Newsroom, Sept 4: The Indian rupee on Wednesday further declined to a record low of 71.75 against the US dollar.
The rupee witnessed a drop of 44 paise yesterday and further 19 paise today.
Around 10.40am the Indian rupee traded at 71.75 to a dollar - the lowest ever mark - it has touched against the greenback.
Against the UAE dirham, the rupee was trading at 19.53 at 9:30am (UAE time).
New Delhi, Mar 6: As panicky depositors rushed to withdraw money from Yes Bank whose control was seized by the RBI in a dramatic late-night move, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday assured depositors that their money is safe and said the central bank was working for an early resolution of the crisis.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday evening capped withdrawals at Rs 50,000 for the next one month and imposed strict limits on operations at the country's fourth-largest private lender that faced "regular outflow of liquidity" after an effort to raise new capital failed.
"I am in continuous interaction with the RBI. The RBI is fully seized of the matter and has assured they will give a quick resolution," Sitharaman said here.
She said no depositor will lose his or her money and insisted that the immediate priority is to ensure Yes Bank customers are able to withdraw money within the stipulated cap.
"I want to assure every depositor that their money shall be safe. Their monies are safe," she said. "I am constantly in contact with the RBI and the steps that are taken are taken in the interest of depositors, banks and economy. We are fully seized of the development."
She was talking to reporters after meeting State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman Rajnish Kumar. On Thursday, the SBI board gave its "in-principle" approval to exploring investment opportunities in Yes Bank.
"So I repeat, the depositors can be assured that their money is safe," she said.
Soon after the RBI takeover, depositors thronged Yes Bank ATMs to withdraw money and police had to be deployed in some places to control the crowds.
Yes Bank has 1,000 branches across the country.
Refusing to elaborate on her meeting with the SBI chairman, the minister said that "was on a completely different matter".
"RBI governor has given me assurance that there will be an appropriate resolution soon. No depositor will lose (money)," she said. "Reserve Bank has taken cognizance of the problem."
The central bank, she said, has gone through the "process over and over again to find out an amicable solution".
"And that has been over the last couple of months. So it is not as if they have come in suddenly now. We have been monitoring the situation," she said adding the RBI has appointed an administrator who previously was with the SBI.
"Both the RBI and the government are looking at this with all the details before them, not just today. I have personally monitored the situation over the last couple of months with the RBI. Therefore we have taken a course which will be in everybody's interest," she added.
Yes Bank had been seeking new capital since last year to bolster its ratios and quell questions about its stability due to its exposure to the non-banking finance industry entangled in a prolonged crunch in the local credit market.
The SBI chairman said the resolution to the Yes Bank crisis will come "very shortly".
"This is not a sectoral problem. It is a bank-specific problem," he said. "The RBI will take all steps to ensure financial stability."
On SBI picking up a stake in Yes Bank, he said the lender already has an in-principle approval for doing so.
"If SBI has to pick up a stake in Yes Bank, we have an in-principle approval for that," he said.
Commenting on the crisis at Yes Bank, Alka Anbarasu, Vice President – Senior Credit Officer, Financial Institutions, Moody's Investors Service, said: "RBI's moratorium on Yes Bank is credit negative as it affects timely repayment of bank depositors and creditors."
"While Moody's expects Indian authorities will take steps to prevent the weakness in the bank's viability from significantly impacting its depositors and senior creditors, the lack of a coordinated and timely action highlights continued uncertainty around bank resolutions in India," she said.
Kozhikode, Aug 8: A tailwind or crosswind could be the reason for the Air India Express flight mishap at Kozhikode international airport in Kerala, according to some aviation experts.
Team of DGCA and AIE already reached the spot. With the death of the captain and co-pilot in the mishap, the investigation would be focusing mainly on the voice recorders and other technical aspects.
It is learnt that the ill-fated aircraft, IX 1344 with 190 onboard including crew, was initially planning to land on runway-28 of the airport. But later the pilot opted runway-10 which is toward the other direction. Pilots would be taking the decisions on the basis of inputs from ATC.
The questions now doing the rounds are what made the pilot opt runway-10 and whether the tabletop runway lacked adequate safety parameters.
An aviation expert, who didn't want to be quoted, said that Capt Deepak Sathe, who was commandeering the aircraft, was a well-experienced pilot and was also familiar with the terrains. Hence the chances of any error from his part was very unlikely. Hence a fair in-depth probe was required to find the exact cause.
Though the Kozhikode airport has an Instrument Landing System, it was of category-I for which pilot's visibility is very crucial toward a touchdown. Since it is a tabletop airport and rough weather prevailing in the region, the chances of tailwind was also high, said sources.
There had been safety concerns about the airport over quite some time. In 2011 aviation safety consultant captain Mohan Ranganathan reportedly gave a report citing the safety issues, especially the buffer zones at the end of the runway.
However, an AAI officer said that rectification steps were already done by last year by widening the Runway End Safety Area (RESA) from 90 metre to 240 metre. However, the length of the runway had to be reduced to 2,700 metre from 2,850. The AAI was also constantly pressing for increasing the runway length to 3,150 metres. But that was getting delayed due to land acquisition issues pending with the state government.
Jaipur, Jul 18: BJP leader Laxmikant Bhardwaj filed a complaint against Congress leaders including Randeep Surjewala and Govind Singh Dotasra for associating Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat's name with an alleged audio clip related to "conspiring to topple" the elected government led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan.
"Mahesh Joshi, Randeep Surjewala, and other accused have regularly been giving false and inflammatory statements against the BJP to criminally damage its reputation so that the blame for the current sorry state of affairs of the Congress can be pinned on the BJP. With the ill-intention of damaging the BJP''s reputation, a conspiracy was formed at the Chief Minister''s residence situated at 8 Civil lines," read the letter written by BJP Rajasthan spokesperson Bhardwaj to the Station Officer of Ashok Nagar police station read.
"From there (CM's residence) imitation of (voices) of people were falsely told to be of that of reputed leaders from the BJP and a fake phone conversation was created through which the false narrative of crores of rupees being offered to buy off Congress MLAs was created. The accused involved in this conspiracy have severely misused their position and power and the whole crime has been conducted by one named Lokesh Sharma, who calls himself an OSD of the Chief Minister," the letter further stated.
The complaint letter also said that Lokesh Sharma had "released three audio tapes to media workers on July 16, 2020, somewhere around 8:25 pm through WhatsApp so that the defamatory material can be circulated on a large scale to fulfill the criminal intent."
Mr Bhardwaj said that a news report in the Jaipur edition of a Hindi newspaper, published on July 17, 2020, had conveyed that the audiotape was released by Mr Sharma.
He further said that Congress leaders Randeep Surjewala, Govind Singh Dotasra, in a press conference held on Friday read out the conversation in the audio tapes publically and "using them as a basis accused the BJP of throttling democracy, sabotaging the mandate, and toppling the government."
Through this conspiracy, Mr Bhardwaj said that hateful and insulting comments are being made on the BJP and its supporters, and "on the basis of this the Special Operation Group (SOG) has filed fake lawsuits under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code and is also threatening BJP leaders of arrest."
The BJP leader has urged the police officer to file a complaint against Mr Sharma, Mr Surjewala, Mr Dotasra, and others involved in the alleged conspiracy and take necessary action and recover the equipment used by them.
On June 17, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had accused Union Cabinet Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Congress legislator Bhanwarlal Sharma of conspiring to topple the elected government led by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan and subvert the voters' mandate.
"Yesterday, shocking tapes were aired by the media in which Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, BJP leader Sanjay Jain and Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma spoke about bribing MLAs and bringing down Rajasthan government. Congress has suspended MLAs Bhanwar Lal Sharma and Vishvendra Singh from the primary membership of the party. The party has also issued show-cause notices to them," Mr Surjewala had said.
"We demand Rajasthan government and Special Operations Group (SOG) to register FIR and arrest the culprits as plenty of evidence has surfaced now," he had further stated.
Mr Surjewala had read out a transcript of an audio of alleged horse-trading between rebel MLAs and BJP, stating, "BJP has breached the trust of people. The audio clip reveals a horse-trading deal. This is a dark chapter in the history of democracy."
"This time the Narendra Modi government has challenged the wrong state," the Congress leader had said. He had alleged that the BJP has been "conspiring to topple Rajasthan government and buy legislators' allegiance."
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