Tag: Idiocy
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And now for something completely different
Earlier today, my friend Rafat sent over snaps of some of our earliest reportage. This is circa 1998, from our first job at now-shuttered A&M, India’s first magazine on advertising and marketing. Am pasting them below and noting – with much pride and approval – the pun in one of these headlines, for a report […]
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The End of the Silly Common Banking Correspondent Model?
since may this year, i have been tracking a plan from the department of financial services to split india into 20 clusters, and to appoint a common banking correspondent company for all public sector banks operating in each cluster. it is a textbook case of policy adventurism. the department, a part of the finance ministry, […]
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another update on the common BC auctions
close to four months after the finance ministry decided to split the country into 20 clusters and to appoint a common banking correspondent for all public sector banks in each cluster, how are things coming along? the latest update, here.
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the banking correspondent auctions resume
after a brief hiatus, the reverse auctions to choose common banking correspondents (see innumerable posts below) have resumed. the latest update.
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Another update on the banking correspondent auctions
A newly-formed association of banking correspondent (BC) companies has criticised the finance ministry’s ongoing plan to split India into 20 clusters, and to appoint a common BC company for all public sector banks operating in each cluster. In a white paper released on Thursday night, the Business Correspondent Network Managers (BCNM) Forum, a grouping of […]
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On the banking correspondent auctions…
for some time now, ET has been reporting on a worrying move by the philosopher kings in the department of financial services (the offshoot of the finance ministry tasked with managing the banking sector) to overhaul the banking correspondent (BC) model. well, the auctions to appoint common BCs for all public sector banks in a […]
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes. part four: orissa
words fail me. it is now, sigh, 0.11%. that is what a bangalore-based company called strategic outsourcing services has bid to clinch a tender to become the common banking correspondent for all public sector banks in orissa.
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes. part three: chhattisgarh
the latest update on the finance ministry’s one cluster, one banking correspondent model: FINO has become the BC for chhattisgarh.
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes. part two: jharkhand
about a month ago, i wrote about a controversial plan by the finance ministry to split the country into 20 clusters, and to appoint a common banking correspondent company for all public sector banks in each. to understand the attendant implications, please click here. yesterday, the second tender in this series was awarded. it went […]
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes
it is official. the bidding process to find a common banking correspondent company for all of maharashtra is over. vakrangee has won with a bid so low banking correspondent companies can scarcely believe it. see this, this and this for context. now to see how well this new approach works.
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SBI, RFPs, Maharashtra…
i wrote out another small update for the et website today on how the finance ministry plan to choose one common BC for all public sector banks in maharashtra is coming along.
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bidding starts for maharashtra
out today, a small online followup to a story i filed last week — about the finance ministry deciding that India should be split into 20 clusters, and that all public sector banks in each cluster should appoint a common BC for servicing their rural/poor customers.
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Ctrl:Alt:Del
Today’s Economic Times carries this story about an unexpectedly large change that is sweeping across the Bank-BC model. The Department of Financial Services, the part of the Finance Ministry which looks after the banking sector, has decided to split the country into 20 clusters and get all public sector banks in that region to work […]
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fazed out. india’s fertiliser ministry and phase two in fert cash transfers
and now, another update on how india’s journey towards fertiliser cash transfers is unfolding. see it here. some thoughts on this, though. this january, ET had reported that companies, wholesalers and retailers alike were nervous about the fertiliser ministry’s plans to reroute subsidy from companies to retailers. You can read about that, with context and […]
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Cash Trance
In his speech this year, the Indian finance minister announced that India would deliver the fertiliser subsidy directly to farmers from next year onwards. Shortly after the budget, the government’s National Informatics Centre insisted that it be allowed to develop the necessary software. A small update from the trenches here. This software, sources in the […]
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Cash Transfers + Fertiliser Subsidy + Impatience = ???
And this is the second story in the fertiliser package that the Economic Times published. The ministry of fertilisers is planning to migrate to cash transfers in three phases. In the first phase, to be completed by December, it will extend its fertiliser management software beyond the 30,000 fertiliser warehouses to 230,000 licenced retailers. In […]
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Chickenwire and Chewing Gum
Over the past few weeks, Barun Mitra, a director of the Liberty Institute, has been endorsing a possible move by China to lift its ban on trade in tiger parts. It is, he argues, the only way to save wild tigers — tiger farms in China have no less than 5,000 tigers in captivity; given […]
Fractured/Earth 