'Rani's item number for Housefull 2'

For the first time in her career, Rani Mukerji will do a hot disco number 

Rani Mukerji is certainly having fun. On the one hand, she has delivered a hard-hitting performance in her last film and on the other, she is gearing up for some matkas and jhatkas in the Housefull sequel. 

Yes, for the first time in her career, the actress will be seen in an item song. Even though she is a fantastic dancer, for some reason, she has stayed away from item songs so far in her career. However, she isn't ready to talk about it. A trained Odissi dancer, Rani says, "As of now, this is hearsay and I'd like to leave it at that. I have really not done an item number in my career, but I'm open to it. 

Doing it totally depends on how the song is being presented and if it excites me. I love dancing and I think such special songs have a lot of energy. It's fun to see and shoot." So will this number be choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant, who is a close friend of Rani and has directed her dance moves in Bunty Aur Babli and Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic? We'll keep you posted. 

Now Dadasaheb Phalke award for the actress 

After collecting every other award in the country for her performance in No One Killed Jessica, Rani will soon add the Dada Saheb Phalke Academy Award to her collection. She confirms, "I'm happy that people have loved my film and my work. I have always let my work do the talking and I guess I have proved to my critics that I'm not over. It's a great feeling to be back winning awards.

The past three years had been challenging because I didn't have box office success behind me. People forget the body of work, and the amount of blood and sweat that you put in for years and write you off, so I'm very happy to get this prestigious award."

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Ranis-item-number-for-Housefull-2/articleshow/8025606.cms

Bad debts of PSU banks hit Rs 30k crore

NEW DELHI: The government's agenda for inclusive growth and emphasis on priority sector lending is proving costly for the exchequer, with bad debts of state-run banks increasing to over Rs 30,000 crore till December, 2010. These bad loans — given to agriculture, small-scale enterprises and other priority sectors — are around half of the Rs 68,000 crore non-performing assets (NPAs) of government banks during the same period. 

The agriculture sector leads the pack, accounting for 70% of bad loans. In contrast, only 22% loans went bad in small-scale industries ( SSI) sector during April-December 2010 as against 65% of NPAs in 2009-10. This issue will come up for discussion later this month during a meeting of CEOs of PSU bankswith top finance ministry officials, a ministry official said. The assets quality of these banks has also raised concern on efficacy of due diligence on lending. 

The review on credit lending will ascertain if the banks are meeting the 40% mandatory lending to priority sectors on their own, or they have been borrowing such loans from regional rural banks (RRBs) and micro-finance institutions (MFIs). If larger NPAs are attributed to such borrowings, the government may restrict these options in future. 

In the Budget 2011-12, government enhanced agriculture credit limit to Rs 475,000 crore from Rs 375,000 crore in the previous year. Banks have been asked to step up direct lending for agriculture and credit to small and marginal farmers in a bid to increase farm productivity. But, considering that the banks have pressure from the government to meet the credit target within the financial year, the high-level of NPAs show the kind of compromise is being made on the eligibility criteria. 

A similar problem, which had occurred a few years ago nad impacted banks' credit lending and reserves, had to be compensated by government's recapitalization and reimbursement through a farm loan-waiver scheme. A farm loan-waiver scheme announced in 2008-09 to compensate banks made a dent on the exchequer to the tune of Rs 70,000 crore. 

Besides, the farm loans, PSU banks have consistently been writing off bad debts of more than Rs 10,000 crore every year to reflect a healthy balance sheet. The gross NPAs of all government banks have grown by 30% in 2009-10 to Rs 57,000 crore, and in the first nine months of 2010-11, it went up by more than Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 68,600 crore.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Bad-debts-of-PSU-banks-hit-Rs-30k-crore/articleshow/7986170.cms

'Fiscal adjustment has to be the priority'

Arvind Virmani, the country’s Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, says use of fiscal policy to help contain inflation was an important issue in the Budget and the finance ministry appreciated that. Edited excerpts from an interview with Vrishti Beniwal:

Did the Budget address the key concerns?

In a global context, there are two things standing out about India, inflation and fiscal deficit. Inflation is important from the domestic and global angle. To a certain extent, things were being tried but not working. So, you needed bigger tools. The important thing in the Budget was an implicit recognition that tighter fiscal control at this point would be good for overall macroeconomic control of inflation. That would allow you greater flexibility on monetary policy, especially given the large capital inflows into emerging markets across the world. It would be appreciated in global circles that room has been made for that in fiscal deficit reduction

The fiscal deficit target has been lowered from 4.8 per cent to 4.6 per cent next year. Some economists are sceptical. Is it achievable?

There is a good chance it will be achieved. My basis for saying so is that they are quite clear fiscal consolidation is important for macroeconomic balance, particularly inflation. Given that, I’d be willing to bet they’ll achieve the target, unless there is a shock of a completely different kind.

At the IMF, how did they look at India’s macroeconomic situation and handling of the issues?

The international perspective has been that the fiscal issue is important for India’s economy. Before the previous Article IV, there was a lot of interest on what would happen to the fiscal deficit. In fact, we have argued very strongly against their judgment that temporary expenditures and temporary revenues were matching and there would be an adjustment in the Budget. So, in that sense, it makes my job also much easier and we can say that four months ago, what we said was right. What you are seeing is three per cent increase, but if you take away the temporary measures, it would be a reasonable increase. Part of the expenditure was from higher revenues from non-tax sources such as telecom spectrum revenue. If you remove those expenditures, the growth between two Budget Estimates is in the normal range.

What should be the monetary policy stance in the current situation?

The quicker and stronger the fiscal adjustment is once the growth is back to the higher level, the easier it is for monetary policy to address issues like capital flows and agricultural shortfalls. It would make it even easier to control inflation if fiscal consolidation proceeds rapidly over the next few years.

The Economic Survey has favoured banking licences for industrial houses. What are your views?

This has been discussed for a long time. It’s a very difficult issue and that’s why no decision has been taken. The important lesson from the global situation is that you have to be very careful with the regulatory systems. One assumes the RBI now feels confident enough of the regulatory aspects to let this happen. As long as it is regulated properly, the more the competition, the better it is. However, we also know that in a sensitive sector like banking and finance, without regulation you can get all kinds of malpractices when banks compete too strongly, on the assumption that they will eventually be bailed out by the government. So, risk-taking can be very high.

When are quota reforms at IMF coming into force?

It’s a matter of time. The vote has been completed on the second one. The Fund administration was hopeful that it would be completed by end of March. We are already at the beginning of March. I hope they are able to get to it. The next one has to be completed by, hopefully, the end of the year.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news//fiscal-adjustment-has-to-bepriority//427706/