Shortly after announcing the acquisition of ING Vysya bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank’s executive vice-chairman and managing director Uday Kotak said that the two Udays (referring to Uday Sareen, the CEO designate of ING Vysya who will now be joining Kotak’s board) in the company would be referred to as US and UK — a reference to their initials. He was trying to ease the anxieties of employees in the acquired bank. Said a wag: “But everyone knows UK is more powerful than US in this case.”

Paper chase

The paper industry is seeing State governments cutting down on the size of tenders for paper. Reason: the Centre has advised the government machinery to reduce wasteful expenditure.

Normally, tenders call for several thousands of tonnes, palms are greased, extra paper finds its way back into the market and pockets are lined. But now, the industry is actually feeling the pinch.

Biennale 2.0

The Kochi-Muziris Biennale has received handsome funding from the renowned artist Vivan Sundaram and his art-historian wife Gita Kapur. The KMB, which premiered in 2012 and made waves in the arts scene, is in its second edition.

It will open on December 12 at Fort Kochi, and over 108 days will showcase works by 94 artists from 30 countries. Vivan’s ‘Black Gold’ installation was a major exhibit at KMB-2012; he has made a ₹40 lakh donation so that the show will go on. The Biennale Foundation has launched a fund-raising drive.

A question of colour

With the change at the Centre, the colour of badges, backdrops and the campaign material of government schemes is also changing. For instance, at the quarterly review meetings of public sector banks chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, , bank officials wore badges printed on a saffron background. During the UPA regime, such things were usually printed on blue or brown. The website of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana is also awash with saffron.

No longer home alone

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has every reason to be aggrieved with the BJP. For nearly three decades, ever since she became an MP in 1984, Harish Chatterjee Street and its neighbourhood in South Kolkata was Mamata’s exclusive domain — even the CPI(M) could never set foot there. Then came the Lok Sabha elections this year and the BJP took a marginal lead over the Trinamool Congress in the Assembly segment. But the unkindest cut was when the BJP opened a party office on Harish Chatterjee Street, barely 100 metres from Mamata’s residence.

No judgement day for banks

PSBs are the favourite whipping boys when there is talk of non-performing assets. SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya put things in perspective when she said the main problem for banks was the judicial system.

She pointed out that SBI, on behalf of the consortium, is fighting 23 cases against Kingfisher Airlines (UB group), with a dedicated SBI general manager going after recoveries. Yet, despite a court direction, the banks have not been able to get a declaration of the defaulter’s personal assets so that they can proceed against him, the ‘king of good times’.

Lift off

A Cabinet minister recently held a four-hour meeting in his office during which the elevator on that floor was blocked to other staff, who had to trudge and up and down for almost half the working day. And why was the lift parked on this floor?

According to someone working in the building, it was done so that the minister didn’t have to wait for the lift when he came out of the meeting. Now, if that isn’t power play, what is?

Gag order

The CEO of a south India-based airline which has been in the news recently brought some cheer to employees by informing them on internal email that very soon the company would be back with more aircraft and more flights. But till that happened, they had to stop sharing information. Employees found the gag order amusing because there wasn’t much to say about the airline anyway.

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