Delhi records 40% voters’ turnout till 1 pm
1.About 40 per cent per cent of the 1.27 crore electorate exercised their franchise till 1 pm in the Lok Sabha polls for the seven seats in the national capital where Congress, BJP and AAP are engaged in a tight contest.
2.Forty per cent of the electorate have cast their votes till 1 pm. The polling has so far been peaceful and there are no reports of any untoward incident,” officials in the Delhi Election Commission.
3.Vice President Hamid Ansari, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal were among the early voters.
4.The Lok Sabha elections here are seen as test of Aam Aadmi Party’s perceived erosion of support base, BJP’s claim of having a ‘Modi wave’ besides assertion by Congress that it was regaining lost ground after suffering massive defeat in assembly polls in December.
5.The prominent contenders in the fray include Union Ministers Kapil Sibal and Krishna Tirath, Delhi BJP chief Harsh Vardhan, Congress’ Ajay Maken, Sandeep Dikshit, Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, journalist-turned-politician Ashutosh and BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi.
6.A total of 1.27 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise, which include over 3.37 lakh first time voters. 150 candidates are in the fray. The polling began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm.
R Chandrasekaran is new Nasscom Chairman
R Chandrasekaran, Executive Vice-Chairman of Cognizant India, is taking over as Chairman of software industry body Nasscom from Krishnakumar Natarajan, CEO and MD of Mindtree. Nasscom’s Executive Council appointed BVR Mohan Reddy, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Infotech Enterprises, as Vice-Chairman.
Radhakrishnan is new GM commercial of Air India southern region
1.R Radhakrishnan has taken over as General Manager (commercial) of Air India Southern Region.
2.He started his career in commercial department at Madurai in 1977 and has served as station manager in various cities of the airline including Bangalore, Kozhikode, Vizag and Goa. He held the position of country manager in Malaysia as well.
3.A post graduate in Business Administration, Radhakrishnan also has served in various capacities in southern region as regional marketing head besides being in charge of administration and customer / traffic services.
App for pharma stockists launched
1.Sreeya Infotech of Hyderabad has launched an app (application) for pharma distribution industry. Stockists can give their sales staff tablets loaded with this app to take orders.
2.The app, PharmaLive, promises to simplify and automate order management in pharma distribution by connecting the retailer with suppliers.
3.The app licence is put at Rs 5,000 a year, Sridhar Narra, Director, Sreeya infotech
One of iPhone founders leaving Apple
1.One of the pioneers behind the iPhone, software engineer Greg Christie, is leaving Apple.
2. Christie was part of the team that developed the iOS software for the first iPhone, which came out in 2007.
3.Christie was until now leading a team working on a so-called human interface team developing more software for Apple.
4.His role will be taken over by the current Vice-President for design, Jonathan Ive.
China’s exports slump 6.6% in March
1.China’s exports slumped 6.6 per cent year-on-year in March, the Government said on Thursday, in the latest indication of slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
2.Total export value was $170.11 billion last month, down 6.6 per cent from March 2013, while imports fell by 11.3 per cent, the General Administration of Customs reported.
3.Exports fell by 3.4 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, with a rise of 1.6 per cent in imports over the same period, the administration said.
4.China’s quarterly trade surplus was $16.74 billion, down about 60 per cent year-on-year
SEBI to issue guidelines soon for crowd-funding
1.To encourage young entrepreneurs to raise capital from the market, which has seen decline is such activity, regulator SEBI plans to shortly come out with the guidelines for crowd-funding.
2.We are coming out with guidelines on crowd-funding soon, because we want to encourage young entrepreneurs to raise capital. Our aim is to help young people raise capital very smoothly,” Sebi chairman UK Sinha today said at an investors’ conference organised by industry body IMC here.
3.Crowd-funding typically involves young entrepreneurs and small groups of people raising funds for their ventures through various online platforms involving individuals as well as organisations.
4.Of late, such platforms are also being used for launching products that promise certain financial returns to the contributors.
5.While it is still in a nascent stage in India, compared to large markets like the US, China and the UK, the trend is catching up fast especially in the wake of emergence of social media as a key platform for such activities.
SBI to raise $1 bn from overseas bond market
1.The nation’s largest lender State Bank of India has hit the overseas bond market with a dual tranche benchmark issue of 5-year and 10-year maturity to raise up to $1 billion.
2.According to one of the merchant bankers working on the issue, SBI today launched the roadshow in major global financial centres and will close the transaction later in the day.
3.The bank has given an initial pricing of 240 bps over the US treasury for the 5-year money and 265 bps over the treasury for the 10-year bond, said the merchant banker, who did not want to be quoted as the deal is yet to be closed.
4.The US treasury is trading at around 2.75 per cent. The bank could not be immediately contacted for comments.
5.Oil India had raised $1 billion from a similar dual tranche issue, making it the single largest dual tranche Reg S issue from the country, and the oil major’s largest-ever.
MCX-SX launches banking index
1.The MCX Stock Exchange has launched ‘SxBank’, a new index to provide a benchmark to capture the performance of the banking sector.
2.The index consists of ten most liquid and large capitalised stocks from the banking sector.
3.It is a scientific, transparent and completely rule-based index, offering better reflection of the banking sector in the Indian economy with superior risk adjusted returns, said MCX-SX in a press release on Wednesday.
4.SxBank’s constituents represent over 80 per cent of the total market capitalisation of all banking stocks. The index is computed with base date of March 31, 2010, and is indexed to a base value of 5,000.
5.Thomas Mathew T, Chairman, MCX-SX, said with the banking sector poised for further growth, new entrants and technology advancements, banking stocks will move further into the limelight.
Kanan Devan Hills Plantations, Woodbriar bag 6 awards at TGLIA: STC in Dubai
1.Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company Private Ltd and Woodbriar Group of companies have won six awards each at the tenth edition of The Golden Leaf India Award: Southern Tea Competition (TGLIA: STC) held at Dubai.
2.TGLIA: STC at Dubai has coincided with the Global Dubai Tea Forum held on April 9.
3.At the tea competition, Harrisons Malayalam Ltd won four awards, Devon Plantations and Industries Ltd, Joonktollee Tea and Industries Ltd, Kodanad Estate and Vigneshwar Estate Tea Factory won three awards each, United Nilgiri Tea Estates Company Ltd won two awards and Bhavani Tea and Produce Company Ltd, Bluegate Beverages Ltd, Hittakkal Estate Tea Factory and Poabs Organic Products Private Ltd bagged one award each.
4.C Shreedharan, Convener, TGLIA: STC, in a release, said the competition saw 76 short-listed teas that qualified the first and second level of screening.
5.Winners were evaluated by a panel of international jury comprising of renowned tasters and major buyers at Dubai on. They are Kurush Bharucha, Gulf (FZE), Mike Jones, UK, Mohsin M Saify, Pakistan, Sanjay Sethi, Dubai and Yahya Beyad, UK.
6.The certificates to the winners were distributed by the jury members in Dubai on April 10, the concluding day of the Global Dubai Tea Forum 2014.
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