The third phase of the auctions of private FM radio in the country may get delayed as news of broadcaster Sun TV Group mulling taking regal recourse against the rejection of its application for FM-III auctions surfaced on Wednesday (15 July) morning. The stocks of Kalanithi Maran’s Sun TV Ltd tumbled by over 4 per cent on Wednesday as the news of an inter-ministerial panel having rejected the Sun Group's application to participate in the next-stage FM radio auctions, surfaced. The markets also anticipated similar fate of 33 channels from Sun TV Group that were denied security clearance by the Union Home Ministry earlier. The Sun TV shares closed on Wednesday at Rs 269.40, down Rs 11.80 from its last closing price of Rs 279.20.Sources said the option of approaching a higher court rests with the Sun TV Group once it officially hears from the government about rejection of its application for the FM radio auctions. “Approaching the court may entail a temporary stay on the FM-III auctions that have already been delayed by over three years since the Cabinet under UPA-II had approved it,” said a media analyst who tracks the radio and television space. According to government sources, the decision to go ahead with the FM auction without the Sun Group was made on Tuesday at the Application Review Meeting consisting of representatives of various ministries. The committee, comprising officials from finance and law ministries and departments of industrial policy and promotion and telecom approved 25 other participants who had applied for the auction.Sources said that the I&B minister Arun Jaitley had had multiple meetings with the Home Minister Rajnath Singh over the issue of security clearance.It should be recalled that the I&B ministry had written to the Home Ministry in March when the later had denied security clearance to the FM channels of the Sun Group. “I&B ministry will have to write a letter to the companies whose applications have been rejected. Its only after the letter is received that any company will take legal recourse,” said an official explaining the procedure going forward. Reports suggest the the I&B ministry had sought the opinion of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi when MHA had declined to give security clearance to Sun TV Channels. The AG is understood to have advised MHA for granting security clearance as its arguments were not tenable in a court of law. However, the MHA has not changed its stance since. The matter is expected to be settled in a court of law, experts said. ashish.sinha@businessworld.in
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Branding Tata Motors small car Nano as a cheapest car was a mistake and was one of the reasons for the model not taking off as expected, Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, said on Wednesday (15 July). He further clarified that people did not want to be associated with a cheap car. The former chairman of the Tata group said the small car was designed by people with an average age of 25-26 and was a success beyond expectations. The one-year delay because of the violent agitations against the company in West Bengal allowed competitors to spread wrong messages about the car, he added. Tata, who spent more than two decades at the helm of the iconic Tata group before hanging up his boots in 2012, has invested an undisclosed amount in Ampere, a Coimbatore-based electric vehicle start-up founded by a woman entrepreneur. Tata made the investment along with Ampere's existing investor, Forum Synergies. The start-up, founded by Hemalatha Annamalai, will use the funds to scale up operations and hire talent over two years. Ampere is the first automobile start-up investment for Tata, who conceived Nano, now one of the world's cheapest cars. Tata went on to add that e-commerce will change the face of merchandising and marketing in India. In the last one year, he has invested in a slew of consumer Internet companies such as Ola, Snapdeal, Paytm, and Xiaomi. Tata who is investing in start-ups said he was looking at those outfits that would help the common man. He also urged the entrepreneurs to be a long term player and build an institution than cashing out early. Some of the companies where Tata has invested in recent months include US-based high-altitude wind energy generator Altaeros Energies, e-commerce firm Snapdeal, online jewellery retailer BlueStone, online furniture retailer Urban Ladder, auto portal CarDekho.com and so on.
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Esther Lalsiamthari suggests graduates to consider the BPM industry as a lucrative option, as it invests in growing your knowledge and skillsrelevant in today's dynamic environment Combining competitive compensation and benefits, performance-based rewards, leading-edge work environment, and training and development into becoming world-class professionals - these are all important to today's fresh graduates, who need to develop skills and experience to become successful. Equal opportunity employers who welcome those without previous work experience such as fresh graduates, regardless of fields of study/course, give them the immediate opportunity to support global brands, and continuously invest opportunities for growth and development - are characteristics of global companies in the Business Process Management industry.Business Process Management (BPM) industry is a people business - relying on a talented workforce to provide superior service to clients and customers through various service channels such as phone, chat, email, back-office and others. Because of the extensive and continuous training as well as career development program invested into employees, fresh graduates can excel - and excel fast- irrespective of thecollege educational field/course they pursued.Convergys, a global leader in customer management with 125,000 employees operating in 31 countries, and the first US-based BPM company to operate in India,is one example. With global clients coming from various industries, such as telecommunications, financial services, technology, healthcare to name a few, combined with a variety of career roles offered by the company such as operations, training, quality, talent acquisition/recruiting, IT, human resources, and so many others, there are countless avenues to explore a myriad of career paths at any point in one's career, enabling long-term growth.What can be learn from a fresh graduate who succeeded in a BPM career?Esther Lalsiamthari, an agent supporting a financial services account, just graduated from college when she joined Convergys, Gurgaon. Esther completed her BA in English Honors from Shillong and joined the company two years ago, at a young age of 23 years. A desire to learn and grow motivated her to join Convergys and be part of the 3 million total India BPM industry workforce."Before I started employent, I heard lot of good things about the BPM sector and its attributes ofcareer growth, recognition and competitive compensation. The hands-on Communications and product/service training, as well as regular coachingI received when I joined Convergys all helped pavemy path for a rewarding and fruitful future. I am glad that through it, I have become a global professional. I never thought my first job will give more than I desired or yearned for, in such a short span of time. Within just a few months, I was promoted to Senior Customer Service Representative," Esther says.Also a top performing Agent among 13,000 employees in the India operations of the company, Esther dreams of eventually becoming a Trainer, and adds her advise to college students who are about to graduate and seek employment: "My suggestion to graduates is to consider the BPM industry as a lucrative option, as it invests in growing your knowledge and skillsrelevant in today's dynamic environment. You don't have to leave the organization to learn about a new industry or type of work. And because BPM continues to grow, there's more room to go up the ladder and countless paths to explore - it's not just a stepping stone, but a long-term career prospect."The author is working with Convergys, Gurgaon
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Aptech, an education company has tied up with Flipkart to provide skill-building programme to train the sellers in upgrading their proficiency.Manish Maheshwari, VP & Head – Seller Ecosystem, Flipkart said, "Our partnership with Aptech will empower our sellers with the required skills to expand their online business and cater to the demand for a wider set of customers.”Aptech will be providing this training in Delhi, Jaipur, Indore, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad among 25 other cities.Aptech plans to train sellers in areas such as the functioning of the market place, cataloguing, order management, promotion of products and providing quality service to customers. With this training, Flipkart is expected to bring on board over one lakh trained sellers by the end of this year.Pravir Arora, EVP and head of Enterprise Business of Aptech Ltd said, “With our customized training course for Flipkart, we aim to provide skilled sellers for Flipkart marketplace. Improvement in areas of customer servicing is one of the ways to ensure that the sellers thrive in the competitive pool of the e-commerce industry.”
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Rose Valley Group chairman Gautam Kundu has 700 acres spread across 12 states, 23 hotels, 150-odd cars, including a dozen imported luxury vehicles, 900 branch offices and 3,078 bank accounts, according to the Enforcement Directorate, reports the Economic Times. Kundu, who is currently in jail, has some 23-odd hotels across the country includes luxury properties in Jaipur, Jalpaiguri, East Midnapore, Siliguri and Kolkata. It has seven premium residencies at the northern fringes of Kolkata; a 6,000 square feet villa in Ranchi and a gold and diamond jewellery mall. On March 25, 2015, Kundu was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on the charge of money laundering. The lifestyle of Kundu, who owns a Rolls Royce Phantom, has been a talking point among the Tollywood film fraternity. His companies have produced at least 40 Bengali films and three of them won national awards. The group has been associated with some of the leading directors such as the late Rituparno Ghosh, Goutam Ghose and Kaushik Ganguly. According to media repots, both the Saradha Group and Rose Valley started collecting cash during the Left regime and had the blessings of some CPM leaders who are no more. When the Left was voted out, the owners of the two companies were quick to align themselves with Trinamul leaders. In the years Trinamul has been in power, Rose Valley expanded its business basket by becoming active in film production and media. The group was also the lead sponsor for the IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders for two years. Rose Valley was one of the 13 companies in Bengal that was being watched by the Union corporate affairs ministry after it received complaints that the firms were running cash-collection schemes. In December 2014, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that the estimated amount collected by the Rose Valley Group of companies was around Rs 15,000 crore. The meteoric rise of Gautam Kundu and Rose Valley, a relatively small firm operating out of Tripura with some business stake in Bengal, began when his elder brother's car fell into a lake, killing his entire family. Kajal Kundu, who established the company in 1997, and his wife and son were on their way to Guwahati from Agartala when the unexplained accident killed them in 2003, following which Gautam Kundu took over the firm, according to a report in The Telegraph. Gautam Kundu hardly looked back since then.
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Hyundai Motor India Ltd, the country's leading premium car manufacturer and the largest passenger car exporter has received an overwhelming response for the much awaited global SUV — Creta. Creta is expected to compete with products like Ford Ecosport, Renault's Duster and Nissan's Terrano and others.The SUV is due for a launch on July 21. Hyundai's closest competitor and market leader Maruti Suzuki is also launching the S Cross early next month. The vehicle, a crossover will be positioned as a SUV. Numbers of booking done for the S Cross was not immediately available. Prices of both the cars are not yet known. With Creta, Hyundai is entering the full-fledged volume segment of SUVs. As of now, Hyundai is present in the SUV segment in the premium category with Santa Fe and with sports-styled i20 Active. Rakesh Srivastava, Senior Vice President - Sales & Marketing, Hyundai Motor India said: "Creta has created immense excitement even before its launch with its bold and stylish looks. We are delighted to receive an overwhelming response with over 28,500 enquiries and 10,000 customers showing their interest to live the Creta life." The SUV segment has been growing in India since 2013 at an annual rate of 25 per cent but it has declined in the January-May period by about 6 per cent. Car sales in June grew 1.53 per cent from a year ago, the slowest in eight months, to 162,677 units, but the apex industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) said there is no need to sound the alarm as yet. Maruti Suzuki's compact sedan Dzire has emerged as the highest selling car in India in June pushing its sibling Alto behind, according to a report in the Economic Times. Hyundai, the second largest passenger vehicle manufacturer by volume, has held on to the fifth position with Grand i10 which sold 8,970 units in June this year, up from 7,901 same month last year. Maruti has decided to sell its cars through two separate marketing networks, for which it has also revamped its top management. The decision is prompted by the consumers choosing other brands over Maruti when buying bigger cars, as India's largest car maker has been traditionally associated with small cars since introducing Maruti 800 in 1983. Maruti needs to improve its market share in the premium car category to retain its dominance in the Indian market, where sales of sedans and SUVs have grown in step with prosperity and rising aspirations, reports Mint.
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Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday (15 July) it would recall about 625,000 hybrid cars globally to fix a software glitch that could, in limited cases, shut down the hybrid system while the car is being driven.Models affected are certain Prius v minivans, called Prius alpha and Prius+ in some markets, among other models, produced between May 2010 and November 2014, the automaker said.About 340,000 vehicles of the total are in Japan, 160,000 in Europe, and 120,000 in North America, it said, adding there had been no reports of crashes or injuries.(Reuters)
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The government has clarified that "service charge" collected by certain restaurants and hotels is not "service tax", which is levied at a rate of 5.6 per cent on the total bill. In a statement, the Finance Ministry said some hotels, restaurants and eateries, besides charging for the food and beverages, are also levying "service charges" in their bills which are retained by them. Some of the consumers have a misapprehension that these "service charges" are being collected by the restaurant on behalf of the government as tax, it added. "It is clarified that these 'service charges' collected by the restaurants/hotels/eateries are retained by the restaurants/hotels/eateries and are not 'service tax' imposed by the government," the Ministry said. In case of air-conditioned eateries and hotels, the service tax at the rate of 14 per cent is charged only on 40 per cent of the bill amount. The effective service tax rate in respect of services provided in relation to serving of food or beverage by a restaurant, eating joint or mess having the facility of air-conditioning or central air-heating in any part of the establishment is 5.6 per cent of the total amount charged. The government had increased the service tax rate to 14 per cent from 12.36 per cent (including education cess) from June 1.
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