Nepal's new prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', will embark on a three-day official visit to India starting Thursday. This will be Prachanda's first foreign visit after assuming office earlier this month. Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi, who was on a visit to India as Prachanda's special envoy, had discussed the visit with Indian.
Nidhi had briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the latest developments in Nepal. Modi said India was fully committed to supporting the government and people of Nepal in post-earthquake reconstruction. He reiterated India's commitment to strengthen the traditional bonds between India and Nepal. There are reports that China is upset that New Delhi, and not Beijing, is the first world capital Prachanda is visiting. The visit is possibly the most important of the month.
Sushma to attend NAM summit
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The Prime Minister will not attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Margarita Island, Venezuela, this week (September 17-18) but foreign minister Sushma Swaraj will be there, indicating India does not consider the notion that NAM is an outdated idea in today's unipolar world. Delcy Rodriguez, minister of external relations of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, had visited India on August 18 to personally hand over an invitation.
Swaraj accepted the invitation and will attend. The last time an Indian Prime Minister did not attend a NAM Summit was in 1979 when Charan Singh was the caretaker prime minister. In her meeting with Rodriguez, Swaraj underlined the importance India attached to NAM, particularly as one of the founder members.
Akhilesh's non-starter yatra
This is about an event that did not happen, rather than one that did. The central parliamentary board of the Samajwadi Party took a decision in July that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) Akhilesh Yadav would launch the party's election programme from Monday, beginning with a Rath Yatra led by the CM.
The bullet-proof vehicle was named Vikas Rath and was to be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and all modern facilities such as internet, Wi-Fi and bluetooth, and a small office chamber for the CM. It was to be painted red, one of the colours of the Samajwadi Party. The Rath was to have been equipped with a hydraulic lift and the CM was to address four to five public meetings a day.
But, as we write this, there is no sign of the Vikas Rath or the Yatra. No new dates have been announced either. On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) whose aggressive campaign was one stimulus for the SP's Rath Yatra, pushes ahead with its campaign, even though it does not have a chief ministerial face yet.
Mamata to announce BMW investment in Bengal
Nano, the small car plant proposed in Singur, West Bengal, by the Tatas might be out, with the court ordering the land acquired for the plant be returned to the owners. But, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has another ace up her sleeve. After completing an eight-day tour of Italy and Germany, she is likely to announce that BMW will set up shop in Bengal. Banerjee went to attend the canonisation of Mother Teresa followed by a visit to Germany to seek investment.
She was accompanied by a 12-member official delegation and 29 industrialists. The industrialists who went with her included C S Ghosh, chairman and managing director of Bandhan Bank, and others such as Utsav Parekh, T V Narayanan, Srikant Mohta, Subhas Chandra, Siddharth Birla, S K Podder, Mayank Jalan and Partha Ghosh.
Sudip Bandopadhyay and Derek O' Brien, Banerjee's party colleagues, also went with her, along with state Home Secretary Malay Dey, the CM's secretary Gautam Sanyal and a team of journalists from English and vernacular dailies. In Germany, she was joined by Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra. She returned over the weekend and will make public this week all the gains she has won for Bengal.
Kejriwal to undergo throat surgery
Delhi Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal will undergo a throat surgery on Monday in Bengaluru and will rest there for 10 days. Kejriwal has a chronic cough problem, which alternative therapy has been unable to cure. He has been forced to resort to surgery as the last option. He will return to the capital on December 22 only and in his absence, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia will be in charge.
Jaitley to review performance of PSBs
Amid mounting bad loans, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will hold a meeting with the heads of public-sector banks (PSBs) on September 16 to find ways to deal with the situation. "The finance minister will review the first quarter performance of public-sector banks and financial institutions on September 16," sources said.
He will also discuss credit growth and bad loan situation, they said, adding the various recovery measures by banks and the legislative steps taken by the government to expedite recovery are also part of the agenda.
Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of PSBs surged from 5.43 per cent (Rs 2.5 lakh crore) in 2014-15 to 9.32 per cent (Rs 4.5 lakh crore) in 2015-16.
According to the latest Financial Stability Report by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the gross NPA ratio for PSBs could go up to 10.1 per cent by March 2017 under the baseline scenario.
Many banks including Bank of India, Dena Bank, and Central Bank of India reported losses for the quarter ended June 30, due to a sharp jump in provisions for NPAs on account of an asset quality review mandated by RBI in December.
At the same time, a number of banks including the country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) witnessed a 78 per cent drop in consolidated profit at Rs 1,046 crore compared with Rs 4,714 crore profit in the same quarter a year ago. Besides, Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank and Union Bank of India, among others, posted a massive decline in profit.
In a bid to shore up cash-strapped PSBs, the government had last month announced infusion of Rs 22,915 crore capital in 13 lenders including SBI and Indian Overseas Bank to revive loan growth that has hit a two-decade low.
This is the first tranche of capital infusion for the current financial year and more funds would be provided in future depending on the performance of PSBs.
In all, Rs 70,000 crore in capital is to be invested over four years to contain risks in the banking sector.
