In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Centre, CBI, ED, Anil Ambani and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) on a PIL seeking a court-monitored probe into alleged massive banking and corporate fraud involving the ADAG and its group companies.
Talking to PTI Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said, "The two-day nationwide strike by the joint forum of central trade unions has begun this morning". About the impact of the agitation, she said that the entire coal belt (mining area) is affected in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. She also said that there is a good response in industrial areas of Assam, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The AITUC official noted that the banks and insurance sectors are affected all over India, while steel and oil sectors are also seeing partial impact due to the strike. Kaur said that she has got preliminary reports that markets are closed in Odisha.
The government is set to initiate consultations with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to devise a new security clearance framework for screening potential bidders of public sector banks (PSBs) as it kick-starts the privatisation process, beginning with the strategic divestment of IDBI Bank. As the government is moving ahead with strategic divestment of IDBI Bank and is looking to privatise two PSBs, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) is looking to put in place an appropriate framework as the potential buyers will have to meet the RBI's fit and proper criteria, said an official. The process of bank privatisation would be different from the sale of any other public sector undertaking (PSU), and more restrictions and measures will have to be put in place, the official said.
The Supreme Court has directed the CBI to conduct a pan-India investigation into digital arrest scams and questioned the RBI about its lack of AI usage in detecting and freezing accounts used by cybercriminals.
The Russians have termed Putin's visit to India, his first to this country since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, as 'Druzhba Dosti', which means 'friendship' in Russian and Hindi respectively.
'I will not be surprised if there is a 7 per cent handle in front of the decimal place for the full financial year.'
MeitY is in discussions with global Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, mid-tier firms, and state government officials on a three-pronged approach to setting up new GCCs in India.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra, with Deputy Governors Poonam Gupta, Swaminathan J, T Rabi Sankar, and M Rajeshwar Rao, responded to a range of queries in the post-policy interaction with the media
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das kept the red flag on cryptocurrencies flying, warning that the next financial crisis can be triggered by private cryptocurrencies if such speculative instruments are allowed to grow.
Simplifying GST rates, removing exemptions, easing disputes, and speeding up refunds can boost investment in India and offer the best reply to Trump's tariffs, observes V S Krishnan, former member, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.
The Union finance ministry will meet CEOs of public sector banks to discuss issues related to cybersecurity in the wake of the Rs 820 crore (Rs 8.2 billion) fraud that hit Kolkata-based UCO Bank last month.
Three laws passed in Parliament could boost central revenues, reshape GST cess flows, shift MGNREGA costs to states and create new budget headroom ahead of the 2026-2027 Union Budget, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The Reserve Bank will hold a special meeting of its rate-setting committee on November 3 to prepare a report for the government on why it failed to keep retail inflation below the target of 6 per cent for three consecutive quarters since January. The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will prepare the report on reasons for failure to meet the inflation target as well as the remedial measures the central bank is taking to bring down prices in the country. "Under the provisions of Section 45ZN of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act 1934... an additional meeting of the MPC is being scheduled on November 3, 2022," RBI said in a statement on Thursday.
A nationwide strike called by trade unions to protest against the central government's labor policies had a mixed impact across India. While normal life remained largely unaffected in most parts of the country, some sectors like banking, transport, and insurance experienced disruptions. Sporadic incidents of violence were reported in West Bengal.
The annual earnings of a non-executive chairman of a PSB is capped at Rs 10 lakh, inclusive of fees for attending board meetings. This is way below the compensation of the chairman of any private bank, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The finance ministry is in favour of extending the August deadline for public sector banks (PSBs) as well as insurance companies to increase their minimum public shareholding (MPS) to the mandated 25 per cent, said a senior government official. "The election results will determine the course of action. "Most likely, those who did not receive an extension to meet the minimum shareholding norm will be granted one," the senior government official said.
The Union Budget for 2026-27, presented by Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday, which was a first, had an excellent domestic macro backdrop. According to the first advance estimates, gross domestic product (GDP) in constant prices is projected to grow 7.4 per cent in the current financial year, against 6.5 per cent in 2024-25.
P K Mishra, a retired IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, is currently serving as the principal secretary to the prime minister.
'As long as the government owns the banks, bankers will follow signals from politicians as to how to lend.' 'State-owned banks will remain State-owned banks as long as the current dispensation is in power -- and certainly there will be no change if the other chaps get in,' says Mihir S Sharma.
'Vigilance' is a dreaded term for PSB employees and there are instances where this fear is misused by the higher authorities to tame their subordinate officials. This fear always deters PSB executives from making decisions -- the fewer the decisions, the less the chance of falling into trouble, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
India-Turkiye ties are strained over Ankara's Islamabad tilt, its arms links with Pakistan, and fallout from the Pahalgam terror attack.
Party treasurer Ajay Maken has claimed that "democracy will be over if the action of probe agencies goes unchecked" and said the Congress has full faith in the judiciary.
India's first digital rupee pilot project will commence on Tuesday with nine banks, including SBI, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, issuing the virtual currency for transactions in government securities. "...the first pilot in the digital rupee - Wholesale segment shall commence on November 1, 2022," the RBI said in a statement on 'Operationalisation of Central Bank Digital Currency-Wholesale (e?-W) Pilot'. It also announced that the first pilot in digital rupee - Retail segment is planned for launch within a month in select locations in closed user groups comprising customers and merchants.
The central bank has not set a deadline for banks to conclude the stress-test exercise, but senior bankers opine that some were already looking at this, and will now fast-track it by September-end, when they will have a better picture of their books after the moratorium on the servicing of loans and a 180-day view on the performance of borrowers' accounts.
Sir Osborne Smith was the first governor of the Reserve Bank, serving from April 1, 1935, to June 30, 1937.
The liquidity in the banking system moved into surplus almost after three months as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) absorbed over Rs 40,000 crore from the market on Monday, predominantly on the back of increased government spending. However, this situation may be short-lived given the higher demand for funds to pay taxes and year-end targets, treasury executives said. Meanwhile, two variable reverse repo rate (VRRR) auctions held on Tuesday received weak response.
Public sector banks (PSBs) have proposed the Finance Ministry their plan to raise Rs 54,800 crore through Additional Tier-1 (AT-1) and Tier-2 bonds in the current financial year (FY25), 37 per cent more than the Rs 39,880 crore raised in FY24
'If it doesn't, it will continue with measures to infuse liquidity, signalling a new cycle,' predicts Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The country's largest lender State Bank of India will get the largest sum of Rs 8,800 crore as government's capital infusion.
That's the only way to convince those who have money to return to the bank fold, ditching other asset classes, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
This is part of the first batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2020-21 moved by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha.
Of the total 53,334 cases of frauds reported during 2008-09 and 2018-19 fiscal years, involving a whopping Rs 2.05 lakh crore, a highest of 6,811 cases were reported by the ICICI Bank.
The finance minister also said that the merger would not result in any retrenchment but rather improve the benefit of the employees.
A look at some of the major controversies in past World Cups.
Though most experts remain bullish on the banking space, they suggest investors buy only those banks whose NPAs are at a manageable level of 3% to 4% and there is credit growth or earnings visibility.
The Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-India), the national agency responsible for analysing suspicious financial transactions, has received requests from four more offshore crypto exchanges to operate in India again, said a senior government official familiar with the matter. In the beginning of 2024, India had banned nine crypto exchanges - Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, Bittrex, and Bitfenix - for non-compliance with anti-laundering law in the country.
AIBEA has decided to write to the government and RBI against infusing money into Jet Airways. State-owned banks, including SBI and PNB, are the main lenders to Jet.
S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday retained India's growth forecast at 6.8 per cent for the current fiscal and said it expects the RBI to start cutting interest rates in its October monetary policy review. In the economic outlook of Asia Pacific, S&P Global Ratings also retained its GDP growth forecast for the 2025-26 fiscal at 6.9 per cent and said solid growth in India will allow the Reserve Bank to focus on bringing inflation in line with its target.
Four state-owned banks on Friday said the government has extended tenures of their top officials, including managing director and chief executive officers (MD and CEOs) of Punjab National Bank and Bank of Maharashtra. Besides, the government has extended the tenures of executive directors of Punjab National Bank (PNB), Union Bank of India and Central Bank of India. The government sent notifications to these banks on Thursday, informing them about the extensions given to the top-level officials.
Business is down to such an extent that last year these firms could not even meet RBI's capital norm of Rs 50 million for partnerships and Rs 100 million for public and private firms in this line of business.
