www.mahendraguru.com up with Microsoft as a cloud service partner, Eco/Banking/RBI a company statement said. As part of this tie-up, VBS will offer ECONOMY Office 365 to Indian businesses to give OCT 1 : Bengaluru-based start-up MoneyTap them enterprise-grade productivity and launched an app-based credit line as a collaboration services. facility for consumers to borrow money up OCT 7 : Tata Motors has struck a major deal with a to Rs.5 lakh or even as little as Rs.3,000 at South African car hire company to supply its low interest rates for flexible tenure. Bolt 1.2 Turbo hatchbacks for Tempest Car OCT 3 : Leading industrialist and serial investor Hire's rental fleet. Ratan Tata has invested in virtual fitness The newly introduced Bolt will be offered coaching platform, GOQii. at a competitive hire charge which will be It offers a fitness tracker band coupled with a one of the lowest in the country, including personal coach. 100 km free per day and standard insurance cover. The US-based company had earlier raised USD 13.4 million in a series a funding in OCT 7 : Domestic handset maker Intex has partnered November 2015. with mRUPEE, a Tata Teleservices subsidiary, to launch mobile wallet Intex OCT 4 : Fitch Ratings projected Indian economy MyWallet. to grow at a slower pace of 7.4 per cent in the current fiscal 2016-17 and touch 8 per The wallet will offer easy and quick cent growth only in 2018-19. The US-based integrated payment functionalities and rating agency projected Reserve Bank of conveniences within the device related to India (RBI) lowering interest rates by 0.25 recharge, money transfer, shopping, booking per cent before end of 2016, followed by train, movie, bus tickets and more in just one another rate cut in 2017. click. OCT 4 : The Anil Ambani-led Reliance group had OCT 10 : Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, the corporate tied up with Dassault Aviation to help the entity of Vizag Steel has roped in badminton French company spend up to $4.51 billion champion and Rio silver medallist P V that it must invest in India as part of a recent Sindhu as its brand ambassador. fighter jet deal it clinched. According to R Ramakrishnan, Director and Dassault agreed to invest 50 per cent in so- Co-founder Baseline Ventures, the deal will called offsets of the $8.7 billion deal it signed see Vizag Steel become the major partner of with India on September 23 to supply 36 of the athlete. its Rafale fighter jets. According to Reliance OCT 12 : Tata Communications and Skylab, a this offset contract is India's biggest ever. Singapore-based technology solutions OCT 5 : The IMF projected a robust 7.6 per cent provider, have announced a partnership to growth rate for India in 2016 and 2017, help more enterprises adopt the Internet of but asked the government to continue Things (IoT). reforming its tax system and eliminate Skylab provides advanced data harvesting, subsidies to provide more resources for processing and delivery solutions to its investments in infrastructure, education customers over a scalable platform called and healthcare. Data Logistics Cloud (DLC). India's GDP will continue to expand at the OCT 12 : Mahindra Group's South Korean arm fastest pace among major economies, with Ssangyong Motor Co is forming a joint growth forecast at 7.6 per cent in 2016/17. venture with China's Shaanxi Automobile OCT 5 : Vodafone Business Services (VBS), the Group to set up a manufacturing plant in the enterprise arm of Vodafone India, has tied world's largest automobile market. www.mahendraguru.com [2] www.mahendraguru.com OCT 12 : Toyota, the world’s top automaker, and OCT 19 : Share price of L&T Technology Services Suzuki, a Japanese rival that specializes in gained 1.6 percent intraday as it has received tiny vehicles, are tying up in a partnership. a new multiyear, multi-million dollar contract Both sides announced in a joint statement with a large global semi-conductor company. they will study areas they can work together in This strategic tie-up between the two companies developing technology for the environment, will enable the customer to strengthen its product safety and information networking. offering and capitalize on market opportunities OCT 14 : Wholesale inflation eased to 3.57 percent in with superior quality products. September as food articles, led by vegetables, OCT 21 : To promote ease of operations in terms of witnessed softening of prices. The wholesale registration and compliance reporting, markets price-based inflation, reflecting the annual watchdog SEBI introduced an online system rate of price rise, in August stood at 3.74 for investment advisers and research analysts. percent. Now, applicants seeking grant for registration OCT 15 : Russia's state-controlled oil giant Rosneft are required to submit only online application and its partners acquired India's second to SEBI. It has also given a user manual in the biggest private oil firm Essar Oil in an all- portal providing instructions for submitting cash deal valued at about $13 billion. the applications. Rosneft bought a 49 percent stake in Essar OCT 21 : IT services major HCL Technologies will Oil's refinery port and petrol pumps, while acquire Butler America Aerospace for Netherlands-based Trafigura Group Pte, one USD 85 million in cash, a move aimed at of the world's biggest commodity trading strengthening its position in the aerospace companies, and Russian investment fund and defence engineering services space. United Capital Partners split another 49 per The consideration for the proposed cent equity equally. transaction is USD 85 million to be paid in OCT 17 : India's current account deficit is likely to stay cash. below 1 per cent of GDP this year, largely OCT 22 : Multilateral lending agency World Bank due to a sharp fall in the trade deficit as and India signed a USD 650-million loan against last year. agreement for the Eastern Dedicated Freight India’s trade deficit in September 2016 stood Corridor (EDFC). at USD 8.33 billion when the trade gap was The project will benefit industries of Northern the highest in the last nine months. and Eastern India, which rely on railway OCT 17 : Tata Trusts and GE Healthcare announced a network for transportation of material inputs partnership to train 10,000 youth in various and exports that would accelerate creation of technical areas of healthcare over a three- jobs in the northern and eastern regions of year period. the country. The partnership will focus on bridging the Oct 24 : In a big change, the Tata Sons board replaced skills gap in healthcare technical or operating Cyrus Mistry as chairman. Ratan Tata will be staff. the interim chairman for four months. OCT 19 : Giving a big boost to Prime Minister The decision was taken at a Tata Sons board Narendra Modi's ambitious Make in India meeting. programme, Cochin Shipyard and Engineers Cyrus Mistry had replaced Ratan Tata on India have joined hands for design and December 29, 2012 construction of small scale LNG carriers. OCT 25 : Tata Power Renewable Energy Ltd (TPREL) Cochin Shipyard, a Miniratna central has signed Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) public sector enterprise under the Ministry with Solar Corp of India for a 100 MW solar of Shipping, and Engineers India Limited project at Anantapuram solar park in Andhra inked the MoU on October 16 in this Pradesh. regard. www.mahendraguru.com [3] www.mahendraguru.com BANK In large parts of Africa, it is likely that technology could fundamentally disrupt this OCT 1 : Private sector Kotak Mahindra Bank will pattern. acquire BSS Microfinance for Rs 139.2 crore to reach a wider customer base. OCT 13 : Union Cabinet approved a pact between Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) BSS Microfinance is a non-banking financial and BRICS-promoted New Development company, classified as an NBFC-MFI. Bank (NDB), along with other development OCT 1 : SBI announced the launch of a special financing financial institutions of member nations, scheme 'Hope Loans', under which customers with an aim to strengthen trade and economic can avail credit facility at lower rates. ties. Hope Loans comes with the added benefit The proposal will enhance trade and of reduced interest rates that SBI has just economic relations among the BRICS announced due to the reduction in the countries. The participating institutions from marginal cost of lending rate (MCLR). the BRICS nations will be benefitted by this OCT 3 : According to World Bank, India accounted MoU. for the largest number of people living below OCT 13 : Public sector bank Bank of Baroda, has international poverty line in 2013, with 30 signed a principal sponsorship contract per cent of its population under the $1.90-a- with badminton Olympians P V Sindhu and day poverty measure. K Srikanth. The three year deal with the India accounts for one in three of the poor two players was agreed in principle before population worldwide, the world body said in they represented and made India proud its inaugural edition of the report 'Poverty and on the International stage at the Rio 2016 Shared Prosperity', according to which extreme Olympics. poverty worldwide continued to fall despite RBI the global economy's "under-performance". OCT 1 : Reserve Bank increased the investment OCT 4 : According to World Bank's report India's limits for foreign portfolio investors in GDP growth will remain strong at 7.6 government securities by Rs100 billion to percent in 2016 and 7.7 percent in 2017. Rs2,100 billion and also upped the limits in According to the report, South Asia remains state government securities.