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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

File FIR on 'gas price collusion' by ministers, RIL: Kejri to cops Mukesh Ambani, Moily, Deora Among Those Named



New Delhi: In a sudden move that has jolted the political and business establishments, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government on Tuesday directed its anti-corruption branch to file an FIR against oil minister Veerappa Moily, former oil minister Murli Deora, Reliance Industries Ltd boss Mukesh Ambani and the former director-general hydrocarbons V K Sibal under the Prevention of Corruption Act for hatching a “conspiracy” to double gas prices in order to benefit, in the main, RIL. 
    In a brief press conference in the morning, the Delhi CM announced this while describing the details mentioned in a complaint received by the Delhi government as “shocking” and “an assault on India’s economic sovereignty which amounted to anti-national activity”. He demanded that the central government put price hike of gas in abeyance till the time the probe into the matter is completed. 
    “We have always said that price rise and inflation are linked to corruption and this 
is an example. In case this price increase is allowed to take place, it will make the life of the common man miserable,” Kejriwal said. 
    The Delhi government’s intervention in this matter, against which a PIL is still pend
ing in Supreme Court, raised eyebrows with experts questioning the local government’s jurisdiction. 
Kejri doesn’t know how it works: Moily 
    
Oil minister Veerappa Moily hit back at allegations made by CM Kejriwal, saying pricing of petroleum products was done as per expert advice. “I should sympathize with his ignorance. He should know how the government functions.”P 12 

Charges baseless, shocking: RIL 
    
Terming the move to register an FIR as “shocking”, RIL denied the charges and said it would pursue legal remedies. “The complaint and allegations are completely baseless and devoid of any merit or substance,” it said. P 13 
AAP trains guns on Modi-Adani links 
    
AAP leader Yogendra Yadav attacked Narendra Modi. “What is the exact relationship between Modi and the Adani Group? How has Adani become super rich in just 10 years? Why are BJP, Modi silent on gas pricing scam by Congress?”P 10 
Kejriwal: AAP has powers as ‘offence’ committed in Delhi 
    Kejriwal claimed as the “offence” had taken place in the jurisdiction of Delhi it was well within the Delhi government’s powers to proceed against it. 
    The decision to order a probe, said Kejriwal, was taken after it received a complaint filed by former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian, former Navy chief R H Tahiliani, former expenditure secretary E A S Sarma and Supreme Court lawyer Kamini Jaiswal. 
    The complaint pointed out that gas prices would be doubled from April 1 due to the alleged “active collusion” between RIL and some central ministers. In case this price hike is allowed, it would have a cascading effect on transport, domestic gas and electricity prices, thus affecting the common man. 
    Kejriwal claimed the impact of the hike would cost the country a minimum of Rs 54,500 crore every year, and in addition to this, he said, the central government had allowed RIL to make a future windfall profit of Rs 1.2 lakh crore by gold-plating its project. 
    In a press release, the Delhi government said that since the term of the UPA government was ending in four months, it should have left the decision to the next government and “this hurry shows a malafide intention of helping” RIL. 
    It claimed that the decision to hike the gas price from the existing $4.2 (Rs 262.25) per mmbtu (one million British Thermal Unit) to $8.4 (Rs 524.20) per mmbtu would make gas prices in India among the highest in the world. It also claimed that there was no attempt to determine the 
cost of production independently and accurately. There was also no explanation as to why when the entire domestic production is to be consumed internally, prices are being fixed in US dollars. The fluctuation in dollar rate will only lead to a further increase in gas prices. 
    Charging the UPA government with collusion with RIL, the statement said the Centre took no action against RIL for its deliberate drop in production and ignored the CAG report and the then solicitor general’s opinion (in May 2012), and on the contrary, accepted RIL's demand for doubling gas prices from April 1 this year. 
    The AAP government said that even if the Centre’s argument that new prices would bring in more investment in exploration were to be accepted, there was no justification for raising gas prices from existing fields. “The central government (particularly petroleum ministry) has connived with RIL to help it in making a windfall profit at the cost of common man,” it said. Kejriwal claimed that the cost of production of gas was less than $2.34 per mmbtu. 
    “The fact that RIL had signed long term agreements with NTPC and RNRL for supplying gas at that rate for 17 years would show it was making profits at that price. RIL’s partner NIKO has a 25 year contract with the Bangladesh government to supply gas at the rate of $ 2.34/ mmbtu,” he said. 
    “A letter from RIL to the director general hydrocarbons giving its cost calculations shows the cost of production is less than $1 per mmbtu. Then why did it seek a hike in gas prices and why did the central government agree to it?” he asked.



Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Hyderabad-Born, Manipal-Educated Satya Nadella Named Microsoft CEO INDIA MAKES A POWER POINT

Faces Challenge Of Steering Tech Giant In New Era


Washington: Microsoft’s board on Tuesday named Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella as chief executive of the legendary tech giant that has given the world products which have become household names like Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook Express. The announcement elevates Nadella, an offspring of the Indian system, to one of the highest-profile corporate jobs globally. 
    Nadella, 46, will be only the third CEO of Microsoft after founder Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, the man he is succeeding. 
    The elevation of Nadella, a company insider for 22 years (he recently joked that he has also been married for 22 years), was expected once heavyweight outsiders like Ford’s Alan Mulally and Nokia’s Stephen 
Elop dropped out or were passed up. The names of Google’s Sundar Pichai and Motorola’s previous CEO Sanjay Jha also briefly made the rounds, serving to highlight the intensity of PIOs breaking the glass ceiling, something that began some two decades ago, but has become more pronounced now. 
    In picking Nadella, Microsoft directors selected both an insider and an engineer. It has often been noted that Microsoft was more successful under the leadership of Gates, a programmer and its first chief executive, than it was under Ballmer, who had a background in sales. 
    Nadella now finds himself heading an icon of American business that has struggled for position in big growth markets like mobile and In
ternet search. The company has correctly anticipated many of the biggest changes in technology—the rise of smartphones and tablet computers, to use two examples—but it has often fumbled the execution of products developed to capitalize on those changes. WITH INPUTS FROM NYT & AGENCIES Gates quits as MS chairman 
    Bill Gates is giving up his role as chairman of Microsoft to become technology advisor to CEO Satya Nadella, supporting him in shaping the future of the company. John Thompson, who was formerly the lead director, will be the new chairman. 

‘DEFINED BY FAMILY, CURIOSITY & HUNGER FOR KNOWLEDGE’ 

    Satya Nadella, 46, becomes world’s topranked CEO of Indian origin, well ahead of Pepsico’s Indra Nooyi (on all parameters) 
    The 22-year Microsoft insider was executive VP, heading the company’s $20bn cloud & enterprise group. He earlier worked in Windows, Office, Dynamics & Bing groups 
    His father, B N Yugandhar, a 1962-cadre IAS, was then PM P V Narasimha Rao’s special secy and later Planning Commission member 
    Studied at Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet. Played in the school cricket team 
    Did BE from Manipal Institute of Technology; MS in computer science and an MBA in the US 
    Wife Anupama is also an HPS alumnus and studied engineering in Manipal. Her father K R Venugopal was Yugandhar’s batchmate in IAS and served as secy to Narasimha Rao. He launched the 2/kg rice scheme in Andhra Pradesh under N T Rama Rao 
    Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992. The company, founded in April 1975, was once the most valuable in the world. It’s blockbuster products, MS-DOS, Windows and Office made it so powerful it faced antitrust action. But it has lost ground to Google and Apple. Still, it remains the world’s 4th largest company by market cap 
WHY MS CHOSE HIM 
    
Understands the crucial cloud computing segment and the importance of delivering more 
technology as a service. A hardcore techie, he fulfils requirement listed by Gates that the new leader must have “a lot of comfort in leading a highly technical organization.” 
    Played variety of roles, understands how the 132,000-people behemoth works. Collaborative, low-key, well-liked within MS and the industry. His lack of experience in the consumer space could be a weakness, but can be addressed by Gates’ move to become his technical advisor 
CHALLENGES 
    
Needs to stem erosion of PC-centric Windows and Office franchises, and challenge Apple and Google in mobile computing. More than 90% of PCs run Windows, but only 4% of smartphones do, and an even smaller slice of tablets
Nadella’s star rose in MS cloud computing division 
    It remains to be seen whether Nadella’s technical background, along with the closer involvement of Gates in product decisions, will give the company an edge it lacked during the Ballmer years. Microsoft said in a statement that Gates will “devote more time to the company, supporting Nadella in shaping technology and product direction.” 
    Relinquishing his role as chairman will allow Gates to spend over a third of his time with product groups at Microsoft, “substantially increasing my time at the company,” he said in a video made for the news of Nadella’s selection. Gates said Nadella 
asked him to make the change in his duties at Microsoft. 
    Nadella is a contrast to Ballmer in other ways. Most recently the executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise businesses, Na
della peppers his conversations and speeches with technical buzzwords that people outside the industry would most likely find impenetrable. 
    Nadella showed ambition early in his career. He received degrees in engineering and computer science, then earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business while working full time at Microsoft. He flew to Chicago from Seattle to attend classes on the weekend, according to Steven Kaplan, a professor at the school who taught Nadella in a course on entrepreneurial finance and private equity. 
    “He is take charge, smart, but in a likable way,” Kaplan said, adding that Nadella received an A in the course. 
    While many executives within Microsoft tend to be polarizing figures, Nadella appears to be well liked in much of the company. Still, those who know him well say he is not a pushover as a boss. 
    Nadella’s star at Microsoft rose considerably in the past several years as he took charge of the company’s cloud computing efforts, a business considered vital as more business customers choose to rent applications and other programs in far-off data centers rather than run software themselves. 
    For years, Microsoft did not pay enough attention to how the cloud was attracting the creativity of a new generation of developers. When he got control of the division that included 
Microsoft’s cloud initiatives, Nadella changed that. He began meeting with start-ups to hear more about what Microsoft needed to do to become more responsive to their needs. 
    “When you look at the most exciting things happening in tech, all the platform shifts happening and disruption — social, mobile, cloud — Microsoft has not even been part of the conversation until recently,” said Brad Silverberg, a Seattle-area investor and a former Microsoft executive. “With Satya’s leadership, Microsoft is doing interesting things in cloud.” 
    But Nadella has to grapple with a much broader set of challenges in markets in which he has little experience, like mobile devices. He inherits a deal 
to acquire Nokia’s mobile handset business, along with 33,000 employees, and a wide-ranging reorganization plan devised by Ballmer and still in progress. 
    In an interview in July, Nadella was 
supportive of the reorganization plan, which he predicted would allow Microsoft to adapt to changes in the market more quickly than in the past. “It’s not like our old structure didn’t allow us to do some of this,” he said. “The question is whether you can amplify.” 
    In his statement on Tuesday, Nadella said: “The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster and continue to transform. A big part of my job is to accelerate our ability to bring innovative products to our customers more quickly.” 
    Nadella was Microsoft’s secondhighest paid executive last year, earning $7.7 million in salary, bonus and stock grants. Only COO Kevin Turner made more. Microsoft has not yet announced his new package. 
    Nadella’s elevation makes him the highest-ranked executive of Indian origin in the corporate world, ahead of such familiar names as Pepsico’s Indra Nooyi and Mastercard’s Ajay Banga. Microsoft's Windows still runs roughly nine out of every 10 desktop and laptop computers in the world, and its Office and Exchange programs are corporate mainstays. The company generated $27 billion in operating profit in the year ended June 30, and holds $84 billion in cash, making it a corporate powerhouse despite the relative decline in its fortune in recent years. 
    Wi t h i n p u t s fro m N Y T & a g e n c i e s



I am 46. I’ve been married for 22 years and we have 3 kids. And like anyone else, a lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experiences. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me —SATYA NADELLA

 

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