-The Hindustan Times As the country enters the election year, the UPA government has its task cut out in the form of legislative commitments which are looking increasingly difficult to fulfil. As many as 115 bills (excluding the finance bill) are pending before Parliament. Among these are the land acquisition and food security bills that for obvious reasons are high on the Congress-led coalition's social agenda in a poll year. Ninety-three of...
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In story of Saradha's crores, Bengal's forgotten hundreds -Madhuparna Das
-The Indian Express West Bengal is not new to chit fund Scams. What is unique to the Saradha Group scandal is how it targeted the poorest and the most marginalised, leaving them on the verge of devastation. From 17-year-old agents who raised money from depositors to 50-year-old widows who invested money, the Saradha Group didn't discriminate in roping them in. Since the house of cards started collapsing, two agents and two...
More »A legal blind spot-CRL Narasimhan
-The Hindu The Saradha group's spectacular failure has inflicted severe pain not only on its gullible depositors and agents but in a real sense on India's financial regulators and the State government as well. There is a law and order problem in West Bengal. Very soon, public attention will shift to regulation or the lack of it. The crisis, it appears, will not be confined to one state. In the worst...
More »Under regulator’s nose-Indrani Dutta
-The Hindu Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may be sleeping easy as she has "settled all the issues at hand" on the Saradha Scam. Saradha Group promoter Sudipto Sen has been booked and a Rs. 500-crore kitty has been created to make refunds to the depositors. However, no one is clear just how the refunds would be made and whether existing laws permit it. Mr. Sen's bubble may have burst. But the travails...
More »Different schemes built on different structures -Vinod Kothari
-The Hindu Even as thousands come to terms with the loss of life savings in the West Bengal "chit funds," it is interesting to find politicians promising new stern laws against such funds. Absence of laws is the least of the reasons for such schemes flourishing in the State. We are not short of such laws - in fact, we have plenty of laws that prohibit such schemes and provide for...
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