Kerala temples observe Ramayana month July 17, 2014 Karkkidakam, the last month of the Malayalam Calendar is observed as Ramayana month. Temples in Kerala started observing Ramayana month on July 17, 2014. In Malayalam, the month is called the ‘Ramayana Masam’. During this month the temples and homes of the state recites Adyatma Ramayana Kilippattu written by Thunjath Ezhuthachan for the 31 days. Ezhuthachan is regarded as the father of Malayalam literature. The recital of epic Ramayana begins on the first day of the month and is completed on the last day of the month Karkkidakom, which is on August 16, 2014. Elder members recite the Ramayana everyday in the evenings after lighting traditional lamp nilavilakku. Several competitions and cultural activities based on Ramayana are organised across the state in pursuance of the centuries old custom of Ramayana month. Russian city Ufa to host BRICS Summit 2015 July 17, 2014 Russia has offered to host the BRICS Summit for year 2015 in the country’s city of Ufa after the grouping’s successful meeting in Brazil that witnessed a consensus being reached on setting up a development bank and a contingency reserve arrangement. Ufa is the capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia, and the industrial, economic, scientific and cultural centre of the republic. The recently concluded 6th BRICS summit held in Fortaleza, Brazil was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, Jacob Zuma of South Africa and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, as they discussed global economic, political and strategic issues. The group decided to establish the New Development Bank with an initial authorized capital of $100 billion for which the initial subscribed capital will be equally shared by the founding members, a point India stressed upon to prevent domination by anyone of the members. It was also decided on establishing a contingency reserve arrangement with an initial size of $100 billion. RBI relaxes CRR, SLR and PSL norms for banks issuing infra bonds July 17, 2014 With a view to promote infrastructure development and affordable housing, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), exempted long-term bonds from the mandatory regulatory norms such as the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) and Priority Sector Lending (PSL) if the money raised is utilized for financing of such projects. The easing of norms comes close on the heels of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s budget speech in which he had said that banks will be encouraged to provide long term loans to infrastructure sector with flexible structuring to absorb potential adverse contingencies, sometimes called as the “5/25 structure”. As per RBI: Banks issuing long-term bonds with a minimum maturity of 7 years to raise resources for lending to i) long-term projects in infrastructure sub-sectors, and (ii) affordable housing have been exempted from regulatory pre-emption, such as, the CRR, the SLR and Priority Sector Lending (PSL). Banks are required to keep a portion of deposits as CRR with the central bank and park certain portion in government securities known as SLR. Banks may use the “5/25 structure” under which bank may fix longer amortization period for loans to projects in infrastructure and core industries sectors, suppose 25 years, with periodic refinancing, say every 5 years. The objective of these instructions is to extenuate the Asset-Liability Management (ALM) problems faced by banks in providing project loans to infrastructure and core industries sectors, and also to relax the raising of long term resources for project loans to infrastructure and affordable housing sectors. Banks should issue rupee denominated bonds in ‘plain vanilla form’ without call or put option with a fixed or floating rate of interest. Affordable housing lending includes loans eligible under the priority sector, and loans up to Rs.50 lakh to individuals for houses costing up to Rs.65 lakh located in the 6 metropolitan cities. For other areas, it includes loans of Rs.40 lakh for houses costing up to Rs.50 lakh. Realtors’ body CREDAI, appreciated the RBI’s move to ease norms for banks to raise long-term funds for financing affordable housing, saying this would lead to cheaper credit for such projects. According to the RBI, while banks have been raising resources in a significantly, issuance of long-term bonds for funding loans to infrastructure sector has not gathered momentum at all. Infrastructure and core industries projects have long gestation periods and need large capital investments. India seeks to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure sector by 2017, half of which is expected to come from the private sector. Government to accept Self-Attested documents July 17, 2014 Indian citizens will not have to rush to a gazette officer or a notary to get their documents attested. Giving relief to the people, the government has decided to eliminate the necessity of filing affidavits from a gazetted officer or a notary for a substantial number of government-related works. Instead of following the old practice, the government has decided to promote self-attestation of documents. The Government has also asked states to review the existing necessity of attaching such affidavits with various application forms and implement self-attestation of documents. The measure is in line with the recommendations of 12th report, ‘Citizen Centric Administration-The Heart of Governance’, of the second Administrative Reforms Commission which suggested simplifying procedures for self-certification provision. It has been observed that getting an affidavit is a cumbersome process. Notaries charge Rs 100-500 for providing affidavits. Also, most of the gazetted officials also do not approve affidavits in the absence of sufficient documents. In villages and remote areas the situation is even worse. Some ministries or state governments have embraced the provision of self-certification of documents like marksheet, birth certificate, etc by the applicants or stakeholders instead of requiring them to provide an attested copy of the documents by a gazetted officer or filing of affidavits. Under the self-attestation process, the original documents are required to be produced at the final stage.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 05:18:12 +0000