Neck and neck with America and China.

"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) remains alert and committed to act early and decisively to prevent any build-up of risks, said governor Shaktikanta Das," and "the governor said that the health of the Indian financial system is steadily improving on the back of multi-year high earnings, low level of stressed assets, and strong capital and liquidity buffers with financial institutions." FE. Wonderful. "India's current account deficit declined sharply to 1% of the GDP or $8.3 billion in the second quarter of this financial year, mainly due to lower merchandise deficit and growth in services exports, according to RBI data." DH. The RBI has directed banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to not make any investments in any Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) that has downstream investments either directly or indirectly in a debtor company. The notice aims to address concerns relating to possible evergreening through this route." BT. "Evergreening of loans is a practice where banks revive a loan by a borrower who is on the verge of default by granting more loans to the same borrower." MC. The borrower takes a new loan from the bank to pay back the old loan. This way the borrower avoids being labeled as a defaulter, which has serious consequences, and the bank avoids showing the loan as a non-performing asset, or bad loan, on its books. As per RBI rules, "A non-performing asset (NPA) is a loan or advance for which the principal or interest payment remained overdue for a period of 90 days." ET. "The top seven shadow lenders in the country had invested around $1.35 billion in these so-called AIFs, according to their most recent annual reports. Shares of these firms dived after the new rules," and the actions were called "draconian" by one analyst. ET.  "The RBI is in talks with banks and the government for more stringent measures to ensure that banking channels are not misused for illegal forex trading." ET. "Indian banks and non-bank lenders need to further fortify their balance sheets by following stronger governance and risk-management practices. Mint. NPAs of banks "fell to a decadal low of 3.9% as of March-end 2023 and further to 3.2% at the end of September," the RBI said. Why is the RBI suddenly in a frenzy? "This is not the first time that authorities have become conscious, just before elections, of elevated risks spilling from one market to another." "But it does point to an uncomfortable fact that authorities and regulators seem comfortable with excessive speculation during normal times but acquire jitters just before elections," wrote Rajrishi Singhal. Crony capitalism? "The wealth of crony capitalists around the world has grown exponentially by 850% in the past 25 years to $3 trillion," and "Some 65% of the increase has come from America, China, India and Russia," The Economist reported. Quartz. We are up there with the leaders. The RBI aims to keep us there. Three cheers.