The bosses of SBI, Union Bank and Central Bank have been driving down to their offices everyday to take stock of the biggest loan drive ever undertaken for MSMEs, discovers Tamal Bandyopadhyay.

Decent music and good call quality, an IPX5 sweat- and splash-resistance, low latency mode for gaming, touch controls and good battery life are hard to get at this price.

The death toll climbed to 15,301 with 407 new fatalities, according to the Union health ministry data.

It was a combination of a traditionally English focus on the manager as leader and frontman with German coaching's attention to detail and allied with a management style more akin to the ultra-specialised world of American football.

Chief Secretary A K Tripathy and Director General of Police (DGP) Abhay rushed to the pilgrim town to make the necessary arrangements. "The DGP and I are rushing to Puri to take stock of the situation as per the direction of the chief minister. We will camp there," Tripathy said.

Like everything else, the structure of banks may change, and banks may depend more on digital technologies and artificial intelligence for dealing with both their customers and employees.

'Banks have to be braver, willing to take more risks and give confidence to the customer,' observes Joydeep Ghosh.

While the Narendra Modi government has stuck to its stand that pending payment is Rs 12,343 crore, MSMEs calim outstanding amount is Rs 2-3 trillion. Moreover, MSME ministry's SAMADHAN portal has been of little help.

Irfan Pathan, through his tweets, is trying to wake the conscience of a country that is in slumber, or so it seems.

The finance minister chaired a meeting through video conference with major private banks and NBFCs to ensure effective rollout of ECLGS and uninterrupted liquidity to Indian MSMEs in this difficult time.

In order to make it hassle-free, various start-up support groups such as TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur) and India Angel Network (IAN) are partnering with the digital NBFCs to extend debt finance to their member companies.

On Friday also he attacked the Centre over the surge in the cases of novel coronavirus cases across the country.

The video also showed protests by locals at Garia, a suburb in the southern fringes of the city where the incident had allegedly taken place, who claimed that the bodies were those of novel coronavirus victims. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar expressed concern over the video and sought a report regarding the incident from the state home secretary.

As Yuvraj Singh completed one year of his retirement from all forms of cricket, Twitteratis paid tribute to the cricketer and #MissYouYuvi started trending on the micro-blogging website.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday held a review meeting on credit guarantee scheme with heads of public sector banks, and asked them to expedite loan disbursement under the Rs 3-lakh crore ECLGS for MSME sector, hit hard by coronavirus-induced lockdown. The meeting on Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) was held through video conference, and the minister appreciated the efforts of banks in execution of the scheme.

Choked almost manages to be a real depiction of life after demonetisation for a lower middle class household but ends up being a puzzle in a puddle, feels Moumita Bhattacharjee.

India took the first step towards legalising drones by officially publishing draft rules for drone operations in the Official Gazette on Friday. The rules, termed The Unmanned Aircraft System Rules, 2020, are open for public consultation for 30 days.

'All parties and the government acknowledge that there we are in trouble and there is more trouble ahead,' observes Aakar Patel.

While the investment amount could not be immediately ascertained, a report pegged it at about $2 billion.

'I always felt that Basu Chatterjee was a kind, gentle, man who truly believed that in directing films like Chhoti Si Baat, he was impacting our lives,' remembers Aseem Chhabra. 'He seemed to be on a mission to make us believe that the world could be a better place.'

'Instead of wailing about the absence of tax benefits, the private sector should press for an early implementation of the package of measures,' advises A K Bhattacharya.

'If the government spends Rs 10 lakh crore this year then you would be looking at a GDP growth of minus 5 per cent.' 'If you do not do this, you will be looking at GDP growth between minus nine and minus 10 per cent.'

'As banks grapple with risk aversion and savers see an erosion in the value of money, the P2P platform can be a win-win for both borrowers and lenders,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.

'When the lockdown grounded a billion people, nothing had been planned well: Testing, masks, face shields, protective gear, medical equipment, contact tracing ... nothing.' 'Before COVID, if you didn't know that the state had neither the money, nor the intent, nor the capacity to govern wisely and humanely, you were simply blind.' 'After COVID, if we continue to look to the State, look forward to a financial package or ask "What is the government doing" when faced with a calamity, the joke is on us, says Debashis Basu.

Former RBI governor R Gandhi said that the RBI needs to re-introduce a one-time restructuring package and mere moratoriums will not suffice in unprecedented times like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The death toll rose to 5,394 after a record single-day spike of 230 fatalities in the 24 hours since Sunday 8 am, the Union Health Ministry said in its morning update. It showed the number of confirmed cases rising by 8,392 to 1,90,535. However, a PTI tally of figures announced by states and union territories, as of 9.35 pm, showed a higher death toll of 5,501.

The approval for provisioning of Rs 20,000 crore as subordinate debt to provide equity support will benefit 2 lakh stressed MSMEs.

The government has also extended till August 31 the repayment date of short-term crop loan of up to Rs 3 lakh for agriculture and allied activities. The decision, taken by the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will give respite to farmers and also help them take a call on which kharif (summer) crop to grow as sowing picks up with the arrival of southwest monsoon.

The focus will definitely shift towards more meaningful trips than the kind of micro trips we were into before, says Varun Arora.

The Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.

For states like West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, where migration is high, the return of workers could be as much an opportunity as a liability. All states have launched portals to register migrant workers; additional fields like nature of employment and remuneration in the past 2-3 years are being added to help in skill mapping.

'Several businesses like entertainment, hospitality, travel etc would never be the same again.'

India's total online shopper base at 30 per cent of its internet population is low when compared with 78 per cent in China and 70-plus per cent in the US.

'The stimulus message was tagged on to what was meant to be an exhortation to self-reliance, glossing over the near impossibility of merging the immediate requirement of relief for a huge population and a questionable strategy for the future trajectory of a large economy aspiring to superstardom,' points out Shreekant Sambrani.

Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan held a high-level review meeting through video conference with the chief secretaries, health secretaries and National Health Mission (NHM) directors of these states, the health ministry said. 'These states are witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases since the last three weeks as lockdown rules have been eased and inter-state migration has been allowed,' the ministry said in a statement.

Footfalls will invariably come down to a trickle even after lockdown restrictions go away, and the only way to prevent someone else from poaching your consumer is to go down to the consumer herself. Consumers will prefer products and services to be delivered to their doorstep, hygienically and safely.

The incremental stress is mainly from sectors including power, infrastructure, constructions, hospitality, iron and steel, telecom, and realty.

For smaller MFIs, resuming operations is more difficult because they haven't got any fresh bank credit sanctioned from their lenders.

Moody's Investors Service on Friday said India's economy is expected to contract for the first time in more than four decades saying economic damage owing to the coronavirus-induced lockdown will be significant with lower consumption and sluggish business activity. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, Indian economy already was growing at its slowest pace in six years and with the stimulus measures announced by the government falling short of expectations, the disruptions are likely to be greater. "We now expect India's growth to register a real GDP contraction for the fiscal year ending in March 2021 (fiscal 2020-21), from our earlier projection of zero growth," it said in a research note.

The Union home ministry on May 13 had declared that these canteens will only sell indigenous or "swadeshi" products from June 1 in a bid to give fillip to domestic industries.