Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi jointly inaugrated ‘Bharatiya Mahila Bank’ – India’s first state-owned all-woman bank, in Mumbai on November 19th, 2013.
The event also coincided with the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
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Ritz-Carlton, Bangalore is a 277-room, 5 star luxury hotel which will offer 7 food and beverage restaurant options, extensive meeting and flexible events space. Bangalore’s new hotel the Ritz-Carlton will also house the Ritz-Carlton Club, a private floor accessible only by elevator key. The opening is scheduled to open by this month end, October 31st.
Nitesh Estates Limited has built and will manage India’s first Ritz-Carlton on Bangalore’s, Residency Road – centrally located in the heart of the Central Business District. The 500,000 sq. ft. property stands on a 3-acre L-shaped plot.
Hugo Montanari, an experienced international hotelier, was appointed earlier on as Director of Operations of Ritz-Carlton, Bangalore.
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. LLC, of Chevy Chase, Md., currently operates 81 hotels in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Carribean. The Ritz-Carlton is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the U.S. headquartered Mariott International Inc.
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Nisha Desai Biswal was unanimously confirmed by the U.S.Senate, as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.
This makes Nisha Biswal the first South Asian American to hold that diplomatic position. She is the first Indian-American to hold a top diplomatic position in the bureau, which overseas US foreign policy and relations with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan.
She was earlier assistant administrator for Asia at the U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID).
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Spice Mobility launched the first 2 AndroidLand stores in India. The two exclusively branded AndroidLand retail experience stores are located in Koramangala, Bangalore and The Great India Place Mall in Noida.
These first-of-its kind multi-location stores will offer Android experiences created for its customers and will showcase a range of Android devices, services and accessories. A wide variety of interactive live demo units that customers can play with and experience the Android platforms are readily available in these dedicated AndroidLand stores.
Spice Mobility, a leading Mobile Technology Retailer in India has a chain of 650 plus stores across India. To these retail locations, two additional AndroidLand retail outlets have been added, the first of many more planned across India.
Tata Motors Limited launched its first factory fitted compressed natural gas (CNG) passenger car in Ahmedabad – the Nano ‘eMax’. Tuesday – October 08th, 2013.
The new bio-fuel product, can run on gasoline as well as CNG. It comes equipped with a 32-litre CNG tank and has a claim of 36km per Kg fuel efficiency.
This is the first of the 5 brands in the CNG eMax series to be rolled out by Tata Motors. Indigo and Indica are likely to be the subsequent ones in the plan.
Sunil B. Singhania has been elected to serve on the Board of Governors of CFA Institute for a term of 3 years making him the first from India.
Singhania is among the 18-member Board of Governors that represent 11 countries – Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, UK and the USA.
Sunil Singhania serves as the Chief Investment Officer (Equity Investments) of Reliance Capital Asset Management.
He graduated in Commerce from Bombay University. Then completed his Chartered Accountancy ICAI for Delhi. Subsequently his CFA. Additionally he completed a course for Derivatives conducted by the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Amongst other accompolishments, he also sat on the ‘Standards & Practice Council’ of the CFA Institute,USA for 6 years. Being the first and the only thus far based in India.
Sunil was the Founder of the Indian Association of Investment Professionals, the CFA India Society and was its President for a continuous period of 6 years.
CFA Institute : Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute is the global association of Investment Professionals. The Board of Governors is the Senior most body of CFA Institute, with ultimate responsibility for its strategy and management.
Parle Agro has revealed that it is re-entering the fizzy drinks market with ‘ Cafe Cuba ‘ – India’s first fizzy coffee – the beverage is a combination of roasted coffee beans and carbonated fizz. The product was unveiled on Tuesday, September 24th, 2013.
Exactly 2 decades ago in 1993, Parle Agro sold its carbonated beverages businesses with iconic brands Thums Up, Limca, Gold Spot and Citra to Coca-Cola Co.which included a non-compete agreement.
It currently sells Frooti and Appy soft drinks and is re-entering the market with a planned launch in early 2014 with India’s first fizzy coffee – Cafe Cuba which is not being branded as a soda. The company has 14 factories in India which will produce Cafe Cuba.
Parle Agro, the Mumbai headquartered company has a presence in about 44 countries worldwide. Apart from soft drinks the company also sells packaged drinking water ‘Bailey’, baked wheat snacks ‘Hippo’ brand and ‘Softease’ toffees.
NAMEXPO 2013 was India’s first Naval and Maritime Exposition & Conference, held at the Cochin Port (Kerala) between September 23rd to 27th, 2013. The Chief Guest of the occasion was Paul Anthony, Chairman & Managing Director of Cochin Port Trust.
NAMEXPO was well attended by Official Delegations of 15 Countries and participants were by 50 Domestic and International exhibitors. Participating countries included Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, Singapore, USA, UK, UAE and Vietnam.
There were demonstrations and visits to naval ships – INS Satpura, INS Kabra, INS Sudarshini. All these 3 ships are indigenously made by Indian shipyards.
This maiden Expo was well attended by visitors and delegates who wanted to interact and discuss business with Indian firms in defence and maritime sector.
The Expo was organised by CII and held in partnership with Government of Kerala and supported by the Indian Navy, Coast Guard, Ministries of MSME’s, Earth Sciences and Shipping of Government of India.
The United Kingdom launched the first UK-India Business Centre in presence of visiting UK Minister for Trade and Investment, Lord Stephen Green and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Thursday, September 19th, 2013. Lord Stephen Green was accompanied by a delegation of 11 British trade associations.
The objective of the UK India Business Centre is to facilitate the entry of British small and medium enterprises (SME’s) into India. The newly inaugrated 7,200 sq. feet centre at the Infinity Towers, Cyber Park, Gurgaon will be run by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) and BBG’s.
In all, six such centres are planned in different parts of the country to promote UK business into India.
The first edition of the ‘IBTM India’ (Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings Industry- IBTM) was held over the course of 3 days at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai. September 12 – 14th, 2013.
The IBTM-India event was organised by Reed Travel Exhibtions (RTE). The event featured a tabletop format ie. exhibitors met one-on-one with buyers during pre-arranged meetings.
On the sidelines a Conference was held with the keynote address by Dr.Devdutt Pattanaik, an Indian physician turned mythologist.
A networking seminar was sponsored by the Indian Chapter of the Society of Inventive Travel Executive (Site).
The project was co-ordinated by the IBTM- India Project Manager Shinu Pillai.