Jokes have to be made with a straight face to ensure effectiveness, they say. However, it can also land you in trouble if the issue is sensitive and the audience doesn’t get it. “We knew the rating upgrade was coming. So we timed the listing accordingly,” said a straight-faced Deepak Parekh, chairman, HDFC, during the listing ceremony of life insurance arm HDFC Standard Life, which bucked the trend of poor insurance listings. Many didn’t get the joke and started accusing the veteran banker on social media of taking advantage of price-sensitive information. Some even tagged Sebi asking the regulator to probe the issue.
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