With Reliance Payment Bank, a joint venture between Reliance Industries Limited and SBI, set to begin operations in December, there is widespread concern that the new venture will cause the downslide of the country’s largest public sector bank.
IS it the beginning of the end for State Bank of India (SBI)? Is the country’s largest public sector bank being pushed on a downward journey that could eventually lead to its demise?
State Bank of India is the only Indian bank to figure in the list of the world’s top 50 banks and the only one to be listed in Fortune 500. It is widely known as the banker of the nation and has 23,566 branches in the country, of which 15,037 are in rural and semi-urban areas. SBI has 189 international offices in 35 countries. As of September 30, 2014, the bank had approximately 225 million active customer accounts, and deposits, net advances and a total assets base of Rs.14,73,785 crore, Rs.12,09,648 crore and Rs.18,74,332 crore respectively. It recently acquired additional muscle by merging its five associate banks with itself, besides opening crores of new accounts under the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana. This bank is now being gifted to Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on a platter, ostensibly for the purpose of “banking the unbanked”.
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How Not To Handle An Epidemic
The lockdowns were meant to buy time to put in place appropriate health measures and contain the coronavirus’ spread, but they have failed to achieve the objective and heaped immense misery on the marginalised sections of society. India is still in the exponential phase of the COVID-19 infection and community transmission is a reality that the government refuses to accept.
Tragedy on foot
As the COVID-19-induced lockdown cuts the ground beneath their feet in Tamil Nadu, thousands of migrant workers are trudging along the highway to the relative safety of their upcountry homes.
Sarpanchs as game changers
Odisha manages to keep COVID-19 well under control because of the strong participation of panchayati raj institutions and the community at the grass-roots level under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Scapegoating China
As the COVID-19 death rate spikes and the economy tanks in the United States, Donald Trump and his advisers target China and the World Health Organisation with an eye to winning the forthcoming presidential election.
New worries
Kerala’s measured approach to the pandemic and lockdown has yielded results. But it still has to grapple with their huge economic impact on its economy, which it feels the Centre’s special financial relief package does little to alleviate.
No love lost for labour
Taking advantage of the lockdown and the inability of workers to organise protests, many State governments introduce sweeping changes to labour laws to the detriment of workers on the pretext of reviving production and boosting the economy.
Capital's Malthusian moment
In a world that needs substantial reorienting of production and distribution, Indian capital is resorting to a militant form of moribund neoliberalism to overcome its current crisis. In this pursuit of profit, it is ready and willing to throw into mortal peril millions whom it adjudicates as not worth their means—an admixture of social Darwinism born of capital’s avarice and brutalism spawned by Hindutva. .
Understanding migration
When governments and their plans are found to be blatantly wanting in addressing reverse migration, exercises such as the Ekta Parishad’s survey of migrant workers throughout India can be useful to work out creative long-lasting solutions.
Waiting for Jabalpur moment
The Supreme Court’s role in ensuring executive accountability during the ongoing lockdown leaves much to be desired. Standing in shining contrast is the record of some High Courts.
An empty package
The Modi regime, which has been unable to control the COVID-19 infection, restore economic activity and provide relief to millions exposed to starvation, trains its sights on Indian democracy, making use of the panic generated by fear and a lockdown that forecloses paths of resistance.
