Major News and Events of 17 October 2014

Arvind Subramanian becomes the new chief economic advisor. In the year 2011, he was recognised among the top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine. He was Peterson Institute for International Economics’ senior fellow, Assistant Director at research wing of IMF, expert group member of finance minister during G20 meet, and St Stephen's College alumnus. He also advised Indian government on various aspects.

India today test fired indigenously developed ‘Nirbhay, the sub-sonic nuclear capable cruise missile at a place near Chandipur. This missile is capable of hitting target that is situated over 700 kms away. Ground officials have reported that the test fire was done at around 10.03am from Integrated Test Range’s launch pad 3. Firing was done through a mobile launcher.

P Ashok Gajapathi Raju, the Union Civil Aviation Minister, has said that the airline operations from Visakhapatnam International airport will resume from October 17. Commercial flight operations will resume on the routes Delhi to Vizag and Vizag to Hyderabad initially. All commercial operations were suspended from or to Vizag airport from October 12 by airport authorities because of the damages done by Cyclone Hudhud.

In an encouraging news, Harvard Business Publishing has tied up with Case Centre of Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) for offering seminar on case method teaching. The 2-day seminar will focus on delivering implementable practical advice for experienced professors or instructors of case methods who are looking forward to improving personal discussion leadership skills.

Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa along with her three aides (Ilavarasi, V N Sudhakaran, and Sasikala), who were arrested on the charges of disproportionate asset and corruption cases, have been released on bail by Supreme Court today. She had been fined Rs. 100 crore by a Special Court along with a jail term of 4 years.

By October end, Union Government may resort to cabinet reshuffle. Reliable sources have revealed that Narendra Modi is going to make the reshuffle before going on top gear to implement and bring new policy reforms. Political analysts are expecting change of personnel, especially in the ministries looking after gas pricing, disinvestment, diesel pricing, and other economic policies.

For reviewing border situation Indian Prime Minister met top military officers today at Defence Ministry. Available information point out that he will be getting overall security situation briefing. This meeting was also very significant because the Narendra Modi is meeting the top most commanders of the country for the very first time. The interaction took place in New Delhi at Combined Commanders' Conference.

The Billiard child prodigy, Pankaj Advani, has grown up now and is a 29 year man, who will be leading Indian team of two female and seventeen male players at Leeds’ World Billiards Championship that is scheduled to start on October 20. Some other top names who will accompany Advani are Balachandra Bhaskar, Devendra Joshi, Sourav Kothari, Rupesh Shah, Dhruv Sitwala, Alok Kumar, Ashok Shandilya, and others.

After tasting extreme success with Android KitKat, Google has launched its next updated mobile operating system Android 5.0 Lollipop. Some of the new features that users will get are device sharing, revamped ‘Quick settings' menu, responsive UI design, improved notifications, ‘Priority mode’, improved security, kill switch, new messenger app, Quick Device Set Up, battery saver, etc. Some of the popular Android based smartphones, available in India, where the existing OS can be updated are Moto X, Moto G, Moto E, Nexus 4 to 10, Moto G (Gen2), and others.

Roberto Azevêdo, Director General of WTO, has hinted that some movements are taking place towards finding a permanent solution towards public stockholding that is essential for India’s food security. India is looking forward to the early resolution of this demand. In July India had vetoed Trade Facilitation Agreement and insisted upon WTO’s parallel agreement that allowed government of India to give as much subsidy as they want to farmers who produce staple food grains including cereals, wheat, and rice.

Group Health space by non-life companies may come under IRDA scanner. Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority is expected to take strong views on non-life companies’ under-cutting practice in the group health space. The incurred claims in the group schemes are very high, much more than those of retail schemes. Sometimes, the claims touched 100 per cent, which made IRDA raise the flag.

In the quarter that end on September 30, HCL Technologies reported a net profit of Rs 1,873 crore, which is lesser than the 2.1 percent expected sequential growth of the company. There are two reasons for such a figure. While global currency rate fluctuation played spoil sport, on one hand, salary hike during last quarter of employees also ate some of the net profit, on the other hand.