| Our PILs on Jeevan Saral, Bank Interest Rates and Some Issues That We Have Highlighted |
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| Dear Moneylifers, |
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| Greetings! Let me start by telling you that Moneylife Foundation is not planning to give up the fight on our two advocacy initiatives. So we have had a set back, but we will come back. Those of you who are affected by being misled into buying the Jeevan Saral policy or are still being ripped off when it comes to lenders reducing interest on your floating rate borrowings should still approach us. |
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 To recap, Moneylife Foundation had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court against Jeevan Saral policy sold by LIC. The case was dismissed on 15th July by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta on the grounds of maintainability and not the merits. We now plan to take it up at the appropriate forum. To know more on this read this article and send us an email at [email protected] as per the instructions detailed in the aforementioned article. |
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| In response to our petition, LIC has seemingly undertaken a verification drive for correcting the "printing" mistakes in maturity sum assureds under its Jeevan Saral policy. They have however continued to remain silent on the numerous letters and memorandums that Moneylife Foundation had sent drawing attention to the central issue with Jeevan Saral. |
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| If you are a borrower, you are probably being made to pay to get lenders to pass on the benefits of lower interest rates. This is another case that we had taken up at the Supreme Court of India, which directed the Reserve Bank to respond to us. RBI has ignored the apex court and ordinary borrowers continue to suffer. We are planning to go back to court on this as well. If you are affected, do write to us with details. Here is some background that you could read: Supreme Court Directs RBI to reply in 6 Weeks on Floating Rates: Moneylife Foundation PIL. |
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| Upcoming Programmes: |
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| We have two interesting sessions coming up next week on Social Audits and another by Pothole Warriors. I strongly believe that every Mumbaikar should attend them or at least catch them on our Facebook Live. Do check details below. |
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| Let me now remind you of two big programmes in September and ask you to block the days for us. We have carefully ensured they do not clash with any festivals! |
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| 21st September 2019: Our second RTI lecture will be delivered by none other than retired Supreme Court Justice Santosh Hegde. The topic: "Is Good Governance the Right of A Citizen in Democracy?" |
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 Justice Hegde is renowned for his commitment to public welfare and good governance and is among the rare persons to he named Indian of the Year more than once. The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with former CIC Shailesh Gandhi and Prof. Reetika Khera, scholar, economist and social scientist who now teaches at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. |
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| Time & Location: 4-6pm at BSE International Convention Centre, Mumbai. |
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| 23rd September 2019: Mr Dinesh Thakur on "How Pharma Companies Fudge Data" |
 Dinesh Thakur, a US citizen and known around the world as the Ranbaxy whistleblower will tell you about India's role in making generic drugs cheaper and the underside to that story. This talk is important to all of us, but of special interest to medical professionals and those who research or trade in pharmaceutical stocks. |
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| Time & Location: 6:30 - 8:30pm at Walchand Hirachand Hall, IMC, Mumbai |
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 7th August 2019: Social Audits and How RTI Act Empowers Them
Social Audits are an integral part of RTI. The task of conducting a social audit seems daunting and convoluted. RTI activist Bhaskar Prabhu will simplify the process of a social audit for us.
Time & Location: 5-7pm, Moneylife Foundation's Knowledge Centre |
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| 8th August 2019: Mumbaikars Vs Potholes - How to Win the Battle |
 Mumbai's super villains - the potholes are back and they are only going to get bigger in the next few weeks. While most of us complain, our heroes - Mushtaq Ansari and Dadarao Bilhore, are out there filling up potholes one road at a time and making a big splash on social media. How do we boost their effort? What drives them to take on this task? Join us the hear them and learn how to make Mumbai pot-hole free! |
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| Time & Location: 5:30-7pm, Moneylife Foundation's Knowledge Centre |
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| Programmes conducted in July |
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| This month we had a few interesting sessions on social and civic issues. BMC finally enter the world of twitter and we started seeing some impressively fast responses to complaints made to individual wards' twitter handles. To understand how Mumbaikars can best leverage this new development, we invited renowned RTI activist Anil Galgali to talk about Using Social Media to Resolve Issues related to BMC. In the session, Mr. Galgali shared his experiences in using Twitter to resolve civic issues such as potholes, fallen trees, open drains etc. easily and quickly. If you missed the session and could not attend, you can still watch the recorded video on our YouTube channel here. |
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| In the ongoing fight against Aadhaar, we learned about Ramesh Kurhade who took the courageous step of refusing to link his Aadhaar in order to receive salary payment from his employer - Mumbai Port Trust. He ended up fighting a case in the High Court for almost 3 years all the while not receiving a single paycheck from his employer. We also heard about Dhruv Desai who underwent a similar fight against HDFC Bank for mandatory linking of Aadhaar on opening of a new bank account. We felt their fight deserved proper recognition and had thus organised a felicitation with activists, lawyers and concerned citizens present. The felicitation was attended by human rights activist Vickram Crishna, Advocate Murali Neelakanthan, activists Raghu Godavar and Kamayani Mahabal, Dr Anupam Saraph and more. The felicitation was also recorded and a video has been uploaded to our YouTube Channel. You can read more about it here |
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| We had also hosted a special session with Advocate VM Dahake to shed some light on problems related to unauthorised stock trading and portfolio related issues. Adv. Dahake was also available post the session to provide one to one counseling on such issues. If you missed it, you can watch a video recording of the session on our YouTube channel here |
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| RTI Centre |
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| As you know, recently the amendments to the RTI Act were passed in the Lok Sabha and subsequently in the Rajya Sabha without any apparent difficulty. Concerned activists and citizens have been protesting the amendments and are hoping the President will send the bill back to the Parliament for reconsideration. Moneylife Foundation's RTI Centre had also organised a gathering to help create awareness and to sign a petition against the amendments. The session was anchored by civic activist Reuben Mascarenhas and former CIC Shailesh Gandhi, who explained why the amendments will eventually assist in diluting the RTI act and hurt transparency in the government. A portion of the session was video recorded and will soon be uploaded to our YouTube Channel. |
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| We also conducted a RTI workshop for students of Jai Hind College with the assistance of Shailesh Gandhi, where he enlightened them on the basics of the RTI Act as well as explained the process of filing an application. The video of this session has been uploaded to out YouTube Channel. |
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| We are also open to conducting such RTI workshops at your institution or organisation at absolutely no cost to you. All we would require is access to your meeting hall or an auditorium for a seating of more than 100 people. Please feel free to write to us at [email protected] with your requests or suggestions. |
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| In the coming months we are planning to conduct more unique interesting talks on RTI. If you are in Mumbai, please take advantage of the opportunity to come and learn from our experts. If you are not in Mumbai and cannot come down to our Knowledge Centre for the event, you can still watch it live on Facebook or watch the video recording on our YouTube Channel. |
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| Moneylife TV |
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| The Moneylife TV has reached over 29.48 lakh views with almost 28,226 active subscribers. You can watch our videos from almost any part of the globe and enrich yourself. If you do not want to miss out on any of our videos then do subscribe to the Moneylife channel on YouTube here. |
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| Even better, become a Member of Moneylife Foundation and join 1,09,444+ others so that you receive updates to our events, their coverage as well as access to our extremely valuable Credit Helpline and Legal Resource Centre absolutely free. To join now, click here |
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| Helplines |
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| Legal Resource Centre: We have handled 1,995 queries since inception, thanks to the generous help and guidance by senior activists. |
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| Every Monday, Mumbai-based "Free Press Journal" is publishing a column "Your Housing Problems & Solutions" based on queries answered by our Experts at the LRC. So far, we have provided answers to more than 215 queries from readers of the newspaper. |
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| Our FREE Credit Helpline has answered over 3,802 cases. Spread the word, so that those with a low score can get help from us. |
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| Remember, you can benefit from our work from all over the globe through our videos and helplines (Credit Helpline and Legal Resource Centre). They are all offered free of charge, but please do reciprocate by introducing our work to at least 10 people and getting them to become members. Also, if you have benefited from our work and would like to show your support donate |
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| Thank you for your support and look forward to your good wishes always. |
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| Best regards, |
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| Sucheta Dalal |
| Founder-Trustee, Moneylife Foundation |
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| Trustees: TS Krishnamurthy, Dr KC Chakrabarty, Walter Vieira, Sucheta Dalal, Debashis Basu and Dr Anupam Saraph. Special Invitee: Adv Jamshed Mistry | | | | Moneylife Foundation is registered with the Charity Commissioner of Mumbai, is an Affiliate member of OECD's International Network on Financial Education, is a Supporter Member of Consumers International, Development Partner of Advocates for International Development (A4ID), and is a winner of the 10th MR Pai Memorial Award. | | |  | | | | Donations are eligible for tax benefits under Sec 80G of the Income Tax 1961 (50% tax exemption) and MLF is registered under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010. 80(G) Reg No: DIT(E)/MC/80G/685/2010-11 dated 7.2.11 effective 8.+9.2010 | FCRA Registration No: 083781387   | | | |
