WARANGAL  SATURDAY  NOVEMBER 21, 2020  `7.00  PAGES 12  CITY EDITION AXE REMDESIVIR FROM COVID TREATMENT PROTOCOL: W.H.O. The UN health body said on Friday there’s no evidence that the drug improved the prospects of hospitalised patients MAY STILL BENEFIT A SUBGROUP OF PATIENTS EXPERTS DIVIDED OVER ITS EFFECTIVENESS The new guidelines come a month after results of WHO’s multi-country Solidarity Trial revealed that the antiviral drug had no significant positive outcome on the chances of survival, the need for a ventilator, or the length of hospital stay in patients with severe Covid-19. The WHO, however, said there could still be a potential small benefit in a subgroup of patients ■ ■ Reactions to the WHO trial’s findings have been mixed with many health experts welcoming it while others expressing reservations A recent study by a group of doctors in Bengaluru found that the drug improved patients’ survival chances if given early. A US govtapproved study had also come out with a similar finding in April `24,000 THE COST OF A COURSE OF REMDESIVIR TREATMENT IN INDIA CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI KTR pitches stable Hyd as GHMC poll plank, says it is key to TS devpt EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Hyderabad UNDERSCORING the need for stability and tranquillity for further growth of Hyderabad, TRS working president and Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao on Friday said that the development of capital city meant the progress of entire Telangana. “Hyderabad is the growth engine and investment magnet of Telangana. When Hyderabad is prosperous and peaceful, then the farmers in the rest of the State will get Rythu Bandhu and other benefits,” Rama Rao said at a meeting with TRS GHMC POLL TICKETS & SOCIAL JUSTICE 91 17 BCs allotted TRS tickets in GHMC polls tickets given to minorities 8 85 TRS candidates are women, well above the 50% reserved for them tickets allotted to settlers from Andhra PAGE 2 Corporator candidates at Telangana Bhavan. Rama Rao released ‘Pragathi Nivedika’, a brochure on developmental activities taken up in Hyderabad in the last six years. He also handed over B-forms to the TRS candidates. Addressing the TRS candidates, he said that the investments were flowing to Hyderabad, surpassing several cities like Noida, because the State had an able leader in Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. The other factor was Hyderabad’s law and order situation, which was quite satisfactory and there were no disturbances in the last six years, Rama Rao said. “The investors are considering all these factors and coming to Hyderabad,” he added. CONTINUED ON P2 RBI open to letting large companies own banks Regulator feels private lenders will drive future growth; wants to expand banking sector after strengthening supervisory oversight S E S A S E N @ New Delhi TRS working president KT Rama Rao speaks to party’s candidates at Telangana Bhavan on Friday Husband’s income data just an RTI query away K A N U S A R D A @ New Delhi IF you suspect your estranged husband is concealing the size of his gross income to avoid paying maintenance, just file a Right to Information (RTI) application with the income tax department to ferret out the data. The Central Infor mation Commission recently upheld the right of a spouse to get the data through the RTI mechanism. The order came as a huge relief for women, as in most matrimonial disputes, husbands understate their income, but are called out in court due to lack of proof. The order came on an appeal filed by Rahmat Bano of Jodhpur wherein the commission rejected the I-T department’s spin of her being a third party to block information. The CIC also rubbished the argument that seeking such information is out of the ambit of the RTI Act. It directed Jodhpur’s I-T department to provide the data to Bano within 15 days. The order came days after the Supreme Court tightened the rules regarding grant of maintenance in matrimonial cases. Henceforth, both spouses will have to make full disclosure of their income and assets from the date the maintenance application is filed. While the claimant must file all income and asset details along with the maintenance application, the respondent has four weeks to make his full disclosure. The court took note of the fact that in many cases, husbands refuse to pay maintenance or alimony by disposing of their assets and claiming reduced income. IT is time to open up India’s banking sector to allow large companies to own banks, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In its report released Friday, an internal RBI panel headed by RBI Central Board Director P K Mohanty said industrial houses can be allowed to promote banks after the Banking Regulations Act is amended to this effect. The supervisory wing of the regulator must also be strengthened to prevent connected lending and exposures between banks and other financial and non-financial group entities, the internal group report noted. The suggestions are significant as the central bank has in the past been firmly opposed to allowing large corporate entities to own banks. The working group also suggested that large non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) with asset size of `50,000 crore and above, including those owned by corporate entities, be converted into banks subject to completion of 10 years of operations. This could benefit industrial houses such as Aditya Birla, Bajaj, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Sons that already have large NBFCs with more than a decade of operations. Back in the 1990s, when RBI doled out its first set of licences for private banks, it had left out industrial houses. However, the P K Mohanty panel, whose brief was to review the extant own- Higher promoter stake  Promoters’ stake be raised to 26% from the current 15% over 15 years, the report suggested  It also recommended minimum initial capital requirement for licensing new banks be doubled to `1,000 crore for universal banks and enhanced to`300 crore from `200 cr for small finance banks ership guidelines and corpo- rate structure for Indian private sector banks, said private banks will be crucial for the future growth of the banking sector, which is currently dominated by gover nment-owned lenders. Fourteen licences for universal banks have been issued in the private sector since 1993, out of which only 10 are operational now. While private banks recorded sustained growth over the years, there’s a long way to break into the global top 100. Currently only the govern, ment-owned State Bank of India figures among the top 100 global banks by size. Large private banks including ICICI and HDFC banks have sizes lower than that of Spanish Banco de Sabadell, which ranks 100th. RBI has sought comments from stakeholders on the internal group’s report by January 15, 2021, after which it will P10 take a final call. `74k CR TAX SIPHONED OUT: P9