Business & Economy : October 26-27, 2009

October 26, 2009 : ING seperates Banking and Insurance Business.
ING group will move towards a complete separation of its banking and life insurance operations as part of its ongoing Back to Basics programme.This seperation will be achieved over the next four years by a divestment of all insurance operations, for the present it will have no impact on ING's operations in India including its life insurance and bank operations. - John Boers, chief financial officer, ING Life India

October 26, 2009 : Incentives for IT/BPO, realty - Uttar Pradesh Government
Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh has announced some sops for IT/BPO and Realty Sector. IT majors and BPOs setting up units in UP will get 100 per cent relaxation in stamp duty. Those setting up call centres can now get a land lot in UP on easier terms. IT and BPO industries can now complete construction on the land allotted to them in five years instead of three years. Lease rent on commercial land has also been decided to reduce by more than 60 per cent. Those getting a commercial plot through open bidding by March 31, 2010, will have to pay just one per cent lease rent instead of the earlier rate of 2.5 per cent.

October 26, 2009 Insecure WI-FI concerns of the Government
With terrorists using the open Wi-Fi networks for communicating, DoT and the Department of Information Technology are jointly working out measures to check this growing misuse. DoT has been working on the security of Wi-Fi services in association with DIT since last year. The issue came to light after terror mails were sent via unsecured Wi-Fi connections before serial blasts in Delhi and Ahmedabad.

To prevent the misuse of Wi-Fi connectivity by unauthorised users, the department of telecommunications has directed all telecom service providers to implement an online centralised authentication procedure for Internet subscribers. As per this notification of DOT, all Internet and broadband subscribers using Wi-fi connectivity would need to get themselves registered with the respective telecom service providers for completing the centralised authentication procedure within 60 days.
Wi-Fi enables user to access Internet without any physical connection and the network has a range of 120-300 feet.

October 27, 2009: The Global Gender Gap Index 2009 rankings: India is on Number 114.
India has been ranked 114th among 134 countries in terms of gender equality. This is WEF's latest ranking that assessed the distribution of resources and opportunities among males and females. Last year India was ranked at 115 points. Iceland topped the list. Pakistan is on 132th rank. India was on 98th place in 2006.

October 27, 2009: RBI created new category of NBFCs
Reserve Bank of India has created a new category of non-banking finance company which might possibly bring down the lending rate for the sector. The objective of tis move is to help infrastructure firms meet their huge demand for funds. As per the monetary review , NBFCs engaged in financing of infrastructure would henceforth be classified in a new category called infrastructure NBFCs.

This news category will help NBFCs raise more money from overseas markets, for which the government has raised the cap to $500 million from earlier $100 million under the approval route.

October 27, 2009: RBI second quarter review of monetary policy
The following are the memorable points of RBI's second quarter review of monetary policy. The policy was unveiled by RBI Governor D Subbarao on October 27, 2009.