency, including quarantining ebola-hit areas and deploying security forces to protect medical workers. He banned all public meetings not related to ebola and cancelled foreign trips by ministers and other government officials, exempting only “absolutely essential engagements.”

The President said the measures would be in place initially for 60 to 90 days, and then be reassessed.

Fears that the outbreak could spread to other continents have been growing with European and Asian countries on alert.

Leading medical charity Doctors Without Borders warned the crisis would only get worse and said there was no overarching strategy to handle the world’s worst-ever outbreak of the disease.

Sierra Leone’s announcement comes a day after Liberia, which has seen 129 deaths, said it was shutting all schools and placing “non-essential” government workers on 30 days’ leave.

Hong Kong announced quarantine measures for suspected cases, although one woman arriving from Africa with possible symptoms tested negative, while the EU said it was ready to deal with the threat.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has held talks with global health officials on potential measures to halt the spread of the disease.

Based On The Hindu

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‘India can achieve manufacturing growth of 12-14%’

India has the capability to achieve 12-14 per cent average manufacturing growth over the next 10 years backed by the talent it has to drive innovation and critical decision it can take at the micro and enterprise level, said Ajay Shankar, Member Secretary, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, here on Thursday.

Mr. Shankar was speaking at the Visionary Leadership for Manufacturing Programme (VLMF), an initiative organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to transform the manufacturing industry.

“In the past few years, public discourse in the country has shifted towards manufacturing and with the talent generated from VLFM that is expected to be further scaled up, Indian manufacturing will hopefully be the supply base,” Mr. Shankar said.

Speaking about the special initiative called Village Buddha model, Mr. Shankar said: “Unless we transform the way where economic activities are undertaken, we cannot transform the quality of life.”

The investment sentiment has revived in the past few months and the private sector, including global players, is expected to help invest in the manufacturing sector. The country witnessed 15 per cent growth in the manufacturing sector in 2006-07. “Therefore, achieving 14 per cent growth is not impossible,” he added.

Based on The Hindu

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Basic saving bank deposit A/c

केंद्र सरकार व रिजर्व बैंक ने आम जनता के बीच बैंकिंग सेवा के विस्तार के लिए मूल बचत बैंक जमा खाता योजना (बेसिक सेविंग बैंक डिपॉजिट अकाउंट स्कीम) को कुछ साल पहले लांच किया था। गरीबों तक बैंकिंग सेवा पहुंचाने के लिए देश में जितने नो फ्रिल खाते खोले गए हैं, उन्हें मूल बचत बैंक खाता योजना के तहत रखा गया है।
इस स्कीम में ग्राहकों को न्यूनतम बैंकिंग सेवा देने की गारंटी दी जाती है। एक व्यक्ति को किसी भी बैंक में महज एक ही मूल बचत बैंक खाता खोलने की इजाजत है। वैसे तो कोई भी इस योजना के तहत अपना बैंक खाता खोल सकता है। अगर वह उस बैंक में कोई दूसरा खाता किसी अन्य सेवा वर्ग के तहत खोलता है तो 30 दिनों के भीतर पुराने खाते को बंद करना पड़ता है। इस खाते के तहत ग्राहक को एक लाख रुपये से ज्यादा का कर्ज नहीं दिया जा सकता।
खाते में एक बार में 50 हजार रुपये से ज्यादा की राशि जमा नहीं होनी चाहिए। एक माह में अधिकतम दस हजार रुपये ही इस खाते से किसी दूसरे में ट्रांसफर किए जा सकते हैं।

Source Dainic Jagran
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जनरल सुहाग आज संभालेंगे सेना प्रमुख का पदभार....

जनरल सुहाग आज संभालेंगे सेना प्रमुख का पदभार

नई दिल्ली। लेफ्टिनेंट जनरल दलबीर सिंह सुहाग आज नए सेना प्रमुख का कार्यभार संभालेंगे। पूर्व यूपीए सरकार ने मई में सुहाग की नियुक्ति की थी। इस पर विवाद भी हुआ था। भाजपा ने उनकी नियुक्ति के समय पर सवाल उठाए थे हालांकि बाद में नई सरकार ने उनके नाम को हरी झंडी दे दी।
जनरल सुहाग 30 महीने तक इस पद पर रहेंगे। 59 साल के जनरल सुहाग ने 1987 में श्रीलंका में इंडियन पीस कीपींग फोर्स ऑपरेशन में हिस्सा लिया था। जनरल सुहाग भारतीय सेना के 26वें सेना प्रमुख होंगे। सुहाग को पिछले साल दिसंबर में आर्मी स्टाफ के वाइस चीफ की जिम्मेदारी दी गई थी। इससे पहले वे 16 जून 2012 से इस्टर्न आर्मी कमांडर की भूमिका निभा रहे थे।

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Move ahead on trade: U.S.

WTO issues cast shadow over Kerry's visit

India’s tough stand at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is likely to hang over bilateral issues between India and the U.S. as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry begins his meetings in Delhi on Thursday.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who is accompanying Mr. Kerry to co-chair the Indo-U.S. strategic dialogue, set alarm bells ringing just hours before the meeting, saying the U.S. was “very disappointed with India stepping backwards on its WTO commitments.”

The deadline for India to sign on to the Doha Round of trade talks expires in the next two days, while the U.S. delegation is here, and Mr. Kerry has urged India to sign the agreement, which India opposes unless it is accompanied by an agreement that allows developing countries to subsidise foodgrains. Ms. Pritzker, speaking to PTI in Mumbai, said: “I am an optimist, I am hopeful that over the next couple of days there is some potential for resolution.” But she also made it clear that India’s refusal to sign the trade agreement would have “serious implications.”

Based on The Hindu

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Amazon now lines up $2 billion fresh investment in India

inShare

A day after Flipkart picked up a whopping $1 billion in funding, global online retailer Amazon said that it would invest as much as $2 billion in India to support its “rapid growth and to enhance customer and seller experience”.

The company, however, did not disclose the timeline by which its investment would be made. In comparison, home-grown e-tailer Flipkart has raised a total of $1.78 billion since its inception.

Huge potential

“We see huge potential in the Indian economy and for the growth of e-commerce in India. With this additional investment of $2 billion, our team can continue to think big, innovate, and raise the bar for customers in India,” CEO Jeff Bezos was quoted as saying in a statement.

At current scale and growth rates, Mr. Bezos said, “India is on track to be our fastest country ever to a billion dollars in gross sales.” “A big ‘thank you’ to our customers in India—we’ve never seen anything like this.”

Aggressive expansion

Amazon entered India with an online market place—as Indian law does not allow the company to sell its own goods—a year ago and has been expanding aggressively since then. The $2 billion investment by the global online retailer comes even as Amazon is facing pressure from Wall Street investors to cut spending and improve margins. The company, last week, posted a loss of over $120 million for the latest quarter.

This recent immense investment into the Indian e-commerce sector is betting, according to analysts, on the potential of the market. Though estimates vary wildly, most consultancies and brokerages believe that the Indian e-commerce market will be worth $50 billion by 2020, up from the current $2-3 billion right now.

Shoes category

When asked if the investment would go into strengthening categories such as fashion , which Flipkart is strong in, Amazon India Country Manager Amit Agarwal pointed out that the ‘shoes category’ was one of the fastest growing.

“In a very short time, we are seeing growth rates we have never seen before. Categories such as watches, shoes and baby products are all growing very fast. We have invested very aggressively and our mission is to be India’s most customer-centric company,” he said.

Based on The Hindu.

GA Team

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