Anand Mahindra, Banmali Agrawala appointed to USIBC Board

1.    Anand Mahindra, Banmali Agrawala appointed to USIBC Board

i. Anand Mahindra, Ellen Lord and Banmali Agrawal were on Friday appointed as board members of the US India Business Council (USIBC).

ii. While Mahindra is chairman & managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra, Ellen Lord is president & CEO of Extron Systems and Banmali Agrawala is president & CEO, South Asia, General Electric.

iii. Anand Mahindra, Ellen Lord and Banmali Agrawala bring an excellent combination of both business and civic leadership experience to this position," said USIBC chairman and MasterCard President and CEO Ajay Banga.

iv. In 1991, Mahindra was appointed deputy Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra, India's leading producer of tractors and off-road vehicles.

v. Agrawala is the president & CEO for GE South Asia and is responsible for all of GE's operations in the region. A veteran in the energy domain, Banmali has over 29 years of global experience.

2.    Vietnam not to host 2019 Asian Games

i. Vietnam said on Friday it had decided against hosting the 2019 Asian Games for financial reasons, and was exploring procedures to withdraw from staging the region's largest sporting event.

ii. There was scant public jubilation when the communist country's capital was chosen in 2012 to host the showpiece competition and public sentiment has hardened against the move, with even tightly-controlled state-run newspapers criticising the move in recent weeks.

iii. Hanoi in November 2012 won the right to host the 2019 Asian Games, beating Indonesia's second city Surabaya after Dubai in the United Arab Emirates pulled out just before the vote.

3.    Sant Chatwal pleads guilty to US polls laws breach

i. Indian-American hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal on Thursday pleaded guilty at a court in New York to violating federal election laws by using straw donors to secretly funnel money to political campaigns and will pay a million dollars to the US as part of his plea agreement.

ii. Chatwal admitted that he used straw donors to secretly funnel money to political campaigns so that he could gain access to the politicians, and he coerced another person to hide his crime," said acting US Assistant Attorney General David O'Neil.

iii. Chatwal, 70, had raised at least $100,000 for former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama.

iv. "Chatwal's scheme sought to subvert the very purpose of the Election Act. Chatwal then rolled the dice to stymie the government's investigation, thinking he could corruptly convince witnesses to his federal election crimes to stay silent. That gamble did not pay off," said US Attorney Loretta Lynch.

v. The Washington Post said Chatwal faces a maximum of nearly six years in prison when he is sentenced on July 31. He is free on a $750,000 bond secured by property in Manhattan.