Govt may merge four PSBs, it's an opportune time for job hunting, and more top news

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Another SBI-like mega bank merger is in the offing. Mint reports the government is weighing consolidating Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Central Bank of India in an attempt to check rising bad loans. The resulting entity – with combined assets of ?16.58 lakh crore – will be the second-largest bank in the country after State Bank of India. The four state-run banks have been reeling under pressure, with cumulative losses of ?21,646 crore in FY18. Together, India's 21 public sector banks reported ?62,000-crore losses in January-March 2018, the highest-ever quarterly loss.

Looking to switch jobs? This could be a good time. Citing headhunters, Economic Times reports that companies have stepped up hiring and loosened their purse strings â€“ they are willing to dole out up to 50% hikes for middle managers and 20-35% salary increases for junior employees. Kris Lakshmikanth of The Head Hunters India said sectors like automobile, capital goods, consumer durables and NBFCs were on a "hiring binge" while Ratna Gupta of ABC Consultants felt IT services and product startups were gathering pace. Naukri's JobSpeak Index, which tracks monthly hiring activity, rose 21% in April.

Suzuki has manufactured 20 million vehicles in India, faster than in any other country. The carmaker – which operates in India through subsidiaries Maruti Suzuki and Suzuki Motor Gujarat – achieved the landmark in just 35 years and five months compared to over 45 years in Japan. Maruti Suzuki, which accounts for one in two cars sold in the country and boasts the five top-selling models (Alto, Dzire, Baleno, Swift and WagonR), is looking to expand production capacity by 2.5 million cars a year.

Four Indigo planes reported engine problems in the last one week, PTI reports quoting unidentified sources. The affected aircraft belong to the Airbus 320neo family and are powered by a certain series of Pratt & Whitney engines. An Indigo spokesperson said three of the four instances were due to "standard issues" in the day-to-day operations of a plane. In March, the aviation regulator had grounded 11 A320neos following instances of in-flight engine failure. Government data shows that carriers recorded 24,700 technical snags last year.

Microsoft (LinkedIn’s parent) has agreed to acquire code repository GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock. More than 28 million developers contribute to the platform, which was valued at roughly $2 billion in 2015. GitHub is used by a slew of tech giants, including Amazon, Apple and Google; Microsoft is already the platform’s most active organisation. The deal could strengthen Microsoft’s ties to the developer community, notes The Verge. Corporate Vice President Nat Friedman will take over as GitHub CEO.

Idea of the Day: It’s tempting to spend a lot of time considering a new idea. But sometimes the only way to really know if something is going to work is to try it, says Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani.

“A single experiment is far more valuable than a mass of information.”

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Abhigyan Chand  and Disha Sharma / Share this using #DailyRundown