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India’s banking sector is in deep crisis. There are no two opinions that it was on verge of collapse. The union government’s effort to pull it out of the crisis confirms it further. Difference relate to who is blaming whom for the crisis. The Modi fan club naturally blames the previous regimes as it cannot countenance even hint that the NaMo regime can ever err on any count. But such belief can be easily discarded or ignored as it is not based on comprehension of economics. But no one can dismiss the union finance minister Nirmala Seetharaman shoving the blame on the style of politics of the past.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Food availability is uncertain for 60 percent of the people. Conditions are bleak, and bleaker still from shortages, rampant political corruption, and not much to show after two years of regular street protests. In the year prior to September, security forces killed 77 people. That month protests accentuated and by Oct. 7 they had killed at least 17 more.

Sri Lanka is going to elect a new president on November 16. The present incumbent, Sirisena Maithripala, is not contesting. Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Brother Nandasena Gotabaya, better known as Gotabaya, is contesting this time. Though there are as many as 35 contestants in the fray but the main contest will lie between Gotabaya of the Sri Lanka Podujena Peramuna (SLPP) and Sajith Premadasa of the United National Party (UNP),with the scales tilting in favour of the former.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Low polling in all the five assembly constituencies which went to the polls on Monday due to heavy rains, has caused concern to all the three fronts, particularly the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the BJP-headed National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

In Assam, there is a major disillusionment among some people over the perceived failure of the much publicised National Register of Citizens (NRC) updating exercise. Far from identifying and isolating at least 5 million Bangladeshi illegal migrants if not more, the tangible outcome of the NRC operation has left its lip-smacking Assam-based backers shell-shocked. Apparently, there are only around 19,00,000 people whose ID documents are not in order. Moreover, this number will drop further once the ongoing appellate proceedings are over. Talk about mass hysteria making mountains out of molehills!

Ayodhya is getting ready to face the impact of the Supreme Court judgment on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmaboomi title suit by next month. The verdict will, hopefully, put a lid to the dispute between the two communities on the right of ownership. A violent mob of karsevaks had pulled down the Babri masjid adjacent to the Ram temple in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992, which has affected the communal fabric of the country. The Hindu side -represented by seven parties over the disputed site have argued in the apex court that there was a temple dedicated to the birthplace of Lord Ram before Babri Masjid was erected during the medieval times. The judgment is likely to be delivered before November 17, by which time the present chief justice of India Ranjan Gogoi will be retiring.

BHOPAL: Almost every day when you open your newspaper you read news about some or other officer found involved in corrupt practices. Invariably property and cash running into several crores is recovered. The latest to be caught owning property worth more than Rs. 100 crores is Alok Khare, an excise officer.

The political development in Britain is moving along expected lines. Boris Johnson has failed to persuade the Commons to bail out his Brexit deal. His political advisers have made him to believe that the Parliament would stand by him and winning a clear majority for his Brexit plan was not at all a problem.

Two chief ministers, Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee, have severely weakened their positions at a time when the next Assembly election in their states is not far away. Yet, both started on a high note, none being more upbeat than Kejriwal.

Veteran banker and financial wizard Deepak Parekh is absolutely right to lately express his concern about the system of loan waivers and write-offs “every now and again” while there is little “to protect the honest, common man’s savings.” The HDFC chairman’s comments came in the wake of the crisis at the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC), affecting over four lakh depositors who are in deep distress and fighting to withdraw their savings. The latter’s money is stuck with the urban cooperative bank after RBI put a withdrawal limit at Rs 25,000 per account last month.