The Hub serves you on monthly basis with dedicated sections on continued professional learning and helps you to emerge as the “Agents for Change” in the boards. The featured stories across various sections cover regulatory updates, corporate actions and experience sharing by Independent Directors.

Setting orients you about the IICA’s capacity building initiative during the COVID-19 crisis by way of conducting a series of Webinars/Virtual Master classes etc. To take this initiative forward, Independent Director’s Dialogue Series on the topic “Building Corporate Governance Competencies in the Boardroom through Independent Directors” was conducted on September 10, 2020. The programme aimed to orient the Independent Directors (IDs) about the various skill sets they should possess to enhance the quality of functioning of corporate boards in India.

Vignettes showcase views and learning from experienced directors and/or reputed research institutions by referring to the outcomes of their research study/report. This edition of the newsletter presents the excerpts from a recent survey conducted by the Board Agenda (magazine), Mazars (a global firm on risk advisory), in association with INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre. The referred survey report is titled as “Leadership in Risk Management”.

Regulatory Worktop, shares the key updates about the Clarification on Extension of Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the financial year ended as at 31.03.2020 and Amendment in Companies (Acceptance of Deposit) Rules, 2014.

The coverage also includes the Amendment in Companies (Management and Administration) Rules, 2014, and Amendment in Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014. And, the last section orients about the SEBI’s further extension of the system driven disclosures introduced earlier.

Regulators Eye focus on the key updates relating to the Auditors of Tata Sons raising doubts over the ability of Air Asia India and Tata Steel Europe to continue as a going concern and SEBI’s higher free float recommendations and challenges for some companies. The coverage of focus spans across other updates relating to SEBI’s data sharing arrangement for insider trading investigations; RBI to study big frauds for absence of their early detection and the SEBI’s new Margin trading rule takes effect from September 1, 2020, by rejecting the brokers’ demand to postpone it .

Some other important updates as viewed by the section includes Increase in the resignation of Independent Directors because of the fear of Reputation and Legal Liabilities; Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) fraudulent transactions disclosed by forensic auditors; SEBI’s advisory for the board composition of directors at market infrastructure institutions and SEBI questions Franklin Templeton’s investment decisions. The penultimate section orients about the SEBI’s constitution of a technical group on social stock exchange and last coverage discusses about Board dispute in Mugugappa Group on membership issue.

Events Expo acquaints about various national and global upcoming events, programs, workshops, conferences, etc. for participation of the members. Present issue is showcasing the opportunities to participate in Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT); e-programme on “Fundamentals on Internet of Things (IOT) and Applications” on October 13-16, 2020, and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) online workshop on “Emotional Wellness” on October 14, 2020.

At the global front, we can participate in NACD’s webinar on “Boardroom Excellence Series” on October 22, 2020, and The IOD-New Zealand’s presentation on “Invercargill Director Dialogue: Don’t risk it all – cyber security for directors ” on October 29, 2020.