Below the line. Yes, we are the Best!

The rivalry between St Stephen’s and Hindu College is well known. But, what amused everyone at the recent book launch was when Amitabh Kant, Hardeep S Puri, and Arun Jaitley sparred over their respective colleges’ greatness.

In his address, the witty Kant said “I have known him (Hardeep S Puri – Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing and Urban Affairs) as a great debater, when I was studying in St Stephen’s and he was in a lousy college across the road. He was a brilliant debater and fortunately for the country he taught in St Stephen’s College and excelled in life thereafter”.

But it was Jaitley, who read at another elite college within the radius – Shri Ram College of Commerce, who had the last word. “Hardeep always told me that after studying in his college, he shifted to improve the quality of scholarship elsewhere. He is too modest to say it himself,” said Jaitley. No points for guessing who was the winner here.

During the festival season there is a great demand for venues to hold functions.

ONGC too went scouting for a venue. But given the demand, even India’s largest crude oil producer could not find an appropriate venue to conduct a press conference after its 25th Annual General Meeting.

ONGC chief Shashi Shanker said, “We usually hold a press conference in the afternoon, shortly after the morning AGM. But, this time there were no hotels available to us at that slot, so we had to resort to an evening press conference.”

RK Singh, Minister for Power and Renewable Energy, staunchly believes that foreign funded NGOs are busy sabotaging development works, especially in the energy sector. He reiterated his fears over foreign NGOs again on Thursday.

But ironically, Singh has found funds for KUSUM, the solar pump scheme announced in the Union Budget, from the very segment he points fingers at. Greenpeace India is lobbying for Singh’s pet scheme, in an emailed appeal to its patrons, “The Ministry of Finance has been sitting on the funds meant for the scheme KUSUM. If YOU stand with us, we can create enough pressure to bring KUSUM to our farmers,” the Greenpeace India statement says.

So now that Greenpeace is lobbying for Singh’s Ministry, would he still question NGOs’ intentions?

Nothing unusual about it

It’s not every day that big banks redeem ₹15,000 crore of mutual fund units in a day or two. This happened after the debt market mayhem following the IL&FS downgrade. If market men are to be believed, it is SBI that had redeemed this large sum. However, SBI honchos dismissed this saying there is nothing unusual about this! Temporary liquidity is usually parked in MFs and those are often called back, a SBI official noted. Now the market is seeing this as a precursor for bailing out IL&FS, led by SBI and LIC. There is also market talk that SBI had North Block’s blessings for this MF redemption!

Given SBI’s ₹21,000-crore exposure in the IL&FS Group, the recent redemption did raise a lot of eyebrows.

A massive chunk of funding for building 12 new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which amounts to ₹18,000 crore, is coming from bank loans, a senior official in the Union Health Ministry said.

The question is who will repay such huge loans, when the taxpayer already contributes to the annual health budget that runs into ₹52,800 crore for 2018-19.

“The idea of taking loans is to not burden the exchequer at one go. The loans that are obtained will be repaid overtime, which may run into many years,” the official said.

Canara Bank is one of the loan-giving agencies and was inspecting some sites recently for feasibility of extending loans. AIIMS, unlike IITs in the past, does not have the option of tapping foreign funds. Now will the taxpayer be burdened with repaying such massive loan?

Our Delhi Bureau

COMMENT NOW