Business Today 2 July 2017

For some time, economists and corporate analysts have talked about India’s twin balance sheet problem. On the one hand, some of the country’s biggest corporate names are struggling under a mountain of debt, which is putting their businesses at risk. On the other hand, most of the public sector banks – and a few private sector ones as well – are trying to deal with huge bad loans in their books. Our cover story this issue looks at one of India’s prominent business houses struggling to retain control of its empire as lenders clamour for their pound of flesh. The Essar Group has not been short of ambition – over the years, it has got into steel, oil refining, telecom, power, and half a dozen other sectors with companies in…

Surpassing the Challenges of Robotics This refers to your cover story Going, Going, Gone (June 18). It was an unambiguous study of automation and its impact on jobs in global scenario, and on Indian industrial canvas, without any exaggeration. Many reports have only terrified about job loss in countries and in certain industrial segments. But your article has really essayed to prescribe probable solutions, calling for pragmatic views and suggestions from economists to industrial experts to HR professionals to people-management consultants. The fast inclusion of robots in all aspects of life is quite impending. Robots will radically affect employment patterns and will drastically encroach upon social, economic and political inclinations. The policy-makers must buttress the industrial progress on a par with global systems. Original job retention will be impossible with…

$22 Million Earnings of Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli, according to the 2017 Forbes list of ‘The World’s Highest Paid Athletes’. This includes $3 million from salary and winnings and another 19 million from endorsements. Kohli is the only sportsperson from the country to feature among the world’s 100 highest paid athletes UBER FIRES APAC BUSINESS HEAD Uber has fired its Asia Pacific Business Head, Eric Alexander, for allegedly accessing medical reports of a woman raped by an Uber driver in India in December 2014, says American tech portal Recode. The action came as part of a probe into widespread sexual harassment and mismanagement at the company that has seen the departure of 20 other top level employees. NSE TO SETTLE CASE The National Stock Exchange (NSE) is considering the…

Will the beleaguered state-run Air India soon get a new lifeline? In a recent interview, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the disinvestment of the loss-making national carrier is on the cards. According to him, private carriers, which already have 86-87 per cent market share, could also handle 100 per cent flying. On the other hand, while Air India’s market share is just around 14 per cent, its debt burden has piled up to reach `50,000 crore. Of the total debt, `20,000-25,000 crore is related to aircraft valuation. As for settling the remaining amount, Air India has some lucrative assets, the Minister noted. Following Jaitley’s comments, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, the government think tank, also rooted for its disinvestment. But a few days later, Civil Aviation…

Divergence Reasons Norms are for minimum provisioning Higher provisioning for standard assets under stressed sector Timely identification of high-value accounts and not all accounts Erosion in collateral value attracts higher provisioning No funding of interest or principal through fresh facility or additional funds Regularisation of account near the balance sheet date Two years ago, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the then Governor, Raghuram Rajan, carried out the first-of-itskind asset quality review to dig out the hidden stressed assets in the banking system. This was over and above the annual inspection/audit. To bankers’ surprise, the RBI handed them a list of 150 accounts for 15 per cent provisioning — 2.5 per cent each for the next six quarters till March 2017. For many banks, these 150 accounts were standard…

Rajesh N. is a senior developer at a US-headquartered multinational product company. A decade-old veteran in the IT industry, he now spends most of his free time boning up on labour laws of the country. There is a reason for that. Rajesh is a spokesperson of the Bangalore chapter of the Forum of IT Employees (FITE), a Chennai-headquartered union of technology industry professionals. FITE says it is fighting for the rights of IT industry professionals and has nine chapters across the country, including Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, cities where the IT industry employs a large number of people. FITE is part of a trend where IT industry employees, fearing job losses, are joining hands to form unions to safeguard their interests. The reasons are obvious. With India’s $153-billion IT…