Rupee marks lowest level as investors flee

Mumbai, Mar 27: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday lowered the key repo rate by 75 basis points to 4.4 per cent in a bid to arrest the economic slowdown amid coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The reverse repo rate now stands at 4 per cent, down by 90 basis points, said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das adding this has been done to make it unattractive for banks to passively deposit funds with the central bank and instead lend it to the productive sectors.
The six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) met on March 24, 25 and 27 and voted 4:2 in favour of the repo rate reduction. The MPC also decided to continue with the accommodative stance as long as it is necessary to revive growth and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the economy while ensuring that inflation remains within the target.
"The need of the hour is to shield the economy from the pandemic," said Das. "We need to mitigate the impact of coronavirus, revive economic growth and provide financial stability."
Repo rate is the rate at which a country's central bank lends money to commercial banks, and the reverse repo rate is the rate at which it borrows from them.
The RBI Governor further said that the economic growth and inflation projection will be highly contingent depending on the duration, spread and intensity of the pandemic.
"Global economic activity has come to a near standstill as COVID-19 related lockdowns and social distancing are imposed across a widening swathe of affected countries. Expectations of a shallow recovery in 2020 from 2019's decade low in global growth have been dashed," said Das.
"The outlook is now heavily contingent upon the intensity, spread and duration of the pandemic. There is a rising probability that large parts of the global economy will slip into recession," he said.
However, the RBI has injected liquidity of Rs 2.8 lakh crore via various instruments equal to 1.4 per cent of GDP. "Along with today's measures, liquidity measures equal to 3.2 per cent of GDP. The RBI will take continuous measures to ensure liquidity in the system."
The RBI governor has said that all banking institutions can offer a three-month moratorium on all loans for a period of three months. The RBI has also allowed banks to restructure the working capital cycle for companies without worrying that these will have to be classified as a non-performing asset (NPA).
The three-month moratorium will permit banks to avoid a large onset of NPAs during the 21-day lockdown and keep their books healthy.
Das said banks and other financial institutions should do all they can to keep credit flowing to economic agents facing financial stress on account of the isolation that the virus has imposed.
"Market participants should work with regulators like the RBI and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to ensure the orderly functioning of markets in their role of price discovery and financial intermediation," he said.

Lucknow, Jan 12: The controversy over renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz's iconic poem 'Hum dekhenge' may have caused an upheaval in the literary world but it has also helped in resurrecting the famous poet for the young generations.

Students and young professionals are making a beeline for books on Faiz, his biography and his poems and book sellers are ordering supplies of Faiz books.

"Earlier, we sold hardly one book in a month or on Faiz but after the controversy, people are curious to know more about the poet and his poems. We have placed orders for the entire literary range on Faiz Ahmad Faiz," said a leading book seller in Hazratganj in Lucknow.

The bookseller said that the highest demand was for books written in Devnagri script.

"Not many in the young generation can read or write Urdu so they prefer Devnagri," the book seller said.

In Kanpur, most of the leading bookshops have already run out of stocks and book stalls in the ongoing Handloom Expo are drawing huge crowds for Faiz books.

Suchita Srivastava, B.Ed student in Kanpur said, "I have never been fond of Urdu poetry because I do not understand much of the language but after the controversy, I want to read poems of Faiz to understand what he wanted to say. I am taking help of Google to understand difficult words in Urdu."

Krishna Rao, another student at the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, said that since books on Faiz had been sold out, he had ordered a Kindle edition and was reading them.

"Reading his poems actually widens one's perspective of things and becomes even more precious if you take into account the time and context in which they were written," he said.

Mumbai, Mar 28: Doctors in Mumbai have not been spared by the novel coronavirus. As Mumbai’s count for Covid-19 cases went up to 58, an octogenarian doctor from Saifee Hospital passed away on Friday. He was a suspected case of coronavirus with co-morbid conditions like diabetes and had a pacemaker implanted, said a press release from the state health department.

As per a statement from Saifee Hospital, he underwent a CT scan at Saifee Hospital and was diagnosed positive for Covid-19. The surgeon was transferred to the special isolation facility at PD Hinduja Hospital where he subsequently died. Behranwala’s close relatives had come down from England and were under quarantine.

In a statement, Saifee Hospital, where Behranwala underwent CT scan, said, "All containment and surveillance measures have been implemented to ensure the safety of our staff patients and visitors. Saifee Hospital reiterates that the Hospital is fully operational," said Dr Vernon Desa, Director (Medical governance and clinical compliance) Saifee Hospital.

In the second case, an Andheri-based doctor, aged 53, has been tested positive along with his 43-year-old wife and 20-year-old daughter. The family doesn’t have a travel history. The doctor reportedly came in contact with the virus through a patient. MCGM has taken samples of 60 patients who came in contact with the doctor. "As of now, no patient from his contact has tested positive," Assistant Commissioner, Vishwas Mote.

Another doctor who practiced at Vakola tested positive after he came in contact with a person having travel history to Italy, later tested positive. The doctor has been admitted at Raheja hospital and samples of his close contact have been taken.