Indian banks are overburdened, says study

September 17th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The China Study Group meeting to discuss the fallout of Chinese incursions into Indian territory, which was to be held on Thursday, has been postponed. No reason was given for the postponement of the meeting.

September 4th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India has only now begun to tap its 25-million diaspora in 130 countries to boost its growth, unlike China that owes much of its economic miracle to the overseas Chinese, says a study released Friday. Indian companies have tapped into the Indian diaspora less well than the Chinese firms into the Chinese diaspora, says Tarun Khanna, professor at the Harvard Business School and a contributor to the study called The Global Indian Firm.

August 7th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Normal-banking operations continued to be affected by a public sector banks employee's strike on Friday. Cheque clearings were hit badly on Thursday and ATM may go dry on Friday.

July 31st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Britain, New Zealand and North America and not Australia are the favoured destinations for higher education for Indian kids and their parents. A report in the Australian daily The Age has said that media reports about attacks on young Indians and allegations of racism in Australian suburbs have had a serious impact on an Indian education agent's potential to attract students to Australia.

June 18th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Indian corporates could slow down investment in the US if the strict American policy on issuing temporary visas is not relaxed, says a study by a leading industry lobby and a global consultancy. "The tight-fisted US policy on the grant of H-1B visas to Indian employers may dampen the appetite of Indian corporates for investing in the US," said Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and consultancy Ernst and Young in a statement Thursday.

May 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Australian government has announced ten merit-based scholarships for students from Asia and Indian scholars are being considered 'deserving' candidates. Indian students would be the 'best and deserving candidates' for the Prime Minister's Australia Asian Endeavour awards announced recently, according to the Australian High Commissioner to India, John McCarthy.

May 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - The Mumbai terror attacks have put the spotlight on how India's outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems are hampering the country's counterterrorism efforts, says a US State Department report. 'Although clearly committed to combating violent extremism, the Indian government's counterterrorism efforts remained hampered by its outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems,' said the State Department's annual report on global terrorism released Thursday.

March 31st, 2009 BHOPAL - Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan Tuesday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to raise strongly at the G20 summit the issue of Indian black money deposited in Swiss banks. In a letter, Chouhan urged the prime minister to raise the issue of tax evaders' money in foreign banks, which is estimated to be 50 to 120 times more than India's GDP.

March 29th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Sunday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to raise in the upcoming G20 summit at London the issue of India's black money stashed in foreign banks.

March 27th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The high government borrowing targets will leave very little room for interest rate cuts, Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar said Friday, adding that the troubled time is yet to come for the Indian Economy.

March 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - As major US firms cut back on plans to hire foreign students due to concerns over political backlash amidst growing job losses, a new study warns the move may only prove detrimental to America's economic health. A Kauffman Foundation study released Thursday indicates that the move by large banks, such as Bank of America, may only end up hurting the US economic health by accelerating the return of talented immigrant students to their home countries.

March 16th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Indian economy is headed towards deflation, which could raise unemployment, even as its central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), was expected to cut the cash reserve ratio by some 150 basis points, says Goldman Sachs. The global consultancy has made the prediction based on the weekly movement of the official wholesale price index, as per which the country's annual rate of inflation fell to a six-year low of 2.43 percent for the week ended Feb 28.

February 16th, 2009 MUMBAI - The Indian media and entertainment industry was a $11.68 billion (Rs.584 billion) business in 2008, growing at 15 percent annually since 2006, says the annual joint study of a leading chamber and a consultancy released here Tuesday. But the growth projection for the industry for 2009-13 has been lowered to 12.5 percent per annum from 18 percent for 2008-12, says the joint study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and KPMG.

February 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Banks have lent Rs.1.36 trillion (Rs.136,586 crore) to the agriculture sector in the first eight months this fiscal as against a full year target of Rs.2.8 trillion. As per the figures released by the government Monday, the commercial banks have lent Rs.96.6 billion, while cooperative banks and regional rural banks have lent Rs.251.2 billion and Rs.148.

January 30th, 2009 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - The Migration Research Unit, affiliated to the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) here, will work with the Chandigarh-based Centre for Rural Research and Industrial Development (CRRID) to conduct the first-ever comprehensive study on international migration from Punjab. S. Irudayarajan, head of the the research unit which is funded by the Ministry for Overseas Indian Affairs, said that they will be providing the questionnaire for the survey and also provide the sampling design.