RBI may cut repo rate 'anytime' now: Bankers

With the inflation declining even below the RBI's comfort levels, the Reserve Bank is likely to cut the lending rate for banks and reduce the amount banks need to keep with the Central Bank 'anytime from now' to support demand, bankers have said.
"A 0.5-1 per cent cut in the reverse repo rate could be expected anytime now following the sharp decline in inflation numbers. This would be needed to support the falling demand in different sectors owing to a global economic slow down," HDFC Bank's Deputy Head of Treasury Ashish Parthasarathy told PTI here.
The Reserve Bank had revised its key rates several times in 2008 to balance the liquidity conditions in the system, besides supporting the economic growth momentum.
It slashed the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), the percentage of amount banks need to park with the Central Bank by 3.5 per cent to 5.5 per cent from nine per cent besides cutting the repo, reverse repo rates to 6.5 per cent and five per cent respectively.
Echoing a similar view, Vijaya Bank's Executive Director, K C Kalia said the Central Bank is expected to reduce its key rates by 0.5-1 per cent in the near future in view of the slow down in different sectors.
"A one per cent cut in repo, reverse repo rates are likely with the inflation declining to 6.61 per cent. I expect this to happen in the near term," Kalia said.

Israel pounds Gaza for second day, 229 killed

Enlarge Photo Israeli soldiers take cover after a tear gas canister was mistakenly thrown at them by...
Sun, Dec 28 10:54 AM
Israel launched air strikes on Gaza for a second successive day on Sunday, piling pressure on Hamas after 229 people were killed in one of the bloodiest 24 hours for Palestinians in 60 years of conflict with the Jewish state.
"Palestine has never seen an uglier massacre," said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his Islamist group, which has controlled the coastal territory since June 2007, vowed revenge including suicide bombings in Israel's "cafes and streets".
Israel bolstered armoured and infantry forces along the Gaza Strip border, and a military spokesman said on Sunday: "The (Gaza) operation is continuous. It is still taking place."
The Jewish state said it was responding to "intolerable" almost daily rocket and mortar fire by Gaza militants that intensified after Hamas ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago.
The militant attacks caused some injuries, raising the stakes for Israeli leaders ahead of a Feb. 10 election which surveys show the right-wing opposition Likud party may win.
Israel said its warplanes mounted about 100 strikes on Saturday and that Palestinian militants had fired some 70 rockets at the Jewish state, killing one Israeli man.
"There is a time for calm and a time for fighting, and now the time has come to fight," Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on television. He later ruled out any new truce with Hamas.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City after Israel bombed more than 40 security compounds, and uniformed bodies lay in a pile and the wounded writhed in pain at a graduation ceremony for new recruits hosted by Hamas.
Some rescue workers beat their heads and shouted, "God is greatest". A wounded man quietly recited verses from the Koran.
More than 700 Palestinians were wounded in Saturday's attacks, said medical staff.
Israel said the operation was aimed at "terrorist infrastructure", and outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it "may take time". Officials said Hamas leaders could be targeted.
HAMAS DEFIANT
In Damascus, top Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called for a new Palestinian uprising against Israel. "We will not leave our land, we will not raise white flags and we will not kneel except before God," said Haniyeh.
Two Palestinians were killed when a mosque was bombed in Gaza City, Hamas and medical staff said. Israel said it targeted the mosque because it was used for "terrorist activities".
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a leading candidate to become the next prime minister, called for international support against "an extremist Islamist organisation ... that is being supported by Iran", Israel's arch-foe.
U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, in its final weeks in office, put the onus on Hamas to prevent more violence.
"The United States ... holds Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
The United Nations and the European Union called for an immediate halt to all violence.
The U.N. Security Council met late on Saturday to discuss the situation in Gaza but it was not immediately clear whether the 15-nation body would take any formal action.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah forces were routed in Gaza when Hamas won control last year, said Israel's action was "criminal" and urged world powers to intervene.
Egypt said it would keep trying to restore the truce.
Saturday's death toll was the highest for a single day in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948, when the Jewish state was established.
Hamas estimated at least 100 members of its security forces had been killed, including police chief Tawfiq Jabber, along with at least 15 women and some children.
The group, which won a 2006 parliamentary election but was shunned by Western powers over its refusal to renounce violence and recognise Israel, said all its security compounds in the Gaza Strip were destroyed or seriously damaged.
Aid groups said they feared the Israeli operation could fuel a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished coastal enclave, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, half of them dependent on food aid.
Gaza hospitals said they were running out of medical supplies because of an Israeli-led blockade.
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Douglas Hamilton and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Ari Rabinovitch in Tel Aviv and Wafa Amr in Ramallah, Peter Millership in London, Tabassum Zakaria in Washington)

Pakistan has been double-dealing US for years: Former CIA analyst

Washington, Dec 28 (IANS) For years Pakistan was 'double dealing' the US on the war on terror , says a former CIA analyst, adding it will not be easy to break the Pakistani intelligence agencies' deep ties with Islamist groups.
Retired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2006 after 29 years, Bruce Riedel speaks angrily about Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf for extracting billions of dollars from Washington even while it allowed Al Qaeda to regroup in its tribal lands.
'We had a partner that was double-dealing us,' the International Herald Tribune quoted Riedel as saying at his Washington home. 'Anyone can be snookered and double dealt. But after six years you have to start to figure it out.'
Riedel's views carry weight because he is a terrorism expert on President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. He is one of those who think that the terror network in Pakistan's tribal areas poses the biggest security threat to the US.
A Middle East expert who is now authoring a book on Israel's nuclear doctrine, Riedel feels the time has come for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to snap its links with Islamist militants on the border with Afghanistan.
These are ties, he says, the Bush administration never found a way to break.
And they will not be broken, he said, until Pakistan's generals and spies acknowledge what President Asif Ali Zardari learned only after the assassination of his wife and former prime minister Benzir Bhutto -- that the struggle against Al Qaeda and its ilk is as much Islamabad's war as much it is America's.
Obama, according to Riedel, should approach Pakistan with a 'subtle and deft touch' and strengthen the civilian government of Zardari to act as a counterweight to the military and intelligence apparatus.
Riedel advocates that the US must stop selling 'big-ticket weapons' to Pakistan that have traditionally been used against India and instead provide helicopters and night vision goggles for the Pakistani military to battle the militants in tribal lands.
He says that America's too-cosy relationship with Musharraf undid the US, generating more hatred against Washington in Pakistan than against India or Al Qaeda.
'Anytime in Pakistan where more people blame you than India for the country's problems, you are in deep, deep trouble,' he said.

Crisis casts shadow on Indian leaders abroad

They were the faces of 'India shining' abroad till the financial turmoil left them scarred.
The image of Indian-origin heads of global Inc. is now anything between messiah and the architect of a greater mess.
Across boardrooms spread over diverse sectors including financial services, funds steering houses, telecom, et al, the presence of Indian-origin leaders went in for a change in 2008 with calls in subdued tone for removal of Vikram Pandit, who was brought in to set troubled Citigroup's house in order and the exit of the legendary boss of Vodafone Arun Sarin.
Others like Neel Kashkari emerged on the big stage.
The raging credit crunch saw many of them embarking on a cost-cutting spree, while people such as steel czar Lakshmi Mittal saw their wealth melt away. One of the world's wealthiest man, the India-origin chief of ArcelorMittal saw billions of dollars dwindle even as he was pushed to the second place in the Forbes list of 40 richest Indians.
Apart from the likes of Pandits, Kashkaris and Mittals, the likes of Pepsico Chief Indra Nooyi, former Vodafone boss Arun Sarin, Motorala Co-Head Sanjay Jha, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and Cisco's technology boss Padmasree Warrior are eagerly watched if not forgotten.
Chennai-born Nooyi continues to retain her place among the most powerful business women while Sanjay Jha has been entrusted with the responsibility to turn around Motorola which is fast losing its market dominance.
He might be out of the hustle and bustle of corporate life, but Sarin is still in news, with his name cropping up for the post of Yahoo! CEO. An influential person in the Silicon Valley, Padmashree warrior is the technology chief at networking major Cisco and is working on various aspects of unified communication.