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Madhabi Puri Buch has on Monday been appointed as the chairperson for market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved Buch's appointment for an initial period of three years. Her tenure as a whole-time member of Sebi ended in October 2021.

Puri Buch will be the first woman to head the securities market regulator, which has evolved to become one of the most important institutions in the financial market ecosystem. She is also the first person from the private sector to head Sebi.

Current chairman Ajay Tyagi’s tenure as Sebi chairman ends today. He served as chairman for five years. Puri Buch, who has been granted an initial term of three years, will assume charge on March 1.

Puri Buch has worked closely with Tyagi as she was the WTM between April 05, 2017 and October 04, 2021.

She has handled key portfolios such as surveillance, collective investment schemes and investment management.

An alumna of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, Buch has three decades of financial market experience. She joined ICICI Bank in 1989.

At the private lender, Buch worked in corporate finance, branding, treasury and loans, before moving to ICICI Securities. She headed the domestic investment bank before moving abroad, where she headed private equity firm Greater Pacific Capital. She later served as a consultant to the New Development Bank, set up by the BRICS bloc of nations.

Read Also| India skips resolution to call for UN General Assembly session on Ukraine

Article Source:- Business Standard

India abstained from a procedural vote taken in the UN Security Council to call for a rare special emergency session of the UN General Assembly on Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

The resolution was adopted with 11 votes in favour, paving the way for the General Assembly to meet on the crisis as soon as Monday. India, China and the UAE abstained, while Russia voted against the resolution.

The 15-nation Security Council met on Sunday afternoon to hold the vote on the emergency special session of the 193-member General Assembly on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This comes two days after the Russian veto blocked a UNSC resolution on its "aggression" against Ukraine.

The vote calling for the UNGA session was procedural so none of the five permanent members of the Security Council -- China, France, Russia, UK and the US -- could exercise their vetoes.

President of the 76th session of the General Assembly Abdulla Shahid, who was to attend the 49th regular session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, cancelled his trip "due to the ongoing situation in Ukraine and potential developments in the Security Council," for the vote.

He also met with Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya on Saturday after the veto on the draft resolution in the Security Council. Kyslytsya briefed Shahid "on the security situation in Kyiv and the potential action he would be seeking in the General Assembly."

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also cancelled his scheduled trip to Geneva for the Human Rights Council meeting "due to the aggravating situation in Ukraine."

On Friday too, India, China and the UAE abstained from the resolution, while 11 members of the Council voted in favour.

The UNSC resolution was expected to be blocked since Russia, a permanent member of the Council and President of the UN organ for the month of February, was certain to use its veto. Western nations said the resolution had sought to show Moscow's isolation on the global stage for its invasion and actions against Ukraine.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield had said after the failed UNSC vote that "we will be taking this matter to the General Assembly, where the Russian veto does not apply and the nations of the world will continue to hold Russia accountable."

While a UNSC resolution would have been legally binding, General Assembly resolutions are not. A vote in the 193-member UN body is symbolic of world opinion.

In the explanation of vote in the Security Council on Friday, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti had said India is "deeply disturbed" by the recent turn of developments in Ukraine and urges that all efforts be made for the immediate cessation of violence and hostilities.

Tirumurti also said India is "deeply concerned" about the welfare and security of the Indian community, including a large number of Indian students, in Ukraine.

"Dialogue is the only answer to settling differences and disputes, however daunting that may appear at this moment. It is a matter of regret that the path of diplomacy was given up. We must return to it. For all these reasons, India has chosen to abstain on this resolution," Tirumurti had said.

In March 2014, after Russia's annexation of Crimea, the General Assembly had adopted a resolution that underscored the "invalidity" of the referendum held in "autonomous Crimea".

By a recorded vote of 100 in favour to 11 against, with 58 abstentions, the Assembly had adopted a resolution titled 'Territorial Integrity of Ukraine', calling on States, international organisations and specialised agencies not to recognise any change in the status of Crimea or the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol, and to refrain from actions or dealings that might be interpreted as such. India had abstained from the resolution.

Under the resolution "Uniting for Peace", adopted by the General Assembly in November 1950, an emergency special session can be convened within 24 hours of such a meeting being requested.

The UNGA "resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members...," the resolution states.

"If not in session at the time, the General Assembly may meet in emergency special session within twenty-four hours of the request therefore. Such emergency special session shall be called if requested by the Security Council on the vote of any seven members, or by a majority of the Members of the United Nations," it says.

The UNGA resolution of 1950 also reaffirms the "importance of the exercise by the Security Council of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the duty of the permanent members to seek unanimity and to exercise restraint in the use of the veto.

Also Read|  Russia-Ukraine crisis further complicates matters for RBI, its MPC

It is clear that governments and central banks, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) included, across the world are looking for an opportune moment to exit from stimulus mode and drain out excess liquidity. In its February monetary policy, the RBI deferred the normalisation of policy rates because the weakness in India’s growth recovery continues and it is outweighed by the worryingly high ‘global inflation’.

A few weeks after the policy, global dynamics have changed with rising geopolitical uncertainties following the Russia-Ukraine conflict war, and the consequent sanctions imposed by the West. The ‘normalisation process’, which was difficult, could get worse, mainly because we are moving further into the conundrum of higher inflation and lower growth (at least globally). The MPC will have to delve on how the exogenous geopolitical risk will impact inflation and growth spillovers in the middle of a gradual exit from the accommodative monetary policy.

Firstly, the Economist points out that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is likely to isolate Russia’s economy. The immediate global implications will be in terms of higher inflation, lower growth, and disruptions in the financial markets via deeper sanctions. However, the good news is that the impact on India’s growth is likely to be limited as Russia is not India’s major trading partner with just 0.8 percent share in India’s export and 1.5 percent of its imports.

What’s worrying is the indirect spillovers of a broader growth slowdown. This is important in the context that the MPC has judged that India’s growth recovery is incomplete, and policy support remains inevitable. The IMF, in January, slashed the global growth forecast for 2022 and 2023 by 50 bps and 70 bps respectively due to Omicron-associated restrictions. If global growth weakness emerges and there is further downward revision, India’s buoyant recovery could take a set-back via the trade channel. Also, if supply bottlenecks emerge, the manufacturing and infrastructure sector could have notable repercussions. Given the MPC’s higher weightage to growth over inflation since March 2020, geopolitical risks could make the MPC remain ‘accommodative’ for a longer time.

On the other hand, near-term inflation will play spoilsport. The ‘oil monster’ has woken up from its slumber, boiling at about $100 per barrel, and is likely to remain range-bound in the immediate future. This increase in the crude barrel will seep into the retail inflation through direct channels such as increase in pump prices and the palpable impact via freight rate hikes, which companies would eventually pass on to the consumer.

This could push wholesale inflation higher for a couple of months, but high base-effect of the previous year is likely to temper the spikes. The headline retail inflation number may not come down to the MPC’s inflation forecast of 4.5 percent for 2022-23. The three-month ahead and one-year ahead inflation expectations, which dipped recently as per RBI’s survey forecasts, could see an immediate upward shift for the shorter time horizon.

Inflation in the next couple of months will be high owing to supply side disruptions. Thus, RBI Deputy Governor Michael Patra’s comments in the minutes are important. He points that inflation led by supply constraints cannot be stabilised by monetary policy instruments. Thus, one can infer that change in the ‘accommodative stance’ and raising policy rates could be further delayed.

The one area where the RBI will have a significant intervention will be in the external sector management. The current account deficit is likely to swell due to rising crude oil imports. In addition, with the expected normalisation of monetary policy and rate hikes by key advanced economies, foreign portfolio outflows could weigh on the balance of payments scenario. Ashima Goyal, emeritus professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research, is of the view that interest-sensitive foreign flows are still a small percentage of the Indian market, and, therefore, potential outflows are a miniscule portion of India’s forex reserves (pegged at around $630 billion). With rising imports and likely portfolio outflows as a reaction to geopolitical and monetary policy normalisations, balance of payments and currency management will be more critical than gradual normalisation.

The headwinds from the geopolitical risks coupled with the expected policy normalisation by advanced economies have pushed the RBI’s MPC in a tricky position where there are no easy answers. The added challenges of global growth slowdown spillovers led by global value chains bottlenecks will be an important determinant to look out for. Near-term inflation spikes if led by supply shortages/disruptions is unlikely to shift the policy stance to ‘neutral’ in the coming policy.

When one looks back and compares, it feels like the policy stimulus responses during an unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic were easy to manage. Exiting the stimulus in the thick of geopolitical risks has just made the equation a difficult one to crack.

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