Voice from the Rooftop

Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank is under Reserve Bank of India administration due to loan default of 6,500 crore rupees by Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd. First RBI said depositors can withdraw only 1,000 rupees for six months. Later it increased that amount to 10,000 rupees. PMC is forbidden to accept deposits and give loans.
Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan are senior executives of HDIL. Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan is Executive Chairman, Founder and a promoter of HDIL. Sarang Wadhawan is Vice Chairman and Managing Director. Lalit Mohan Mehta, Raj Kumar Aggarwal, Hazari Lal and Sandhya Baliga are independent directors.
Police have registered FIR under IPC sections 120B, 409, 420, 465, 466 and 471. Economic Offences Wing has formed a Special Investigation Team to probe the matter.
49 fixed deposit accounts were shut prematurely and money withdrawn 6 days before PMC collapse.
As per police complaint, PMC officials used more than 21,000 accounts to hide loans to HDIL. This began in 2008. RBI audit was lax. Innocent depositors had to suffer. Those who had their weddings in November are in trouble. Families need more than 10,000 rupees for six months. It is said that 63% depositors can fully withdraw their amounts with 10,000 rupees limit.
Bharat Mankermi had his life savings worth 30 lakh rupees in PMC. He suffered a stroke.
Satinder Singh, 42, had deposited 2.6 crores in PMC. He had earned it over 20 years. He said if he does not get his money back he will commit suicide in front of RBI building. His wife and parents have accounts in PBC. He planned to take his mother for knee replacement surgery.
Depositors should keep money in different banks. All money should not be put in one bank. Government is making that difficult by merging banks. It merged with SBI its subsidiaries. Two banks were merged with Bank of Baroda. Soon six banks will be less as they will be merged with other banks.
Suspended Managing Director of PMC, Joy Thomas, has given excuses for not reporting bad loans like fear of reputation loss and not being able to charge interest once a loan is declared non-performing asset. On 17/9/2019 RBI received a letter about PMC. On 18/9/2019 Joy Thomas met RBI Executive Director Rabi Mishra and sought time to put things in order. On 23/9/2019 RBI took over PMC. As per one report Joy Thomas in untraceable.
On 1/10/2019 PMC depositors protested in front of RBI building, Bandra-Kurla Complex. There were protests in Andheri, Mulund and other places.
Many co-operative banks are under RBI administration due to bad loans. Many national public sector banks have bad loans running into lakhs of crores of rupees. There should be suitable punishment to deter crimes. Sentences should run consecutively, not concurrently. If punishment for opening a fake bank account is 2 years, it should be 42,098 years jail for 21,049 accounts. If punishment for fraud of 1 rupee is 1 day jail, it should be 6,500 crore days jail for fraud of 6,500 crore rupees. It should be full punishment for each criminal involved. Properties of criminals should be confiscated to recover loss. When number of jail days adds up to 14 years it should be converted to death penalty. If the days add up to 140 years it should 10 death penalties.

Mohandas Gandhi, known as Father of the Nation, has competition. Narendra Modi is called Father of India.
It began on 17/9/2019 on the birthday of Modi. Some called him father of the country. Some opposed that and said Gandhi is the only Father of the Nation.
On 24/9/2019 Modi met Donald Trump in New York who called him Father of India and compared Howdy Modi event at NRG Stadium on 22/9/2019 to that of Elvis Presley. Trump said there was lot of fighting and dissension in India and Modi brought it all together.
Reactions to Trump statement are varied. Some are happy that Trump called Modi Father of India. Some say Subhash Chandra Bose is Father or Godfather of India. Some say Gandhi is Father of India. Some say the country is the mother of all Indians and nobody is Father of India.
Interestingly some men have named their daughters India and each one of them can claim to be Father of India. Louis Mountbatten’s granddaughter was named India. Her father David Hicks can say he is Father of India.
India Drummond is an author. India Allen is an actress. India Birley is an artist. India Eisley is an actress. India Knight is a journalist. India Harris is a diplomat. There are some India Mitchells. One is a retired police officer. Others have different professions like architect, real estate agent and so on
Jonty Rhodes named his daughter India.
There was India Edwards who died on 14/1/1990. She was born on 16/6/1895. India Wilkes is a character in Gone with the Wind. India Catalina was from Colombia. Her real name is not known. She died in 1529.

Some want ban on fossil fuels. They say fossil fuels are the main reason for climate change. It means end of petrol and diesel cars/other vehicles and air travel, use of coal, natural gas, kerosene and LPG.
There are no easy alternatives for fossil fuels. Electric cars are few and recharging them for long distance is a problem. Bullock carts and horse carts are slow and bringing them as replacement for cars will lead to protests by animal rights activists.
In France, Emmanuel Macron increased tax on petrol and diesel. That led to protests. Many protesters joined Yellow Vest protests. Macron had to decrease tax. Participation in Yellow Vest protests declined.
Natural gas is a fossil fuel. It is said to be less polluting than petrol or diesel and is used in buses and autorickshaws.
Coal is a fossil fuel used to generate electricity. It was used in trains. Diesel replaced coal in trains.
Diesel Generator Sets are used to generate electricity. Large parts of India do not have enough electricity. Many countries have one Earth Hour in a year where they switch off electricity. India has many Earth Hours like that every day. Replacing electricity with solar or wind power will take time.
Kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas are used for cooking. Use of firewood or cow dung cake will increase pollution.
Afforestation is a solution. However existing forests are not protected and forest fires cause destruction. This year Amazon and Indonesian forests had fires, some caused by men. Spain and Portugal have forest fires practically every year.
Great Green Wall is a project to plant trees in arid regions of Africa. It covers 20 countries. It is meant to reduce the size of Sahara and reduce temperature.
People were not using fossil fuels when the Last Ice Age ended. Before that when Ice Ages began and ended there were no human beings.
16 young people have filed a human rights complaint against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey for violating children’s rights by failing to take adequate action against climate change. The complaint was filed under Convention on the Rights of the Child. Except USA, other members of have ratified the Convention. The complaint is as per an optional protocol that allowed children to file complaints to Committee on the Rights of the Child if they feel their rights are violated. The protocol is ratified by 44 countries. India, China and USA have not ratified the protocol.
Solutions to greenhouse gas emissions should be practical and not that will take back to Stone Age.