Under a new chairman, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has quickly initiated action on an issue that was debated years ago by SEBI-appointed committees and also approved but never implemented. These are changes to Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement of stock exchanges that have now been notified by SEBI on 8 April 2008. The need for amendment is self-evident. For instance, when...

While the SEBI initiative on Clause 49 is welcome, SEBI must follow this up by swift implementation of the database on corporate disclosures which allows investors to access this information online whenever they need to research a potential investment decision. To do this, chairman CB Bhave will have to examine how and why SEBI bungled on the official database EDIFAR (Electronic Data...

Many account holders of ICICI Bank are agitated with its decision to double the minimum quarterly average balance from Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 and to encourage those customers who do not want to maintain this balance, to close their accounts within 60 days. With this, the Bank is signalling that it no longer wants to chase growth in terms of number of accounts and will focus on customer net-worth...