Welcome move Animated poll analyses
With reference to the front-page report, “RBI tightens screws on banks to ease bad debt” by Anup Roy and Abhijit Lele (April 14), the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) proposed advanced risk management measures known as Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) in alignment with Basel norms are welcome.
PCA as a corrective measure could help the RBI trim the banking system if commercial bank fails to comply with revised prudential norms or do not improve their performance. Threshold limits specified in PCA for four financial indicators, namely capital adequacy, asset quality, return on asset and leverage can help the central bank alert scheduled commercial banks. The earlier version of PCA was first imposed on a few banks due to their poor asset management.
While the RBI’s revised PCA deserves special mention with respect to survival of banks, individual banks should be proactive in managing their rate-sensitive assets and liabilities to improve earnings and augment economic value of equities.
For example, some assets are more sensitive to market interest rate movement while some liabilities are not or vice versa. Any of these possibilities affects a bank’s net interest margin and profitability, and induces portfolio risks.
While asset-liability management is a prime focus of a bank, non-performing asset management is central to sustain its operational effectiveness. That assumes banks’ risk aversion to lending in relation to borrowers’ credit worthiness.
Kushankur Dey Odisha focused on productivity, skill training and the need to shift people from agriculture to industry, as a strategy to overcome poverty. He was an economist first, who flowered to become a legal luminary and shaped the Constitution. It is worth reflecting on some of his thoughts on Hinduism, the caste system and its perversions.
“The first and foremost thing that must be recognised is that ‘Hindu society is a myth’,” Ambedkar said in his book The Annihilation of Caste. Some of the quotable quotes from the book: “Hindu society… is only a collection of castes… Each caste had no conception of their having constituted a community… A caste has no feeling that is affiliated to other castes, except when there is a Hindu-Moslem riot… Its survival is the be-all and end-all of its existence. Castes do not even form a federation. On all other occasions each caste endeavours to segregate itself and to distinguish itself from other castes.”
I appeal to all to realise that it was the vastness of thinking in our civilisation that made our sages and seers attain extraordinary limits of consciousness, and for humans to benefit from achievements in science and philosophy.
N Narasimhan Bengaluru It seems India is the most vibrant and vocal democratic nation and its media an animated one. Chatting about elections, a passion in normal times, has turned into a mania due to the unending cavalcade of elections, big, small or even a by-poll.
Panellists on TV are revelling in the limelight afforded by discussions over elections. Pre- or post-poll analyses of even a minor by-poll showcases their spread of history, politics and how assuredly they extrapolate these to draw outlines of bigger polls in the future. Percentage changes in party votes from the last known base data are dissected to such a degree that it would relegate the best psephologists to kindergarten!
R Narayanan Ghaziabad