Morning Brief: Rs 22k crore Released For 13 PSBs; 14k NGOs Lost FCRA License; Turkey Widens Purge

SAVING PSBs

The Centre is set to infuse Rs 22,915 crore in 13 public sector banks (PSBs) in the first instalment to provide liquidity support to the banks and help them raise funds from the market. To tackle the problem of bad loans and in order to boost loan growth, Finance minister Arun Jaitley had promised Rs 25,000 crore towards capital infusion in the PSBs in this year’s budget.

In this instalment, State Bank of India has been allocated Rs 7,575 crore, Indian Overseas Bank Rs 3,101 crore, Punjab National Bank Rs 2,816 crore, Bank of India Rs 1,784 crore, Central Bank of India Rs 1,729 crore, Syndicate Bank Rs 1,034 crore and UCO Bank Rs 1,033 crore.

Highlighting the problem of bad loans, the finance minister informed the parliament yesterday that there were 8,167 wilful defaulters who owed banks an amount of Rs 76,685 crore. 1,724 FIRs have already been filed in these cases.

NO APOLOGIES

The Supreme Court on Tuesday read the law to Rahul Gandhi for allegedly accusing the RSS of “killing” Mahatma Gandhi. “You can’t make collective denunciations of an organisation,” the court said. It asked the Gandhi dynast to either apologise or face trial.

Mr Gandhi has chosen trial. The Congress party has said that there is no question of tendering an apology over his remarks against the RSS and Rahul will instead substantiate them with historical facts and evidence before the court to support his claim.

The congress party knows very well that it will be years before the trial gets off the ground. Even when it does, the case is likely to yield a mouse. Mr Gandhi needsn’t lose sleep over it.

FTIL TROUBLES

Assets worth Rs 2,000 crore belonging to the Financial Technologies (India) Ltd (FTIL) have been attached by Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW). These include company’s liquid assets such as banks’ fixed deposits, accounts and the headquarters.

The Enforcement Directorate had arrested FTIL’s founder Jignesh Shah last week in connection with the Rs 5,574.35 crore fraud in a money laundering case. He will be kept in judicial custody till the end of this month.

NO FOREIGN FUNDS

Minister of state in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju in a written reply informed the parliament yesterday that as many as 14,222 NGOs were barred from receiving foreign funds in the past four years for violating norms. 10,020 of these were barred last year. All these NGOs were found in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010.

The cancellation of the FCRA registration of NGOs is done based on the violation of provisions of FCRA act and action is initiated against the alleged violators after following due process as prescribed in the act, the minister said.

COUP AFTERMATH

Turkey is widening its purge following a failed military coup over the weekend. It has formally requested the extradition of cleric Fethullah Gulen from the United States. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames Gulen, a longtime bitter rival, for the attempted coup that resulted in the death of 232 people.

Gulen, a former comrade of President Erdogan who fell out with him in 2013, is an Islamic cleric who now lives in Pennsylvania and leads a popular movement called Hizmet, which includes hundreds of secular co-ed schools, free tutoring centres, hospitals and relief agencies.

Since the failed coup attempt, 9300 people have been detained, 9000 people from the interior ministry have been dismissed, 15,200 public education employees have been suspended and the licenses of 21,000 teachers working in private education institutions have been revoked under the suspicion of their links to Gulen.

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