Prabhu’s voice

The domestic private equity and venture capital industry is truly on cloud nine. The reason is not far to seek. The erudite Commerce and Industry Minister, Suresh Prabhu, who sees himself as the guardian minister of the start-up community, is backing the private equity industry to the hilt.

Not only did Prabhu’s aashirvaad (blessings) fall on the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA) in addressing the concerns of the start-up community (albeit for future cases) over the vexed issue of ‘angel tax’, he also made it to the IVCA’s annual private equity conclave in the Capital this past week despite a “sore throat”.

While being all praise for the IVCA’s efforts in catalysing huge PE flows into India, Prabhu closed his talk with a punch line: “Though I may not be able to speak better now (due to sore throat), let me assure you that I will be your voice, if not today...but certainly in the future and let us, therefore, work together.” Excited over Prabhu's invigorating talk, a private equity industry representative in the audience murmured “don't be surprised if PE investments into India hit a new record this year.”.

The Reserve Bank of India, it now appears, is dead serious about taking action on banks for their patchy compliance with the central bank’s directions on time bound implementation and strengthening of SWIFT operations. At last count, the RBI had imposed a penalty of ₹71 crore on 36 public, private and foreign banks for non-compliance. Now here comes the twist in the tale. If banking industry insiders are to believed, none of the banks is recovering the penalty amount from the officials who are responsible and accountable for the non-compliance, as they are part of top management.

So the penalty, they argued, will have no deterrence effect. Finally, it is the government and, in turn, taxpayers themselves who will foot the bill in the case of public sector banks. For private sector banks and foreign banks, the shareholders are likely to pick up the tab.

Fighting among themselves seems to have done no good to brothers Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, both former promoters of Fortis Healthcare Ltd. During a recent briefing of Malaysian healthcare company IHH, which has now acquired Fortis, there was a talk among employees about how the brothers, stripped off their wealth bit by bit, were having a hard time sustaining their expensive lifestyles. After their ancestral home at Rajesh Pilot Marg was taken away by banks, the brothers have now put up their farmhouse in Rajokri on the Delhi-Gurugram border for rent.

The fisticuffs between an MP and an MLA of the BJP in Sant Kabir Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh, last week may have embarrassed theparty, but top echelons in the party are believed to be in two minds over taking disciplinary action against the erring leaders. The blows they dealt on each other over inscription of their names on the foundation stone of a public works project went viral no doubt. But considering that the general elections are just weeks away, taking action against them would affect the party’s electoral prospects in the State.

The tussle between the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the Delhi government over development projects is well known to all concerned. At a recent event, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Puri took a jibe at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over the frequent advertisements by the Delhi government about making the city the best in the country.

Puri said, “I am now revising it, we will ensure that Delhi becomes the best city in spite of Kejriwal. In each project he (Kejriwal) just creates hurdles”.