BRICS on a mini-lateral level is focusing and yielding rather significantly on what other major groupings and multilateral organisations are aiming at. It has begun to provide an alternate avenue of cooperation from trade, and finance to resolving regional and global issues to counter-terrorism and capacity building. But, it is not free of issues.
The way to make AT1 bonds attractive again is to clarify the insurance-linked role that sets them apart from pure debt, revert to valuation as per the time period of call options, and vastly improve banking supervision via enhanced management of banking data.
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) announcement of withdrawal from circulation of the ₹2,000 currency notes has caused much incredulity. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin quipped, “500 doubts, 1,000 mysteries and 2,000 blunders”, and Rajya Sabha member P. Chidambaram said, “Demonetisation has come full circle”. The Union government has distanced itself from the decision by letting the RBI announce it.
Indian agriculture is a gamble on the Monsoon. This cliché would have been sufficient ground for the Goods and Services Tax authorities to slap a tax of 28 per cent on the value of crop output if agriculture had not been kept out of the ambit of GST.
It was a dream of former Prime Minister (PM) Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who first envisaged opening an alternate sea route through Myanmar for the northeastern part of India in 2003. Bangladesh at that time was very non-committal on transit to India. The Ministry of external affairs (MEA) appointed the public sector consultancy company RITES to do a study in 2003. The operationalisation of Sittwe Port’s new terminal was the beginning of the journey.
In a sudden though not unexpected move, currency notes of the denomination Rs 2,000 are being withdrawn from circulation. This is announced via a notification released by the Reserve Bank of India and not the government (as at the time of demonetisation). These notes are not being withdrawn from circulation, but actually, they will stop circulating right away given that they will have to be deposited in a bank or exchanged for lower denomination notes.