News makers:

British multinational bank, Standard Chartered Bank, today lost three of its top treasury executives. Leading the pack is Mr. Sharat Anand, country treasurer and deputy country head (India). He is joined by Mr. Janak Desai, head of trading and Mr. Sanjay Bhasin, chief dealer – foreign exchange.

The trio stated personal reasons for leaving the bank, though rumours say that the three are joining hands to set up their own dot com venture that is likely to be funded by leading venture capitalists. The venture is said to be involved in launching a large online funds management site.

30 March 2000

Vijay Mallya loses race for Rajya Sabha seat
Bangalore: Liquor baron, Vijay Mallya, who created a stir by filing his papers as an independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections, today lost the race to get into the upper house of the country's parliamentary system.

Mr. Mallya who polled a total of 35 votes fell short of the required margin for victory by 10 votes. Prior to the elections there were many attempts made by leading political parties to get Mr. Mallya withdraw from the fray.

Core team quits ICICI Web
Mumbai: The core team of ICICI Web Technologies, the wholly owned subsidiary of financial institution ICICI Limited, comprising of Jaideep Arora, chief operating officer, Mitesh Kumar, chief content provider and Deepak Ravindran, chief marketing officer, have quit the company.

While the stated reason is that these professionals are out to go on their own to form their dot com company, reports appearing in the Business Standard state that the denial of stock options in the company and the decision to merge ICICI Capital Services Limited with the web company, have prompted the trio to quit.