Indian public sector banks had 'worst phase' under Manmohan, Rajan: Sitharaman

Agencies
October 16, 2019

New York, Oct 16: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the Indian public sector banks had the "worst phase" under the combination of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan.

Delivering a lecture at the prestigious Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in New York on Tuesday, Sitharaman said that giving all the public sector banks a “lifeline” is today her primary duty.

"I'm taking a minute to respond … I do respect Raghuram Rajan as a great scholar who chose to be in the central bank in India at a time when the Indian economy was all buoyant,” Sitharaman said during the lecture organised by the Deepak and Neera Raj Centre on Indian Economic Policies of the Columbia University.

Asked about Rajan's comments during a recent lecture at Brown University in which he had apparently mentioned that in its first term, the Narendra Modi government had not done better on the economy because the government was extremely centralised and the leadership does not appear to have a consistent articulated vision on how to achieve economic growth, the minister said instead there were major issues with bank loans during Rajan's tenure as the central bank head.

"It was in Rajan's time as governor of the Reserve Bank that loans were given just based on phone calls from crony leaders and public sector banks in India till today are depending on the government's equity infusion to get out of that mire," she said.

"Dr Singh was the Prime Minister and I'm sure Dr Rajan will agree that Dr Singh would have had a ‘consistent articulated vision' for India,” she said amid laughter from the audience.

"With due respect, I'm not making fun of anybody but I certainly want to put this forward for a comment which has come like this. I have no reason to doubt that Rajan feels for every word of what he is saying. And I'm here today, giving him his due respect, but also placing the fact before you that Indian public sector banks did not have a worst phase than when the combination of Singh and Rajan, as the Prime Minister and the governor of Reserve Bank, had. At that time, none of us knew about it,” she said.

Sitharaman said while she is grateful that Rajan did an asset quality review, but people should know what makes the banks ailing today.

"I am grateful that Rajan did an asset quality review but I'm sorry, can all of us put together also think of asking what ails our banks today. Where has it been inherited from,” she said.

The event was also attended by former Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya, professor and eminent economist Jagdish Bhagwati and India's Consul General in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty.

Sitharaman said: "While economists can take a view of what prevails today or prevailed years ago, but I will also want answers for the time when Rajan was in the Governor's post speaking about the Indian banks, for which today to give a lifeline is the primary duty of the finance minister of India. And the lifeline-kind of an emergency has not come overnight”.

Responding to the question, Sitharaman further pointed out that if there is a feeling that there's been a centralised leadership now, "I'd like to say that very democratised leadership led to a whole lot of corruption. Very democratised leadership. The Prime Minister, after all is the first among equals in any cabinet".

"You need to have a country as diverse as India with an effective leadership. A rather too democratic leadership, which probably will have the approval of quite a lot of liberals, I'm afraid, left behind such a nasty stink of corruption, which we are cleaning up even today," she said.

Comments

Haha....LOL

muslims are very very happy...god give them wisdom...Alhamdullilla

only you third rated people are in trouble....one day your child will spit on your face to choosing such a nalayak PM for futur india...

 

you will never come back from the business...you can sell your family to NAMO RSS orginazition..we all know what they do!!

 

so much poison in heart towards muslim will kill you one day like cancer...

 

look at all muslim country most are destroyed by america but still they live happly...

 

once muslim get world power we will treat all people equal and work for huminaty...

 

Dont take tension...LOL

 

 

 

 

Namo Again
 - 
Wednesday, 16 Oct 2019

Blaming other not a solution always. But still I support Modi ji. Mine business is in loss, but i am satisfied because muslims lost more .Because if I lost one eye, muslims will loss both eyes. 

Sandesh Shetty
 - 
Wednesday, 16 Oct 2019

Such a shameless fellow. 

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News Network
May 19,2020

New Delhi, May 19: The number of coronavirus cases crossed the one lakh mark in the country on Tuesday, while the death toll due to the infection touched 3,163, according to the Union Health Ministry.

A total of 134 deaths and 4,970 COVID-19 cases were reported in the country in the past 24 hours since 8 pm on Monday, it said.

The total number of coronavirus cases has risen to 1,01,139, the ministry said.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 58,802 while 39,173 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.

"Thus, around 38.73 per cent patients have recovered so far," a senior health ministry official said.

The total confirmed cases include foreigners.

Of the 134 deaths reported since Monday morning, 51 were in Maharashtra, 35 in Gujarat, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, eight in Delhi, seven in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, four in Madhya Pradesh, three in Tamil Nadu, two each in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and one each in Bihar and Telangana.

Of the 3,163 fatalities, Maharashtra tops tally with 1,249 deaths. Gujarat comes second with 694 deaths, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 252, West Bengal at 244, Delhi at 168, Rajasthan at 138, Uttar Pradesh at 118, Tamil Nadu at 81 and Andhra Pradesh at 50.

The death toll reached 37 each in Karnataka and Punjab and 35 in Telangana.

Jammu and Kashmir has reported 15 fatalities due to the disease, Haryana has 14 deaths while Bihar has registered nine and Kerala and Odisha each have reported four deaths.

Jharkhand, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh each have recorded three COVID-19 fatalities, while Assam has reported two deaths.

 Meghalaya, Uttarakhand and Puducherry have reported one fatality each, according to the data provided by the ministry.

According to the ministry's website, more than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities, the existence of multiple disorders in the same person.

According to the health ministry's data updated in the morning, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 35,058, followed by Tamil Nadu at 11,760, Gujarat at 11,745, Delhi at 10,054, Rajasthan at 5,507, Madhya Pradesh at 5,236 and Uttar Pradesh at 4,605.

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 2,825 in West Bengal, 2,474 in Andhra Pradesh and 1,980 in Punjab.

It has risen to 1,597 in Telangana, 1,391 in Bihar, 1,289 in Jammu and Kashmir, 1,246 in Karnataka and 928 in Haryana.

Odisha has reported 876 coronavirus infection cases so far, while Kerala has 630 cases. A total of 223 people have been infected with the virus in Jharkhand and 196 in Chandigarh.

Tripura has reported 167 cases, Assam has 107, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh have 93 cases each, Himachal Pradesh has 90 and Ladakh has registered 43 cases so far.

Goa has reported 38 COVID-19 cases, while the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 33 infections.

Puducherry has registered 18 cases, Meghalaya has 13 and Manipur has seven cases. Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Dadar and Nagar Haveli have reported a case each till how.

"814 cases are being reassigned to states," the ministry said on its website, adding "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR".

State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.

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News Network
February 19,2020

Washington, Feb 19: Sri Srinivasan, a prominent Indian-American judge, has created history by becoming the first person of South Asian descent to lead a powerful federal circuit court considered next only to the US Supreme Court.

Srinivasan, 52, became the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

An Obama appointee who has already been considered for a Supreme Court seat twice, donned the mantle of the chief judge of the DC federal court circuit on February 12.

Srinivasan succeeded Judge Merrick Garland, who has been a member of the DC Circuit since 1997 and Chief Judge since 2013. He will remain on the bench, a press release said.

Notably, Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court by the then president Barack Obama was blocked by Senate Republicans in 2016.

Srinivasan, was appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in May 2013.

He was the first ever Indian-American to be appointed to the second most powerful court of the US.

Neomi Rao, nominated by President Donald Trump, is the second Indian American on this powerful judiciary bench.

History being made on the DC Court of Appeals. Congratulations, Judge Srinivasan! Senator Mark Warner said.

Congratulations to Judge Sri Srinivasan on becoming the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit! A milestone for the Indian-American/Kansan community (and yet another piece of evidence my family can use that I'm underachieving), US Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai said.

According to The Washington Post, Srinivasan spoke recently about his path to the bench at an event celebrating women in the law, a field where men still dominate leadership positions.

"Everybody doubts their belonging and worthiness in some measure. I definitely did and still do. This is just going to be a part of the thing when you're looking out in the world in which everyone isn't like you. It's natural to doubt whether you belong and whether you're worthy, he said, "but you do belong and you are worthy.

Born in Chandigarh, and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, he received a B.A. from Stanford University, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Following graduation, he served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the US Solicitor General, and as a law clerk to US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

From 2011 until his appointment to the US Court of Appeals, Judge Srinivasan served as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States.

He has argued 25 cases before the US Supreme Court. He has also taught appellate advocacy at Harvard Law School as well as a seminar on civil rights statutes and the Supreme Court at Georgetown University Law Center.

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News Network
March 5,2020

New Delhi, Mar 5: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan assuring that the government has the coronavirus crisis under control, is like the Titanic captain telling passengers not to panic as his ship was unsinkable, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday.

Gandhi's remarks came after Vardhan's assurance in Parliament that the government is taking all necessary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) in India.

“The health minister saying that the Indian government has the coronavirus crisis under control, is like the Captain of the Titanic telling passengers not to panic as his ship was unsinkable,” Gandhi said in a tweet.

“It's time the government made public an action plan backed by solid resources to tackle this crisis,” he said.

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

Gandhi has been raising concerns over the coronavirus infection since long. In a February 12 tweet, he had said coronavirus is an extremely serious threat to “our people and our economy”.

“My sense is the government is not taking this threat seriously. Timely action is critical,” he had said.

Earlier this week, Gandhi had hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the detection of fresh coronavirus cases in the country, saying he should quit wasting India's time “playing the clown” with his social media accounts when India is facing an emergency.

With the message of “Here's how it's done”, Gandhi had also tweeted a video of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressing Singaporeans on how to deal with the coronavirus.

The number of coronavirus cases in India is 29, including 16 Italians, the government had said on Wednesday, adding all international passengers will now be screened at airports, amid growing concern over the spread of the respiratory infection.

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