Daily GK Potion – 29th October 2014

  1. RBI allowed all Urban Cooperative Banks to act as PAN service agent
    • Reserve Bank of India has allowed all Urban Cooperative Banks (USB) to act as PAN Service agent. Earlier, only financially sound and well managed UCBs were allowed to act as PAN service agent.
  2. SEBI notified new ESOP regulations
    • As new Employee Stock Option (ESO) guidelines, SEBI has allowed companies to have employee stock option programmes where they can buy their own company shares subject to certain conditions.
  3. Sunil Batra elected as new AUSPI President
    • Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI), the grouping for CDMA mobile players, has elected Sunil Batra from Tata Teleservices as its president.
  4. India’s ranking dropped to 142nd in ease of doing business
    • India has dropped down two places to stand at 142nd out of 189 countries ranked by the World Bank for ease of doing business.
    • Singapore stood first overall for the ninth year in succession, and is followed by New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, and South Korea.
  5. Japan’s SoftBank announced an investment of $627 million in Delhi-based Snapdeal.