After Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi is the third industrialist to have left India in the wake of investigations into business irregularities.
Even as attempts are being made by the opposition to cobble a grand opposition alliance to take on the seemingly invincible BJP, Nationalist Congress Party chief and veteran politician Sharad Pawar Wednesday said he would not lead such an effort.
As Narendra Modi becomes India’s second-longest consecutively serving Prime Minister, we look at how he compares with Indira Gandhi across four key dimensions.
Ownership structure cannot be the focal point in search of a panacea to the current systemic problems. Stamping out fraudulent activity and promoting competitiveness are different matters. History is replete with frauds leading to failure of Private sector banks or failure even with high degree of competition ( 1913-1918, 94 banks fails in India). The collapse of the global financial system and economic meltdown was triggered by mighty private banks; embers remain despite the actions of QE by various central banks and Govts. to stimulate economies. RBI hauling up big private names for not disclosing the entire extent of NPA and action initiated against fraudulent officials from private sector banks during demonetisation exercise are recent matters. On the specific issue of pnb’s bogus LoU issuance, it must be noted that the validity of LCs wrt gems and jewellery sector too seems to have not been questioned by the other participating banks including private once implies that mechanisms towards graded oversight in preventing/containing fraud and systemic errors need an overhaul on priority without getting fogged on private versus public ownership debate at this stage. While we may change ownership and improve competitiveness as a parallel exercise, strengthening regulator with real-time oversight mechanism and technologies is essential irrespective of the bank’s owner.
The key issue is neither fraud nor reputational loss for the banking sector. The key area of concern is the government’s clout is getting these culprits extradited. Had Mallya been an American, UK would have gone down in its knees to return him to the US. Where’s the clout that was pomposly projected at Madison Square and elsewhere? Or is this government deliberately pussyfooting on getting these people extradited because even some of their own are involved?
While the interest rates are being pushed down, the middle-class fixed income suffers while the high and mighty loot-and-scoot with impunity. So are we really a banana republic as the famous son-in-law once stated?
Just a rejoinder to Gurucharan Das.
He forgets subprime lending crisis which was created by private sector financial entities only. It doomed fate of a few private sector banks only.
Way back in 90s, Barrings Bank again a private bank fell because of greed of one individual.
Never home, he should not forget Global Trust Bank under NPA level in IndusInd Bank during first 5 years.
There is nothing like public sector or private sector. It is well managed and badly managed companies.
There are 20 other examples where crony capitalism was not followed by highest economic growth rates across the world. So please spare us the silver lining to what is a clear corrupt practice right now. Modi, Shah, Adani, Nikhil Merchant are not going to be around after 30 years to disprove this theory. India’s young generation will have to bear this burden of blatant crony corruption. Modi unleashed demonetisation on the country’s poor and middle classes. He is answerable for letting a jeweller (with really ghastly designs) run away with the money. He’s no different from Congress, at any rate. Maybe a touch worse with his Gujarat obsession.
Why privatise only the worst banks, the loss making PSUs, the Maharajah only when he is terminally ill ? Privatisation should be out of conviction, that it is good for the economy. As far as the PSBs are concerned, they have been drained out of all vitality. Not that the calls from Delhi will stop coming, but not enough sap in the tree to respond fully to them.
Ownership structure cannot be the focal point in search of a panacea to the current systemic problems. Stamping out fraudulent activity and promoting competitiveness are different matters. History is replete with frauds leading to failure of Private sector banks or failure even with high degree of competition ( 1913-1918, 94 banks fails in India). The collapse of the global financial system and economic meltdown was triggered by mighty private banks; embers remain despite the actions of QE by various central banks and Govts. to stimulate economies. RBI hauling up big private names for not disclosing the entire extent of NPA and action initiated against fraudulent officials from private sector banks during demonetisation exercise are recent matters. On the specific issue of pnb’s bogus LoU issuance, it must be noted that the validity of LCs wrt gems and jewellery sector too seems to have not been questioned by the other participating banks including private once implies that mechanisms towards graded oversight in preventing/containing fraud and systemic errors need an overhaul on priority without getting fogged on private versus public ownership debate at this stage. While we may change ownership and improve competitiveness as a parallel exercise, strengthening regulator with real-time oversight mechanism and technologies is essential irrespective of the bank’s owner.
The key issue is neither fraud nor reputational loss for the banking sector. The key area of concern is the government’s clout is getting these culprits extradited. Had Mallya been an American, UK would have gone down in its knees to return him to the US. Where’s the clout that was pomposly projected at Madison Square and elsewhere? Or is this government deliberately pussyfooting on getting these people extradited because even some of their own are involved?
While the interest rates are being pushed down, the middle-class fixed income suffers while the high and mighty loot-and-scoot with impunity. So are we really a banana republic as the famous son-in-law once stated?
Just a rejoinder to Gurucharan Das.
He forgets subprime lending crisis which was created by private sector financial entities only. It doomed fate of a few private sector banks only.
Way back in 90s, Barrings Bank again a private bank fell because of greed of one individual.
Never home, he should not forget Global Trust Bank under NPA level in IndusInd Bank during first 5 years.
There is nothing like public sector or private sector. It is well managed and badly managed companies.
There are 20 other examples where crony capitalism was not followed by highest economic growth rates across the world. So please spare us the silver lining to what is a clear corrupt practice right now. Modi, Shah, Adani, Nikhil Merchant are not going to be around after 30 years to disprove this theory. India’s young generation will have to bear this burden of blatant crony corruption. Modi unleashed demonetisation on the country’s poor and middle classes. He is answerable for letting a jeweller (with really ghastly designs) run away with the money. He’s no different from Congress, at any rate. Maybe a touch worse with his Gujarat obsession.
Why privatise only the worst banks, the loss making PSUs, the Maharajah only when he is terminally ill ? Privatisation should be out of conviction, that it is good for the economy. As far as the PSBs are concerned, they have been drained out of all vitality. Not that the calls from Delhi will stop coming, but not enough sap in the tree to respond fully to them.