Akhilesh Yadav's government bans VHP yatra; Ayodhya braces for a showdown

Mar 21: India’s economy, already in the grip of a slowdown, is in for more pain after Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to citizens to stay at and work from home to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

The services sector, which accounts for about 55% of India’s gross domestic product, is poised to be the worst hit after Modi, in a late evening address on Thursday, urged citizens to go on a self-imposed curfew for a day and private companies to allow employees to work from home for longer. In the country’s vast informal sector, social-distancing measures could mean a dent to productivity and consumption because of job or pay losses.

“The impact of a partial lock-down or social distancing will be significant,” said Rahul Bajoria, a senior economist at Barclays Plc in Mumbai. “If there’s a widespread community outbreak, GDP could fall as low as 3.5% in the year starting April 1.”

Shrinking output may limit growth in an economy that’s already set to expand at an 11-year low of 5% in the current year to March 31. Before the virus outbreak, India had forecast growth to recover to 6%-6.5% in the next fiscal year. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings have already slashed their growth forecast by 50 basis points.

“The current social-distancing measures will severely impact airlines, hotels, malls, multiplexes, restaurants and retailers,” according to analysts at Crisil Ltd., the local unit of S&P Global. “Lower footfalls and occupancies, decline in business volume and sub-optimal operating efficiencies will impact cash flows of companies in these sectors,” wrote the analysts led by Chief Economist Dharmakirti Joshi.

The government will try to announce a relief package for virus-affected sectors as early as possible, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Friday.

In a televised address, Modi advised all citizens to stay at home for a day on March 22, as he sought to stem the spread of the coronavirus -- cases of which are relatively low in India at about 200, compared with more than 200,000 infected people globally. His government also barred incoming flights for a week from that day, joining a growing list of countries effectively sealing their borders.

What Bloomberg’s Economists Say

We had only earlier this week lowered our GDP outlook to consider the direct impact of the local outbreak as confirmed virus cases exceeded 100 as of March 15 and the federal and state governments announced social distancing measures that have already started to crimp economic activity. We are now revising down our GDP estimate for 4Q fiscal 2020 to 3.3%, from our 3.5%.

-- Abhishek Gupta, India economist

For more, click here

“Consumption being the biggest component of GDP, a lock-down is bound to have a big impact on the economy,” said Devendra Kumar Pant, chief economist at India Ratings and Research, the local unit of Fitch. “Modeling uncertainty in any system will be very difficult, but one can say the slowdown could deepen or prolong further.”

Work From Home

While companies, including billionaire Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries Ltd., are asking employees to work from home, the option isn’t feasible in India’s vast informal sector.

“The option to work remotely simply won’t exist for most,” said Shilan Shah, an economist with Capital Economics Pte. in Singapore.

As many households don’t have savings buffers, the government would probably have to back this up with large-scale cash handouts that reach the poorest, he said.

Work from home is posing implementation challenges for the manufacturing sector where workers are required to be physically present at the production sites. The services sector, such as banking and information technology, also needs employees to be present in offices as confidential data is used, according to industry group Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

New Delhi, Mar 6: After Yes Bank was placed under moratorium, digital payments were impacted as PhonePe, which depends on the cash-strapped lender for its transactions, could not operate.

It can be noted that the bank's own net banking facilities have not been operational since last evening. Other fintech operators who rely on Yes Bank to settle their transactions are also down.  “We sincerely regret the long outage. Our partner bank (Yes Bank) was placed under moratorium by RBI. Entire team's been working all night to get services back up asap (as soon as possible),” the app's chief executive Sameer Nigam tweeted early in the morning.

PhonePe, one of the country's largest digital payment platforms, is dependent on Yes Bank to process its transactions.

He added that the app hopes to be live in a “few hours”.

Yes Bank placed under a moratorium Thursday evening, with the RBI capping deposit withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per account for a month and superseding its board.

Yes Bank will not be able to grant or renew any loan or advance, make any investment, incur any liability or agree to disburse any payment.

For the next month, Yes Bank will led by the RBI-appointed administrator Prashant Kumar, an ex-chief financial officer of SBI.

He added that the app - one of the most popular interfaces for UPI transactions - hopes to be live in a “few hours”.

Lucknow, Mar 5: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said last night that the role of teachers would come under the scanner when "anti-India" slogans are raised at universities and institutions of higher education.

"When anti-India slogans are raised at institutions of higher education, we should be prepared to ask why this type of distortion occurrs among our students?" he said at a programme organised by the Basic Shiksha Parishad in Lucknow.

"We begin our work with pledge for the country's unity and integrity and today slogans are raised for the division of the nation. In such a situation, questions are raised over the role of teachers who are considered equal to god in society," he said.

"Who all are involved in this sin and chaos? Governments can provide resources, but the one who has given them basic education, who has given them secondary education and who has led them to that place, all of them should evaluate their actions today," the chief minister said.

Speaking about the condition of education in the state when his government came to power three years ago, he said there was an atmosphere of chaos and anarchy in the state and the condition of basic education was very bad.

"The worst problem was that of proxy teachers. Our government started the process of prohibiting proxy teachers in the first phase," he said.

Adityanath said that a teacher is not just a government servant, but the fate of the nation. He said teachers should learn from Chanakya.

Had Chanakya confined himself to Nalanda University, he would not have been able to make India a superpower of the world during that period. Teachers will have to prepare themselves according to the challenges and need of society, he added.