ISAS Briefs

The Indian government announced a series of measures on 24 October 2017 designed to kick start the economy and enable public sector banks to improve their lending which has largely remained flat due to a lack of industrial demand, particularly from the manufacturing sector. The recapitalisation bonds, which have been proposed to provide additional equity capital to the public sector banks, have been hailed as a huge catalyst that could stimulate the growth of the green shoots of demand in the country. Also announced are some measures to boost road-building activity which can provide a major fillip to employment generation.