-The Hindu It took nearly three years for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to give a final shape to the government’s decision to let more players in the private sector banking field. That by itself offers a clue to the divide in thinking between the fiscal and monetary managers of the Indian economy. When it did come out with guidelines for “Licensing of New Banks in the Private Sector”, the...

-PTI The postal department plans to enter the banking business with the Reserve Bank of India deciding to grant new bank licences to entities with credible track-record. Consultant appointed Sources said the Department of Posts, which has a strong foot print in rural areas, has appointed Ernst and Young (E&Y) as the consultant for the proposed ‘Post Bank’ “Ernst and Young is expected to submit a detailed project report by April, after which all...

-The Business Standard Varad Pande, officer on special duty, ministry of rural development, says the Aadhaar identification project aims to cover at least half of country’s population by next year. He talks about where it has reached, in an interview with Samie Modak & Abhineet Kumar. Edited excerpts: * What is the Aadhaar project’s status? The project started about two years earlier and now has a little more than 270 million enrolled, roughly...

-The Hindu “Unions should press for things like public health, nutrition, in addition to [addressing] issue of secularity” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Saturday exhorted trade unions to expand their role to address injustice in general, covering aspects like inequalities in income, healthcare, education and nutrition. Speaking at the 90 anniversary celebration of the Reserve Bank Employees Association, he said unions could take their role further as their identity cut across religious sects,...

-The Business Standard Nobel laureate says rural areas worst affected, with wages in Chinese villages having risen 6-7 times faster Nobel laureate Amartya Sen today said that wages in India had failed to keep pace with the overall GNP growth over the last decades. Sen pointed out, although India has seen a lot of economic growth over the past 20 years, wages, especially that of rural labour, have fallen behind. Comparing wage rise...