R Chandrashekhar takes over as Nasscom President

Former Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar, under whom a government IT department was set up for the first time, today took over as President of Nasscom -- a body representing the USD 108 billion Indian IT-BPM industry.

He succeeds Som Mittal, who served as the President of Nasscom from 2007-13.

"I feel privileged and look forward to leading Nasscom in its next journey of achieving the vision and aspiration of USD 300 billion revenues by 2020. The opportunities are very vast at this particular juncture and exciting times lie ahead for the industry," Chandrashekhar told PTI.

Nasscom helps four start-ups to raise funds

He said the future looks positive for the Indian IT-BPM industry as the sector is evolving dramatically in terms of scale, complexity and innovation.

"Going forward, enabling radical transformation of key sectors in India through the use of ICT to increase access, enhance efficiency and enable innovation in the sector are going to be some of our priority focus areas.

"The rapidly accelerating trend of innovation and entrepreneurship in the ICT sector impacts several domains and provides clear indicators that the journey has begun," Chandrashekhar said.

He added that changing models will bring compelling business innovations across key verticals such as banking, financial services and insurance, telecom, healthcare, education and social entrepreneurship.

He said the Indian IT-BPM industry, which is primarily export-driven, is at an inflexion point as business models shift from traditional labour-based onsite-offshore model to cloud-based and off-premise solutions.

Chandrashekhar was the Chairman, Telecom Commission and Secretary of the Department of Telecom till March last year.

He held a variety of key assignments with many of them relating to the ICT sector, both at the Centre as well as state level.

Earlier, he had established the first Department of Information Technology in the country in the state of Andhra Pradesh and was Secretary of the Department from June, 1997 to December, 1999.

Besides the National Telecom Policy 2012, he played a key role in the first National IT Policy and National Policy on Electronics during his dual role of IT and Telecom Secretary at the centre.

A MSc graduate in Chemistry from IIT-Bombay, Chandrashekhar received a M S degree in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University, US.

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CBI probing alleged corruption in Rlys' VIP quota ticket

CBI is probing alleged corruption to the tune of crores of rupees in sale of VIP or emergency quota tickets in the Railways and has sought records for the last two years, claiming that even signatures of MPs have been forged to confirm the tickets in some cases.

On an average day, as many as 35,000 tickets in various classes of all trains that originate from Delhi or cross the city are reserved under the emergency quota which is also known as VIP or Headquarters quota.

Govt may permit FDI in high speed trains, other projects

The agency suspects that certain vested interests within various unions of railways and in alleged conspiracy with private travel operators confirm these tickets against a premium, official sources said here.

The sources said that the agency had some requests which had forged signatures and in some cases even the letter heads were fake.

Initially, the probe may be limited to the national capital but, if required, it may cover other states, they said.

CBI has already registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) last week against unknown persons to carry out a thorough probe for misuse of the railway tickets issued under quota to various railway unions.

The quota is meant for emergencies which includes medical necessity but the agency has alleged that the process was abused by certain vested interests.

It had found some related documents while looking into the functioning of railways as part of its probe into the alleged bribery case involving the nephew of former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.

In May last year, the CBI had also searched the office of an RPF inspector who had allegedly helped the sacked Railway Board member, Mahesh Kumar, besides shifting some movable assets from his Mumbai residence. Many documents which pointed to a scam in railway ticketing were recovered from there.

CBI had, during a discreet probe, claimed to have found that the emergency quota tickets to unions were being handed over to some travel agents who used to charge a huge price for confirming a wait-listed ticket.

A senior CBI official claimed it was a full-fledged racket.

The official said the travel agents had been identified and would be called for examination soon besides some of the office bearers of a few railway unions who had allowed confirmation of wait listed tickets.

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Want better returns? Hire a good-looking CEO

Attractive chief executives receive higher total compensation, better returns on their first days on the job and boost stock performance when they appear on television, according to the preliminary findings of a new study.

Joseph Halford and Hung-Chia Hsu, two economists at the University of Wisconsin, released a working paper called "Beauty is wealth: CEO appearance and shareholder value." In the paper, they rated the attractiveness of 677 CEOs from S&P 500 companies based on "facial geometry."

The study wanted to find out whether there was a positive relation between the attractiveness of a company's CEO and a return on investment in that company, something argued by John Graham, R.Campbell and Manju Puri in a 2010 paper from Duke University. These three authors said that good looks made CEOs appear more competent and gave them better negotiating skills, enabling them to extract better deals for shareholders.

(Read more: The 'sexy' central banker who's causing a stir)

When looking at the relationship between CEO attractiveness and stock returns around their first day in the job, Halford and Hsu concluded: "We find that FAI (facial attractiveness index) has a positive and significant impact on stock returns surrounding the first day when the CEO is on the job, indicating that shareholders seem to perceive more attractive CEOs to be more valuable."

Halford and Hsu told CNBC that Marissa Mayer, the president and CEO of Yahoo, was a good example, based on their report. "She scored 8.45 (out of 10) in our facial attractiveness index and is among the top 5 percent (best-looking) in our sample," they wrote. "Yahoo has been doing well since she became the CEO (about 158 percent increase in stock price).

"Of course, we don't mean that all the increase in stock price is from her appearance. We just find that there might be some positive correlation between the two."

(Read more: Marissa Mayer goes glamorous in Vogue! fashion-heavy profile)

The economists conducted a variety of tests, for example, analyzing 1,830 merger and acquisition deals between 1985 and 2012. They discovered that: "The evidence...suggests that more attractive CEOs receive more surpluses for their firms from M&A transactions, a finding consistent with the hypothesis that more attractive CEOs improve shareholder value through superior negotiating prowess."

Furthermore, the paper looked into CEO television appearances—which they restricted to those shown on CNBC.com between 2008 and 2012—and whether there was any correlation between the appearance of an attractive CEO and stock returns. Halford and Hsu concluded that shareholders responded positively to viewing more attractive CEOs on television.

Does this mean that Halford and Hsu would suggest that companies hire stunning CEOs to ensure a more profitable existence?

"Our results do not suggest that, when searching for CEOs, firms should only look at appearance without considering other abilities," they wrote in an email to CNBC. "On the other hand, for firms that rely more on the negotiation and visibility aspects, maybe they should place more weight on appearance when searching for CEOs."

This is not the first time the interaction between beauty and business has been investigated.

(Read more: Are you one ofthe best—or worst—leaders?)

In 1994, University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh coined the term "pulchrinomics," or the economic study of beauty. He wrote about the topic in the American Economic Review, commenting on a study conducted by himself and his colleague, Jeff Biddle, where interviewers in the 1970s had had ranked the attractiveness of US and Canadian workers, as well as noted their earnings. More attractive workers were found to earn a 5 percent premium over those of average appearance.

"Wages of people with below-average looks are lower than those of average-looking workers; and there is a premium in wages for good-looking people that is slightly smaller than this penalty," the report noted.

Commenting on Halford and Hsu's report, Robert Williams, principal and director at recruitment firm Asia Media Search, said first impressions were important.

"A commanding presence will add credibility either consciously or subconsciously, rightly or wrongly," he told CNBC via email. "My guess would be that Wall Street, like Washington, will always put stock in good looks as a measure of ability.

"I wonder if in today's instant media world, whether Abraham Lincoln, with his acne scarred face, lanky body and high pitched voice, would ever have been elected, or FDR for that matter. Would the television media focus just on his wheelchair?"

He concluded: "As a recruiter, I feel the focus should be a candidate's abilities and accomplishments, not the smile. But human nature is what it is."

—By CNBC's Kiran Moodley. Follow him on Twitter @kirancmoodley

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Govt will provide enabling environment for IT sector: PM

Noting that the country has witnessed phenomenal growth in the Information Technology sector, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the Centre was committed to providing an enabling environment to encourage further growth in this field. Speaking after laying the foundation stone of the  Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) Global Learning Centre, claimed to be the largest in the world, he said the Centre would "contribute toward an objective that is one of our national priorities-that of imparting skills training to our young men and women on a very large scale."

"Pursuant to the recommendations of the Rangachary report, several taxation issues confronting the IT sector have been addressed.We are also engaged in the resolution of issues pertaining to immigration and visas and trying to improve the hardware ecosystem and are exploring the establishment of two semiconductor water fabrication manufacturing facilities," the Prime Minister said.

Singh said his government had set very ambitious targets for itself in the area of skill development and was working hard to achieve them. "We have taken several initiatives in this area and some of them have involved partnership with the private sector," he said complimenting TCS. The Prime Minister said he expected the proposed global learning centre of the TCS would be the largest facility for IT training in Thiruvananthapuram. It would be able to train around 50,000 associates when fully functional.

Also Read: Stay with IT, pharma; earnings revival likely, says Religare Cap

"I am confident that the Centre, which proposes to integrate elegant design, ecological thinking and modern technology, will set global benchmarks for corporate learning institutions," he said.  The Prime Minister said he learnt that TCS was setting up a software development Special Economic Zone in the capital city of Kerala. "I hope to see even more initiatives by TCS and other IT companies in Kerala and Thiruvananthapuram in particular, especially in view of the high quality of human resource in
the state," he said.

Singh said TCS was a shining example of the success of Indian private enterprises in the last 20 years and had carved a niche for itself in the global market for IT and IT-enabled services. The company had also set a benchmark for excellence in the area of software development. "Today, TCS ranks among the top ten IT services companies globally. It is not only the highest valued company in India, but also the second most valuable company in the world in the technology and services industry," he said. TCS had also taken up several projects in the areas of education, health and environment. The company had made a significant contribution to education through its adult literacy programme which had covered nearly two lakh beneficiaries.

Singh said the company's BPO employability programme had trained over 22,000 graduates belonging to weaker sections, many of whom had also been provided gainful employment in the company. TCS had also partnered with the National Skill Development Corporation under 'Project Udaan' to upgrade the skill sets of Kashmiri youth and enable their mainstreaming with corporate India, he said. The Prime Minister also said that TCS had used its expertise in IT to develop an integrated Hospital Management System, which was being used by several hospitals and social organisations in the country.

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Tata Steel mulls price increase

Tata steel  is considering an increase in the prices of its products in the January-March (Q4) of the 2014 financial year.

"There are chances. Demand is there. We are looking at opportunities," Tata Steel M D (India and South East Asia) T V Narendran said on the sidelines of a IIM (C) event.

Also Read: ICC writes to Fin Min seeking ban on iron ore pellet export

The company was mainly looking for an increase in the prices of long steel products as imports have squeezed.

In the last 2-3 months, the company had raised prices between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 on an average. The fourth quarter is normally good for steel companies as construction activities are normally good.

Narendran said that in the last 2-3 months, India has become a net exporter of steel due to rupee depreciation as import has turned costlier. "When rupee was at 55, we (industry) were importing. But with dollar at 65 import doesn't make sense," Narendran said.

India earlier imported 7-8 million steel annually. The import dropped by 20-30 per cent in the last quarter compared to the corresponding period last year.

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Infosys elevates Srinivas, Rao as presidents

Following the exodus of top-level executives, country's second-largest software exporter  Infosys on Friday restructured its business under two divisions that will be headed by B G Srinivas and U B Pravin Rao, possible contenders for the CEO's post after S D Shibulal retires.

Also Read: Buy Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, MindTree: P Lilladher

The company will dissolve its top decision-making body, the executive council, with effect from April 1, 2014. Srinivas will be responsible for verticals, including financial services, insurance, manufacturing, engineering services, energy and communications, Infosys Public Services, Infosys Lodestone, strategic global sourcing, marketing and alliances, the company said in a statement.

Retail, consumer packaged goods and logistics, life sciences, resources and utilities, services, growth markets, cloud and mobility, quality and productivity and Infosys Leadership Institute will now be headed by Rao, it added.

Both the Presidents will report to Infosys CEO and Managing Director S D Shibulal.

Shares of Infosys, which rose by over 50 per cent since June, gained 2.6 percent on Friday to close at Rs 3565.45 on the BSE.

Over the last one year, Infosys has seen steady exits at senior level. Board member and BPO business head V Balakrishnan was the latest casualty. He put in papers last month.

Another board member and Head of Americas business Ashok Vemuri, who was considered to be a top contender for the CEO's position after Shibulal's retirement, quit the firm to join iGate as CEO.

Other exits included Vice President and financial services head (Americas) Sudhir Chaturvedi, sales head Basab Pradhan and senior vice-president and head of financial services (Americas) Shaji Farooq.

Sources suggest that most of these changes are part of an organisational restructuring that co-founder and chairman NR Narayana Murthy is now overseeing after he returned from retirement to revive the sagging fortunes of the firm in June. He also brought along his son Rohan Murty as Executive Assistant.

Murthy had constituted the executive council, a high-level body that frames its business strategy. It included the executive board, current EC members, heads of key business units and strategic business enabler units.

Srinivas will also focus on global markets, while Rao will focus on global delivery and service innovation, it said.

"These changes will further enhance our focus on deepening client relationships, increasing market share, creating service differentiation through innovation and agility in execution," Shibulal said.

It is also learnt that Srinivas and Rao are now being groomed to take over the top job when Shibulal retires in 2015.

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RBI may lower banks' exposure limit to single group

Flagging the potential threat of contagion to the banking system in case a large corporate fails, the Reserve Bank has hinted at bringing down the single entity and group exposure limits for lenders.

"A review of the extant single and group borrower exposure limits would considerably enhance the stability of the banking sector," RBI said in its half-yearly Financial Stability Report released earlier this week.

The existing exposure norms, which have evolved in the context of growth and developmental needs, are higher than the international standards as well, making a case for lowering the caps, it said.

Currently, the single entity exposure limit is pegged at 25 per cent of the total incremental assets of a bank in any given year. The cap for a group can even top 50 per cent of the total capital of a bank. Against this, the total average is only 25 per cent globally.

Though large banks such as SBI and ICICI often cross this limit, they normally they bring it down to the prescribed limit by the end of the given fiscal. Currently, SBI has crossed the cap in two large government-run firms -- Bharat Heavy Electricals and Indian Oil Corporation.

Also read: RBI's Financial Stability report: Is devil in the details?

"Total loss to the banking system from the failure of the corporate/group will typically be distributed across banks in proportion to their individual exposures to the corporate/ group. If, in the case of one or more banks, the loss is large enough to cause distress to the bank, then there will be further losses to the banking system due to the contagion caused by the distressed bank/banks," said the report.

"Depending on the importance of the distressed bank/banks in the network of interbank exposures, the contagion losses may be substantial," it added.

The report also makes an analysis of possible scenarios saying that in several cases the contagion losses are significant and could exceed the direct losses caused by the failure of the corporate group.

"The failure of a large corporate group could result in a total loss of over 60 per cent of the banking system's capital when the LGD (loss given default) is 100 per cent and over 50 per cent of the banking system's capital when the LGD is 60 per cent," it said.

The report further said that "such risks posed by a large corporate or corporate group are sought to be minimised by large exposure limits prescribed by regulators".

The RBI report also quoted from a study conducted by the IMF and the World Bank in FY12 which said exposure norms in the country were high.

"The large exposure limit of 40 per cent, which can exceptionally be brought to 50 per cent for infrastructure exposures - for a group borrower, is significantly higher than the large exposure limits of 25 percent which is considered good international practice... This limit has the potential to allow the default of one particular consolidated borrower to cause a serious loss of capital in a banking company," the FSR said, quoting from the study.

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Bullion association to join UCX-led bid for MCX

After news that a group led by Universal Commodity Exchange (UCX) was keen to pick up stake in Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX) , it has emerged that the Bombay Bullion Association (BBA) will also be part of the consortium.

Ketan Sheth, Chairman of UCX said that the chairman of the BBA had approached UCX requesting to be part of the consortium and that he was open to the idea. It is, however, not clear whether an association that trades on an exchange could be allowed to own stake in it.

UCX, the sixth player in the commodity futures market, has approached the FMC proposing to buy the 26 percent stake of  Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) in MCX, and said it would merge the two exchanges.

MCX is the largest commodity exchange in the country while UCX is relatively a small player.

Also read: State-backed UCX eyes FTIL's stake in MCX

This follows the recent order of the Forward Markets Commission asking Jignesh Shah and his firm FT, which owns 26 percent in MCX, to reduce stake in the bourse as they were found to not be "fit and proper" to run any exchange.

Shah is under fire for alleged wrongdoing at the National Spot Exchange, also run by FTIL, in which a Rs 5,500-crore payments scam was uncovered in July.

Shah has contested the FMC's order in the Bombay High Court.

MCX India stock price

On January 01, 2014, Multi Commodity Exchange of India closed at Rs 492.50, up Rs 13.70, or 2.86 percent. The 52-week high of the share was Rs 1497.00 and the 52-week low was Rs 238.30.

The company's trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 47.00 per share as per the quarter ended September 2013. The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 10.48. The latest book value of the company is Rs 226.82 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company is 2.17.

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SBI gets shareholders' nod for Rs 11,500-cr QIP

Dec 31, 2013, 05.41 PM IST

The dilution of the government shareholding will be to the extent of the level approved, it said. The government's holding in the bank will not decline below 58 percent pursuant to the QIP.

Tags  QIP, State Bank of India , SBI, FPO

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SBI gets shareholders' nod for Rs 11,500-cr QIP

The dilution of the government shareholding will be to the extent of the level approved, it said. The government's holding in the bank will not decline below 58 percent pursuant to the QIP.

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SBI gets shareholders' nod for Rs 11,500-cr QIP

The dilution of the government shareholding will be to the extent of the level approved, it said. The government's holding in the bank will not decline below 58 percent pursuant to the QIP.

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State Bank of India (SBI) has got shareholders' approval for raising up to Rs 11,500 crore by way of Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) or public offer. "Shareholders have passed special resolution to create offer to issue and allot by way of QIP/FPO or any other mode, as may be approved by the government and RBI, such number of shares of Rs 10 each as decided by the board in their discretion, up to Rs 11,500 crore or such amounts," SBI said in a filing with the BSE.

The dilution of the government shareholding will be to the extent of the level approved, it said. The government's holding in the bank will not decline below 58 percent pursuant to the QIP. At present, it holds 62.31 percent in SBI. Besides, the meeting held yesterday also approved the preferential issue of equity shares of Rs 10 each to the government up to Rs 2,000 crore.

Also Read: NPA menace: Banks must take haircut, says KV Kamath

The bank has fixed an issue price of Rs 1,782.74 per share for a preferential stock allotment to the government as part of the capital infusion plan for this fiscal. The bank will issue 1.12 crore shares on a preferential basis to the government for a consideration of about Rs 2,000 crore, it said. The SBI board had approved the preferential allotment in October.

The additional funds will enable the bank to support national and international banking operations undertaken through its subsidiaries and associates. Last fiscal, the government infused Rs 3,004 crore in the bank.

SBI stock price

On December 31, 2013, State Bank of India closed at Rs 1765.50, up Rs 2.10, or 0.12 percent. The 52-week high of the share was Rs 2550.00 and the 52-week low was Rs 1452.90.

The company's trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 179.98 per share as per the quarter ended September 2013. The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 9.81. The latest book value of the company is Rs 1445.60 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company is 1.22.

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'Voda payment to Analjit Singh consistent with agreement'

Dec 31, 2013, 06.12 PM IST

Analjit Singh, who is Founder and Chairman of Max India, owns 51 percent interest in Scorpio Beverages Pvt Ltd, which is being paid Rs 1,241 crore for the 24.65 percent stake it holds in Vodafone India. Piramal, the only other minority shareholder in Vodafone India, is being paid Rs 8,900 crore for its 10.97 percent stake.

Tags  FIPB, Vodafone, AnaljitSingh, Scorpio Beverages, Max India

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'Voda payment to Analjit Singh consistent with agreement'

Analjit Singh, who is Founder and Chairman of Max India, owns 51 percent interest in Scorpio Beverages Pvt Ltd, which is being paid Rs 1,241 crore for the 24.65 percent stake it holds in Vodafone India. Piramal, the only other minority shareholder in Vodafone India, is being paid Rs 8,900 crore for its 10.97 percent stake.

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'Voda payment to Analjit Singh consistent with agreement'

Analjit Singh, who is Founder and Chairman of Max India, owns 51 percent interest in Scorpio Beverages Pvt Ltd, which is being paid Rs 1,241 crore for the 24.65 percent stake it holds in Vodafone India. Piramal, the only other minority shareholder in Vodafone India, is being paid Rs 8,900 crore for its 10.97 percent stake.

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A day after FIPB cleared Vodafone plc buying out minority stakeholders for Rs 10,141 crore in its India arm, Vodafone India's Non Executive Chairman Analjit Singh today said payments being made to him were consistent with agreement he had signed with the British telecom giant.

Analjit Singh, who is Founder and Chairman of Max India , owns 51 percent interest in Scorpio Beverages Pvt Ltd, which is being paid Rs 1,241 crore for the 24.65 percent stake it holds in Vodafone India. Piramal, the only other minority shareholder in Vodafone India, is being paid Rs 8,900 crore for its 10.97 percent stake.

Also Read: FIPB clears Vodafone, Tesco proposals

"The consideration payable to Mr Analjit Singh is consistent with the agreements signed between him and Vodafone, which were filed with the FIPB in 2007 and 2009," the statement said.

Singh hailed the decision of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) wherein it approved Vodafone's proposal to increase its shareholding in the UK based telecom major's Indian arm.

Terming the decision as "extremely encouraging and most forward looking", Singh said that this would send the right signal to investors all over the globe who have plans to invest in India.

"The decision is very important for ongoing reforms in India. In fact, it has a lot of symbolic significance because telecom is the first regulated sector to benefit from 100 percent FDI," he said.

On the issue of his own shareholding in Vodafone, Singh clarified that he did not own any shares directly in Vodafone India Limited but holds an indirect equity interest in VIL through various holding companies, some of which have significant debt.

"The valuation of his stake in VIL will have to take this debt into consideration as well as the fact that the holdings are indirect unlike Piramal Enterprises Limited's direct interest in VIL," the statement said.

The decision of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) will now go to the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs for final approval.

Vodafone India is second largest telecom operator in the country with over 15.6 crore mobile subscribers. The company is bullish on Indian market. Vodafone Group has earmarked investment of USD three billion on its telecom networks in India over next two years.

Max India stock price

On December 31, 2013, Max India closed at Rs 215.20, up Rs 0.60, or 0.28 percent. The 52-week high of the share was Rs 264.90 and the 52-week low was Rs 150.50.

The company's trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 5.47 per share as per the quarter ended September 2013. The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 39.34. The latest book value of the company is Rs 115.98 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company is 1.86.

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