PM to attend SEBI silver jubilee May 24

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the silver jubilee celebrations of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) here Friday, an official said here.

Singapore Deputy Prime Minister T. Shanmugaratnam, who also holds the finance portfolio, will be the guest of honour. He is scheduled to deliver the keynote address on 'Asian Capital Markets - Future Engine of the Global Economy' on the occasion.

Maharashtra Governor K. Sankaranarayanan, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, union IT & Law Minister Kapil Sibal and union Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot are also expected to be present on the occasion, the official said.

A commemorative postage stamp and a book on the history of the Indian securities market, "Banyan Tree to e-Trading" will be released on the occasion.

Established in 1988 to safeguard the interests of investors, the market regulator was vested with statutory powers through the SEBI Act, 1992, and in 1998, it was constituted as the regulator of the Indian capital markets.

Armed with quasi-executive, quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative powers, over the years, the SEBI has come to be both respected and feared by various market stake-holders.

It has been successful as a market regulator by pushing systemic reforms aggressively, making the markets electronic and paperless from July 2001.

SEBI has also been credited for taking quick and effective steps in the light of the global meltdown by liberalizing the takeover code to facilitate investments, acted during the Satyam fiasco and other major decisions.