News Digest: CEA's departure, Yoga day, what led PNB fraud and more

According to sources, the process of identifying Subramanian's successor has been under way for two months

1. Arvind Subramanian resigns before term; Jaitley announces CEA exit on FB

Union minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday announced Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian’s departure in an unusual way through a blog on Facebook. Subramanian will step down within the next two months, after nearly four years in the role. His tenure with the government, extended last year, was to run till May 2019.

“A few days ago Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian met me over video-conferencing. He informed me that he would like to go back to the US on account of pressing family commitments. His reasons were personal but extremely important for him. He left me with no option but to agree,” Jaitley wrote. Read more...

2. Why PM Modi picked Dehradun as the venue for the fourth edition of yoga day

The choice of Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, as the venue of the fourth edition of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s yoga day celebrations on Thursday, has been picked with much thought for its religious and spiritual symbolism, but also has electoral significance for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with it being the last yoga day celebrations before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

On Thursday morning, the PM will deliver a speech and perform yoga, along with an estimated 50,000 participants, at the sprawling and salubrious campus of the 112-year-old Forest Research Institute here. The first international day of yoga, after it was recognized by the UN in end-2014, was held in New Delhi in 2015. Read more...

3. RBI e-mail on risk control in November 2016 did not reach us, says PNB

Punjab National Bank (PNB) has claimed that the lender did not receive a crucial directive sent by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in November 2016 asking all commercial banks to strengthen their risk mechanism to avert fraud.

The RBI last week blamed the PNB board for the Rs 143 billion Nirav Modi-Mehul Choksi fraud.

The Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI’s) probe into the fraud hinges on the premise that the Delhi-based bank did not follow suggestions made by the RBI from time to time. Read more...

4. ICICI Bank: Luthra & Luthra, Control Risks to assist Justice Srikrishna

Law firm Luthra & Luthra and global risk assessment specialist Control Risks are set to assist former Supreme Court judge B N Srikrishna in his probe into the allegations against ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar.

While Luthra & Luthra will focus on conducting a forensic audit of the transactions between ICICI Bank, Videocon Industries and other clients of the bank, Control Risks’ mandate is to help Srikrishna on regulatory violations overseas, if any.

Based in the US, Control Risks has a team of global specialists, which includes crisis management and security consultants, investigators, forensic accountants, cyber incident responders, technology experts and even former soldiers. Read more...

5. Bank of Maharashtra CMD Ravindra Marathe arrested in Rs 30bn DSK Group scam

In a sudden development, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) here arrested Ravindra P. Marathe, the Chairman and Managing Director of Bank of Maharashtra, in a case of Rs 30 billion fraudulent loans extended to Pune's DSK Group, an official said here on Wednesday.

The EOW has also arrested the bank's Executive Director Rajendra K. Gupta, Zonal Manager Nityanand Deshpande from Ahmedabad and former CMD Sushil Muhnot from Jaipur. Read more...