India's upper house of parliament passed a new bankruptcy code on Wednesday, as the opposition swung behind measures to take tougher action against corporate defaulters and help banks recover over $120 billion in troubled loans. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who completes two years in office this month, had promised to introduce the code to address bank debts and improve ease of doing business in Asia's third largest economy.

India's JSW Steel Ltd has bid for the British operations of Tata Steel Ltd, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed on Tuesday, prompting concerns about its debt levels and putting pressure on its shares, Reuters reported. JSW Steel said in a statement it was evaluating UK steel assets but did not name any specific target. "As part of the company's growth strategy, the company evaluates several opportunities including the current opportunity of UK steel facilities," JSW said.

With the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code inching towards reality, early redress of almost 75,000 cases involving debt of an estimated ₹3.5-lakh crore is what the government and stakeholders expect, The Hindu Business Line reported. While the Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRT) will resolve individual bankruptcy cases, the National Company Law Tribunal will work on corporate insolvency. The reasons for the pile-up of cases varied from legal lacunae to insufficient technical expertise in dealing with such cases. Labour and infrastructure issues also played a big role in hindering resolution.

India's lower house of parliament on Thursday backed a new bankruptcy code, a crucial step towards establishing a debt resolution regime to strengthen the hands of banks seeking to recover $120 billion in troubled loans, Reuters reported. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016, passed by a voice vote, is expected to be approved by the upper house next week as the main opposition Congress party has pledged its support. The government will repeal an ineffectual, century-old insolvency law and amend 11 laws now dealing with defaulters.

India said on Thursday it had asked Britain to deport Vijay Mallya, the liquor tycoon who flew to London last month as bankers pressed him to repay about $1.4 billion owed by his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, Reuters reported. The Ministry of External Affairs has written to the British High Commission seeking Mallya's return so that "his presence can be secured for investigations against him" under India's anti-moneylaundering law, spokesman Vikas Swarup told reporters.

In view of mounting bad loans eating into banks' profits, RBI has allowed them to exclude from provisioning stressed loans of certain companies in the fourth quarter numbers, The Economic Times reported. This will help ease burden on banks to some extent and support their bottomline. About two dozen companies which have been trying to repay loans by selling their assets or some of their subsidiaries have been excluded from defaulters list. "After reviewing accounts which were under asset quality review, RBI felt some of the accounts can be standardised.

China and India are both grappling with escalating bad debt challenges lurking in their banking systems. Yet the two Asian economic giants are embracing markedly different strategies to clean up the mess, Bloomberg News reported. Impaired loans have reached a decade high in China and are at their most in 14 years in India, posing a threat to two economies that increasingly have fueled global growth. Troubled banking systems hurt economies by curbing new lending for corporate investment.

Prime Minister David Cameron faced a new economic and political challenge on Wednesday after the Indian owner of much of Britain’s steel industry said it could no longer swallow the large losses being generated by its plants and would try to sell them, the International New York Times reported. The owner of the plants, Tata Steel, has been squeezed by cheap imports of Chinese steel into Europe, and its announcement suggested that if no buyer could be found it would consider closing them, endangering at least 15,000 jobs.

India’s place as an emerging market bright spot is under threat from simmering troubles in a banking system weighed down by bad loans, the Financial Times reported. The signs of distress are clear. Last week, Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan warned Indian lenders to brace for a year of “deep surgery” as a balance sheet clean-up began. Shares in state-backed banks, which control roughly three quarters of assets, have plunged. Financial results have been brutal too.

India’s central bank governor Raghuram Rajan has warned that the country must brace for more than a year of “deep surgery” to repair its damaged banking system, raising fears that tough action on bad loans could slow economic recovery, the Financial Times reported. On the surface, India appears to be a beacon of growth among struggling global emerging markets, posting an increase of 7.3 per cent in gross domestic product in the most recent quarter this week, underlining its position as the world’s fastest-growing big economy.