Table of Contents
Cosmetic repair
- Over the last few years, Indian banks have been forced by the Reserve Bank of India to recognise troubled assets on their books, but their resolution has remained a challenge.
- Inter-creditor agreement: speedy resolution of non-performing loans
- Indian banks trying to sell their troubled assets now have one less hurdle to cross.
- It is part of the “Sashakt” plan approved by the government to address the problem of resolving bad loans.
- Sunil Mehta headed a panel that recommended the plan, said disagreement between joint lenders is the biggest problem in resolving stressed assets.
- Earlier model: relied solely on the joint lenders’ forum to arrive at a consensus among creditors
- ICA may persuade banks to embark more quickly on a resolution plan for stressed assets.
- Banks may be compelled to engage in a quick-fire sale of stressed assets due to arbitrary deadlines on the resolution process. • This will work against the interests of lenders looking to get the best price for their stressed assets.
- The biggest obstacle to bad loan resolution is the absence of buyers who can purchase stressed assets from banks, and the unwillingness of banks to sell their loans at a deep discount to their face value.
Proving the hardliners in Tehran right
• America’s traditional allies, Israel and the Sunni Arab world (read Saudi Arabia), were upset with Mr. Obama’s outreach to Iran
• 2015 nuclear deal: give up its nuclear ambitions in return for the lifting of international sanctions
• Mr. Trump: “worst deal ever”
• Iran, as the UN atomic watchdog has certified, has been fully compliant with the terms of the nuclear accord.
• President Hassan Rouhani: moderate
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed a group of Iranian diaspora in California, and called the regime a kleptocracy akin to
the mafia.
• Mr. Trump sees Iran through the establishment’s foreign policy prism.
• Israel and the Sunni Arab world are archrival of Iran & allies of USA
• Trump-Vladimir Putin agreement in Helsinki: keep Iranian-trained militias away from Golan Heights. Sustain the relative freedom Israel enjoys within Syria to target Iranian assets.
• Conventionally, Iran is not a great military force so it has adopted a ‘forward defence’ doctrine.
• empowering militias and proxies in other countries
• Hezbollah in Lebanon
• Mobilisation units in Iraq and Syria
• Houthis in Yemen
• In the event of a war, Iran could activate these groups, unleashing havoc in its neighbourhood
and targeting both American and Israeli soldiers.
• Mr Rouhani’s bet was on the economic benefits the deal would bring,
which helped him secure a re-election last year.
• Trump administration is punishing the country which agreed to scuttle its nuclear programme and engaging with the country that built nuclear weapons.
India needs smart urbanisation
• Urban development comes under State governments, with the Governor notifying an area as urban based on parameters such as population, density, revenue generated for the local administration and percentage employed in non-agricultural activities.
• India’s urbanisation template is clearly ripe for change.
• Over 34% of India’s current population lives in urban areas, rising by 3% since 2011.
• India’s urban population could increase to 814 million by 2050.
• ‘Smart City’: over 90 ‘Smart Cities’ have identified 2,864 projects, India lags on implementation, with about 148 projects completed and over 70% still at various stages of preparation.
• The annually recurring instances of floods in Mumbai, dengue in Delhi and lakes on fire in Bengaluru paint a grim picture.
• India spends about $17 per capita annually on urban infrastructure projects, against a global benchmark of $100 and China’s $116.
• Urban institutions also suffer from a shortage of skilled people.
• Internal migration in India is very closely linked to urban transitions, with such migration helping reduce poverty or prevent households from slipping into it.
• Preventing such migration can be counterproductive — it would be better to have policies and programmes in place to facilitate the integration of migrants into the local urban fabric, and building city plans with a regular migration forecast assumed.
• The announcement of a new urbanisation policy that seeks to rebuild Indian cities around clusters of human capital, instead of considering them simply as an agglomeration of land use, is a welcome transition.
Questioning star power
• National Family Health Survey-4 data.
38% of children are stunted
35.7% are underweight
21% of children under the age of five are wasted
• Given that India’s nutrition indicators are dismal, a mission to address this cause is laudable.
• How will malnutrition be addressed by the star’s association?
• Will it bring hot cooked food to the plates of malnourished mothers and their wards?
• Will his name address the well-entrenched patriarchy in families that denies food to the girl child and insists that women eat long after men finish?
Interview of Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor
• Hinduism that Swami Vivekananda preached, which was a Hinduism
that went beyond tolerance and to acceptance.
• That is the key to the kind of Hindu ethos that has made Muslims,
Christians, Sikh, Jews and Jains safe in our country.
• Nation is not territory but its people.
• When our nationalistic movement was fighting the British, it divided
into two groups. One said that religion should be the determinant of
nationhood. That was the idea behind Pakistan. The other said that
we are fighting for the rights of everybody and that was the idea of
India.
SC pulls up Centre for its delay in appointing a Lokpal
• The court has for the past several months been constantly urging the government
to complete the Lokpal appointment.
• The Act intends the LoP to be the part of the selection committee of the PM, the
CJI and the Speaker, which has to first appoint an eminent jurist among their
ranks.
Modi gifts 200 cows to Rwanda
- In an unusual gift, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday presented 200 cows to poor villagers in Rwanda to support President Paul Kagame’s ambitious initiative for poverty reduction and tackling childhood malnutrition.
- The Girinka (meaning ‘May you have a cow’) programme started in 2006 to provide one cow to every poor family for their nutritional and financial security.
- Mr. Modi said that the Rwandan government could also work on honeybees on the lines of the Girinka programme.
- India and Rwanda on Monday signed eight agreements in an effort to bolster bilateral cooperation between the two countries.
- Mr. Modi left for Uganda as part of his threenation African tour.
Lok Sabha passes anti-graft amendment Bill
• The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the Prevention of Corruption
(Amendment) Bill, 2018 that seeks to punish bribe-givers and bribetakers.
• The Bill, cleared by the Rajya Sabha last week, was passed
unanimously by the Lower House after debating for nearly four hours.
• Many members who took part in the debate stressed on the need to
curb election expenditure and bring about electoral reforms to stop
corruption in politics.
Important News
• Keep decorum, President tells MPs
• respect one another’s views and maintain their dignity for the success of parliamentary
democracy
• Due to the combination of these five Ds — discussion, debate, dissent, decorum and decision,
the biggest D — democracy is strengthened,”
• Speaker’s Research Initiative: inaugurated on July 23, 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is
the outcome of an initiative of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
• Wildfires kill 60 in Greece
• China, Bhutan discuss boundary dispute
• The two countries do not have diplomatic relations but maintain contacts through periodic
visits by officials.
• Panel to review third party motor cover costs
• Insurance regulator IRDAI has constituted a 16-member committee to examine motor third
party insurance pricing aspects and make recommendations on the premium rates for 2019-20.
• ‘U.S. reacting to BEPS with barriers to free, fair trade’
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