Partners column

Dear all,

The monsoon season has begun with extreme rainfall that triggered devastating floods and landslides in Uttarakhand. This has taken away thousands of innocent lives and washed away properties rendering people homeless and destitute. Paying tribute to the lost lives due to this calamity let us pray to Almighty to give strength and courage to the bereaved families and may the souls of deceased rest in eternal peace. We thank the Indian Air Force, the Army and paramilitary forces who have once again proved their commitment towards the nation by fearlessly rescuing thousands of helpless citizens by evacuating them from the flood hit areas.

Another worrying concern for entire nation is the constant depreciation in the rupee. It has breached the barrier of 60 a dollar in the month of June. This instability has adverse impact on industry, leading to high current account deficit and increase in fiscal deficit.

Big news doing the rounds was the resignation from BJP of Mr. L.K Advani, its major pillar, due to the elevation of Mr. Narendra Modi in the Party hierarchy and his projection as the Prime Minister post elections 2014. However Mr L.K.Advani at the insistence of RSS retracted his earlier statement and expressed his willingness to work along with Mr.Narendra Modi who emerged as the new face of the BJP Party and a new beginning for the BJP and national politics.
The Corporate world saw many changes. In terms of management issues, beginning of the month witnessed Infosys announce the return of their founder Mr. Narayan Murthy back in action as the executive director of the Company. Reputed people were nominated in AirAsia India board (Joint venture of Tata Sons Ltd), and namely, Ratan Tata as advisor, Fernandes, R Venkatraman, Bharat Vasani, Telestra Bhatia and S Ramadorai while Walmart India Chief ,Raj Jain, resigned and was temporarily replaced by Mr Ramnik Narsey.

Well coming to the Corporate acquisitions, Apollo Tyres, India’s largest tyre manufacturer by revenues, agreed to acquire Cooper Tyre & Rubber Company of the US in an all-cash transaction for about Rs 14,500 crore ($2.5 billion), a deal that will make the Indian tyre maker the world’s seventh largest. The acquisition, one of the biggest by an Indian firm in the automotive sector, opens up lots of areas for professionals like us. This shows the potential of Indian Market in the global scenario, which is attracting top notch companies from all over the world to India. Sale of redbus to Ibibo Group is recorded as the biggest overseas strategic acquisition of an Indian internet asset. The last big overseas acquisition was almost a decade ago, when Baazee.com was bought by the world’s largest marketplace Ebay in a $55 million deal.

Last but not the least the happiness and joy given to us by our cricket team by winning the Champions Trophy 2013 held in England by beating England in a thrilling encounter in the Finalsat Edgbaston in Birmingham on 23rd of June. Dhoni became the only captain in the history of world cricket to have won all the 3 major ICC tournaments

i.e Cricket World Cup 2011, T20 World Cup 2008 and now Champions trophy 2013.

Amidst all these, let us face the new month boldly with all zeal and as we are entering the 2nd quarter of 2013 – let us review where we are in reaching our goals for the year.

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply; Willing is not enough, we must do” – Johann Wolfgan von Goethe

“We are still masters of our fate; We are still captains of our soul” – Winston Churchill

Thanks
Bhavani Raj.