Kalam Se
Financial Crisis: Protect Your Savings Account
Savings account of bank depositors in a brief duration of around six months have undergone constant complications due to financial crisis. Punjab and Maharashtra (PMC) Co-operative Bank’s depositors had to deal with restrictions laid down by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last September.
Last week, the same situation occurred with YES Bank, which is now being rescued by the central bank and the State Bank of India (SBI). RBI announced that Yes Bank customers were allowed to withdraw only up to Rs 50,000 from all their savings and deposit accounts with the bank, raising doubts regarding the security of their money.
As a result of these back to back events, the confidence of bank depositors has shaken. Though these are unpredictable occurrences, depositors can still gather some knowledge to protect their savings account from such risks.
DICGC guarantees money
The customers of the bank could rest assured that their deposits up to Rs 1 lakh in any combination of savings and deposit with any commercial bank would remain safe that are insured under the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC)–an RBI subsidiary. This limit is expected to increase to Rs 5 lakh from April 1, 2020, following the announcements of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget 2020 declarations. Therefore, a large amount of deposits would be protected by DICGC.
Number of Bank Accounts
“Spread the money across more than one bank account to get the benefit of the DICGC insurance cover (of up to Rs.5lakh)”, says Joydeep Sen, the Founder of Wiseinvestor.in.
Amol Joshi, Founder of Plan Rupee Investment Services, suggests that at least two accounts could be maintained, one salary account to pay EMIs, and another for investments including Systematic Investment Plans (SIP) for mutual funds, receiving redemption proceeds and income tax refunds, life insurance and health insurance premiums.
If the bank holding the salary and EMI accounts gets affected, then the investments in the other account can be redeemed, and vice versa. However, too many bank accounts can be problematic to monitor. Emergency funds equal to about three months of expenses and EMI should be kept in a bank or liquid fund. Diversification of banks is always advisable.
Banking Risks
In every form of savings and investment, there is always a possibility of underlying risks, whether big or small, predicted or unpredicted. The government and regulator may be providing safety nets, but they cannot be entirely risk-free. The onus is on the customer to get acquainted with the probable risks with any form of banking and make sure that he is not dependent on a particular bank, especially the one that is vulnerable to ups and downs.
Safety Over Convenience
Many customers of PMC Bank claimed that they chose the bank over other renowned ones due to the convenience PMC Bank offered, including the availability of branches, timings, and companionable staff. However, the bank’s management was allegedly engaged in fraudulent deals, and when the RBI suspended its operations, the depositors were left in a troubling position.
The dual control structure of cooperative banks added to the problems, thereby detaining successful resolution. Thus, one should not open an account in an unreputed bank just because it is available in the neighbourhood and only go for trustworthy names. Large, well-established and government-owned banks are better.
Awareness about Bank’s Activities
As a depositor, one should always keep track of the bank’s activities and current news about it. One must have knowledge about the bank’s NPAs (Non-performing asset), most prominent stakeholders, borrowers, recent profits or losses and their extent, how is the share price performing, status among peer banks, corporate governance, history of fraud and more. Feedback from employees may also serve the purpose.
Higher Returns, Greater Danger
All individual and large retail investors have mis-sold YES Bank’s Additional Tier1 (AT1) bonds by promising high and guaranteed returns as one of the benefits. Financial experts say that — “Anything above what the State Bank of India offers for its one-year deposits is bound to come with an element of risk. That is the threshold you need to keep an eye on.”
If the returns on schemes or deposits offered by bank representatives seem too good to be true, then it is likely that they pose hidden risks and are better avoided.
Bank Accounts Linked with MF Investments
Linking more than one bank account to a customer’s folio is a good option. Fund houses provide the option of linking up to give a bank account to a single folio. All accounts, therefore, work as backup accounts to a pre-designated primary account and in this way the redemption proceeds can be easily obtained if one account gets frozen.
Following these simple strategies so that one can protect his/her savings account during financial crises.
The greatest PR company in the country was back in action a few weeks ago, but their latest attempt at damage control was, at best, pathetic. Two opinion pieces in supposedly international publications were aggressively pushed on Twitter by the BJP army.
One is published on a website called The Daily Guardian and screams, “PM MODI HAS BEEN WORKING HARD; DON’T GET TRAPPED IN THE OPPOSITION’S BARBS“. The writer is Sudesh Verma, unsurprisingly from BJP’s Media Relations Committee. The website itself is unimpressive, and the portal has around 2000 followers on Twitter, a rather low number considering the numerous BJP leaders who have shared the article, along with the 45 subscribers on YouTube.
The second piece, “Besides COVID-19, India is also fighting with vulture journalists, who are spreading more panic and despair than pandemic“, on a website called Australia today, is nothing more than a foul-spirited diss track against Burkha Dutt. The website domain is registered in the name of Jitarth Jai Bhardwaj, and its Twitter and Instagram accounts have meagre 1074 and 36 followers, respectively. This article is re-published from The Trunicle, a site that describes itself as “a pro nationalist opinion and news portal, launched in July 2020 by US-based NRIs”.
Considering how critical international media has been of the ruling Government, it is obvious why these pieces were published in obscure, supposedly foreign news outlets when Swarajya or OpIndia would have happily published them. This was not even the first time the Indian Right has used such fake international websites. The irony is not lost when proud nationalists need foreign validation to beat foreign criticism.
Asking Twitter to take down dissenting posts makes it very clear that the Government cares more about its image than the lives of its citizens. All this was accompanied by the usual ‘communist foreign media is biased and conspiring against Modi and India’. Great Hindi poet Harishankar Parsai sums it up beautifully-
“तानाशाह एक डरपोक आदमी होता है। अगर पांच गधे भी साथ-साथ घास खा रहे हों तो तानाशाह को डर पैदा होता है कि गधे भी मेरे ख़िलाफ़ साजिश कर रहे हैं। “
Translating to-
“A dictator is a coward. If five donkeys just graze grass together, the dictator feels that the donkeys are conspiring against him.”
A recent Reuters report exposed the nonchalance of our leaders. The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium (INSACOG), set up by the Government in December last year, warned of a new dangerous variant in early March. Scientists on February 1 detected the B.1.167 variant, and they warned the Health Ministry’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) that infections could quickly rise in the country.
The INSACOG also formulated a media statement for the Health ministry saying that the two mutations called E484Q and L452R were of “high concern”. The ministry published the findings on March 24; the statement did not mention the words “high concern”. How many catastrophes have befallen us just because politicians paid no heed when scientists said “high concern”.
Shahid Jameel, one of the top virologists in the country, recently quit as the head of INSACOG. In an article for The New York Times, he suggested methods to control the rise of infections and then wrote, “All of these measures have wide support among my fellow scientists in India. But they are facing stubborn resistance to evidence-based policymaking.”
Earlier, he also told Reuters, “Policy has to be based on evidence and not the other way around. I am worried that science was not taken into account to drive Policy. But I know where my jurisdiction stops. As scientists we provide the evidence, policymaking is the job of the Government.” Imagine hiring the best engineers to build a building, then ignoring their suggestions and when the roof falls on someone’s head, saying that you “feel their suffering equally“.
A Senior Central Government official in a Secretary Level meeting on April 5 had raised the issue that the Kumbh Mela might become a super spreader event. To allow and endorse such a massive religious festival after numerous warnings and to print front-page ads (with the Prime Minister’s face of course) inviting people to gather in the millions, that too a year early because of astrological reasons, was, in the politest term possible, extremely stupid.
Broadcast media was all over the 9,000 strong Tablighi Jamaat gathering last year, but they didn’t seem to have a problem with the 91 Lakh strong Kumbh Mela. The lengths to which Aaj Tak went to defend the Kumbh and attack the Markaz show their bigotry and dishonesty. The point is not to say that the Markaz was without fault, but to say that one should not consume news on television.
The National Task Force for Covid-19 met on April 15 and “unanimously agreed that the situation is serious and that we should not hesitate in imposing lockdowns,” said one of the scientists who took part in the meeting, reports Reuters. This Task Force is headed by V.K. Paul, the Government’s top coronavirus adviser. On April 17, Narendra Modi said in Bengal, “Have never seen such a huge crowd in any rally”.
Sujeet Kumar Singh, head of the National Centre for Disease Control, said, “It was highlighted very, very clearly that unless drastic measures are taken now, it will be too late to prevent the mortality which we are going to see…… The exact time, as per our thinking, was 15 days before,” in meetings on April 18th and 19th, referring to the need for stricter lockdown measures. All these statements by top scientists, almost unheard of, shows that media bias is anything but against the Government.
Early victory against the virus was declared by multiple leaders, including PM Modi and Dr Harshvardhan. Addressing the World Economic Forum in January, Modi said, “(India) has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively”. In early March, when cases had already started to rise, Harshvardhan said, “We are in the end game of the COVID-19 pandemic in India…… Unlike most other countries, we have a steady supply of COVID-19 vaccines.”
How these words must haunt him now that we know the ‘game’ is very much on. We don’t have any vaccines either. The shortage is such that only six states began vaccination for the 18+ age group after the Centre decided to open it up on May 1. Even senior citizens are finding it difficult to get their second dose.
The Foreign Contributions Regulation Amendment Act passed last year forces NGOs to, among other things, have an account in a specific SBI branch in New Delhi to receive foreign aid and stops them from passing on this aid to other smaller NGOs (leading to lack of funds in local NGOs). The same act allows only 20% of such assistance to be used as administrative expenses (salaries, training, equipment, legal charges, etc.).
Such backbreaking bureaucracy and micromanagement have proven disastrous in the pandemic when NGOs have been feeding the poor in lockdowns and helping with oxygen cylinders and medicines. Amnesty International India shut down operations last year after what it described as a two year “incessant witch-hunt” by the Government of India after the Enforcement Directorate froze its accounts. These draconian measures were introduced to stop misuse of foreign funds while the Government uses its full force to illegally stop the PM Cares fund from coming under the purview of RTI.
The Government’s endorsement of Patanjali’s Coronil has to be the final nail in the coffin. A doctor trained in modern medicine—India’s Health Minister—sitting on a stage with a saffron-clad man endorsing pseudoscientific medicine goes a long way in invalidating scientific research. False claims saying Coronil is a cure for covid and that WHO has certified the herbal concoction were floated around. The BBC found the drug to be absolutely ineffective at preventing Covid infections. It is not even legal to advertise Coronil in the United Kingdom par India me toh sab chalta hai. Read more about the useless trial conducted in Rajasthan to prove Coronil’s supposed effectiveness here, here, here and here.
On top of this, Ramdev ridicules science by saying that lakhs have died of covid after taking ‘allopathic’ medicine. He also posted 25 incredibly dumb questions to the IMA like, “Does the pharma industry have permanent treatment for thyroid, arthritis, colitis and asthma?” making ridiculous remarks like, “Doctors should not fall ill at all if allopathy is all-powerful and ‘sarvagun sampanna’.” He has now gone on to say, “Arrest toh unka baap bhi nahi kar sakta,” after doctors called for his arrest.
Even a dysfunctional autocrat like Donald Trump held daily press conferences when Covid-19 raged in the United States. In India, thousands of bodies floating in rivers don’t seem reason enough for the Prime Minister to answer any questions. Official infection and death counts seem to be so inaccurate that one can confidently ignore them.
Image Source: Murad Banji @muradbanji
The situation is so bad that one of the best-regarded medical journals globally- 198-year-old The Lancet published an editorial calling out the Modi government on its mishandling of the situation.
Obviously, healthcare is a state subject, and the states are also to be blamed, but no one can deny that Narendra Modi is the single most influential man in the country. His following experts’ suggestions and acting in a way befitting a leader would have made an enormous difference. Shed tears on national television all you want, Mr Prime Minister, you are fooling no one. You have brought this upon us.
“Modiji Modiji jhola utha lo ab tum ji
Ya Kailasa chale jao, Ya sanyas lelo ji”
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of News Aur Chai and News Aur Chai Media does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
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