Around 700 group A, B and C employees of India’s market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), are set to stage a protest at the regulator’s head office, SEBI Bhavan One, in Mumbai on Monday, NDTV Profit reported, citing unnamed sources. HT couldn’t independently verify the information.
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Why are the SEBI employees planning to stage a protest?
The reason for the protest is growing discontentment with the organisation’s leadership, which has been building up over the last two and a half years, according to the report.
The Sebi officials are said to be discontent with allowances provided by the regulator, which are currently not updated like those given to officers of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Sebi also has a new system for uploading Key Result Areas (KRAs), which are goals or targets that have to be set by the company or official for tracking progress. However, this also comes with threats of stopping allowances for not complying.
The market regulator has since, circulated a follow-up apology email to its employees, but agitation within the organisation has continued, according to the report, which added that mistrust within the organisation is a broader issue.
Why are global markets crashing meanwhile?
All of this also comes at a time when markets worldwide are crashing due to fears of a recession in the US.
In India, all the sectoral indices closed in the red after the trading session on Friday, with the exception of pharma and healthcare. The benchmark BSE Sensex closed at 80,981.95, which was a plunge of 885.60 points or 1.08%. The NSE Nifty meanwhile, closed at 24,717.70, which was a fall of 293.20 points or 1.17%.
In the US, the S&P 500 fell by 2.5% in the midday, almost reaching the lowest since 2022, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 2.4% or down 954 points at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, the Nasdaq composite plummeted 2.9%, and the Russell 2000 index plunged 4.2%, which was more than the rest of the market.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell by 5.8% to its lowest close since January and the Topix tumbled 6.1%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 2.1%, Australia’s ASX fell 2.5%, Germany’s Dax lost 2%, and France’s CAC 40 lost over 1%, hitting the lowest since last November.