Economy

Government today appointed Viral V Acharya, a professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at the New York University (NYU), new Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet cleared the appointment for three years. He is taking over at a time when the central bank is facing criticism for repeated changes in the rules related to deposit and withdrawal of money, post-demonetisation.

Acharya is known for his research in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risks of the financial sector, its regulation and genesis in government-induced distortions, according to the profile on the NYU website.

The research areas also span across credit and liquidity risks, agency-theoretic foundations as well as their general equilibrium consequences, it says. Acharya is the C V Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern).

An alumnus of IIT, Mumbai, with a degree of Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering in 1995 and PhD in Finance from NYU-Stern in 2001, Acharya was with London Business School (2001-08) and served as the Academic Director of the Coller Institute of Private Equity at LBS (2007-09) and a Senior Houblon-Normal Research Fellow at the Bank of England (Summer 2008). 

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved promulgation of an ordinance to impose a penalty, including a jail term, for possession of the scrapped 500 and 1,000 rupee notes beyond a cut-off.

The Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also approved an ordinance to amend the Reserve Bank of India Act to extinguish the liability of the government and the central bank on the demonetised high-denomination notes to prevent future litigations.

Official sources said the ordinance has been cleared, but did not say if the penal provisions would apply for holding the junked currency after the 50-day window to deposit them in banks ends as of December 30 or after March 31, till which time deposit of old currency notes at specified branches of the Reserve Bank after submitting a declaration form is open.

The penalty for holding old currency in excess of 10 notes may include financial fines and a jail term of up to four years in certain cases.

While announcing the demonetisation of the old currency on November 8, the government had allowed holders to either exchange them or deposit in bank and post office accounts. While the facility to exchange the old notes has since been withdrawn, depositors have time till Friday to deposit the holding in their accounts.

Paytm, digital transactions facilitate company alleged loss of 6.15 lakh by customers. Paytm claimed that Rs 6.15 lakh with 48 customers of fraud.

CBI have registered an FIR on the complaint of Paytm. The CBI does not intefere at all in such cases, provided the central government to send such cases to him or the Supreme Court or a High Court to issue such instructions.

CBI have registered an FIR against 15 residents of Delhi's Kalkaji, Govindpuri and Saket in addition to the unnamed officials of the parent company One97 Communications.  

Paytm Legal Manager M. Sivakumar has complained. According to the complaint, the company holding the 48 cases in which customers get their orders successfully despite refunded. However, it should be that customers did not refund after get satisfying and successfully delivery. But in all these 48 cases, all of this did not happen and was given refund of Rs 6.15 lakh.