Innholdsfortegnelse for April 10, 2016 i Business Today

In many ways, Vishal Sikka, the first non-founder CEO of Infosys, is the complete antithesis of N.R. Narayana Murthy, the man who picked him to take over the company that Murthy and his co-founders had built over three decades. Sikka is a big man with a deep laugh that emanates from his belly and an informality that one rarely finds in the corner office. Murthy is a far more buttoned-down personality, and every step that he takes is measured. He is precise to a fault. But the two men are more similar than most people realise. They have great passion and are workaholics. Both are excellent operational managers, though they represent very different generations of the technology industry. And they have a great appetite for risk. When Murthy and his…

1) Budget 2016/17 is projecting a healthy 12 per cent growth in gross tax revenues over last year's revised estimates 2) Share of direct taxes in revenues has surged from 36 per cent in 2000/01 to 56 per cent in 2014/15 3) Corporates are the major contributor to direct tax collections 4) Maharashtra is the major contributor to the tax kitty. It contributed almost half of the total taxes in 2014/15 5) There has been a marginal fall in the number of tax payers in assessment year 2014/15 over the previous year…

Cooperative federalism: Three sub-groups of chief ministers held six rounds of consultations with states so that views of state governments are incorporated into policies of the Union government. These groups were on three crucial issues —— Swachch Bharat, skill development and centrally sponsored schemes. Innovation and entrepreneurship: Several recommendations of an expert committee were included in the Start-up India programme. These included those related to easier exits and tax exemption for investments above fair market value. Scaling up Aadhar: Completed a pilot project for universal enrolment of children by linking their birth registration to AADHAR in Faridabad, Haryana. Efforts are under way to scale up this initiative. Monitoring and review: Quarterly performance reviews have led to de-bottlenecking of some big infrastructure projects such as the rail link between Agartala in…

SOLAR POWER POLICX 2013  The state of government on January'23, 2013 approved solar energy policy in a cabinet meeting. Solar power projects to be set up under the solar energy policy will increase private investment of the state on one hand and shall make the non agricultural and barren land available in Bundelkhand productive, leading to production growth and employment opportunities on the other. The policy will remain effective till March 2017 and in the period of 500 MW solar projects are intended to be installed. Solar rooftop policy, 2014 Uttar Pradesh New and Renewable Energy Development Agency (UPNEDA) has Issued the Solar Rooftop Policy, aimed at the government, public and private institutions. The policy aims to promote solar energy generation for self consumption, while excess energy will be injected…

King of Good Times, or Bad Times? This refers to your cover story on Diageo-USL (Splitsville, March 27). It’s a timely and analytical piece. The King of Good Times, the flamboyant Vijay Mallya, is in the “eye of the storm”. The king has fished out a whopping `9,000-crore kitty with his Kingfisher net from the “government’s pool”. But Mallya’s case is not the only instance that we should be worried about. Our country is proud to have so many business tycoons with bankruptcy tag. He is just another addition to the country’s numerous scams. It is the same process after every major financial bungling is exposed: days-long (in rare case, even months) heated debates on the floor of Parliament and a couple of protests with unruly scenes. And with the…

Social media is a good platform to express views, counter opinions and provide feedback. But not all comments posted by users on a company’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages are complimentary. Those that are to the contrary—if not handled with maturity – have a tendency to morph from a trickle into a flood, within a matter of hours. So what should you, as a company, do when faced with those not-so-flattering comments on your pages? If you think ignoring negative comments is the best way out, you are being an ostrich. “Deleting these comments is not the solution. If a consumer can complain once, he or she can complain again, and the next one may be worse,” says Namrata Balwani, the Delhi head of customer engagement agency OgilvyOne Worldwide. That…

Recently, the government announced that it managed to add 40 lakh new taxpayers in the current financial year – the result of the tax department adopting different ways of tracking people who have taxable incomes, but do not pay taxes or file returns. Experts say that the government cannot expect to increase tax base by relying only on voluntary compliance. It also needs to devise ‘creative’ ways to track down tax evaders. The government, it seems, is on the job. According to the tax department, most new taxpayers have been added by tracking prospects through Permanent Account Number (PAN) and other presumptive measures. Atulesh Jindal, Chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes, recently told the media that the addition of taxpayers has happened through two major initiatives undertaken by the…

At $14.8 billion, it was ranked by Interbrand as the world’s 16th most valuable brand in 1999. By 2008, it was out of the 100 most valuable companies' list. It ceased to exist a few years later. People were moving to digital photography. Kodak missed the bus. The likes of Apple and Samsung stole the Kodak moments. After being ranked as the fifth most valuable brand in 2007 ($33.7 billion) by Interbrand, Nokia's brand value nosedived in a few years. The reason was that in spite of coming up with some of the best products in early years of the mobile revolution, somewhere during its journey, it overlooked the smart phone revolution. It was bought by Microsoft in 2014. Volkwagen is a classic example of a brand being hit by…

NITI Aayog Staff strength is around 500 No power to allocate funds; acts as a think tank Will not develop Five-year Plans and will, instead, monitor and evaluate government projects and policies Chief ministers to play a more significant part as they are part of the governing council Fewer full-time members; currently only three Planning Commission Had around 1,250 people Had the power to allocate funds to ministries and state governments Planning Commission used to develop, execute and monitor Five-year Plans States had limited participation, with chief ministers meeting once or twice a year Had eight full-time members when it was scrapped…

Launched in 2014, has three kinds of goals – short-term (three years), medium-term (five years) and long-term (10 years and more) Allocated budget: 20,000 crore for five years till 2019 Main thrust areas: Maintenance of flow, river front development, capacity building, research & monitoring, biodiversity conservation, communications & public outreach Major activities: Rehabilitation of existing sewage treatment plants (STPs), building of new ones, sanitation coverage for gram panchayats, development of model cremation/ dhobi ghats, development of support system for efficient planning and monitoring, creation of an IT-based monitoring centre with capabilities of forecasting and real-time alerts, maintenance of river flow, forestation with medicinal and native plant species along riversides To be implemented through State Project Monitoring Groups (SPGMs) in five states along the main stem of the river. SPMGs to…

In some cases, multinational companies specify different programmes for start-ups at different stages of their life cycles The current fascination with entrepreneurship in mainstream society can be clearly seen in the wide coverage they get in the media. Such start-ups are viewed as proactive, nimble and agile, which allows them to be highly innovative and willing to take risks. This is the antithesis of how large multinational corporations (MNCs) are perceived by many: as slower, bureaucratic organisations that are no longer fleet-footed and, therefore, not as innovative or risk-taking as they once were. Perhaps recognising this themselves, many MNCs are now actively wooing start-ups to engage and co-innovate with them. I recently talked to a number of MNC managers in Bangalore with job titles that, until not so long ago,…

Sreedharan's life is a glowing example of what human endeavour coupled with integrity and hard work can achieve The success story of the Metro Rail projects in India, beginning with the commissioning and operations of the Delhi Metro and expanding in record time to almost all eligible cities of India – and now SAARC countries as well (with work on Dhaka Metro Rail starting in Bangladesh) – has few parallels across the world. Karmayogi - A biography of E. Sreedharan is the story of the pioneer who singlehandedly achieved this incredible feat, against all odds. I have known Sreedharan for three decades. M.S. Ashokan is to be congratulated for narrating this inspiring story in a way that is very readable as well as enjoyable. The book is a translation by…

KINGFISHER HOUSE SBICaps moved to auction Kingfisher House, the erstwhile headquarters of Kingfisher Airlines in Mumbai. However, the banks might not get the proceeds from the sale as the I-T department has put forward its own claim. There were no bidders till the time of going to press. TONY FERNANDES The Air Asia chief says he has applied for the status of Overseas Citizen of India. That, he points out, will put him on the same footing for policy regulators as Naresh Goyal, who stays in London but continues to run Jet Airways. TRUMP RAISES LEAST MONEY The New York Times reports that Donald Trump’s campaign office was fifth overall in raising money for the campaign – a mere $27 million so far. Hillary Clinton’s campaign raised the highest --…

Most Eligible Tinder has released a list of professions that get most right-swiped on its app in India. According to the dating app, men who are founders or owners, managing directors or directors, and architects, and women who are general managers, founders or owners and executive assistants are most right-swiped on Tinder. Some other popular professions in the men’s list include project manager, consultant, financial analyst, software developer and photographer. The women’s list includes jobs such as a registered nurse, lawyer, accountant and flight attendant. The list was compiled based on the occupations of user profiles that received the highest ratio of right swipes over the past three months. In February, Tinder had released a similar list for the US. Pilot, entrepreneur and fire fighter emerged as the most right-swiped…

In far-reaching changes to its policy for oil & gas exploration, India has, to a large extent, freed up the price of gas from both new blocks and discoveries from where production is yet to start. Also, to reduce disputes, it has changed the way it will collect revenue from oil producers by moving from profit to revenue sharing. The icing on the cake is its commitment to faster decision-making and minimum intervention in day-to-day operations of the blocks. While the decisions may not increase investor interest in oil exploration, pricing freedom has the potential to significantly boost gas exploration. The changes have been wrought under the Hydrocarbon Exploration License Policy, or HELP, that replaces the New Exploration Licensing Policy, or NELP, introduced two decades ago. Experts say giving explorers…

The government created NITI Aayog after burying the Planning Commission, a Nehruvian legacy, in January last year, and it was a given that the Congress would question its relevance. So, when former finance minister P. Chidambaram took a dig at NITI Aaayog, everyone knew it was coming, and that it would be below the belt. “NITI Aayog is a two-and-a-half person Aayog. I haven’t seen any paper moving, any work being done by NITI Aayog,” he said in August last year. Two months later, taking a potshot, an indirect one, at NITI Aayog, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said, “Economic policy has no sense of direction, and this is largely because the Planning Commission, with all its deficiencies, was a positive dynamic instrument of steering the country’s economy.” Given the…

Business Today’s Prosenjit Datta and Rajeev Dubey caught up with Vishal Sikka at Infosys’s Bangalore headquarters. The company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Ranganath D. Mavinakere, and Deepak Padaki, Senior Vice President, Group Head – Corporate Strategy and Chief Risk Officer, also joined in. Excerpts from the meeting: It’s been a year and a half since you joined Infosys. What was your first impression? I always believed that in life nobody can tell us what we should do. We have to find that path ourselves. We have to find our own unique wisdom. And Infosys lived that philosophy. That comes from our focus on education and learning...our ability to educate, and our ability to train. And, that gives us the confidence that we can chart our own path.…

Early on, we decided to not be a mere matchmaking platform, but take end-to-end responsibility for delivering servicesAbhiraj Bahal, Founder, UrbanClap When Kiran Kumar, 37, a testing engineer with a leading software company in Bangalore, recently bought his own apartment, he was delighted, but also worried. “The flat needed plenty of work before my family and I could start living comfortably there,” he says. “We had to get some electrical tweaking done to connect the back-up power supply. We wanted additional wood work. We wanted a wash basin in a corner of the dining room. My daughter wanted a different colour on the walls of her room.” Two years ago, getting all this done would have required Kumar to hunt down an electrician, a carpenter, a plumber and a painter…

Food that looks good whets your appetite. The same is true for mobile phones. Good looks and design are of paramount importance when choosing a smartphone. The performance of the handset matters only if the design is good. Gionee is one of the few players to have mastered the concept of making beautiful looking smart-phones, packed with high performance features. With 89 per cent metal body and weighing 147 gm, the Gionee S6 looks premium and isn’t heavy to hold. At 6.9-mm thickness, it is easy to grip. It has a flat back with curved edges with the necessary buttons and ports. There is a USB Type C port at the bottom edge with speaker grills on the sides. The 5.5-inch display with HD resolution looks saturated, but the super…

You Are the Key By Apurva Chamaria, Gaurav Kakkar Price: 399 With Internet penetration and mobile usage going through the roof, this is a must read guide to help you create opportunities that you never knew existed. BUSINESS BESTSELLERS* Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kahneman Penguin Price: 499 Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson Little, Brown Book Group Price: 550 ELON MUSK By Ashlee Vance Virgin Books Price: 699 IIM Ahmedabad By Satish Y. Deodhar Random House India Price: 299 Arise, Awake By Rashmi Bansal Westland Books Private Limited Price: 200 *Top books by sales for Feb 28 - Mar 12, 2016; Includes only books released after Jan 1, 2015; Information provided by…

Waxing Eloquent The immense popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally earned him a place in Madame Tussauds, a museum known to create and put on display the wax statues of celebrities and politicians from across the globe. Modi’s statue, in which he will strike the namaste pose, will be dressed in his signature kurta and jacket. It will be unveiled in April, in London, and thereon in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok. Each wax figure costs around £150,000. According to the museum, the decision to include Modi’s statue came after repeated requests from guests. Better late than never. Words of Encouragement The growing non-performing asset (NPA) levels in the Indian banking system are a cause of concern for not just the Reserve Bank of India Governor, Raghuram Rajan,…