Ahead of Modi win, Reserve Bank recommends policy change: Don't apply RTI on nationalized banks

Alarm bells have started to ring even before Narendra Modi has taken over as India’s Prime Minister. A high-level report of the committee formed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan to review governance of boards of banks in India has strongly recommended that public sector banks should be out of the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, considered a powerful tool in the hands of people and activists to seek justice. Already, top Modi supporters have begun saying the right to information is a waste of public money.
Prepared by a team of bankers headed by PJ Nayak, ex-CEO, Axis Bank, who was also ex-country head, Morgan Stanley India, the committee, constituted in January 2014, has identified applicability of right to information as one of the “several external constraints imposed upon public sector banks which are inapplicable to their private sector competitors.” It adds, “Each of these constraints disadvantages these banks in their ability to compete with their private sector competitors”.
The committee insists, “The government and RBI need to move to rapidly eliminate or significantly reduce these constraints, in the absence of which managements of public sector banks will continue to face an erosion of competitiveness”, adding, “it is only after these external constraints have been addressed would it be practicable for public sector banks to address a host of internal weaknesses which affect their competitiveness.”
Other “constraints” identified are dual regulation (by the finance ministry, and by RBI, which goes substantially beyond the discharge of a principal shareholder function); the manner of appointment of directors to boards; the short average tenures of chairmen and executive directors; enforcement of employee compensation; and external vigilance enforcement.
By way of example, the committee points to how the Axis Bank is free from any of these constraints. “The CEO is appointed by the bank's board, and because the bank was licensed in the private sector, it sets its own employee compensation, ensures its own vigilance enforcement (rather than being under the jurisdiction of the Central Vigilance Commission), and is not subject to the Right to Information Act”, the report states, suggesting this is exactly what should happen with public sector banks, too.
Objecting to the way nationalized banks are subject to the Right to Information Act, the report underscores that the government must “level the playing field for public sector banks in relation to their private sector competitors”. And for this, it recommends, the “government should consider reducing its holding in banks to less than 50 per cent.” This will ensure that “there is a restoration of a level playing field for public sector banks in matters of vigilance enforcement, employee compensation and the applicability of the right to information.”

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When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

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In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

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For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

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Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

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