oppn parties The Government And The RBI: Striking A Prudent Balance

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October 17, 2026

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  • Allahabad HC said that the UP Police is acting as law unto themselves as they detained a person unlawfully even before his arrest
  • Kolkata witnesses traffic snarls on the first day of the Durga Puja festival as revellers start pnadal-hopping
  • Neha Bora was subsequently released and Dipke is to appear before a magistrate today at noon
  • Delhi Police detained Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, Neha Bora of AISA, student leaders and supporters ahead of a rally in Connaught Place demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's resignation. The protest followed the detention and jailing of two CJP leaders earlier in the week over demonstrations at Jantar Mantar
  • The Reserve Bank of India is considering further monetary tightening to counter capital outflows and increase the cost of betting against the rupee, according to bankers and analysts cited by Reuters. The measures follow recent rate increases and steps to drain liquidity as pressure on the currency and inflation concerns persist
  • India directed oil marketing companies to stop diverting sugar-based feedstocks for ethanol production in the 2026–27 supply year, according to a new tender issued on Friday. The companies have invited bids for 11 billion litres of ethanol made from alternatives including corn and broken rice, amid concerns about domestic sugar supplies and prices
  • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India's trade imbalance with China was growing sharply and attributed the problem partly to restrictions on Indian goods and services entering the Chinese market. China subsequently said it was ready to work with India to address mutual economic and trade concerns; India's trade deficit with China reached $69 billion in the first half of FY2026–27, up 27% year-on-year
  • Indian equity benchmarks extended their recovery on Friday, with the Sensex rising 413.66 points to close at 74,729.27 and the Nifty 50 gaining 148.80 points to settle at 23,146.15. Information technology shares, including Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS, helped lift the indices
  • India defeated Zimbabwe by four wickets in the opening women's T20 International in Raipur, taking a 1–0 lead in the three-match series. Deepti Sharma and Niki Prasad combined in an 82-run stand after India's top order collapsed, helping the hosts chase down Zimbabwe's total of 114 for five
  • Indian wrestler Komal won bronze in the women's 59 kg category at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, defeating Kazakhstan's Viktoriia Khusainova 7–2. Fellow Indian Amruta Pujari advanced to the women's 72 kg final after recording two pinfall victories
  • Indian shuttler Jagsher Singh Khangurra secured a bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Badminton Championships in Cairo
  • The Supreme Court of India upheld the Bombay High Court's decision quashing the 2020 write-off of ₹8,415 crore in additional tier-1 bonds issued by Yes Bank (Yes Bank). The court ruled that the bank's administrator lacked the authority to extinguish the bonds under the final reconstruction scheme, strengthening bondholders' claims
  • The Supreme Court issued notices to the Election Commission of India, Delhi Police and opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, in separate petitions concerning electoral-roll revision and protests held in Delhi on October 10–12. The court also directed the preservation of CCTV footage linked to allegations of police excesses
  • The Supreme Court ruled that a person converting from Hinduism to Islam cannot automatically claim backward-class reservation benefits in the new religious community solely on the basis of their previous caste status. The judgment upheld the Madras High Court's decision striking down a 2024 Tamil Nadu government order that permitted such certification for specified communities
  • The Election Commission of India ordered a Special Summary Revision of electoral rolls in 14 states and three Union Territories, using January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date for voter eligibility. The draft rolls are scheduled for publication on November 12, claims and objections will be accepted until December 11, and the final rolls are due on January 4, 2027
Delhi HC refuses to ban CJP's Tiranga rally at Central Park in Connaught Place today /////// Police says will control and regulate it /////// NDMC closes the park for the public on Friday and Saturday
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The Government And The RBI: Striking A Prudent Balance

By Sunil Garodia

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The government has had its way with the RBI. The central bank has transferred a record sum of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the government comprising Rs 1.23 lakh crore as the dividend for the year 2018-19 and the balance after revising the Economic Capital Framework (ECF) to lower the optimum reserves required to be maintained by the RBI. This has ensured that the government will now have the funds required to make investments in infrastructure and other projects and schemes and kick start the moribund economy. The need was to strike a prudent balance between the government's need for funds in the present depressed economic conditions and the optimum requirement of reserves to be kept with the RBI in case the situation worsens and it has to intervene in the financial markets. It seems that the government, the RBI and the Bimal Jalan committee have worked out an excellent formula.

It was widely expected that the RBI would transfer around Rs 70000 crores from the profits earned this fiscal to the government and transfer the rest to the reserve fund. But it ended up transferring the whole of the profit earned this year to the government. This happened because the government managed to convince the Bimal Jalan committee of the need for a downward revision in the ECF. It adopted a new methodology to show the committee that the RBI was covered up to 99.5% of market risks against the global standard of 90% by most central banks. Once the committee was convinced and the RBI's Central Board, despite reservations by some members, adopted the committee's recommendation in full, the ECF was adjusted to release Rs 52,637 crore to the government and it also obviated the need to transfer any amount from this years' dividend to the reserve fund.

Readers will remember that the former RBI governor Urijit Patel had ostensibly resigned from his post mainly because he could not agree to the transfer of additional funds to the government from the surplus reserves held by the RBI. His argument was that the bank needs the funds to intervene in the market in times of global crisis. Readers will also remember that India had to pledge its gold reserves and physically ship the same to the Bank of England to raise funds to prevent a payments crisis in the 1990s. But the situation is not as bleak as it was then and the RBI held a reserve of Rs 9.6 lakh crore at the end of FY 2018. India has foreign exchange reserves of $430.5 billion and is comfortable in the balance of payments also. Given the above indicators, the Bimal Jalan committee was right in accepting the arguments put forward by the government and the RBI has acted correctly in releasing additional funds in times of economic crisis.

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