Banking, Finance & Economy Current Affairs - 2022-23

Notes:
Munish Varma has recently resigned from the board of One97 Communications, the parent firm of Paytm, and became Managing Partner at SoftBank. He was a non-executive and non-independent director on the board of the company which owns the Paytm app. Recently SoftBank is holding 17.4% of the stake at Paytm.

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The Ordnance Factories’ Day is observed on the 18th of March every year. The production of India’s oldest Ordnance Factory, which is at Cossipore of Kolkata, was started on the 18th of March, 1802. OFB is the 37th largest defence equipment manufacturer in the world, 2nd largest in Asia, and the largest in India.

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HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Axis Bank have each purchased a 7.84 percent stake in ONDC, an open public digital infrastructure framework business.

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Uday Kotak has announced to step down as the Chairman of the board of the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), after his term ends on April 2, 2022. CS Rajan, Managing Director, IL&FS has been appointed as Chairman and Managing Director for six months with effect from April 3 by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

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ONGC to commercialize Vindhyan Basin in Madhya Pradesh for gas production, making it ONGC’s 8th basin and 9th producing basin in India.

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Amid rising per capita income, the debate around decadal poverty alleviation has caught pace. India is, however, trapped in a Middle-income trap. As per Economic Survey 2021, poverty in India stands at 21.9 % suggesting around 25 crore people are still below the poverty line. The poverty line is decided as per Rangarajan committee numbers, Rs 47 and Rs 32 per day for urban and rural person respectively.
World Bank data suggests that in the last decade India has been able to reduce the BPL number to 12.3%.

Notes:
ICICI Bank has made it to the Top 50 Banks in the Asia Pacific as per S&P Global Market Rankings. ICICI Bank, one of the four DSIBs, has garnered the 50th Spot in the S&P Global market Rankings, released on 21st April 2022. It has a total asset of 226 bn USD. The asset Position shows the credit potential of a Bank.

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Maharashtra became the first state in India to develop a website-based Migration Tracking System (MTS) application to track the movement of migrant workers through individual unique identity numbers. The MTS project aims to ensure the continuity of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) for migrant beneficiaries, such as children under the age of 18, lactating mothers, and pregnant women who are registered with Anganwadi centers.

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The ‘Enterprise India National Coir Conclave 2022’ was inaugurated at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, by Union Minister for MSME Shri Narayan Rane and Minister of State for MSME Shri Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma, as well as several State Ministers and top officials. The coir sector employs more than 7 lakh people in rural parts of coconut-growing states. Even more intriguing, 80 percent of these artists are women, although output has so far been limited to the country’s southern coconut-producing States/UTs.

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Indian Government has prohibited wheat exports, claiming a threat to food security, partially owing to the conflict in Ukraine and as a blistering heatwave reduced supply and pushed local prices to new highs. Despite not being one of the world’s top wheat exporters, India’s prohibition might drive global prices to new highs, putting a strain on impoverished customers in Asia and Africa. The prohibition would not last indefinitely and might be changed, authorities said during a press briefing.