Mahashay Dharampal Gulati, the owner of the spices brand ‘MDH’ passed away on Thursday morning.
Reports suggest that his health deteriorated recently and he was undergoing treatment at a Delhi hospital.
On Thursday early morning, he suffered cardiac and passed away.
Born in 1923 in undivided India in Sialkot, now in Pakistan, Mahashay, also popularly known as ‘Dadaji’, had a very humble beginning.
Being a school dropout, he soon joined his father’s spices business at a very young age.
The flourishing family business suffered after partion and Mahashay had to move to India and live in refugee camp in Amritsar.
But soon the family business of spices was set in a store in Delhi’s Karol Bagh. From there started the journey of building a spices brand with the birth of MDH in 1959.
Ever since then the brand has now established itself as the most recognisable one in the species segment with a global presence in over 100 countries.
And the brand itself has been synonymous with Mahashay whose presence in TV commercials sporting a flowing white moustache and wearing red turban became an iconic image on Indian television.
His success was not without its share of rewards with reports suggesting that Dharampal Gulati navele the highest paid CEO in the FMCG space in 2017 drawing a mind boggling salary of over Rs 20 crore, much higher than the likes doyens of India Inc. that time.
According to MDH Masala, Mahashay used to donate 90 per cent of his salary to charity. A trust run by MDH runs several hospitals and schools in Delhi.
For his work, Mahashay was awarded the Padma Bhushan, third highest civilian award in India in 2019.
Dharampal Gulati took MDH to new heights with its masala packets selling in crores and becoming a household necessity. MDH now has a capacity of producing 30 tonnes of spices in a day. The baton now passes to the next generation to keep the flag flying.
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Leading aerospace and defence technology company Rolls-Royce and IT major Infosys on Wednesday announced their strategic partnership for aerospace engineering in India.
As part of the overall partnership, Rolls-Royce will transition a significant part of its engineering centre capabilities for Civil Aerospace in Bengaluru to Infosys.
“Leveraging its expertise in core engineering services, digital transformation capabilities, and Rolls-Royce product knowledge acquired through the partnership, Infosys will provide a full range of high-end engineering and R&D services integrated with advanced digital service to Rolls-Royce,” a joint statement from the two companies said.
According to the statement, over the past decade, Rolls-Royce has established a multidisciplinary engineering centre in Bengaluru, and this has been an integral part of Rolls-Royce Engineering and R&D services.
“The centre covers a mix of engineering capabilities spanning the full range of sub-functions and specialisms in R&D. Going forward, Rolls-Royce will continue these complex engineering activities in India in partnership with Infosys,” the statement said.
“The engineering centre for Civil Aerospace will strengthen Infosys’ existing capabilities in ‘Turbomachinery and Propulsion’ that are currently delivered through a network of engineering centres in Mysore, Baden, and Karlovac.”
The Finance Ministry has laid down the growth numbers in foreign institutional investment (FII), foreign portfolio investments (FPI) and corporate bond issuances to show a positive momentum in the Indian economy.
“The Indian growth story continues to expand as is demonstrated by the trends in FPI, FDI and Corporate Bond Market flows that indicate and underline the beliefs of investors in the strength and resilience of Indian economy,” an official statement said.
The last two months, October and November, have witnessed a significant resurgence in FPI inflows, driven primarily by equity inflows resulting in the highest ever FPI inflows for a month for India, it said.
As of November 28, FPI inflows stood at Rs 62,782 crore. Of this, equity inflows amounted to Rs 60,358 crore while FPI net investment in debt and hybrid was to the tune of Rs 2,424 crore, it said.
Regarding the equities segment, the inflows in November 2020 is the highest amount of money invested ever since FPI data has been made available by the National Securities Depository Ltd.
FPI flows are known to be less resilient and more sensitive to changing market conditions. Investments through the FPI route are therefore gauged through the metric of net inflow and outflow. In October and November 2020, FPIs primarily witnessed inflows into India.
Further, total FDI inflows into India during the second quarter of financial year 2020-21 (July 2020 to September 2020) have been $28,102 million, out of which FDI equity inflows were $23,441 million or Rs 174,793 crore.
This takes the FDI equity inflows during the financial year 2020-21 upto September 2020 to $30,004 million which is 15 per cent more than the corresponding period of 2019-20, said the Finance Ministry statement.
In rupee terms, the FDI equity inflows of Rs 2,24,613 crore are 23 per cent more than the last year.
In H1 FY21, the total corporate bond issuances amounted to Rs 4.43 lakh crore, 25 per cent higher than Rs 3.54 lakh crore in the same period last year.
The narrowing spread with G-Secs stands testimony to the improved risk perception of corporate bonds.
“Further, the cost of funds also moderated for both the government and the corporate, on the back of RBI’s monetary easing and liquidity infusion, thereby bringing down yields in the various segments of the debt markets,” said the statement.
“Considering that CPI inflation remains at an elevated level, the MPC is likely to continue with the pause in the rate. With real interest rates are already in the negative zone, the space for rate reduction is limited at present,” says Brickwork Ratings’ Chief Economic Advisor M. Govinda Rao said…reports Rohit Vaid
Faster-than-anticipated economic recovery during Q2FY21 along with healthy macro-economic data points will persuade the Reserve Bank of India to maintain the growth-boosting accommodative stance in the upcoming monetary policy review.
On the other hand, persistently high inflation will deter the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee to administer a dose of lending rate cut.
In a poll conducted by IANS, economists and industry experts cited elevated inflation level as a key determinant for a pause in policy easing.
A policy easing, if administered, would have theoretically allowed commercial banks to reduce their lending rates, thereby helping both consumers and the industry get cheaper finance.
Subsequently, the increased money flow in the hands of the consumers would have helped boost demand, and provided a higher flow of capital investment for the industry on the back of lower cost.
However, this would have also fanned retail inflation which was at an elevated level in the July-October period.
“Despite retail inflation breaching the 6 per cent target, the policy rate is expected to remain in a pause mode in the near term,” Sunil Kumar Sinha, Principal Economist, India Ratings & Research, told IANS.
Previously, the rise in retail inflation had led the RBI’s MPC to hold the interest rates in August and October.
The MPC has maintained the repo — or short-term lending — rate for commercial banks at 4 per cent.
“Considering that CPI inflation remains at an elevated level, the MPC is likely to continue with the pause in the rate. With real interest rates are already in the negative zone, the space for rate reduction is limited at present,” Brickwork Ratings’ Chief Economic Advisor M. Govinda Rao said.
“However, the accommodating stance is likely to continue,” Rao added.
Last month, official data showed that India’s October retail inflation stood at an elevated level.
Sequentially, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which gauges the retail price inflation, spiked in October to 7.61 per cent from 7.27 per cent in September.
Though non-comparable, India had recorded a retail price inflation of over 3 per cent in the corresponding period of previous year.
As per the data, retail inflation level has breached the upper limit of the medium-term CPI inflation target of 4 per cent. The target is set within a band of (+/-) 2 per cent.
“With inflation at an elevated 7.6 per cent in October, and a faster than expected narrowing in the pace of GDP contraction in Q2FY21, we see no space for a rate cut in this policy review, even though the accommodative stance would continue,” said Aditi Nayar, Principal Economist, ICRA.
Last week, official data showed that India’s GDP contracted 7.5 per cent in the July-September period, as the economy rebounded from a record slump of 23.9 per cent in the previous quarter due to the slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“However, the accommodative stance would persist to support the expected economic revival that continues to be threatened by the pandemic,” said Suman Chowdhury, Chief Analytical Officer, Acuite Ratings & Research.
Reserve Bank Of India
“We believe that balancing the monetary policy under such a challenging environment would prove to be difficult and will need the deployment of all available ‘firepower’ with the RBI,” Chowdhury added.
According to Madhavi Arora, Lead Economist, Emkay Global: “With inflation remaining way above the comfort zone of policymakers, the possibility of further conventional rate cuts is dimming. The market focus will now be on how the RBI manages the liquidity conundrums. Amid high inflation and persistent appreciation pressures on the Indian rupee.”
Notably, the RBI has been credited to have effectively managed the bond yields in the face of the challenges on the fiscal, inflationary and the currency front. Especially, given the fact that 10 year G-Sec yields have moved in a narrow band of 5.8-5.9 per cent during the last two-months.
The RBI’s MPC will release its resolution on the monetary policy on December 4.
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Maymol Rocky, head coach of Indian women’s football team, is excited as the team begins its preparation for the forthcoming AFC Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers.
Thirty women footballers have been called up for a national camp that will start from Tuesday in Goa. This is the first senior national women’s camp after coronavirus-induced lockdown.
“The girls have not played football for almost nine months. They are all excited to join the camp. We haven’t seen the women’s team playing for a long time. As of now joining the camp and running on the lush green pitch is what everyone is waiting for,” Maymol said while speaking to the-aiff.com.
“We have been in touch over online sessions and phone calls. But physical interactions always value more, at least in terms of guiding and coaching players. The girls have been following the diet regime and strength and conditioning routine since the start of this unprecedented scenario but the need of the hour is getting used to ball once again,” she added.
The head coach said the initial target of the team would be to get the coordination back.
Maymol Rocky
“Football is a team game and the purpose doesn’t get served until everyone is in sync. We’re looking forward to starting from scratch and get in the grooves quickly.”
In June this year, AFC granted India the right to host the Women’s Asian Cup in 2022.
Talking about the tournament, she said: “The AFC Women’s Asian Cup is the biggest tournament that India women’s senior national team will be playing in years. We competed in Olympic qualifiers but the AFC Women’s Asian Cup is a different ball game altogether.”
“We all are excited about that but there lies a huge responsibility in terms of delivering on the pitch. We’ve to be at the top of our preparations so that we can compete from the get-go. Although we still have a year or more, the preparation is a long-term process and competing with the likes of Asian’s superpowers will be a massive task,” Maymol added.
Lack of bowling options to back up the regular bowlers and inability to switch to the ODI format quickly enough has already plunged India to a series defeat against Australia with one match still left to be played.
India, trailing 0-2 after conceding record totals to Australia in both the ODIs at the Sydney Cricket Ground, have now lost five ODIs in a row. Prior to this they had lost three in New Zealand in February before Covid-19 pandemic halted international cricket.
The two losses in Sydney have, however, have revealed the massive difference between the Australians and Indians when it comes to adapting to the 50-over format from T20 cricket they have played over the last two months.
Skipper Virat Kohli said after the loss in the first ODI that the players hadn’t got out of the T20 mode yet.
“We have been playing T20 cricket. Probably that’s something that can have an effect. Body language wasn’t great after around 25 overs,” he had said. His obvious reference was to the fielding lapses his teammates made, dropping catches and leaking runs in the first game.
But another example of their inability to adapt came during Sunday’s game when team vice-captain KL Rahul, who made 76, failed to rotate the strike regularly. During his 66-ball stay, the wicketkeeper-batsman played 44 per cent of the deliveries as dots i.e. without scoring even a single run off them.
In the Indian Premier League, the focus had been on hitting fours and sixes, and on that count he excelled on Sunday, hitting 46 off nine deliveries with the help of four 4s and five 6s. But his remaining 30 runs took 57 balls and that was caused mainly because of the 29 dot deliveries he faced.
Though David Warner, who too played the full IPL season for SunRisers Hyderabad, also played out well over 45 per cent of his deliveries as dots but as against Rahul who had come in the middle-overs with a target in sight, the Australian had walked in as an opener and was responsible for providing a platform to other batters.
A better comparison would be with Steve Smith, who too batted in the middle overs for Australia but played only 23 per cent of his deliveries as dots in comparison to Rahul’s 44 per cent. He made a 64-ball 104 in the second ODI which Australia won by 51 runs.
India’s other problem had been their inability to take wickets early on, especially in the power-play as Australians managed to get off to a good start on both occasions.
Jasprit Bumrah, who was phenomenal in IPL 2020, conceded runs at 7.3 and 7.9 in the two matches. He also failed to get early wickets finishing with just one each in the two games.
India’s biggest concern, however, has been the lack of an all-round option that could act as back-up to regular bowlers. The visitors tried a semi-fit Hardik Pandya for four overs on Sunday and he did well but if they have to come back to win in Wednesday’s match, they may have to make him bowl more overs. Since he is not game-ready to bowl, it may be hard and risky for him.
Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who was India’s match-winning spinner in ODIs till recently, conceded 160 runs in 20 overs he has bowled, picking just one wicket. They may now have to turn to Kuldeep Yadav, who hasn’t played too many games in recent times.
Legendary Senegal midfielder Papa Bouba Diop has passed away at the age of 42.
Diop, who won 63 caps for Senegal, scored the goal which secured a historic 1-0 win over France in their opening FIFA World Cup match in 2002, a tournament where Senegal made it to the quarterfinals.
“FIFA is saddened to learn of the passing of Senegal legend Papa Bouba Diop. Once a World Cup hero, always a World Cup hero,” FIFA confirmed the news on Sunday evening on their official Twitter handle.
“Among Diop’s many accomplishments, he will always be remembered for scoring the opening goal of the 2002 World Cup. RIP, Papa Bouba Diop,” a tweet from FIFA read.
Senegal president Macky Sall also paid tribute on Twitter, saying: “The death of Pape Bouba Diop is a great loss for Senegal.”
“I pay tribute to a good footballer, respected by all for his courtesy and his talent, proudly reminding us of the Lions saga in 2002. I offer my heartfelt condolences to his family and to the football world,” he added.
The midfielder joined Fulham from Lens two years later and excelled as a powerful defensive midfield enforcer and was affectionately known as the ‘Wardrobe’ due to his stature.
“We are devastated to hear news reports this evening that Papa Bouba Diop has passed away, aged 42. Rest well, Wardrobe,” tweeted Fulham FC.
Current Senegal international Sadio Mane wrote on Instagram: “Pape Bouba, it was with a broken heart that we learned of your (death). Know that you will forever remain in our hearts even if you left without saying goodbye to us.”
