Economics Current Affairs – 02 February – 10 February, 2015

ITC acquires 2 brands from Johnson and Johnson: The brand acquired Savlon and Shower to Shower for an undisclosed sum. It is ITC’s 1^st venture into personal care domain.

SBI Q3 net rises 30% on higher non-interest income, reduced NPA: SBI has 30% raise in net profit in October- December quarter. Gross NPA against all advances stood at 4.90%

Allahabad bank to get Government Capital: Government to infuse Rs. 320 crore as capital to Kolkata based Allahabad bank. It is likely to be way of “preferential allotment of equity”.

India to prune the list of sensitive import items subject to higher duties under SAFTA for Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Application for payments Bank license: Ranging from big to small there are about 40 odd applications for the Payments Bank license – RIL, Aditya Birla Nuvo, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, India Post etc. RIL proposes to set up payments Bank with SBI holding upto 30% equity share.

Depositors under Sukanya Samridhi Scheme can now avail tax benefit under 80C of Income Tax Act. The maximum deposit under this scheme for securing future of a girl child is Rs. 1.5 Lakhs per financial year.

Brakes India Ltd and SunEdison to form a joint venture: Brakes India Ltd, part of the TVS group has formed a joint venture with the US based SunEdison for Solar power. The ventures 7.72 MW Tamil Nadu Solar Power plant will supply power to Brakes India Ltd. The structure is known as “group capture model” is common to wind power but is new to solar power.

“group capture model” –  Private power companies and power purchase set up joint venture that will own the power plant. The advantage is that the state does not levy “cross subsidy surcharge”.

“cross subsidy surcharge” – are levied on 3^rd party sales of power so as to make the buyers to defray for subsidized power that Government give to poor and underprivileged.

Alibaba arm buys 25% in Paytm for $700m

Mutual Funds outperformed foreign Portfolio investors in 2014: the market capitalization of stocks held by funds had shot up 69% between December 2013 and now. The holdings of foreign portfolio investors on the other hand were comparatively lower (52%)

States demand more funds and flexibility (NITI Ayog) : At the 1^st meeting of governing council of NITI Ayog which was attended by 31 states and Union Territories, the states have asked centre for higher fund flows. They have also urged the PM to make the process of allocation of funds to state more transparent.

India will be world’s fastest growing economy: New methodology puts growth at 7.4%. This will bring India at par with China in terms of the growth rate making it one of the world’s fastest growing economies.