I'm a jolly good fellow

Does India need foreign banks?THE Reserve Bank of India (RBI) turned 75 on April 1st. Older than the country itself, the central bank is conservative and unimpressed by fads. Shortly before its birthday, it released a six-volume assessment of Indias financial system, carried out with the Ministry of Finance. While other financial regulators are flagellating themselves for their failings, the RBI was pleased with what it saw in the mirror.Indias banks seem robust: their bad loans could double without leaving them short of capital, according to the RBIs stress test. It noted with pride that the country had escaped the banking crises that have crippled other emerging economies in recent decades. It attributes this lack of drama partly to Indias state-owned banks, which still hold about 70% of the systems assets. It even thinks their bosses belong to that rarest of breeds: the underpaid banker. The head of Indias biggest private bank, it points out, earns almost 45 times more than the boss of the much larger State Bank of India (SBI). ...