RBI Grade B Current Affairs — 6 October 2026

Axis Bank's ESG Data Book for FY 2025-26 discloses ₹45,511 crore in green lending and financial outreach to 2.76 million households. The report tracks the bank's sustainable finance portfolio, climate risk management practices, and social impact metrics. It reflects India's growing private-sector alignment with green finance frameworks, including RBI's guidelines on climate-related financial risks and India's broader net-zero commitments under the Paris Agreement.

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting by banks is no longer voluntary optics — it is fast becoming a regulatory expectation. RBI's 2023 draft framework on climate-related financial risks requires banks to disclose physical and transition risks embedded in their loan portfolios. Axis Bank's ESG Data Book is a response to this evolving landscape.

Green lending refers to credit extended for projects with measurable environmental benefits — renewable energy, energy efficiency, green buildings, sustainable agriculture, and clean transportation. When a bank reports ₹45,511 crore in green lending, it is signalling portfolio alignment with taxonomy-based definitions of sustainable finance.

The 2.76 million household outreach figure captures the social dimension: financial inclusion of underserved populations, which is a key NABARD and priority-sector lending concern. RBI mandates that 40% of adjusted net bank credit flow to priority sectors, including agriculture and weaker sections — green rural lending sits at this intersection.

For RBI Grade B aspirants, the key framework is the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), both of which guide how banks measure and report financed emissions. SEBI's BRSR (Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting) framework similarly mandates ESG disclosure for listed companies. India's NDC targets — 500 GW renewable capacity by 2030 and net zero by 2070 — create the demand-side pull that makes green lending portfolios grow.

PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), launched in June 2020, provides collateral-free working capital loans to urban street vendors displaced by COVID-19. Vendors begin with ₹10,000, scaling to ₹20,000 and then ₹50,000 on timely repayment. An interest subsidy of 7% per annum is credited directly to beneficiaries. The scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs through Urban Local Bodies, with Small Industries Development Bank of India as the nodal lending institution.

PM SVANidhi addresses a structural gap in urban financial inclusion: the roughly 50 lakh street vendors who operate outside the formal credit ecosystem. Before this scheme, vendors relied on moneylenders charging exploitative rates, creating a debt trap that prevented capital accumulation. The scheme's design is layered and behavioural. It starts small (₹10,000) to reduce lender risk, then rewards on-time repayment with credit graduation (₹20,000, then ₹50,000), nudging vendors toward formal financial discipline. The 7% per annum interest subsidy is paid as a cashback into the borrower's bank account, reinforcing digital transaction habits. Vendors who use digital payments earn additional cashback incentives, connecting the scheme to the broader India Stack and financial digitisation agenda.

From an RBI and NABARD lens, PM SVANidhi is a priority sector lending instrument — loans under the scheme qualify under the 'micro enterprises' sub-category within the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) priority sector target. This makes it directly testable in banking exams as both a welfare scheme and a credit delivery mechanism. For UPSC, the scheme illustrates urban livelihood governance, COVID-19 economic response, and the role of Urban Local Bodies in welfare delivery. The scheme also functions as a social registry — vendor identification through issuance of a Certificate of Vending integrates previously informal workers into a formal urban database, enabling future programme targeting.

The PM Vidyalaxmi scheme, launched in November 2024, provides collateral-free and guarantor-free education loans to meritorious students admitted to top-ranked higher education institutions in India. Loans up to ₹7.5 lakh receive a 75% credit guarantee from the government. Students with annual family income up to ₹8 lakh get a 3% interest subvention during the moratorium period. The scheme is administered by the Department of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education.

PM Vidyalaxmi addresses a structural gap in India's education finance ecosystem: meritorious students from low-to-middle income families who clear competitive entrance examinations but cannot access institutional credit because they lack collateral or creditworthy guarantors. Traditional bank lending demands security; these students have neither property nor wealthy co-signatories.

The scheme's financial architecture has three layered supports. First, the credit guarantee — covering 75% of loans up to ₹7.5 lakh — de-risks lending for scheduled commercial banks and makes them willing to lend without collateral. Second, an interest subvention of 3% during the moratorium period (study period plus six months or one year after employment, whichever is earlier) reduces the real cost of borrowing. Third, targeting is done through institutional ranking: only students admitted to QS-ranked, NIRF-ranked, or state-designated premier institutions are eligible, ensuring resources flow to high-ROI education investments.

The scheme uses the existing Jan Samarth portal for loan processing, integrating it within the broader digital public infrastructure. It is distinct from the older Central Sector Interest Subsidy (CSIS) scheme and the Padho Pardesh scheme, which had narrower eligibility. For NABARD and RBI aspirants, the key mechanism is the credit guarantee, which functions like a partial credit enhancement — a tool also used in priority sector lending and MSME credit.

Eligibility is income-linked: full benefits flow to families earning up to ₹8 lakh per annum, aligning with the EWS/OBC non-creamy layer income threshold used in several other government programmes.

The LiveLaw Business Company Law Quarterly Digest for July–September 2026 consolidates key rulings under the Companies Act 2013, including National Spot Exchange Ltd moving the Supreme Court against a High Court order refusing joint trial in CBI cases over its alleged payment crisis. The digest covers judicial interpretations of director duties, corporate governance obligations, and procedural questions under the Companies Act — material regularly tested in law and finance entrance examinations.

The Companies Act 2013 is India's primary statute governing incorporation, management, and winding up of companies. Quarterly digests from courts consolidate evolving interpretations that examiners use to frame application-based questions.

Key doctrinal areas this digest touches:

**Director Duties and Liability (Sections 149–166):** Directors owe fiduciary duties to the company, not shareholders individually. Courts have repeatedly held that a nominee or independent director cannot escape liability merely by claiming ignorance of board decisions if they attended meetings where resolutions were passed.

**NSEL Payment Crisis — Corporate Law Angle:** NSEL's insistence on a joint trial raises questions about corporate criminal liability under Section 447 (fraud) and the doctrine of lifting the corporate veil. When multiple accused persons and entities are involved in the same transaction, courts examine whether separate trials risk inconsistent findings — a procedural principle rooted in Section 223 of the CrPC (now BNSS).

**Specific Performance Post-2018 Amendment:** Under the Specific Relief (Amendment) Act 2018, specific performance is now the general rule, not the exception, for contracts. Courts can no longer refuse it merely because monetary compensation seems adequate — a proposition directly tested in CLAT PG 2025.

**Corporate Governance:** SEBI's listing obligations overlay the Companies Act for listed entities, making governance failures simultaneously a Companies Act violation and a SEBI enforcement matter.

For CLAT PG aspirants, the examiner's pattern is to present a passage describing a corporate dispute and ask which legal proposition correctly states the director's duty or the company's liability.

The Supreme Court validated Karnataka's decision to retrospectively withdraw a sales tax exemption granted to imported sugar, ruling in Asia Sugar & Chemical Co. The court held that the state legislature competently amended the exemption notification with retrospective effect, and the importer could not claim a vested right to the exemption once the legislature acted within its constitutional powers. The ruling reaffirms that tax exemptions granted by executive notifications remain subject to legislative override.

This judgment engages two intersecting doctrines critical to indirect tax law: the nature of tax exemption notifications and the power of retrospective legislation.

Tax exemptions under sales tax or VAT statutes are typically granted through executive notifications issued under a parent statute. Courts have consistently held — from Kasinka Trading to Kothari Industrial Corporation — that such notifications do not create vested contractual rights in favour of the beneficiary. A notification is not an offer capable of acceptance under the Indian Contract Act; it is a conditional exercise of delegated legislative power that the granting authority may modify or withdraw.

The retrospectivity question is subtler. The Constitution permits legislatures to enact laws with retrospective effect in fiscal matters provided there is no violation of fundamental rights (Articles 14, 19). A retrospective withdrawal of an exemption crosses into unconstitutionality only if it is arbitrary or manifestly unjust. The Karnataka legislature's amendment satisfies the test because the legislature had the competence, the purpose was revenue protection, and the importer had no contractual assurance of continuity.

For CLAT PG, the doctrinal hook is the distinction between a statutory exemption (revocable) and a contractual promise of exemption (potentially enforceable via promissory estoppel). The examiner frequently tests whether promissory estoppel can be raised against the government when it withdraws an executive benefit — the answer is qualified: it can be raised only where a clear, unambiguous promise was made and the promisee acted to its detriment, but it cannot override a legislative amendment.