-Livemint.com The focus should be more on making the prime minister’s crop insurance scheme a success than demanding farm loans waivers from banks Last week, the Indian National Congress at the Maharashtra assembly submitted a breach of privilege notice against State Bank of India chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya for “insulting farmers and the House” by her remarks on farm loan waiver. The leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil,...

-The Indian Express Government could have undone the damage of demonetisation through the budget. The opportunity has been missed in deference to the whims of global finance. Since 97 per cent of the value of demonetised currency has returned to the banks, causing, contrary to the government’s expectations, very little extinction of currency, it is obvious that demonetisation has totally failed to achieve its purported objective of denting the black economy. It...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A list of corporate loan defaulters will soon be made public as the Supreme Court directed the Centre on Tuesday to provide a compendium of corporate entities, who owe Rs 500 crore or more to banks, in four weeks. A bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud brushed aside the RBI's objections in October against making public...

-The Hindu Business Line Kirana and tea shops are doing better than businesses that involve discretionary spending The Micro-finance industry (MFI) is cursed and blessed at the same time. When there were indications that the micro-finance sector is overheating, with high growth rates, multiple lending and oppressive loan recovery practices, the withdrawal of specified bank notes (SBN) hit them. There were reports of stress from Uttar Pradesh and it appeared that there...

-The Telegraph Nagpur: A special investigation team will probe the alleged harassment of poor women borrowers in Maharashtra by loan recovery agents of micro-finance institutions, the state government announced today after month-long street protests and an Assembly debate. Junior home minister Deepak Kesarkar assured an agitated Assembly that the state was considering a law similar to one Andhra Pradesh had enacted in 2011 to regulate the MFIs' lending and loan recovery practices. About...