Das' capital: Whose money is it anyway?

As a result of this transfer, the RBI's ability to help a set of collapsing banks has come down and the govt's ability to pay its creditors has gone up

Every now and then the near-complete ignorance of the events of even the last 20 years, let alone the more distance years, leads commentators and politicians to get into a frenzy. In August alone there have been two instances of this.

The first was the complete dilution of Article 370. Everyone became an expert on its history and the Constitution. The result was hilarious.

The second has been Monday’s decision by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to transfer Rs 1.76 trillion of its reserves to the government. Everyone has now become an expert on the subject.

As is its