Govt vs RBI | The 18 wise men tasked with supervision of the Mint Street

Agencies
November 11, 2018

Mumbai, Nov 11: As an unprecedented fight plays out between the RBI and the government, it is the central bank's 18 board members who are being keenly watched for their next course of action -- they are not only central bankers and government officials but also business leaders, economists and activists.

The RBI board is scheduled to meet next on November 19 amid an ongoing tussle with the government on multiple fronts.

Going by the public utterances of the RBI and government officials so far, the contentious issues are how to manage the huge surplus the RBI has accumulated, how should it deal with errant lenders and borrowers amid a persisting bad loan crisis and what could be the 'public interest' for the government to dictate directions so that it is not seen as an attack on the central bank's autonomy.

As per the RBI website, its central board currently has 18 members, though the provision is that it can go up to 21.

The members include Governor Urjit Patel and his four deputies as 'full-time official directors', while the rest 13 have been nominated by the government, including two Finance Ministry officials -- Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg and Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar.

There are also Swadeshi ideologue Swaminathan Gurumurthy and cooperative banker Satish Marathe, nominated by the government as "part-time non-official directors".

The entire board is appointed by the government under the RBI Act, which mandates the central board with "general superintendence and direction of the Reserve Bank's affairs".

The government can nominate 10 'non-official' directors from various fields and two government officials. The four non-official directors are one each from the four regional boards of the RBI.

Besides Patel, the four official directors are N S Vishwanathan and Viral Acharya, both of whom have gone public with their direct or indirect criticism of any attempt to undermine the RBI's autonomy, as also B P Kanungo and M K Jain.

Patel became Governor in September 2016 after serving as Deputy Governor since January 2013. Previously, he had served at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and was also on deputation from the IMF to the RBI during 1996-1997.

He was a Consultant to the Ministry of Finance from 1998 to 2001 and has a PhD in economics from Yale University, an M Phil from University of Oxford and a BSc from the University of London.

Acharya is a New York University Professor of Economics, while Kanungo and Vishwanathan are career central bankers. Jain was appointed as a Deputy Governor in June 2018 and previously headed IDBI Bank and Indian Bank, among other professional banking roles.

The business leaders on the RBI board include Tata group chief Natarajan Chandrasekaran, former Mahindra group veteran Bharat Narotam Doshi, Teamlease Services co-founder Manish Sabharwal and Sun Pharma chief Dilip Shanghvi.

The other members are Sudhir Mankad (retired IAS officer whose last assignment was as Gujarat government's Chief Secretary), Ashok Gulati (agricultural economist), Prasanna Mohanty (ex-IAS officer and economist), Sachin Chaturvedi of Delhi-based think-tank Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and Revathy Iyer (a former Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General).

In the past also, the RBI's board has had several business leaders such as Ratan Tata, Kumar Mangalam Birla, NR Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, G M Rao, Y C Deveshwar and K P Singh.

Recently, the tenure of board member Nachiket Mor, who had previously been an executive director at ICICI Bank, was cut short -- nearly a year after he was re-nominated by the government in August 2017 for a second term of four years.

The central board members in the past also included Kiran S Karnik, Y H Malegam, Ela Bhatt, V Rajeev Gowda, Suresh Tendulkar and Suresh Neotia.

The RBI was established on April 1, 1935 and the appointment and tenure of the board members are governed by Section 8 of the RBI Act.

It is Section 7, which has been in news lately, that provides that the "Central Government may from time to time give such directions to the Bank as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest".

"Subject to any such directions, the general superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the Bank shall be entrusted to a Central Board of Directors which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank," Section 7 further says.

It also provides that "save as otherwise provided in regulations made by the Central Board, the Governor and in his absence the Deputy Governor nominated by him in his behalf, shall also have powers of general superintendence and direction of the affairs and the business of the Bank, and may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank".

Though originally privately owned, since nationalisation in 1949, the Reserve Bank is fully owned by the Government of India.

The RBI is mandated "to regulate the issue of bank notes and keeping of reserves with a view to securing monetary stability in India and generally to operate the currency and credit system of the country to its advantage".

It is also required "to have a modern monetary policy framework to meet the challenge of an increasingly complex economy, to maintain price stability while keeping in mind the objective of growth.

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News Network
July 16,2020

Noida, Jul 16: A key aide of 1993 Mumbai blasts case convict Abu Salem who worked in his illegal property business in NCT of Delhi has been arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh police, officials said on Thursday.

Gajendra Singh, who was also close to gangster Khan Mubarak, was nabbed in Mumbai late Wednesday night by the Noida unit of the STF, they said.

"Gajendra Singh had taken Rs 1.80 crore from a Delhi-based businessman in 2014 in a property-related case. When he was pressured to return the money, Singh had Khan Mubarak's shooters open fire at the businessman in sector 18 of Noida," Additional Superintendent of Police, STF, Raj Kumar Mishra said.

The businessman was in his car when the attack took place, and he narrowly escaped, the officials said.

Mishra said Singh had paid the shooters Rs 10 lakh, and the agency has cracked the money trail of the transaction.

"Gajendra Singh also invested Abu Salem and Khan Mubarak's money into properties in Delhi-NCR," the officer added.

Singh was wanted in a couple of cases registered at a police station in Noida where he has been lodged now for further proceedings, the STF said. 

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News Network
March 9,2020

Kolkata, Mar 9: A diabetic man died in the isolation ward of a hospital in West Bengal's Murshidabad on Sunday, a day after he was admitted there with suspected symptoms of coronavirus following his return from Saudi Arabia.

According to doctors, he was admitted to the hospital with fever, cough and cold.

Though test results of his blood and swab samples for novel coronavirus were awaited, it can be said that he died probably of diabetes, Director of Health Services Ajay Chakraborty told PTI.

"The man was highly diabetic and was on insulin. He returned home from Saudi Arabia and had no money to take insulin for the last three to four days.

"He was also suffering from fever, cough and cold. He was admitted to the isolation ward of the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital yesterday and died today," the health services director said.

"We are waiting for the results of medical tests. The possibility of his death due to novel coronavirus infection is remote," he said.

However, precautions will be taken during the last rites of the victim according to the directives set by the central and state governments for patients who die of the virus, another senior official said.

"Family members will not be allowed to touch the body since the man had been suffering from cough and breathlessness. Those performing his last rites will be given protective gear, masks and gloves. Though test results are yet to be known, we do not want to take any chance," he said.

Meanwhile, the state health department has issued a directive to all private medical facilities to create a system for assessing all patients at admission allowing early recognition of possible COVID-19 infection and immediate isolation of patients with suspected novel coronavirus infection in an area separate from other patients.

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News Network
June 11,2020

New Delhi, Jun 11: Petrol and diesel prices on Thursday were hiked by 60 paise per litre each - the fifth straight daily increase in rates since oil PSUs ended an 82-day hiatus in rate revision.

Petrol price in Delhi was hiked to Rs 74 per litre from Rs 73.40 while diesel rates were increased to Rs 72.22 a litre from Rs 71.62, according to a price notification of state oil marketing companies.

Rates have been increased across the country and vary from state to state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or VAT.

This is the fifth daily increase in rates in a row since oil companies on Sunday restarted revising prices in line with costs, after ending an 82-day hiatus.

In five hikes, petrol price has gone up by Rs 2.74 per litre and diesel by Rs 2.83.

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