Housing.com CEO Gives Away All His Shares To Employees: Your Top India Headlines

Startup bad boy Rahul Yadav is in the news again. After public run-ins with venture capitalists and his own board, the Housing.com CEO has now pledged all his shares – about 4.5 percent valued at about $25-30 million -- to the employees of his start-up. For the 2,000-plus employees, this works out to about a year’s pay. He does continue as CEO, apparently. Last week, the impetuous 26-year old dramatically resigned in a scathing email to the board, only to as dramatically withdraw his resignation – a move he said was the easiest way to get some investors to bend to his will. And of course, there was Yadav’s spat with Sequoia MD Shailendra Singh, which was the start of his stint in the public eye. Housing’s board is yet to approve this grand move, which has shocked investors and colleagues. What can I say, Rahul, you do make my morning posts interesting!

Modi’s government takes baby steps as the Budget session of the Parliament ends. Even as it was forced to back down on some of its more ambitious proposals like the goods and services tax bill or the land acquisition bill, it has still managed to get some smaller proposals passed which should keep the markets happy until the next session. Key among these are the black money bill, which seeks to weed out money laundering activities, stake sales in some big government companies which will bring some much needed money to the government and some easing of rules for road developers, which should bring in more investment in infrastructure, another crying need of the economy today.. The stock markets perked up, but it’s not clear if this was the trigger or whether it was simply bottom-fishing after last month’s rout.

 South India’s media baron Kalanithi Maran has faced a setback of sorts. The government has denied its application to renew licenses for 50 FM radio stations. While the reasons for the denial is a lot of officialese, it does indicate a lot of political hostility which doesn’t bode well for the Sun group, owned by Maran. The group has been deeply entrenched in the region’s politics as his uncle, M Karunanidhi is a political heavyweight and a former chief minister. Maran himself has been indicted in a money laundering case and was recently in the news when an airline owned by him ran into rough weather. This is the latest in the series of headaches for this industrialist.

 Some not so happy news for e-commerce. The Reserve Bank of India has suggested that state governments look into taxing online transactions between states as a means to boost their revenue. In a report on state finances, the central bank has asked state government to make the tax rules abundantly clear, referring to some ongoing tax disputes between states and the online marketplaces.

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