It will provide credit risk guarantee to banks on the loans Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday announced that the Centre was considering setting up a credit risk guarantee fund with a corpus of Rs. 1,000 crore, to start with, to encourage banks to lend to the poor for housing. Emphasising that developing housing for the poor was critical for sustainable urban development, he said: “To encourage banks to lend in significant...

-The Telegraph   New laws are often brought in without assessing their judicial and financial impact. The result is poor implementation, says Seetha Call it collateral damage. According to newspaper reports, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has written to the Prime Minister asking for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to be put on hold during the peak season of agricultural operations. With a guaranteed income of Rs 100 a day for at...

-IBN   The much hyped Unique Identification (UID) project led by Nandan Nilekani has run into trouble after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance rejecting the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 in its present form. The committee headed by Yashwant Sinha pointed out several anomalies in the existing bill and urged the government to "reconsider and review the UID scheme as also the proposals contained in the Bill in all its...

-Live Mint The news that a parliamentary committee has rejected its proposed Bill must come as a jolt to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Reports say that the committee was concerned about duplication with the National Population Register (NPR), the technology, data protection, and the cost. This comes closely on the heels of the home ministry’s contention that UIDAI does not meet the “degree of assurance” required for NPR,...

-The Times of India   The government has endorsed a recommendation of Parliament's standing committee to restrain judges from making baseless comments against constitutional and statutory bodies and their functionaries even in cases which don't concern them directly. The decision forms part of the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill that is to be discussed by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday. The government has also expanded the standing committee's recommendation that close relatives of judges...