RBI taking all efforts for financial inclusion

S.Karuppasamy, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India, addressing a function at Mookaiyur near Sayalkudi in Ramanathapuram district

S. Karuppasamy, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said that the State governments had been asked to follow Electronic Benefit Transaction (EBT) method for all its financial transactions so as to being more number of people into the financial inclusion programme.  Launching the RBI's outreach programme at Mookaiyur near Sayalkudi on Saturday, he said that they should send all kinds of payments such as salary, perks, subsidies and others to the people including employees, beneficiaries and others through banks. If they credited the payments, the banks in turn would credit them in their respective bank accounts of customers directly. It would slowly and steadily increase the opening of new accounts by people, including those in rural areas. It would help the RBI's policy of bringing more people under the banking network.  Mr. Karuppasamy said that the RBI wanted to connect every Indian to the country's banking system. It was taking several steps to extend the banking network to all citizens by 2013. Though the RBI had not formulated unitary programmes for the banks to implement the financial inclusion programme, they had been asked to select a business model based on their business capacity and infrastructure. It had been decided that all villages with a population of 2000 and above should be brought under the banking network by March 2012. Though the country was clocking a fast growth rate, the inclusive rate of growth was not on the expected lines. More than 50 percent of the country's population did not not have bank accounts. Out of 6 lakh villages, just 30,000 had been provided with banking services — mere five percent of total villages in the country. Expanding the financial services to all villages in the country was one of the biggest challenges posed by the banking section.  Mr. Karuppasamy said that as part of financial inclusion programme, the RBI had been conducting sensitisation programmes and outreach activities to promote financial inclusion and financial literacy among the rural people. The technological revolution would be highly useful to the banks to connect all people under the banking network. Linkage could be created between the banks and customers through business correspondents. Customers could be provided with smart cards, which contained all information about them. Hand-based instruments, mobiles, and automated teller machines should be utilised to provide banking services to the rural people, he added.  Nupur Mitra, Executive Director, Indian Overseas Bank, A.K. Jagannathan, Managing Director, Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, S. Ganesh, Banking Ombudsman for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, V. Arun Roy, Collector, R. Narayan, Chief General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), N.S. Vishwanathan, Regional Director, RBI, Chennai, and others spoke.

The Hindu

Financial inclusion is not a one-way street : K Ramesha

The recent decision to use Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACs) to distribute crop loans to farmers by commercial banks in Maharashtra and the approval given by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) are welcome steps in the present context in which Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank has been superseded. This arrangement, however, has to be temporary and efforts must be made to strengthen credit cooperatives at all levels.......

Read more...........

Pranab to sell India's growth story on US visit

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's two-day visit to Washington beginning Monday will be focused on reassuring foreign investors that India continues to be an attractive investment destination , as its medium and long-term growth story remains intact, officials say.  "The focus is on business. During the two-day stay, the finance minister will hold meetings with business honchos and top US economic policy makers," a finance ministry official, who didn't want to be quoted, told IANS. Mukherjee is scheduled to hold roundtable meetings with chief executives of top US and Indian companies Tuesday. He will also address a luncheon meeting of the India-US CEO forum.  The finance minister will be accompanied by top officials, including his chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu, economic affairs secretary R. Gopalan and Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbaro.

ET

RBI Governor appreciates P. P. Ramachandran for the book review of “I Can Do Financial Planning”

Shri P.P.Ramachandran, Ex-DGM (popularly known as PPR amongst RBIetis) serving the Bank for almost 40 years retired from DBOD in October 1996 only to get retyred just to prove that “It is easy to take a person out of RBI, but very difficult to take RBI out of him/her”. When he joined the Bank on December 4, 1956 the Governor was Sir Benegal Rama Rau - the second Indian Governor. Forty years later when he retired on October 31, 1996 the Governor was Dr C.Rangarajan, who was the 19^th Governor. Having worked under 17 Governors, a septuagenarian veteran PPR has virtually become a walkepaedia (walking encyclopaedia) of the history of RBI. At the age of 76, he is still actively in touch with RBI on various issues like updation of pension, woes of retirees etc. Having flair to read, review and write, PPR has correspondence with great personalities to name a few, Rajaji, Radhakrishnan, Kalam, Khushwant Singh, Paul Gallico and others. He has at his credit 20 RBI related books. “I Can Do Financial Planning” – is a book published by the Reserve Bank during its Platinum Jubilee year, which was reviewed by him.

 had covered this review on April 3, 2011. Click to read it again..................

Dr.D.Subbarao writes..........................

  

Food for thought

Despite having got it so horribly wrong on inflation on so many occasions, government economists are back to predicting that food inflation will slow once more grain comes into the market. RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn argues they’re wrong. At a function in Chennai, he said food prices were no longer as sensitive to the monsoon as one would imagine and that there was sufficient evidence to suggest food prices were driven by more fundamental factors—our columnist Surjit S Bhalla suggested Saturday that it was the global price of oil that was the single-largest explanator of food prices, though it’s not clear if this is what Gokarn had in mind. Look at the data for the past few years and you find that food prices have risen faster than the overall WPI for the seventh successive year now, something unprecedented since the advent of the green revolution; food inflation touched a peak level of 15.6% in 2010, the highest since the start of the reforms in the early nineties. While the gap between food inflation and WPI was under 1 percentage point in 2005-06 (food inflation was 5.4% versus a WPI of 4.5%), this rose steadily to 11.5% in 2009-10 (15.3% food inflation versus 3.8% for WPI); this declined in 2010-11 but was still a high 6%—and this was despite the 5.4% pick up in agriculture growth in 2010-11 and record grain produced in that year. The most recent trends indicate that the current pick up in agriculture prices is not on account of the core products of the food basket like cereals or pulses, it is due to high-value products like vegetables, fruits, eggs, milk, fish and meat whose demand has risen faster than supply, thanks to the sharp hike in per capita income levels. While the record agriculture output in 2010-11, and especially that of food grains, helped slow the increase in price of cereals, prices of high-value goods accelerated even faster. Numbers show that while the price increase of cereals (including rice and wheat) slowed down from 12.6% in 2009-10 to 6.3% in 2010-11 and that of pulses went down from 22.4% to 3.2%, those of vegetables continued to remain at a high 13%; those of fruits surged to 19.8%. For milk, prices rose from 18.8% in 2009-10 to 20.1% in 2010-11, eggs from 13.5% to 15.2%, marine fish products from 9.8% to 38.8% … What’s not clear though is how more rate hikes will help.

FE

RBI's nuanced approach to inflation - C.R.L. Narasimhan

High inflation is being driven by surging global commodity prices

The Reserve Bank of India's annual monetary policy statement in May and its mid-quarter review last week, by many yardsticks, are seen as a break from the past. That only few observers have commented on the new look policy is most certainly due to the fact that the monetary policy, unlike the fiscal policy (the Union budget), hardly evokes the kind of widespread scrutiny or excitement. That remains so despite recent attempts to make the monetary policy more accessible to the common man. There have been a number of other plus points. The policy statements of the day are substantially free of jargon. This is a stupendous achievement. By their very nature, monetary policy documents deal with subjects that do not lend themselves to easy descriptions or analysis that will be intelligible to the man on the street. It is perhaps no coincidence that the annual policy is unveiled by the RBI Governor at a meeting of top bankers. The Governor and other senior RBI officials might address the press and face television interviews subsequently but the basic format of the policy — announced before bankers — rather than television cameras remains.  It should not be forgotten that any policy statement that tries to reach out to wider sections is more difficult to be prepared than one which has as its main constituency, bankers and finance experts. The annual policy statement and the mid-quarter review that followed it fit into the recent mould of policy announcements that strive for transparency and reach out to the common man. One outstanding example is the dissemination of information on what has become one of the core topics in today's public policy discourse, namely, inflation. It is well known that the recent policies have overwhelmingly come out in favour of containing inflation even if that has come at the expense of growth. Practically all policy statements have discussed this trade off but none could have done better than Governor D. Subbarao. In the annual policy statement he had this to say:

“Before I close I want to reiterate what I had said earlier, by making a brief comment on the growth-inflation trade off, an issue that has been widely debated in the run up to this policy. High and persistent inflation undermines growth by creating uncertainty for investors, and driving up inflation expectations.  “An environment of price stability is a pre-condition for sustaining growth in the medium-term. Reining in inflation should, therefore, take precedence, even if there are some short-term costs by way of lower growth.” The deleterious consequences of inflation are well known. It will impact adversely on the growth prospects. India's poor with already low living standards will suffer the most. The RBI in its monetary statements has devoted considerable space not just to inflation but also to inflation expectations. The connection between the two has once again been well brought out in the annual policy statement. High inflation is being driven by global commodity prices which have surged in recent months. There is every possibility that they may increase further even in the short-term. So there is a real possibility of inflation getting even worse. Even the most pessimistic inflation projections of recent months have been exceeded; there are serious concerns that inflation expectations may become unhinged. What the central bank is alluding to is the simple fact that rising prices beyond a point feed themselves. For instance, households reeling under high food inflation do not see any respite in the food prices in the year ahead. In the case of petroleum products, nobody expects their retail prices to come down. Notwithstanding last Friday's steep increase in the retail prices of diesel, kerosene and cooking gas, the betting will be on still higher prices. Not only are global petroleum prices high, but domestic prices have by and large remained cushioned by subsidies by the government and to an extent by the losses borne by the oil marketing companies. Certain well known public policy instruments are relevant for conditioning inflation and inflation expectations. The monetary policy should have a clear and stated inflation objective. Second, the central bank must have the appropriate instruments and have the freedom to use them. Finally, there should be an effective transmission of monetary policy. The RBI has recently taken some bold steps: (a) a 0.75 percentage point increase in the repo rate over two policy statements (in contrast to the small ‘baby' steps of previous policies; (b) making the repo rate the sole policy rate; and (c) the creation of the Marginal Standing Facility from which banks can borrow at the repo rate plus one percentage point.  Not only will the RBI be able to manage liquidity better, but it effectively assumes the traditional role as a lender of last resort. Monetary transmission should improve as a result of these changes. The fact that the RBI and the government do not, at least publicly, differ in their assessments of growth indicators is another positive factor.  The RBI's recent action in lowering its GDP forecast sharply has probably made such estimates more realistic. Credibility of official data will certainly help in having a better idea of the price situation both at present and in the future.

The Hindu

In a time warp

The 25-paise coin is going out of circulation from June 30. The RBI has decided to scrap them as the inflation bug has bitten the currency. And a whole generation of teens have not seen the likes of 5, 10 and 20 paises as they ceased to be legal tender more than a decade ago. The Proxy form published in the State Bank of India's Annual Report for 2010 has a provision for affixing 15 paise revenue stamp over which the shareholder has to sign! Yes, 15 paise! Now we have neither the coins of the denomination nor revenue stamps of that value. When one started perusing the annual reports of companies, one came across the same bloomer in almost all! But what is surprising is that the State Bank of India, majority owned by the Government of India and which takes care of the Union Government's treasury operations, doesn't know the Indian Stamp Act 1899, since amended 51 times, has replaced the mandatory 20 paise revenue stamps affixation for documents to Rupee One by an amendment in 1994. The State Bank of Travancore's proxy form also has the same format following the parent, while the IOB requires the shareholder to affix one rupee stamp — obviously, they are alert.

The Hindu

‘There is no black or white money'

The Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor, Dr K.C. Chakrabarty, has said that the RBI gets nothing by increasing the interest rate. He was responding to queries at the ‘Voice of Tomorrow – Fuel to Excel' lecture series organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore with The Hindu as media partner on Saturday. To a query on rate increases, he said ‘banks do an intermediation between the savings and borrowing rate. If you see, the savings rate is still lower than inflation. By increasing the deposit rates, banks incentivise the saver and all of us save.” Asked how much more interest hikes can be expected, pat came his reply ‘I am not an astrologer.'  When asked if our leaders had the political will to push through the reforms, Dr Chakrabarty replied in lighter vein by stating, “I have the highest respect for our politicians. They are highly efficient and of course, we deserve the Government we elect. None of them work for less than 19 hours a day. If all of us put such efforts and work as hard, we will be somewhere. Unfortunately, we have collectively made them ineffective and we are responsible for this.” On the efforts taken by the RBI to curb black money, the amount of such money in circulation, and money flaunting outside India he said, “for us, there is no black or white money. Everything is money and contributes to inflation. It is up to you to be honest.”  ‘I am not a CBI, nor am I involved in 2G spectrum scam. I know what you know and that too from reports on paper. But you should understand that the rupee has a value only when it comes to India.” He urged youngsters to take informed and intelligent decisions instead of alleging that banks compel them to buy certain products. “Banks offer various products and you have a choice. I can't make you intelligent,” he added.  Dr Chakrabarty perceives the need for more banks in the country to bring everyone into banking fold. While stating categorically that this is his personal view, Dr Chakrabarty said, “at present only around 50 per cent of the population are covered. If we have to look at bringing the rest too, we will need an equal number of banks as at present or even more.” He, however, pointed out that when more new players come into the banking space, there would be other issues. “Some might work very well, grow in size, while others might run into trouble and the exit policy/rule is not an easy one.” He preferred not to talk on the (bank) size matter, reiterating all the while that the subject of having more banks to bring the entire populace into banking fold was his personal view.

The Hindu

PSBs mull funding on staff liabilities

RBI wants banks to agree on method for enough margin on pension, related liabilities

After taking a significant hit on net profits in 2010-11, public sector banks (PSBs) may now have to set aside funds for employee benefits such as pension and gratuity on a monthly basis, to avoid piling of liabilities towards year-end. At present, some banks set aside funds on a quarterly basis and others yearly, as there are no norms in this regard. The issue arose after the country’s largest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), wanted an okay for allowing it to dip into reserves for making pension provisions in the last financial year. To ensure this did not recur, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asked banks to work out a way to create adequate reserves in a phased manner to deal with pension liabilities and avoid approaching the regulator for privileges. In a meeting of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) last week, bankers mooted the idea of making pension provision on a monthly basis, with any adjustments needed to be done while finalising the quarterly results. A debate is on regarding how to bring uniformity regarding liabilities among banks. “There is a need for consensus among bankers regarding cost computation on various parameters. Mortality, for example, a key variable for calculating pension liabilities, differs bank to bank. There is a need for some homogeneity regarding actuarial valuation,” said the chairman and managing director of a PSB. Some banks also suggested regulatory fiat to bring uniformity on the provisioning requirement if a consensus is not arrived at. RBI, however, is unlikely to issue a circular on this issue. It wants banks to agree on the the matter between themselves.“Pension provisioning is an ongoing process. Banks are free to make provisions even on a monthly basis if their respective boards decide to,” said a senior IBA official. According to accounting standards, banks are supposed to make ongoing provisions for employee costs but banks provide only when the settlement amount is ascertained close to the settlement date. This issue caught the regulators’ attention when SBI’s net profit dipped by 99 per cent due to a one-time provisioning in the last financial year. RBI said such under-provisioning could lead to systemic risks. In 2010-11, the provisioning had increased sharply because of the pay revisions agreed upon under the ninth bipartite settlement. Wages were raised 17.5 per cent, a second pension option was given to existing and retired employees and gratuity limits were increased from Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. According to the financial stability report, the expected additional liability was Rs 30,366 crore for 25 PSBs, which constituted 81.9 per cent of their net profit for 2009-10. Since the impact was significant, RBI allowed banks to amortise the liabilities towards existing employees over five years. Hence, PSBs absorbed Rs 4,971 crore towards pension and Rs 1,677 crore towards gratuity in the profit and loss account for the year ended March 31, 2011, while carrying an unamortised expenditure of Rs 16,897 crore for pension and Rs 2,903 crore for gratuity in the balance sheets as on March 31.

BS

'Stop appointing retired officials as regulators'

Moily, who was also chairman of the second Administrative Reforms Commission, has pointed out that in view of the experience of the existing statutory regulators with retired officers and judges, the job of regulators should be restricted to serving officers and judges in order to improve accountability........

Read........... 

BIS sounds the bugle on emerging economies

“If they can heed what perhaps was its most important lesson — that prevention is better than cure — they may be able to avoid suffering their own version of it” is the overly cryptic and prudent note struck by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in its annual report released in Basle (Switzerland) on Sunday, ahead of the 81st annual general meeting on June 27......

Click to read.......................

We may not require more tightening, says Y.V.Reddy

The monetary policy transmission will take time and, hence, one has to be careful whether any further tightening is required at this stage, says Reddy

Mumbai: Interest rates may have peaked in the country, though the full impact of monetary tightening by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not felt yet, former governor Y.V. Reddy said.  “The interest rate already has increased and, therefore, we have to see how much more monetary action is required or is it required at all. I will put this as a question mark,” Reddy said in an interview in the Banker’s Trust programme on Bloomberg UTV to be telecast this week. “RBI has acted pretty well. The monetary policy transmission will take time and, hence, one has to be careful whether any further tightening is required at this stage,” he said.  Since its monetary tightening process started in January 2010, the Indian central bank has hiked banks’ cash reserve ratio, or the portion of deposits that banks need to keep with RBI, by 100 basis points (bps) and the policy rate by 425 bps through 10 incremental hikes. After the latest hike on 16 June, the policy rate is now 7.5%. One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. Policymakers and analysts may have overestimated the capacity of the economy to grow and it is inherently a wrong approach to think that economy is slowing because it is now growing at 8-8.5%, Reddy said.  On the contrary, it could be the sustainable growth rate for the economy as 9% growth is beyond its absorptive capacity and something that has led to overheating, the offshoot of which is now evident in the prevailing high inflation. “We should be growing only at 8.5%, and since we allowed us to grow at 9%, we are suffering from inflation now,” Reddy said. “When growth hit 9%, I used the word overheating. Everybody was unhappy with it and I stopped using the word, but I took whatever action was required.” Reddy was RBI governor for five years between 2003 and 2008. He stepped down in September 2008, a week before the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. India’s economy grew at around 9.5% for three successive years between 2006 and 2008 and Reddy raised policy rates by 300 bps to 9% to fight inflation that hit a 13-year high of 12.5% in early August of 2008. Reddy, widely credited to keep the Indian banking system safe from the global credit crisis, said notions such as inflation targeting may not be the right approach for a country like India where fiscal prudence is questionable.  “When there is a fiscal dominance, what will just inflation targeting do?” he asked. “Post-crisis, the supporters for inflation targeting are becoming less. The wisdom is not in favour of inflation targeting and the Indian conditions haven’t been changed.”  A proponent of an independent debt office, Reddy was candid enough to admit that he was “immature” in doing so. Referring to the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, he is of the view that any such debt offices can be easily influenced by outsiders and, hence, debt management should be a mandate of the central bank, which is in charge of financial stability and inflation management.  “At one stage I myself was a proponent of this (independent debt management office), but at that time I was immature. I went by the textbook. I went on the assumption that fiscal consolidation will take place,” he said. “Afterwards I realized…that if we have independent debt office, it’s a recipe for problems, especially if you have high debt.” The Indian banking system is shirking its core responsibility, according to Reddy. A “hollow” banking is emerging, he warned, that is taking away banks from their core work of providing credit to agriculture, small and medium enterprises and other productive sectors of the economy. “Everybody encourages banks to do everything other than the core function. There is a hollowing of banking in India,” he said, “and that’s not good for the economy.” However, Reddy is not worried about the “vulnerability” of the banking system, as banks’ balance sheets are “fairly strong”. They have grown some bad assets “but there is enough capital,” he said.

Mint

IMPS is free now, may cost up to Rs 5 in future



                A.P.Hota, MD & CEO, National Payment Corp. of India                     



IMPS is at present confined to person-to-person payment.  We have just got RBI’s approval for merchant payments person-to-merchant and merchant-to-merchant payment

What does National Payment Corp. of India do and what’s the future of payment system in India—cellphone, Internet or ATM?

This institution was set up on a vision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to have an umbrella organization for all retail payments. Umbrella organization means being the central infrastructure for all retail payments other than RTGS (real time gross settlement)—be it cheque clearing, money transfer, electronic clearing service, electronic funds transfer, card payment system, cellphone payment system and the like. The cellphone as a payment system will be the future.

Could you tell us about inter-bank mobile payment system (IMPS) in short?

IMPS is available 24x7 and (fund transfer through the cellphone) happens real time. Both the beneficiary and the sender get an SMS as confirmation of the transaction immediately. IMPS works on the existing infrastructure; therefore, the cost is minimal. Suppose you want to send funds to someone urgently in another city, you can send it immediately using IMPS and the receiver can go and withdraw the money at an ATM. Real-time money transfer is used by large business houses and companies through RTGS. Through IMPS, it’s like taking RTGS to retail customers.

Currently IMPS service is free of cost by banks. Will there be a cost in the future?

We charge 10 paise per transaction to the sending bank. For National Electronic Fund Transfer, banks charge a minimum of Rs5 for up to Rs25,000. With IMPS, the maximum limit (of money transfer) is Rs50,000, so the amount that banks may charge should be Rs2-3. For the first six to seven months, banks would like to offer the service free. How much the banks will charge has not been decided. But if they charge more than Rs5, it will not take off and the banks know it very well. So, it will definitely be less than Rs5.

How long will it be before we can use IMPS for retail payments and through multiple channels?

IMPS is at present confined to person-to-person payment. We have just got RBI’s approval for merchant payments— person-to-merchant and merchant-to-merchant payment. Person-to-person is relatively easy, but person-to-merchant will involve a good deal of work since it has to be integrated with the merchant system also. We will soon start with six pilot banks for person-to-merchant payments.  RBI has given us permission for channel integration too. That’s from cellphone to ATM and from ATM to Internet. Currently, if you want to send money through the Internet or ATM, you will have to punch in a whole lot of details such as bank name, branch name, account number and the like. Now we have permission to use the ATM or Internet channel to use MMID (Mobile Money Identity, a unique number you get when you register for IMPS) and mobile phone number as the identifier of the customer. This facility is yet to be rolled out.

How would it work?

When you go to an ATM, you will see a menu which will have an IMPS option. When you choose the IMPS option, you will have to punch in the mobile phone number, MMID and the amount of the sender, once you press enter, your account will get debited and the receivers’ account credited for the amount. So, (in the near future) you can send money through an ATM, if you do not want to send it using your cellphone through IMPS. This service is for those who are more comfortable with using an ATM instead of a cellphone. Even with Internet banking, you can use IMPS.

Banks are issuing MMIDs to every new customer, but very few of these are active. Will IMPS meet the same fate as no-frills account of not taking off, only active on paper?

Let me not compare IMPS with no-frills accounts. IMPS has been introduced to 10 million customers. You are right in saying that accordingly the volumes should pick up. But you may not have seen any advertisements. Most banks are waiting for a sizeable number of banks to join the system. Once that happens, they would go for an advertisement campaign. At present, 22 banks already offer this service and three more will go live in a week’s time; this will be a critical number for them to start the publicity campaign. Here customer education is the key.

What if there’s a grievance regarding IMPS?

The customer should approach his bank directly.

Mint 

Canara Bank organise CBI officers training

Bosskey adds flavour to humour meet



Encouraging talent:

A young participant Akash (grandson of S.Venugopalan, Ex-AGM, RBI, Chennai) regales the audience at the Besant Nagar Humour Club meet with his jokes as actor Bosskey watches



Besant Nagar Humour Club, in association with the Reserve Bank of India Staff Quarters Residents Welfare Association, conducted its monthly meeting on June 5. The chief guest on the occasion was comedian and TV personality Bosskey. The meeting began with a prayer by Kruthika. Club chairman A. Kumar, in his welcome address, said the club is being run successfully for the past 10 years with the motto "Laughter is the Best Medicine" aimed to provide a platform for people in and around Besant Nagar to relax and enjoy an evening of laughter. He requested the members to attend the meeting in large numbers and also asked them to help in getting more membership by popularising the activities among their friends and relatives. The annual subscription is only Rs.150, which is very nominal, he added. G. Swaminathan, secretary of the club conducted the open Joke Session, in which children and other members participated in large numbers. The children cracked jokes with spontaneity which was well received by the members with loud cheers. While addressing the audience, Mr. Bosskey endeared himself to one and all by asking them to suggest a topic on which he could speak. The members came up with various topics such as cinema, Nagesh comedy, cricket, TV seriels, etc. Mr. Bosskey spoke spontaneously with a humorous touch on all the topics given by the members proving his extempore skill that was well appreciated by the gathering. For membership and other details, contact Mr. Kumar at 9444755430.