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The board of the capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will have a new look as two members exit after the end of their respective terms to make way for two incoming candidates. The Sebi chief, while also a full-time member of the board, reports to it. IIM Bangalore professor V Ravi Anshuman and bureaucrat Manoj Govil, who joined the board in 2019 and 2022, respectively, are exiting. The former's five-year tenure with the regulator has ended and the latter's role is being reassigned from corporate affairs secretary to expenditure secretary at the Centre. Anshuman and Govil - both part-time members at Sebi - were appointed by the government. While Govil will be replaced by Deepti Gaur Mukerjee, the new corporate affairs secretary, at Sebi, it is not known who would replace Anshuman at the regulator. The other two part-time members on Sebi board are Ajay Sheth, economic affairs secretary, and M Rajeshwar Rao, deputy RBI governor. The other five members on the Sebi board, including its incumbent chief Madhabi Puri Buch, are full-time members. The four full-time members are former SBI MD Ashwani Bhatia, banking and financial market veteran Ananth Narayan, Sebi lifer Amarjeet Singh and bureaucrat Kamlesh Varshney. Sebi didn't respond to ET's emailed query on board changes. The four full-time members have thrown their weight behind Buch, who is caught in the eye of a storm after American short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the Sebi chairperson and her husband Dhaval Buch of holding stakes in an obscure offshore fund that had been part of a complex structure used by Vinod Adani, brother of Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani. Hindenburg suggested a link between Buch and the Adani Group, and alleged that Sebi's inquiry into the conglomerate, sparked by its January 2023 report, was therefore compromised.Madhabi Puri Buch has denied Hindenburg's allegations. There has been no word from Sebi's part-time members on the Madhabi-Hindenburg issue. According to Sebi's code on conflict of interests for board members, the disclosures by the chairperson must be scrutinised by the board. Also, if the board determines there is a conflict of interest in a particular case, then the chair has to refrain from dealing with it. Sebi's board, said sources, will be holding its meeting soon - its first since Hindenburg's report on Buch's alleged investment and business exposures. At the meeting, sources said, Buch could clarify the Hindenburg allegations. Former bureaucrat and ex-Sebi board member Subhash Chandra Garg has described Buch's equity in Agora Advisory -a Mumbai-based company promoted by her and her spouse-and its continued business operations as a serious breach of conduct.

Most Federal Reserve officials agreed last month that they would likely cut their benchmark interest rate at their next meeting in September as long as inflation continued to cool.The minutes of the Fed's July 30-31 meeting, released Wednesday, said the "vast majority" of policymakers "observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting."At the July meeting, the policymakers kept their benchmark rate at 5.3%, a near-quarter-century high, where it's stood since July 2023.Wall Street traders had already considered it a certainty that the Fed will announce its first interest rate cut in four years when it meets in mid-September, according to futures prices. A lower Fed benchmark rate would lead eventually to lower rates for auto loans, mortgages and other forms of consumer borrowing and could also boost stock prices.The minutes of the Fed's meetings sometimes reveal key details behind the policymakers' thinking, especially about how their views on interest rates might be evolving. Further guidance on the Fed's next steps is expected when Chair Jerome Powell (in picture) gives a highly anticipated speech Friday morning at the annual symposium of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.Most analysts think Powell will signal in his speech that the Fed has become confident that inflation is headed back to its 2% target and might even give some hint about how many rate cuts could happen this year. When he held a news conference after last month's Fed meeting, Powell had suggested that a broad range of policy moves were possible, from "zero cuts to several cuts," by year's end.Two days after the Fed met late last month, the government released a jobs report for July that showed that hiring was far weaker than expected and that the unemployment rate rose for a fourth straight month, to a still-low 4.3%. The sluggish hiring data triggered a sharp two-day drop in the stock market, with traders suddenly fearing that a recession might be nearing. But last week, the government reported that sales at retail stores and restaurants rose at a healthy pace in July, evidence that consumers were still willing to spend and help power the economy.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accepts the Democratic nomination for vice president on Wednesday with 11 weeks to go before he and presidential running mate Kamala Harris face Republican former President Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. election. Walz, 60, a military veteran, former high school teacher and football coach, will talk about growing up on a farm in Nebraska, his family and freedoms that Democrats say are under attack from Trump, making his third run for the White House. Walz has brought a folksy charm to the campaign trail, describing himself and Harris as "joyful warriors" focused on a brighter future, in contrast to Republicans who they say are stoking fear and division. He will take the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago after former President Bill Clinton, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in forcing President Joe Biden to step aside a month ago, reversing Democratic Party fortunes. Biden was trailing Trump nationally and in battleground states before he ceded the party's top spot to Harris; polls now show her besting Trump in several of the handful of states that will decide the Nov. 5 presidential election. Walz and Harris got a ringing endorsement on Tuesday from former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama at the Chicago convention. "I love this guy," Obama said of Walz. "He knows who he is and what's important. You can tell those flannel shirts he wears don't come from some consultant. They come from his closet and they've been through some stuff." Walz's rapid rise to national fame has drawn Republican scrutiny and prompted the Harris campaign to issue statements about his 24-year military history and the method of fertility treatment he and his wife underwent to have children. Harris campaign officials are betting Walz's Midwestern roots and plain-spoken style will appeal to some of the white men in rural areas who voted for Trump by huge margins in the last two elections - and help deliver battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump will be campaigning with his running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, in another swing state, North Carolina, on Wednesday, where he will speak about national security. Republicans have sharply criticized the Democrats' economic plans. As governor, Walz made school meals free, set goals to cut greenhouse gases, expanded paid leave and protected collective bargaining and overtime, progressive policies that Republicans describe as dangerously liberal.