Current Affairs – February, 2019

Infosys Foundation Constitutes Aarohan Social Innovation Awards

The Infosys Foundation has constituted Aarohan Social Innovation Awards to reward individuals, teams or NGOs developing solutions for the social sector.

Aarohan Social Innovation Awards

• Aarohan Social Innovation Awards are aimed at nurturing the culture of innovation in the social sector to scale positive change across the country and thereby provide a platform to help the solutions scale.
• The awards would be given away in six categories spanning healthcare, destitute care, rural development, women’s safety and empowerment, education and sport and sustainability.
• The awards are part of the Infosys Foundation’s endeavour to support individuals and non-government organisations (NGOs) acting on their good intentions towards society and help them turn their ideas into action.
• Those projects which are from a non-commercial venture and has a functioning prototype and not a concept, idea or mock-up would be considered for the awards.
• The award will also provide winners with an opportunity for residential mentorship at IIT Hyderabad up to 12 weeks at its campus to help them develop their solutions and scale them for social impact.

Infosys Foundation

Infosys Foundation established in 1996 is a  not-for-profit initiative of Infosys Ltd. It aims to support the underprivileged sections of society by creating opportunities for building a more equitable society. The foundation supports programs in the areas of education, rural development, healthcare, arts and culture, and destitute care.

RBI Removes three Banks from PCA Framework

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has removed three banks, Dhanlaxmi Bank, Allahabad Bank and Corporation Bank from the PCA framework by moving them out of its weak-bank watchlist.

Basis for the decision of RBI

• The government has infused fresh capital into various banks including some of the banks currently under the PCA framework. As part of the capital infusion, Corporation Bank had received Rs 9086 cr and Allahabad Bank had received 6896 cr.
• Capital Infusion to both of these banks has shored up their capital funds and also increased their loan loss provision to ensure that the PCA parameters were complied with.
• Dhanlaxmi Bank was taken out of the PCA framework, subject to certain conditions and it would be under continuous monitoring, as the bank is found to be not breaching any of the Risk Thresholds of the PCA framework.

Earlier in the year, the RBI had removed the Bank of India (BoI), Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) and Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) from the PCA framework. With the removal of Allahabad Bank and Corporation Bank from the list, five PSBs which includes United Bank of India, UCO Bank, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank and Dena Bank remain under the PCA framework.

PCA: Bone of Contention

The PCA framework had become a bone of contention between the government and the RBI. In India, PCA kicks in when banks breach any of the three key regulatory trigger points namely capital to risk-weighted assets ratio, net non-performing assets (NPA) and return on assets (RoA) whereas globally PCA kicks in only when banks slip on a single parameter of capital adequacy ratio.

The government and independent directors of the RBI board, like S Gurumurthy, are in favour of this practice being adopted for the domestic banking sector as well.