Mumbai, Feb. 22 -- More than two-thirds of India's top publicly- traded companies have separated the positions of chairman and managing director (MD), although the deadline to comply with the rules is more than 13 months away. That leaves just 156 of the BSE 500 companies to still untangle the role of chairman and MD as of 15 February, compared with 291 in July last year, according to Prime Database, a primary market research tracking firm. The idea behind the separation of the two positions is to bolster corporate governance. The separation of powers, according to some experts, increases the effectiveness of the board's oversight role. A third of the companies that have not complied with the rule so far are public sector enterprises or sta...