The State Bank of India (SBI) has refused to disclose its standard operating procedure for the sale and redemption of the electoral bonds that were issued to its authorised branches, citing the exemption given under "commercial confidence", according to an RTI response. In an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj had sought the details of the standard operating procedure issued to the SBI's authorised branches on the sale and redemption of the electoral bonds. "Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of Electoral Bond Scheme-2018 issued to authorised branches from time to time are internal guidelines with regard to sale and redemption of electoral bonds (meant for internal circulation only), which is exempted under section 8(1)(d) of the Right to Information Act," the response from M Kanna Babu, the central public information officer and deputy general manager of the SBI, said on March 30. Section 8(1)(d) of the Act exempts fr
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Exchange has cut the lot size for the futures and options contracts of 42 stocks to half of the current lot sizes. The revised lot sizes will be effective from 26 April for expiries in May or later
State-owned Bank of India (BoI) on Wednesday said its board has given approval to raise Rs 10,000 crore through long-term infra bonds to fund infrastructure projects. The fund would be raised in 2024-25, BoI said in a regulatory filing. Recently, many banks including SBI have issued infrastructure bonds to secure funds that are solely dedicated to advancing various infrastructure development projects. These bonds help in building roads, bridges, airports, power plants, and telecommunications networks etc and addressing the infrastructure deficit of the country.
The 552 page list of parties that redeemed these bonds is of the duration April 12, 2019 to January 24, 2024. The EC said it has uploaded the data received from the SBI on "as is where is basis"
The data also include details of redemption by political parties, including serial number, date of encashment, and name of political party, among other information
The Election Commission of India is set to release information on serial numbers enabling matching of donors with the parties to which they donated money
The move comes after the apex court had pulled up State Bank of India for giving 'selective details' and asked it to provide complete details regarding the electoral bonds scheme
Among PSUs, Railway stocks such as Rites, IRFC and IRCTC dipped by 21.3 per cent, 8.1 per cent and over 2 per cent respectively in March, Ace Equity data shows
Refuses to hear industry bodies' plea against sharing alphanumeric codes
The apex court said that the industry bodies could not be given any precedence over other applicants and their plea was not listed for the hearing
BJP encashed electoral bonds totaling Rs 6,986.5 crore; Congress redeemed a total of Rs 1,334.35 crore through electoral bonds
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the State Bank of India to make a complete disclosure of all details related to electoral bonds, including the unique bond numbers that would disclose the link between the buyer and the recipient political party, by March 21. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said there is "no manner of doubt" that the SBI is required to disclose complete details of the bonds. It directed the SBI chairman to file an affidavit before it by 5 pm on March 21 indicating that the bank has disclosed all the details. During the hearing, the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, observed that the SBI can't be selective and has to disclose all "conceivable" electoral bond details in its possession, including unique bond numbers that would disclose the link between the buyer and the recipient political party. The bench said the apex court had, in its verdict in the electoral bonds cas
Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi has said that public sector banks have been asked to check mis-selling of insurance products and ensure protection of account holders' interest. Banks have been sensitised on the matter, as the Department of Financial Services (DFS) regularly gets complaints that fraudulent and unethical practices are being adopted by banks and life insurance companies for procuring policies from the bank customers, he told PTI in an interview. "Banks have been asked to give utmost importance to the interest of account holders," he said. There have been instances where life insurance policies were sold to customers aged above 75 years in tier-II and III cities. Usually, banks push products of their subsidiary insurers. When resisted by customers, branch officials would sheepishly admit that they are under pressure from the top. Insurance products are pushed when customers go to seek any kind of loan or buy a term deposit. It is also conveyed that the Centr
The latest dataset released by the EC included scanned copies of the disclosures made by the political parties, running into hundreds of pages
22,217 electoral bonds were bought from 2019-24, of which 22,030 were redeemed, according to SBI
Electoral bonds: SBI has issued electoral bonds worth Rs 16,518 crore in 30 tranches since the inception of the scheme in 2018
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SBI shared the data with the EC on March 12, following a Supreme Court directive, which allowed the EC until 5 PM on March 15 to upload the information on its website
The Supreme Court granted the EC's request for the unique identification numbers that will help link donors to the donations made to political parties under the now-scrapped electoral bond scheme