Abhijit Banerjee: Government stake in banks need to be slashed

New Delhi: Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Tuesday flagged concerns about banking crisis in India and called for aggressive changes to deal with the situation.

There is a need to bring in important and aggressive changes to deal with the crisis, he told reporters.
Banerjee said there is need to bring down stake of the government to below 50 per cent in banks so that the decisions are taken without fear of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

The banking system has been afflicted by the scourge of high non-performing asset for nearly five years now, which has led to networth erosion and discovery of scams in the sector, with the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) being the new addition.

Modi ‘jokes' with Nobel laureate at 1st meet

Abhijit Banerjee met Narendra Modi here on Tuesday and said the prime minister joked about the media trying to bring out "anti-Modi" remarks from him. "I had a good meeting. He cracked a joke on how media is trying to trap me to say anti-Modi things. He's been watching you guys. And he knows what you are trying to do," he told reporters when asked about the meeting taking place against the backdrop of a debate over his comments on an economic slump.

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