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Archives for September 2018

Dena Bank board okays merger with Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank

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The Dena Bank board on Monday approved the merger proposal with Bank of Baroda and Vijaya Bank proposed by the government last week.

The government last Monday announced the merger of three state-run banks — Dena Bank, Vijaya Bank and Bank of Baroda — that will make it the country’s third-largest bank with a combined business of Rs 14.82 lakh crore.

In a stock exchange filing, Dena Bank, the smallest of the three banks proposed to be merged, said the consolidation would enable creation of a bank with business scale comparable to global banks and capable of competing effectively in India and globally.

Dena Bank has a total business size of Rs 1.73 lakh crore and is also under the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on account of its high non-performing assets (NPAs), or bad loans, which for the Indian banking system as a whole have crossed the staggering level of Rs 10 lakh crore.

“To be more efficient in the changing environment, the banks in the public sector space need to be bigger to meet the credit needs of a growing economy, absorb shocks and have the capacity to raise resources without depending unduly on the exchequer.

“Consolidation would enable creation of a bank with business scale comparable to global banks and capable of competing effectively in India and globally,” the filing said.

“Amalgamation of our Bank with Bank of Baroda and Vijaya Bank would result in a strong amalgamated bank, equipped with financial cushion to deal with post-amalgamation requirements during the stabilisation phase.”

While making the merger proposal last week, Finance Minister Arun Jailtey said the consolidated entity’s capacity to absorb a weaker bank guided the decision “to propose this merger to the boards”.

The government said the amalgamated entity will have a net NPA ratio at 5.71 per cent, which is significantly better than the public sector banks’ (PSBs) average of 12.13 per cent, and declining further.

“The combined business of amalgamated entities would make it second-largest PSB of the country,” Dena Bank said.

This is the second such exercise in the last 18 months. In the previous mega merger, five associate banks and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank became part of the state-run State Bank of India on April 1, 2017, making the country’s largest lender among the world’s top 50 banks.

IANS

Jaitley to meet heads of public sector banks on Tuesday

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will meet the heads of public sector banks (PSBs) on Tuesday to review their performance and to take stock of the sector reeling under non-performing assets (NPAs) and scams.

“Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will chair the Annual Review Meeting of the CEOs of PSBs scheduled to be held on Tuesday in New Delhi,” the Finance Ministry said in a tweet.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of huge losses reported by many of the PSBs in the previous fiscal, various allegations of frauds and scams, identification of higher NPAs, credit related issues and government-induced consolidation.

Last week, the government proposed the merger of three state-run banks – Dena Bank, Vijaya Bank and the Bank of Baroda – into an amalgamated entity through Alternative Mechanism, set up to fast-track consolidation to create strong lenders.

“The meeting is likely to discuss the challenges facing the banks like NPAs and credit growth. Steps taken by banks to recover the bad loans will also be reviewed,” said an official adding that the meeting with banks will happen at Vigyan Bhawan here.

(IANS)

Indian-origin doctor pleads guilty to healthcare fraud in US

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An Indian-origin doctor has pleaded guilty to a healthcare fraud in the US, the Justice Department said.

Jayam Krishna Iyer, 66, from Clearwater, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of the healthcare fraud earlier this week and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison, or 20 years, if her offence involves serious bodily injury, the Department said in a press release.

As part of the plea on Tuesday, Iyer agreed to surrender both her Drug Enforcement Administration registration number that she used to prescribe controlled substances, her Florida medical licence, and to a permanent exclusion from the Medicare and Medicaid programmes.

According to officials, Iyer owned and operated Creative Medical Centre in Clearwater that functioned as a pain management clinic.

She billed Medicare and Medicaid for office visits, tests and services provided to patients using her National Provider Identification number, as well as wrote prescriptions for controlled substances.

Beginning as early as July 2011 and continuing through December 2017, Iyer executed and carried out a scheme to defraud Medicare by billing for face-to-face office visits with Medicare beneficiaries, when, in fact, certain patients did not go to her centre and were not examined by her on the claimed dates.

Instead, family members of the patients went to her with notes requesting her to issue and provide prescriptions.

Officials said that she thereby violated a law requiring doctors to perform an in-person office visit and examination of each patient before issuing controlled substance prescriptions.

Iyer also falsified her electronic medical records to make it appear that the patient was present in her office. She submitted at least $51,500 in these types of false and fraudulent Medicare claims, the release said.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Florida Office of Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

It is being prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Kelley Howard-Allen.

IANS

Australian bank goes digital with Infosys cloud software

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Software major Infosys said on Tuesday that Australian Military Bank (AMB) in Sydney went live digitally on the Finacle cloud platform of its subsidiary EdgeVerve Systems.

“Our Finacle cloud software has enabled AMB offer world class banking experience on digital platform, implemented on the software as a service (Saas) model in 10 months,” said the city-based IT firm in a statement here.

As Australia’s longest serving defence financial institution, AMB has been serving its defence personnel and their families since 1959.

“Our financial software product (Finacle) has enabled the bank gain operational benefits and cost efficiencies besides enhanced security and scalability,” said the statement.

The Finacle solution has replaced the bank’s legacy systems to keep pace with new technology developments and allow a speedy response to market demands.

“The solution also enables open application programming interfaces (APIs) that overcome limitations for the bank’s ability to work with ecosystem partners,” noted the statement.

The bank has been processing about 40,000 mixed transactions per day, with 22,000 card transactions and nearly 7,000 composite payments transactions on average per day on the digital platform.

The system has helped the bank make the origination process simpler and drive the creation of a pipeline of 61 million Australian dollar worth of loans during the first month of using the new software.

“The bank is able to onboard new members and open accounts, complete with transactions enabled, within minutes,” added the statement.

(IANS)

5 of family killed in Odisha accident

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Five people of a family were killed while two others sustained critical injuries on Tuesday after their van fell into a canal in Odisha’s Puri district, police said.

The incident occurred between Rua and Bhailapur on the Nirakarpur-Puri road.

The injured have been admitted to Chandanpur hospital.

The accident took place when the driver of the vehicle lost control, the police said.

The family from Ganjam district was on its way to Puri to visit the Jagannath Temple.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each to the next of the kin of the victims.

IANS

Take over RK Studios and turn it into film school, well-wishers urge government

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What will happen to the RK Studios, which has just wrapped up what may be its last Ganpati celebrations? Nobody knows, but it’s worth debating whether suggestions that the government must buy it and turn it into a film school for posterity, are viable.

In August, when Rishi Kapoor revealed the family’s collective decision to sell the 70-year-old studio, which was gutted in a fire last year, the news sent several Indian cinephiles on a nostalgia trip. But then came another question — is heritage all about a building?

“For movie lovers, RK Studios was a temple of cinema and one never imagines that the temple will go away from the map. But it is happening… It is saddening. It’s a place that captured an important time of Indian cinema, documented the changing times through storytelling on celluloid… It’s a place that came from the vision of a man like Raj Kapoor, and it will not be there for the future cinema lovers. This is a big loss of heritage,” Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Director, Film Heritage Foundation, told IANS.

On the contrary, film industry veteran Amit Khanna says, “Raj Kapoor’s heritage is his cinema, his talented family, his music and creativity, and not merely a building.”

The studio, with its red logo flanking the white gates, sprawls across two acres. The headquarters of the film production company R.K. Films, was founded and named after the “Great Showman”, Raj Kapoor, in 1948.

Its inaugural banner film “Aag” that year crashed at the box office. But its production “Barsaat” (1949) was a super hit, following which the studio rolled out a string of successful black-and-white releases like “Awaara” (1951), “Boot Polish” (1954), “Shri 420” (1955) and “Jaagte Raho” (1956).

Later, several other big ticket films like “Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti Hain”, “Mera Naam Joker”, “Bobby”, “Satyam Shivam Sundaram”, “Prem Rog” and “Ram Teri Ganga Maili”, which was the founder-actor’s last film before his death in June 1988, were shot at RK Studios.

Popular filmmaker Anees Bazmee, who assisted Raj Kapoor on “Prem Rog”, has fond memories of spending four years of his life in and out of RK Studios.

“I am sure the sale of the property is a well-thought and painful decision for the family. But it will be great if what is known by the name of RK, continues to have the RK stamp in some way or another,” Bazmee told IANS.

For film historian S.M.M. Ausaja, however, the decision was “heartbreaking”.

“The studio has been an iconic landmark of the film industry. So many classics were shot there besides R.K. Films’ own ventures and it represented the labour of love associated with Raj Saab, inherited from his talented father Prithviraj Kapoor,” he told IANS.

The family’s legacy in the Hindi film industry can’t be ignored. Prithviraj’s sons Raj, Shammi and Shashi had flourishing careers in showbiz. Raj’s sons Randhir and Rishi became well-known actors, while his third son Rajiv couldn’t make it as big. Shashi’s daughter Sanjana contributed to the theatre scene.

Randhir’s daughters with actress Babita — Karisma and Kareena — both achieved success as actresses, and Rishi and actress Neetu Singh’s son Ranbir Kapoor is one of Bollywood’s most popular stars today.

Rishi, on behalf of the family, had in August said they initially wanted to renovate the studio with state-of-the-art technology, but the investment in rebuilding the studio would just not have yielded sufficient revenue to keep it going. Its condition worsened after the fire incident, which caused a huge loss in terms of costumes and memorabilia.

Dungarpur, who recently visited the studio, said “almost nothing was left”.

“Economically, it is really tough to rebuild it… It was not in the right condition and many historical documents of the films that the studio has given to Indian cinema, are gone,” he said, adding that it is wrong to expect the government to protect the studio as cinema heritage because it it was private property and a commercial institution.

Ausaja has a different view.

“Such monuments are vanishing because there’s no respect for cinema heritage in the eyes of the ruling regime and the corporates. They won’t bat an eyelid in erecting giant multi-million dollar statues complementing their political ideology, but even if you propose something on the dwindling cinema heritage, the file would gather dust in the corridor cupboards,” he said.

“Upkeep of such cinema heritage structures is the responsibility of the government and corporates as well to some extent. The R.K. family would be positive if any such proposal reaches them,” he said.

Filmmaker Rahul Dholakia said: “Wouldn’t it be a great idea for the government to buy R.K. Studio and convert it into a film school? After all, it was home to one of India’s best storytellers — and then imagine the young talents exploring cinema on Raj Kapoor’s playground… better than a high rise.”

In a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam too urged the government to acquire the studio at the prevailing market rates and convert it into a full-fledged museum.

IANS

Yamuna in spate, crosses danger mark in Delhi

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The Yamuna river here is flowing above the danger level following release of water from Haryana’s Hathnikund barrage in the wake of heavy rains and flash floods in parts of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.

The states have witnessed downpours in the last few days due to which the water level in the rivers have increased.

The warning level mark of the Yamuna is 204 metres and the danger level mark is 204.83 metres.

Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash has called an emergency meeting on Tuesday afternoon to decide the steps to deal with exigencies.

“The water level of river Yamuna at Delhi Railway Bridge at 11 a.m. was 205.12 meters,” a Flood and Control Department official told IANS.

“The water is showing a rising trend and is expected to go up as Delhi is witnessing rains and more water is being released every hour from the barrage,” he added.

The water discharged from Hathnikund barrage, which provides drinking water to the national capital, normally takes 72 hours to reach the city, he said.

Delhi had witnessed the worst ever floods in 1978 when the river’s level touched a record 207.49 meters.

Former content moderator sues Facebook over mental trauma

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A former content moderator at Facebook has sued the company alleging that moderators who face mental trauma after reviewing distressing images on the platform are not being properly protected by the social networking giant.

“Ex-contractor Selena Scola has sued Facebook for allegedly ‘ignoring its duty’ to protect moderators who deal with mental trauma after seeing disturbing imagery.

“Rather than create a safe environment, it’s producing a ‘revolving door of contractors’ who are permanently scarred by what they’ve seen, Scola’s lawyer Korey Nelson said,” Engadget reported on Tuesday.

According to the lawsuit, moderators at the social media giant under contract are “bombarded” with thousands of videos, images and livestreamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide and murder.

The company has said it was “reviewing” the lawsuit and took moderator support “seriously” and pointed to its existing assistance, including “in house” psychological and wellness support.

“We are currently reviewing this claim. We recognise that this work can often be difficult. That is why we take the support of our content moderators incredibly seriously, starting with their training, the benefits they receive, and ensuring that every person reviewing Facebook content is offered psychological support and wellness resources,” Facebook was quoted as saying by Engadget.

The social networking giant has maintained that all of its content reviewers have access to mental health resources, including trained professionals onsite for both individual and group counselling and that they receive full health care benefits, according to The Guardian.

IANS

Rahul commends Amethi for donation towards Kerala flood relief

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday commended farmers and small businessmen here for contributing Rs 2.57 lakh for the relief work in flood-battered Kerala.

“In Amethi district, small businessmen, farmers, women and handicraft workers, who shared the pain of Kerala’s flood-victims, gave me a cheque of 2.57 lakh,” he tweeted.

“They are still working for the flood relief. Many thanks to the people of Amethi for this commendable work.”

Gandhi, who has held this Lok Sabha seat from eastern Uttar Pradesh since 2004, is here on a two-day visit.

IANS

World Bank will offer new initiative on Indus Treaty dispute: Pakistan

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The World Bank would soon approach India and Pakistan with a fresh initiative to resolve the Indus Water Treaty dispute, its President Jim Yong Kim has told Islamabad’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, according to a statement from Pakistan’s UN Mission.

It said that Qureshi met Jim at the UN on Monday and complained to him about India’s Kishan Ganga and Ratle projects asserting that they were violations of the 1960 treaty.

Under the provisions of the Indus Water Treaty 1960, waters of the eastern rivers – Sutlej, Beas and Ravi – had been allocated to India and the western rivers – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan, except for certain non-consumptive uses for India.

(IANS)

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