Akhilesh Yadav hosts Iftar

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.

New Delhi, May 9: With 3,320 coronavirus cases and 95 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 cases rose to 59,662 on Saturday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total number of active cases in the country now stands at 39,834 while the number of cured/discharged/migrated stands at 17,847.

The country has reported 1,981 deaths so far, added the Ministry.

Maharashtra has the highest number of cases with 19, 063 followed by Gujarat with 7,402 cases and Delhi with 6,318 cases.

Meanwhile, the country continues to remain in a lockdown slated to end on May 17.

New Delhi, Feb 1: Activist Sharjeel Imam's mobile phone and laptop along with some anti-CAA posters have been seized from his house in Bihar's Jehanabad and rented flat in Vasant Kunj, police said on Friday.

Imam was arrested by the Delhi Police's Crime Branch from Jehanabad in a sedition case and he is being questioned by police for his alleged inflammatory speeches in Aligarh and at the Jamia Millia Islamia University here.

During investigation, a laptop and a desktop belonging to Imam were recovered from his rented flat at Vasant Kunj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rajesh Deo said.

His mobile phone was recovered from his house at his native place in Jehanabad's Kako area on the instance of his brother, he said.

Imam had prepared anti-CAA and anti-NRC pamphlets with "misleading and intimidating facts" and then distributed them in various mosques, the copy of which have been recovered, police said.

The shop from where he made photocopies of the pamphlets has also been identified, they added.

Imam was arrested on Tuesday. He was brought to Delhi on Wednesday and produced at the residence of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purushottam Pathak in the evening amid tight security after which police were granted his five-day custody.

The PhD scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for Historical Studies has been booked for sedition and other charges in several states after videos of his alleged inflammatory speeches, made during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), were circulated on the social media.

An FIR was registered against Imam by the Delhi Police on January 25 under IPC sections 124A (sedition) and 153A (promoting or attempting to promote disharmony or feelings of enmity on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever) among others.