ABN

ABN or abn may refer to:

ABN AMRO

ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is a Dutch state-owned bank with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was re-established, in its current form in 2009, following the acquisition and break-up of the original ABN AMRO by a banking consortium consisting of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander Group and Fortis. Following the collapse of Fortis, who acquired the Dutch business, it was nationalized by the Dutch government along with Fortis Bank Nederland.

The bank is a product of a long history of mergers and acquisitions that date to 1765. In 1991, Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and AMRO Bank (itself the result of a merger of the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank in the 1960s) agreed to merge to create the original ABN AMRO. By 2007, ABN AMRO was the second-largest bank in the Netherlands and the eighth-largest in Europe by assets. At that time the magazine The Banker and Fortune Global 500 placed it 15th in the list of world’s biggest banks and it had operations in 63 countries, with over 110,000 employees.

The Ambassadors

The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review (NAR). This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of Chad Newsome, his widowed fiancée's supposedly wayward son; he is to bring the young man back to the family business, but he encounters unexpected complications. The third-person narrative is told exclusively from Strether's point of view.

Plot summary

Lambert Strether, a middle-aged, yet not broadly experienced, man from Woollett, Massachusetts, agrees to assume a mission for his wealthy fiancée: go to Paris and rescue her son, Chad Newsome, from the clutches of a presumably wicked woman. On his journey, Strether stops in England, and there meets Maria Gostrey, an American woman who has lived in Paris for years. Her cynical wit and worldly opinions start to rattle Strether's preconceived view of the situation.

Public sector

The public sector is the part of the economy concerned with providing various government services. The composition of the public sector varies by country, but in most countries the public sector includes such services as the military, police, infrastructure (public roads, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, etc.), public transit, public education, along with health care and those working for the government itself, such as elected officials. The public sector might provide services that a non-payer cannot be excluded from (such as street lighting), services which benefit all of society rather than just the individual who uses the service.

Businesses and organizations that are not part of the public sector are part of the private sector. The private sector is composed of the business sector, which is intended to earn a profit for the owners of the enterprise, and the voluntary sector, which includes charitable organizations.

Organization

Ram Madhav

Ram Madhav is an Indian politician, writer and journalist and the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a former member of the National Executive of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and has authored several books, the latest being Uneasy Neighbours: India and China after Fifty Years of the War.

Personal life

Madhav was born in Amalapuram in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh on August 22, 1964. Primarily a student of engineering, he did his Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Andhra Pradesh. He also has a post-graduate degree in Political Science from the University of Mysore, Karnataka.

Political career

Madhav's association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh goes back to his childhood days. He formally volunteered to be a full time worker for RSS in 1981. Since then he has been assigned to several key positions in the organization. He had served as the national spokesperson of the RSS from 2003-2014. Madhav was deputed to the BJP and appointed as one of its national general secretaries in 2014.