It's getting impossible to keep Rana Talwar out of the headlines. Within days of announcing a hi-profile merger of his Centurion Bank with the Bank of Punjab, Talwar has announced that he's joining hands with a subsidiary of Singapore's Temasek to launch an India-focussed fund. Its proposed size? A whopping $3-5 billion (Rs 13,200-22,000 crore) in another five years. The proposal is now with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for approval, but this will be Talwar's-former Group CEO of Standard Chartered and son-in-law of DLF's K.P. Singh-second attempt at cracking the burgeoning asset managing market in India. The first attempt failed because the man Talwar's Sabre Capital had picked to lead the fund (Samir Arora) fell foul of SEBI (but was subsequently cleared on appeal). Apparently, retired bankers just don't go away. They keep coming back with ever bigger plans.

Back On Mint Street

Rakesh Mohan's second stint at the finance Ministry has proved to be just nine months long. Early this month, the Princeton-trained economist abruptly resigned as Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, and returned to the Reserve Bank of India as its Deputy Governor. What happened? Mohan couldn't be reached for comment, but the buzz in North Block is that he may have been unhappy at not getting the Finance Secretary's job, despite it being promised to him. Instead, Mohan was entrusted with more administrative work that the economist in him didn't quite relish. Delhi's loss, Mumbai's gain.

Meeting The Troops

First week of July, Unilever's CEO of two months, Patrick Cescau, came on a low-profile visit to India. The four-day trip, which included stopovers at the Mumbai headquarters and Bangalore, was meant for the benefit of Hindustan Lever's newly restructured team, now led by Harish Manwani. One doesn't know what Cescau, 57, said by way of pep talk to Manwani and his team, but he must have been reassured by signs of growth at HLL after two years of stagnancy. But Manwani still has to work on the bottom line, which dropped 15 per cent last quarter.

Found In Translation

In May 2004, when Gitanjali Kirloskar, wife of Toyota Kirloskar Vice Chairman Vikram Kirloskar, launched the Indo-Japan Initiative (IJI), an entity that she hoped would "connect minds" across the two cultures, it seemed one of those things that corporate wives do. This, despite the fact that the Kirloskar Group boasts successful joint ventures with Toyota. Since then, IJI has held seminars, in association with the likes of nasscom and FICCI, and countless events focussing on the softer side of the Indian culture targeted at the Japanese: workshops on how to wear the sari, for instance. Now, Kirloskar, who already heads FICCI's Indo-Japan cell has been asked by the Confederation of Indian Industry to oversee all Japan-oriented activities of the India Brand Equity Fund, an initiative aimed at improving India's branding in global markets. "It is suprising how little we know about each other," she says, referring to India and Japan. If the lady has her way, that will change.

Booster Shot

It's a testament to Indian Pharma's growing influence in the world markets. On June 22, Dilip Shah, Secretary General of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance and CEO of Vision Consulting, took over as Chairman of the Toronto-based International Generic Pharmaceutical Alliance (IGPA). It took India years of fighting to get a seat in the four-member IGPA in 2002, but since then the local drug manufacturers have been growing in influence. So what is Shah's agenda for his two-year term? "To continue to fight Big Pharma," he says, but adds that IGPA will also work closely with governments to ensure the "prevention of intellectual property abuse, longer market exclusivity" and a stronger generics body. With the Indian generics industry accounting for more than 12 per cent of global generics sales of $48 billion (Rs 2,11,200 crore), Indian Pharma must be hoping to make the most of Shah's stint at IGPA.

-Contributed by Kushan Mitra, Ashish Gupta and R. Sridharan