The price for pushing the envelope beyond the comfort zone that the land of storytelling is used to is a hefty one, observes Meghna Chadha.
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Sunday raised concerns over India's drugs regulator granting permission for restricted use of Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine and asked the government to explain why mandatory protocols and verification of data has been dispensed with.
Earlier this month, Sobha Kapoor and Ekta Kapoor, part of the promoter group of Balaji Telefilms, faced shareholder ire when they failed to obtain the requisite votes on resolutions proposing pay increases for them. In recent months, several promoter-directors, including Siddharth Lal of Eicher Motors and Pawan Munjal of Hero MotoCorp, have faced similar situations. Clearly, large institutional shareholders - and public shareholders - are not taking kindly to promoter-directors upping their remuneration takeaways at a time when the prospects of business recovery are clouded by the anticipated third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Neeraj MS, 25, a social worker at NIMHANS in Bangalore shares some tips:
Dietician Komal Jethmalani provides expert help.
"We are concerned about the data localisation law and the new e-commerce regulations...they do not fully take into account the needs of all stakeholders, including American and other foreign companies," acting principal deputy assistant secretary of the US, Thomas Vajda said.
'The Olympic Spirit has been thrown to the wind in Xi Jinping's China.' 'The International Olympic Committee is ready to kowtow to totalitarian China,' notes Claude Arpi.
In a letter to health minister Harsh Vardhan, the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, an industry body representing leading pharma companies, including Sun Pharma, Lupin, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cadila Health and Glenmark, stressed the need for an out-of-court settlement with health activists fighting for the rights of clinical trial participants.
Fraud-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank on Tuesday invited expression of interest (EoI) from potential investors for investment or equity participation in the bank for its reconstruction. Subsequent to commencement of the normal day-to-day operations, it will be open for the investors to convert the bank into a small finance bank by making an application to the RBI, the lender said.
Of the three major Budget announcements related to the banking sector, privatisation of PSBs is the most audacious, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they have concluded phase 3 study of their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b2, meeting all primary efficacy endpoints.
Regulators and investigators around the world have access to sophisticated tools making it possible to detect white collar crimes. This is where Indian investigators and regulators have been found wanting, says Sudipto Dey.
'If the RBI had done the right things, these mistakes would not have happened in banks, public or private,' says Ajay Shah.
'With over 50 per cent of medical seats reserved for those who have the ability to pay a fee ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore for a five-year MBBS course and quotas in accordance with affirmative policies in government colleges, the band of seats available for the not-so-rich and non-OBCs is very narrow.'
BCCI finally agreed to come under the ambit of NADA, in the process becoming a National Sports Federation despite being financially autonomous.
'In many parts of the country, the empty nest-and-empty-nest egg story is a painful boom-to-bust saga.' 'Among the old and young, it is hitting pockets hard, in a linked chain of debt-laden banks, corrupt politicians and builder mafias and disastrous government policies,' says Sunil Sethi.
The change in WTC rule, prompted by the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, allowed Australia (82.22%) to leapfrog India (75) to the top of the standings
As world leaders discuss measures in Copenhagen to save the planet from global warming, Nordic airline Finnair has mooted setting up of a global body under the United Nations to regulate emission trading.
'You can still acquire the COVID-19 virus even if you are vaccinated.' 'But if you develop the disease, (after being vaccinated) the likelihood is that it will be mild.' 'It just makes sense to continue to take precautions, because you may be around a lot of unvaccinated people.'
'To prevent large gatherings, BAPS mandirs (temples) will be closed throughout the world, but devotees will be given daily darshan through the websites of each mandir,' the BAPS said in a media release.
India has historically not had a strong compliance mechanism around insider trading. This is in stark contrast to developed countries.
India wasn't applying widespread crash testing like foreign countries do, so manufacturers didn't see the need for an investment focus on safety. Customers rarely walked into showrooms asking for the safest car. They wanted the cheapest or the most fuel-efficient or the best-looking car.
Rahul Johri has been included in the six-member working group, set up by the ICC, to consider the sanctioning of players' release for the franchise-based Twenty20 leagues across the world.
'I would go for Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and not Covishield, and that is my personal judgment since at least 11,500 have got at least one dose by now and it has proven to be safe.'
Planning is not only a question of having a vision, says Jyoti Hosagrahar of Columbia University.
People have developed a fatalistic attitude where they believe that anything can happen. They think, 'there's no medicine, no beds in the hospitals, what are we alive for?' And when you get that kind of an attitude, you stop taking precautions
Taking cue from global best practices, aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has drafted rules to allow a pilot take a short nap on flight deck, with the other pilot taking full control of the aircraft on a long-distance flight, official sources said.
Finance firms in these SEZs likely to get tax breaks.
A new law has been put together to actually take control of the mining sector away from the government, specially the Union government, and make regulation by an independent authority the basis of mineral development in India.
'The CEO will neither be able to guide the senior team in operational matters nor decide on their appointment, compensation or removal.' 'Yet, the CEO is responsible for the profit and loss of the bank!' 'Why would the senior executives listen to him?' 'Which self-respecting professional would want to be a CEO with these constraints?' asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The West Bengal government on Monday introduced two amendment bills in the state Assembly to boost investments in the state.
Regulator believes Jet Airways deal triggers open offer
The question mark over Vodafone Idea's survival is gone after the government's telecom package, managing director and chief executive officer Ravinder Takkar said in an interaction recently. The extended moratorium for spectrum payments and adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues has indeed ensured that Vodafone Idea survives, at least for the time being, but questions remain. Answers to those questions may determine the future of Vodafone Idea and its power to stay in a difficult telecom market in the coming years.
The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Monday said lawyers across the country would abstain from work on July 11 and 12 in protest against the government's Higher Education and Research (HER) Bill aimed at usurping its control over the legal education.
The approval comes a day after Sinopharm said its vaccine showed 79.34 per cent efficacy and a 99.52 per cent antibody-positive conversion rate in the interim results of the Phase III clinical trials.
If India Inc sincerely feels the separation of posts is not a good governance measure, it must spell out its doubts clearly to Sebi and give cogent arguments rather than mundane ones like India is different, argues J N Gupta, member, Kotak committee on corporate governance reforms.
Proceeds of the crime had been siphoned off and laundered or concealed, or layered and integrated into the main financial system through the acquisition of properties. His wife Bindu Kapoor has been charged with being aware of the source of monies that were being routed through these companies.
UK's Cairn Energy Plc plans to bring lawsuits in the US and other countries to pierce the corporate veil between the Indian government and its owned companies such as in oil and gas, shipping, airline and banking sectors, to seize their overseas assets to recover $1.2 billion ordered by an international arbitration tribunal. The firm has moved courts in the US, UK, Canada, France, Singapore, the Netherlands and three other countries to register the December 2020 arbitration tribunal ruling that overturned the Indian government's Rs 10,247 crore demand in back taxes and ordered New Delhi to return $1.2 billion in value of shares it had sold, dividends seized and tax refunds withheld to recover the tax demand. With the government so far refusing to honour the arbitration award and instead choosing to challenge it, Cairn is looking to enforce it by seizing overseas Indian assets, Dennis Hranitzky, head of the sovereign litigation practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a law firm representing the company, told PTI.
A large number of large and small businesses process EU data, have customers from the EU or have access to data of EU citizens in one way or another.
Realising the importance of sustainable development, Indian companies are increasingly taking into account the environmental impact of businesses while taking decisions, industry body Confederation of Indian Industry said on Wednesday.