📰 BJP MLA Bhima Mandavi, four security personnel killed in Naxalite attack in Dantewada
The incident occurred at Shyamagiri hills
•Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Bhima Mandavi and four security personnel were killed on Tuesday when their convoy was attacked by suspected Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district. The attack comes two days before the first phase of the Lok Sabha election begins in the State.
•Dantewada falls in the Bastar Lok Sabha constituency, which goes to the polls on April 11.
Poll as scheduled
•The Election Commission said the first phase of polling in the State would be held as per schedule.
•The ambush occurred at the Shyamagiri hills when the MLA’s convoy was heading to Kuwakonda from the Bacheli area, which is about 450 km from the State capital Raipur. The Maoists blew up a vehicle in the convoy with an improvised explosive device (IED) and opened fire at its occupants. Security forces were rushed to the area, police sources said.
•The killed security personnel were identified as driver Danteshwar Maurya and District Force jawans Chhagan Kuldeep, Somdu Kawasi and Ramlal Oyami.
Modi condemns attack
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted condolence messages and paid tributes to those killed.
•Mr. Modi “strongly” condemned the attack, saying the sacrifice of those killed would not go in vain.
•The Congress condemned the attack, with party president Rahul Gandhi terming it a “very tragic” incident.
•Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has spoken to the DG, Anti-Naxal operations. Former CM Raman Singh said, “I am in contact with Central Ministers and spoke to PM Narendra Modi an hour ago. I will go to Dantewada and meet the families of the deceased.”
•For the elections on April 11, a security blanket of over 80,000 personnel, and drones, has been deployed in and around the Bastar region.
•Immediately after the Dantewada naxal attack, the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) held a meeting on video-conferencing with collectors and SPs of the Maoist-affected districts covering Phase-I and Phase-2 elections.
•The CEO instructed them to take utmost precaution over the next few days in view of polls that would be conducted as per schedule, said the EC spokesperson.
•Preliminary findings suggest that against the advice of an area police station in-charge, Mr. Mandavi had taken a route where there was no road-opening party of security personnel, the Commission was told.
•Four Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were killed and two others injured in an encounter with Maoists in Kanker district on Thursday.
📰 Centre defies SC order on CIC appointments
•The Centre has denied a Right to Information (RTI) request for details of the ongoing recruitment process for four vacancies in the Central Information Commission (CIC), despite a recent Supreme Court order mandating that such information be made public. The CIC is the RTI Act’s highest appellate body.
•“The judgment of the Honourable Supreme Court given in WP No. 436 of 2018 is under consideration of the department,” said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) in its reply to RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj’s request for information on the number, names and particulars of applicants, the process being followed to short-list them, and any search committee that has been constituted to fill these vacancies.
•In an interim order on December 13, 2018, as well as in its final order in the case on February, 2019, the SC had directed the Centre and States to pro-actively disclose all information regarding the recruitment advertisement, the particulars of the applicants, the search and selection committees and the criteria for short-listing candidates on their websites.
📰 Technology and the unhurried mind: the saga of EVMs
•i with a driver from eastern Uttar Pradesh. I felt I had been into a time machine adjusted to both the old and the new worlds of democratic India. My driver told me that his vote is in Mumbai, but he is in close touch with his village in Jaunpur. There are 14 castes, he said, in his village, and all are going to vote for the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate. As far as he was concerned, U.P. had only two worthwhile leaders, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav. Ms. Mayawati, he said, showed what it means to control, and Mr. Yadav showed the meaning of development. Then why did he lose so badly, I asked. The answer, my taxi driver said, lay in EVMs, or electronic voting machines. Then he added, “People are more vigilant now.” A minute later he said, “But you never know what all can happen.” His voice carried a healthy mix of hope and resignation.
•The saga of the EVM has started looking a bit tedious to many people. The Election Commission of India (ECI) itself seems frustrated with the continued suspicion of political parties in the integrity of the EVM system. As a citizen and voter, I often wonder why the EVM story has dragged on for so long. The system that the EVM has replaced was vulnerable in many ways, such as by booth capturing. Recently, when a public commentator used the term ‘election capture’, I was reminded of the days when incidents of booth capturing were common. In the era of EVMs, booth capturing has lost its value, not just its possibility. Another constraint of the pre-EVM era was the high proportion of invalid votes. Many people found it difficult to put the stamp in the allocated space. In the new set-up, the difficulty they might face in locating and pressing the right button will never be known. The EVM voter is presumed to have good sight and a dexterous finger. And if he does not fulfil these assumptions, no one will ever find out. The EVM has deleted the risk of invalidity.
•The linking of EVMs with a Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) is a fine mechanical response to the suspicion that EVMs can be manipulated. This doubt-removal machine offers a seven-second long image of the symbol and name chosen by the voter. One can say that a country of millions of smartphone users can be confident that its voters will look at the VVPAT screen during the given time-slot to satisfy themselves that their choice has been correctly recorded. I hope it is all right to wonder whether using a smartphone is as consequential as casting a vigilant glance at the VVPAT while waiting for the beep that announces the completion of the voting process. What the glance reveals and what can be done in case one is not satisfied are matters that can only disturb further the chain of faith that snugly surrounds the EVM system.
•Democracy is a modern faith. Its disruption must not be entertained, even as a passing thought. This is perhaps yet another demand that modernity is making on our old nation. Never mind that nations more advanced than us on the industrial path have not agreed to use EVMs for their elections. If we emulated their caution, there are many other encounters with modern science and technology we would have avoided. They have so far worked out for us, helping us to move forward. The EVM is one more step. Having taken that step, we can afford to forget our reality and the problems it presents.
The new ethos
•Mystery is inbuilt into it. So is distance between what you want and what will happen. I have used the EVM just once, and I came back from the booth feeling unsure whether I had performed my civic duty properly. The long row of buttons on the body of the machine looked menacing. It demanded both clarity of vision and precision in the finger. I had neither, yet I acted and pressed the button representing my preference. There was no VVPAT at that time. A longish beep filled the room, indicating that my vote had been cast. I came away wondering whether I had pressed the right button and whether the button I had pressed had recorded my preference honestly. Ever since that day, I have read numerous articles and news items covering the debate over EVMs. Many articles discussed the rejection of EVMs in other democracies. They are technologically more advanced than India, then why did they reject EVMs? That train of thought would lead to doubt over my commitment to the nation and its progress. It is no longer a case of choice of machine or material for nation-building. The new nationalist ethos has no room for debate over anything, let alone the path of progress for the nation. One must pass an ideological fitness test before seeking the right to be given attention. In the context of technology, the digital kind has swept other choices aside. The philosopher of technology, the late Ursula Franklin, defined technology as ‘the way we do things here’. In our case, we have settled our mind over a narrower definition that accepts only digital machines as acceptable technology. The qualities they possess are accredited as the highest. Entertaining any doubt about their integrity is a waste of time. That, indeed, it is, considering that the decision has been taken, in every case.
•Now the ECI has said that if the proportion of EVMs whose vote count will be verified with the help of a VVPAT is increased substantially, the declaration of results will be delayed by up to six days. This should be quite acceptable. An election season that covers the whole of early summer can surely be allowed to take an extra week. The benefit of such an extension clearly outweighs the strain on public patience it might cause. The collective mind is in any case deeply stressed by the ethos that political life has created. To characterise it as the bustle of a healthy, relaxed democracy would stretch our caution against cynicism too far.
📰 Brexit and the fragility of the U.K.
The muddle over how to leave the EU is threatening London’s sway over Scotland and Northern Ireland
•The continuing impasse over Brexit has brought an entire continent to a standstill. It has also strained the very unity of the United Kingdom. Nothing illustrated this more clearly than the pro-Brexit demonstrations on March 29, the original departure date. Protesters, waving the English flag of St. George, denounced the delay as ‘a betrayal of England’. Note this was not considered a betrayal of the U.K.: in this fight, England has gone its own way. In any case, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union (EU).
•The narrowness of the Leave win (52% to 48%) has of course divided communities over positions on Europe. But it has also highlighted divisions between the constituent nations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to use the formal name of the British state. The U.K. is not one nation but four: Wales was brought under English rule in the 13th century; Ireland was incorporated by a combination of military force and political persuasion in 1801; Scotland, though never militarily defeated, was persuaded to join the Union in 1707.
A fragile peace
•The Northern Ireland question is even more intractable. Brexit threatens the fragile peace imposed by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which formally ended the Troubles, or decades of bitter sectarian violence. Between 1968 and 1998, the mainly Protestant Unionists were pitted against the mostly Catholic Republicans, who wished for Northern Ireland to join the Republic of Ireland. Paramilitary forces grouped on both sides, and the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (the police) were also pulled in. Indeed, the Troubles became the longest major campaign of the British Army. The Good Friday Agreement has allowed the region to move forward.
•It is, however, a fragile peace, comprising complex intertwined agreements between first, most of Northern Ireland’s political parties; and second, the British and Irish governments to manage the relationships between Britain and Ireland, and between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain. Underpinning all of this is the dismantling of the border infrastructure — watch-towers, fences, checkposts — that had divided the island of Ireland. This was only possible because both countries belonged to the EU. If Britain leaves the customs union and single market of the EU, which guarantees the freedom of movement of people and goods between member states, then some sort of infrastructure will have to come up at the border between the EU and Britain in Ireland.
•It is indeed astonishing that the tenuous peace in Northern Ireland did not concentrate minds during the 2016 referendum, or indeed afterwards, when Theresa May’s government decided to opt for the hardest form of exit by declaring that Britain’s future relationship with the EU could not include either a customs union or staying within the single market. Tellingly, Northern Ireland found only passing mention in her letter of March 29, 2017 to the President of the European Council invoking the Article 50 process and starting the countdown towards leaving. It was disposed of in a sentence expressing a wish ‘to avoid a return to a hard border between [the] two countries’.
•And yet, peace in Northern Ireland is still in its infancy. The EU will not imperil this process by allowing a border to come up between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Hence the provision for a backstop in the transition deal that Ms. May negotiated with the EU, which would keep the U.K. in a customs union and Northern Ireland in the customs union and parts of the single market should the two entities fail to arrive at a permanent free trade agreement that continues to negate the need for border infrastructure within the island. The different status for Northern Ireland would effectively raise a border between the island of Ireland and the rest of Great Britain, something that is unacceptable to the Unionists and Ms. May.
•The hard core of Brexiteers, however, are willing to gamble with the unity of Britain — willing indeed, to risk losing Scotland and Northern Ireland — in their quest to be ‘rid’ of Europe once and for all.
📰 Closure on cynicism: SC order on VVPAT verification
Supreme Court’s solution of increased VVPAT verification should reassure the EVM sceptics
•By ordering an increase of the existing Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) verification rate from one to five random Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) per Assembly constituency or segment, the Supreme Court has sought to reassure those sceptical about the integrity of counting by means of EVMs. By limiting the verification to five machines instead of the 125-odd machines per constituency that the Opposition’s demand for a 50% VVPAT count would have amounted to, the apex court has enabled the Election Commission of India to declare the results on the counting day itself. The higher figure, which will increase the overall number of EVMs to be counted to close to 20,000 machines, should reasonably address the very remote possibility of ‘insider fraud’. It will also verify a higher sample of EVMs in the smaller States and bring the sample within reasonable confidence levels to discount chances of EVM-tampering. In any case, the VVPAT slip verification is more of a reassurance to voters that the EVM is indeed foolproof, over and above the technical and administrative safeguards that are already in place to prevent any tampering. This should effectively blunt criticism that has, unnecessarily, brought the electoral process into doubt. The fact that some of the Opposition parties moved away from their untenable demand for a return to paper ballots in their petition to a plea for a higher VVPAT count has also helped yield this reasoned proposition from the Supreme Court.
•For the ECI, the key technical issue with EVMs and VVPATs is not really in regard to tampering but to machine glitches. While the parliamentary by-elections in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and the Assembly election in Karnataka last year had registered significant machine replacement rates (20% and 4%, respectively), these were brought down to less than 2% in later elections held in the winter months. The ECI made technical fixes to the VVPAT to make them more resilient during use across the country, and it should be well-prepared to handle any glitches during the seven-phase Lok Sabha election. The availability of replacement machines and the ability to deploy them quickly in case of a failure of VVPATs are essential to avoid disruptions. In the past couple of years, the doubts raised about EVMs by parties and the new constraints encountered in the electoral process due to hastened VVPAT implementation have bogged down the ECI and narrowed the discourse regarding electoral reforms. Now that the Supreme Court has brought a closure of sorts to the issue, it is time for the ECI to focus on the hassle-free conduct of polls to the Lok Sabha and to four State Assemblies, and later consider other important issues — increasing voter enrolment, effective regulation of campaign financing and implementation of the model code of conduct.
📰 Is there a problem with the 10% quota?
Data show that economically weaker sections in the general category are already well-represented in higher education
•In January, the Rajya Sabha passed the Constitution Amendment Billguaranteeing 10% quota in education and employment to economically weaker sections in the general category. Families that earn an annual income of less than ₹8 lakh and do not possess agricultural land of five acres or above are eligible for the quota. This includes 95% of Indian households. Isn’t it strange that in a country which claims to have lifted millions out of poverty, so many households fall in this category? What is more is that these households require reservation, nothing else, to enable them to be socio-economically better off. The Bill has served an unintended purpose, though: Reservation is no more the preserve of the so-called merit-less. The proposed quota has transformed cynics of the reservation policy into champions of it.
Examining two aspects
•We examine here the empirical foundation of two aspects which are central to the policy but are absent from discussions on it. The first is the rationale underlying the policy that economically weaker sections from the general category remain “excluded from attending the higher education institutions” in India “due to their financial incapacity”. Is that really the case? The second is the fact that the Bill also brings private educational institutions under its ambit. What is the representation of reserved category students in private educational institutions?
•We try to answer these two questions by analysing data from the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF). The Ministry of Human Resource Development introduced a ranking of higher education institutions in India in 2016. A total of 445 institutions were ranked under the NIRF in 2018. The NIRF data provide the composition of ‘economically backward class’ (EBC) students and ‘socially challenged category’ (Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes/Other Backward Classes) students. The data reveal that of the 16.09 lakh students enrolled in the 445 top institutions in 2016-17, about 28% (4.55 lakh) belonged to the EBC. The share of EBC students was about 30% in private educational institutions. If we consider institutions as the basis of analysis, the facts are self-explanatory. About 66% of the 445 NIRF-ranked higher education institutions had more than 10% of students from the EBC. Interestingly, 68% of private educational institutions also had more than 10% of EBC students. EBC students had already secured about three times the proposed quota of 10% without any reservation in top higher education institutions. This is despite the fact that the income criteria used by most of these institutions vary from ₹2 lakh to ₹5.5 lakh annually, which is far less than the proposed eligibility criterion for the reservation quota, which is ₹8 lakh.
Under-representation of SCs/STs/OBCs
•The share of ‘socially challenged category’ (SCs/ STs/ OBCs) students in these 445 institutions was 38%, only 10 percentage points more than the share of EBC students. Surprisingly, the share of SC/ST/OBC students stood at only 44% in public institutions, which are mandated to implement 49.5% reservation. In private educational institutions ranked by the NIRF, their share was as low as 30%, which was similar to the share of EBC students. Here too, only 19% of private higher educational institutions ranked by the NIRF had more than 49.5% of SC/ST/OBC students. Thus, SC/ST/OBC students remained greatly under-represented, especially in premier private educational institutions. This is despite the fact that the SC/ST/OBC population constitutes about 70% of the total population of India (NSSO, 2011-12).
•Our analysis is confined only to the top 445 higher education institutions. However, if the share of EBC students was as high as 28% in these premier institutes, their share would have likely been larger in other higher education institutions which were not ranked by the NIRF. This could be due to a number of reasons, including lower fees. The EBC students have already secured more than 10% share in these institutions without any reservation. Hence, the proposed policy seems to be empirically unfounded. By contrast, what emerges from the NIRF data is the under-representation of the ‘socially challenged category’ in premier education institutions.
•It appears that the government is going to extend reservation for SC/ST/OBC students to private higher education institutions. This would certainly bring the much-needed diversity in premier private higher education institutions in India.
📰 The right to criticise: the sedition judgment on Kishorechandra Wangkhem
The Manipur High Court’s sedition judgment on Kishorechandra Wangkhem sets an example
•In its judgment dated April 8, the Manipur High Court ordered the release of journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem, who was charged with sedition under the National Security Act for criticising the Chief Minister.Though the petition was allowed only on the technical ground that certain material mentioned in the detention order was not supplied to the petitioner, it could have also succeeded on the ground that in a democracy people have a right to criticise the government. Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution was upheld by the Supreme Court in Romesh Thapar v. The State of Madras (1950).
•Whereas in a monarchy the king is supreme and the people are his subjects, in a democracy this relationship is reversed: the people are supreme, and state authorities are servants of the people. In Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar (1962), the Supreme Court held that mere criticism of the government is not sedition unless it is an incitement to violence or breach of public order.
•The U.S. Supreme Court, in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), laid down the ‘imminent lawless action’ test, which says that free speech is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution unless it incites imminent (not remote) lawless action. This judgment was followed by the Indian Supreme Court in Arup Bhuyan v. State of Assam (2011) and in Sri Indra Das v. State of Assam (2011), and hence it is the law of the land in India too. Surely Mr. Kishorechandra’s statements would not have provoked an immediate violent uprising against the government and hence they were protected by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
•Unfortunately, what has been often witnessed in India is that political functionaries get incensed and cannot tolerate criticism. Then they slap sedition charges or preventive detention laws against their critics, as the Maharashtra government did in the case of the cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, or the West Bengal government did in the case of Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra of Jadavpur University, or the Tamil Nadu government in the case of the folk singer Kovan. To speak for the poor or marginalised sections of society has become particularly dangerous, as was seen in the cases of those accused of inciting violence in Bhima Koregaon.
•By enacting the Fundamental Rights of the people in Part III of the Constitution, and by making the courts the guardians of the rights of the people, a solemn duty has been cast on the judiciary to uphold democratic principles. The Manipur High Court therefore deserves to be commended in this connection (though one wishes its judgment had come earlier and saved the petitioner four months of jail time). It is hoped that other courts in India, too, will follow its example.
📰 Deep in Maoist turf, no sign of polls
In Dandakaranya villages, many have not seen a candidate for years
•Munshi Madavi probably holds the most challenging job in the entire Dandkaranya forest range in central India. The 37-year-old farm labourer is pondering resignation as de facto village patil responsible for 123 inhabitants of Kasnasur, 190 km from Gadchiroli in Maharashtra.
•Nearly a year after around alleged 40 Maoist guerrillas were gunned down by security forces near the village on April 22, 2018, in what was later described by civil rights activists as a “questionable” encounter, some 27 families continue to live in the shadow of fear.
•As April 11 [voting day] looms large, the village — an arduous eight-kilometre trek from Tadgaon towards the banks of the Indravati river — seems to have completely missed out on the biggest celebration of Indian democracy — the Lok Sabha election.
Inaccessible booths
•Many villagers do not have a voter identity card. Several inhabitants also suffer from infectious ailments such as impetigo and eczematous dermatitis — evidence of abject poverty — making it near impossible for them to walk to the nearest polling booth eight km from the Tadgaon base camp.
•“I and many others do not have a voter identification card. On election day, some 15-20 men will come and take whoever can walk to the Tadgaon booth. I do not know what we will do there. I feel it is better to resign from the post before that,” says Mr. Madavi, a Madia Gond and father of three.
Rare sighting
•The village lies at the end of the barely motorable Allapalli-Bhamragad road, which cuts through the dense beauty of Dandkaranya, at the heart of central India’s Naxal movement. These parts rarely see electoral activity or canvassing by political parties.
•Deep inside the forest, a ‘candidate’ is almost an extinct species. Both Dasru Suku Talande and his granddaughter Meena, who turned 18 last year, may not get to vote, even if they wish to. Ms. Meena has eczematous dermatitis, which has left her bed-ridden.
•“I have not seen a candidate here in years, and do not think of voting,” says Mr. Talande, who suffers from anaemia and is in the grip of viral fever. The local priest has given him medicines to treat the fever.
•Earlier this year, Maoists had shot three villagers suspected of passing on information to security forces. This has enveloped the village in a sense of fear even as the government relief, promised after the 2018 encounter, is yet to materialise.
•Despite the visit of the Gadchiroli Collector and Superintendent of Police, who “adopted” the village after residents threatened to relocate after the Maoist killings, not much has changed, villagers say. A solar-driven water pump though bears testimony to some help from the local administration.
📰 Sri Lanka opens China-financed railway line
The extension is the first to be constructed in the country since its independence
•Sri Lanka has opened a new railway line, built with China’s assistance, connecting its coastal city of Matara and Beliatta in Hambantota, a move that will boost passenger traffic into the island nation’s deep south.
•The 26.75-km long Matara-Beliatta railway extension is the first to be constructed in Sri Lanka since 1948, and it passes through the country’s longest and second-longest railway bridges, China’s Xinhua agency reported. The new line was declared open on Monday in the presence of Sri Lanka’s Transport and Civil Aviation Minister Arjuna Ranatunga, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera and other parliamentarians.
•The railway extension was financed by the Export-Import Bank of China and the contract was awarded to the China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation. According to Sri Lankan media reports, the cost of the project was $278 million.
•China on Tuesday praised the opening of the railway line in southern Sri Lanka.
•Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang termed it as a major Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project in Sri Lanka. “The railway line is the first railway project contracted by Chinese company in Sri Lanka under the BRI and it is indeed the first railway built after country’s independence,” he said, adding that it will make regional transportation more convenient and facilitate local economic and social development.
•Sri Lanka has been the major recipient of Chinese loans and investments in recent years, totalling over $8 billion. The heavy borrowing has raised concerns over Sri Lanka’s ability to repay, after Colombo handed over the Hambantota port to Beijing for a 99-year lease in 2017 as a debt swap.
📰 Major banks begin to slashlending rates, EMIs set to drop
State Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank cut MCLR-linked lending rates by 5 bps
•Equated monthly instalments (EMIs) are set to fall with banks announcing a cut in their lending rates. The country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) led the way cutting the interest rate on its loans by 5 basis points (bps).
•As a result, the one year marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) of SBI — to which most loans are linked — will now drop to 8.5%.
•IOB said it would reduce its MCLR by 5 bps for loans of various tenures from April 10.
•As a result, housing and vehicle loans would become cheaper, the bank said in a filing. The revised interest rates would be 8.65% for loans up to one year tenure, 8.75% for two-year and 8.85% three-year loans respectively. The moves come after the RBI decided to cut the repo rate by 25 bps to 6% last week.
•Since February, the repo rate had been reduced by 50 bps though SBI had reduced its MCLR by only 5 bps during this period.
•Private sector lender ICICI Bank had reduced its MCLR by 5 bps from April 1 and its one year MCLR is 8.75%. HDFC Bank had also cut its MCLR by 5-10 bps across various tenures which came into effect on Monday, with one year MCLR now standing at 8.7% compared with 8.75% earlier.
•SBI’s interest rate on home loans up to ₹30 lakh would be reduced by 10 bps, the lender said. “Now, the applicable interest rate for such housing loans below ₹30 lakh would range from 8.60% per annum (p.a) to 8.90% p.a.,” SBI said.
•Since SBI had also linked its savings bank (SB) interest rates to the repo rate, the SB rates would also be revised, for balances of more than ₹1 lakh, to 3.25% from 3.5% from May 1. SBI had said 95% of the SB account holders had balances of up to ₹1 lakh.
Cash credit, overdraft
•Also, with all cash credit and overdraft accounts above ₹1 lakh linked to the repo rate, the benefit of RBI’s rate cut last week, ‘will get passed on in its entirety to such CC/OD customers banking with SBI with effect from May 1, 2019,’ the bank added.
