Abstract The accelerating rate of NPAs in Indian banking system has been prevailing since it was recognised officially on the recommendations of Narashimam Committee in 1991. The stressed assets in the books of banks are the result of corporate defaults. Recently, the NPAs have been mounting due to the multiple factors such as the increasing number of wilful defaulters, the strict NPA recognition norms and economic slowdown caused the outbreak of COVID19. However, the RBI and Government of India have taken measure to contain the swelling NPA in the form of recovery regime, time-bound resoluti ..read more

Abstract The coronavirus pandemic has a devastating impact across the globe. No country has left unhurt from the deadly virus. All the efforts to contain the virus have not yielded much. At present the only hope now lies in the vaccines. But it is evident that the world is not able to supply enough vaccines. Even India, the biggest supplier of vaccines, is unable to meet the domestic demand. Many low income countries have not been able to vaccinate even one percent of their total population. In such conditions, the universal access to vaccines can be the ray of hope. ********************* It ..read more

The number of new infections a day has already crossed the previous peak of 97,860. On 11th April 2021, a total of 1,69,914 new infections were recorded [1]. Most importantly, these numbers are increasing every day. At present there is not a single state which is not reporting higher numbers than the previous day. The most important part of the whole story of the second wave of infections is that it is happening despite the fact that India has been able to successfully flatten the corona curve with less than 10,000 daily infections. The battle which India had almost won by flattening the coro ..read more

Previously the prices of petroleum products in India have hit the psychological levels of ₹ 100. However, later on, the prices have gone down slightly but these falls in the prices seem to be temporary considering the trend of the global crude oil prices. It must be noted that such unilateral increase in the prices of the petroleum products has a multifaceted negative impact on any economy and when in question is the Indian economy which is almost dependent on imports for the petroleum products and petroleum products are main fuels consumed by consumers and industry, the impact might be even ..read more

For the last many months, inflation in the Indian economy is rising. Both the retail inflation as well as the core inflation has increased to 5.03 percent and 5.7 percent respectively in the month of February 2021 in the economy in comparison to the month of January 2021. During the same period, the Index for Industrial Production (IIP) has contracted by 1.6 percent (Mishra, 2021). This has happened when the economic activities in almost every sector of the economy is expanding (Upadhyay, 2021). Technically this increase in the inflation can partly be attributed to the small base belonging t ..read more

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) assesses the prevailing economic conditions as well as the outlook along with the liquidity position in the Indian economy at an interval of two months in its bimonthly meeting of the monetary policy committee (MPC) to formulate the monetary policy for the economy. The meetings of the monetary policy committee are held at least four times in a year and its decisions are published after every such meeting. The MPC in its recent meeting has decided to keep the benchmark policy repo rate unchanged at 4 percent despite the fact that the rate of inflation has remained ..read more

Reservation is considered to be a positive discrimination to undo the social injustice and inequalities metted out over centuries but people have varied views about the same and India is not an exception to it. Over time people from all spectra of life willingly or unwillingly have accepted and come to the term with the reservation on the basis of caste in the government jobs and education in India. But of late people belonging to the Unreserved (UR) category and creamy layer of OBC (Other Backward Caste) have been becoming very vocal against the caste based reservations as it makes difficult ..read more

Post lockdown, the way Indian economy has shown resilience with continued ‘V’ shaped recovery is very optimistic. It indicates that the India economy even after the pandemic shock is on a very strong footing. This optimism in the environment has also been echoed by the stock market. However, it is very important that this optimism in the economy gets strong fiscal support with proper policy response as well as anchoring from the government in the present budget for the fiscal year 2021-22. The government has tried its level best to align the budget 2021-22 with the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiya ..read more

The blanket lockdown of the whole India by the Government of India in response to the COVID19 pandemic has given a never seen before shock to the Indian economy. However, different economic indicators started indicating the revival of economic activities post gradual relaxations granted in the lockdown since May 2020 by different states. However for more than two quarters, things remained very difficult for the economy. Considering the fall in the aggregated demand in the economy, the government was forced to suspend the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) so that individuals and businesses ..read more

An internal working group (IWG) of the Reserve Bank of India in its report has recommended that large business groups as well as NBFCs which have an asset size of ₹ 50,000 crores or more may be allowed to promote banks in India (RBI, 2020). For an economy like India which has avoided giving banking licenses to corporate and ensured that the banks in India are widely held and there is no ownership concentration in Indian Banks, the proposed recommendation of IWG is a sweeping change and naturally raising a number of questions. Large numbers of economists including the former RBI Governor Ragur ..read more