-Scroll.in While officials say waivers could jeopardise allocation for other key sectors, farmer unions and economists feel it is a necessity given the farming crisis. Developments in three states over the past week have brought the debate on the waiver of farm loans back under the political spotlight. In Uttar Pradesh, the newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party government under Chief Minister Adityanath announced on Wednesday that it would write-off crop loans of up...

-The Hindu ‘Time to build consensus on not making such poll promises’ Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel on Thursday stressed the need for building a national consensus on loan waiver schemes. Addressing a press conference here, he said this was needed so that promises such as loan waivers are not made during elections. “We need to create consensus so that such loan waiver promises are eschewed. Otherwise, sub-sovereign fiscal challenges in...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel has sounded the alarm on state governments waiving farm loans and has called for a consensus on eschewing them to avoid damaging the national balance sheet. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath recently announced a Rs 36,000-crore farm loan waiver, which could trigger copycat decisions by the Punjab and Maharashtra governments. "It undermines honest credit culture, it impacts credit...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A clutch of legal amendments the Narendra Modi government has introduced to allow corporate political donors to mask their contributions drags the world's largest democracy against global currents of rising transparency in electoral funding, analysts and activists have warned. From Brazil to Bangladesh, and Croatia to Cyprus, countries of diverse sizes and varied histories with democracy have over the past decade adopted laws and rules aimed at making...

-The Hindu Officials want security features changed every 3-4 years That the new Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 500 notes have the same security features as the old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 ones has the security agencies worried. At a high-level meeting last week to discuss the presence of fake currency notes, officials at North Block were informed that the “covert security features” had not been changed since 2005. The Hindu had reported on...