Rs 15.28 lakh cr of the Rs 15.44 lakh cr banned notes returned to system: RBI Mumbai, August 30 (IANS): Revealing the low efficacy of last November's demonetisation of high-value currency, the RBI said on Wednesday that of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore of notes taken out of circulation, Rs 15.28 lakh crore had returned to the system by way of deposits by the public. According to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) annual report for the last fiscal, 89 million pieces of the banned Rs 1,000 totalling Rs 8,900 crore had not been returned, out of 6,700 million such notes. This amounts to 1.3 per cent of the Rs 1,000 notes in circulation before the demonetisation announcement on November 8, 2016. BJP hits out at Goa Church, says Catholics dominated Nazi Germany Panaji, August 30 (IANS): Slamming an article published in a Goa Church magazine on the Panaji by-poll eve, comparing contemporary Goa and India to Nazi Germany, the BJP on Wednesday hit back, terming the criticism unfair and that Nazism was popular in Germany since the population then was almost 100 per cent Catholic. Addressing a press conference here to specifically respond to the criticism by Goa's influential Roman Catholic Church, BJP MLA and official party spokesperson Nilesh Cabral also said, that the Church needed to tone down the language used in its official magazine "Renovacao", in which an article also made unflattering remarks about ruling political leaders likening them to dogs. "Similar Nazism was at that time popular in Germany, where 100 per cent almost Catholics (were) supported by the Church. So what are they trying to say. What are they giving in this magazine?" "What is Nazism? Who were Nazis? Hitler was part of that. At that particular (time) Germany was almost 100 per cent... 90 per cent Roman Catholic, which is there in Goa," Cabral said. However, his claims about Germans' religious orientation in the Nazi era seemed to be factually inaccurate. According to the official census in Germany in 1933, over 62 per cent of the population in the year that Hitler took over as the Chancellor, was Protestant, while 32.5 per cent were Catholic, while 0.7 per cent followed the Jewish faith. Cabral however said, that Goa Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao, whom he described as a "good man", should ensure that the magazine which operates from the Bishop's House here, should not contain polarising content. OBC creamy layer concept extended to PSUs and financial institutions New Delhi, August 30 (IANS): Twenty four years after its introduction in the government, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to extend the concept of creamy layer in OBC reservations to Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and financial institutions. The Cabinet, which had last week raised the annual income ceiling of Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh for eligibility for reservations for Other Backward Classes, decided on extending the concept at its meeting on Wednesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the media. He said even though the government had decided the criteria for deciding the creamy layer on the basis of income and status in 1993, the concept of creamy layer itself was not implemented in PSUs and financial institutions like banks and insurance companies. "Now, on the advice of the Group of Ministers, the cabinet has given its approval" to implement it, Jaitley said. "Now the same limit of Rs 8 lakhs, which is applicable on central government, will also be applicable on PSUs and financial institutions," he said.
