the right forum to exercise our minds on these issues as they are likely to have financial system wide impact. it could be very informative to have the market participants ’ views on these issues. the issues include enhancing investment limit for foreigners in our debt markets, debate over appropriate benchmarks and their regulation, issues emerging out of g - 20 declaration on otc derivatives, legal issues relating to bilateral netting, and extraterritorial application of certain laws enacted in developed countries. v. i enhancing foreign investment limits in g - sec and corporate bonds 29. pursuing our policy of enhancing foreign investment in domestic financial markets in a calibrated and gradual manner, the total limit for foreign investment in government securities has been increased over a period of time to the current limit of usd 30 billion. while being sensitive to the demand for opening markets to foreign investors, the risk - reward trade off needs to be carefully examined. the imperatives of widening and diversifying investor base leading to higher demands for debt instruments need to be kept in view along with the considerations about financial stability and insulation from sudden - stop risks. going forward our focus would be on encouraging participation of long term investors in our debt markets and reducing the availability of short - term debt instruments for foreign investors who often act as “ investment tourists ”, particularly during period of stress. v. ii financial benchmarks 30. the benchmark rates / indices in the financial markets are in the nature of “ public goods ”. they serve as common reference points for pricing of financial instruments. any attempted manipulation of the benchmarks not only erodes their credibility but also poses serious threat to stability of the financial system as large volume of financial contracts are referenced to the widely used benchmarks. the benchmark rate setting process, therefore, has to be robust with strong governance standards for maintaining the credibility and reliability of the benchmarks. the recent scandals relating to manipulation of several key global benchmarks, viz. libor, euribor, tibor, london 4 pm fx fixing, etc., have severely impaired the trust of the international community on the financial benchmarks. regulators and public authorities in several jurisdictions have conducted wide ranging probes involving many major benchmarks and have penalised several banks and brokerage firms for their misconduct. the probes are still on. 31. meanwhile, various international standard setting bodies, central banks and market regulators have undertaken comprehensive review of the existing benchmark setting system and recommended several reform measures for restoring the credibility of the financial benchmarks.

a storehouse of information on a plethora of topics. we have proactively placed a large amount of information on our website, such as circulars, master circulars, publications and press releases, as also a data base on indian economy. the bank has started the process of digitization of records with suitable software solution with scanning, storing indexing and retrieval features. at the instance of the central information commission, reserve bank of india has formulated a disclosure policy under the right to information act, 2005, in respect of the information held by it. the policy, which contains an indicative negative list / classes of information which the reserve bank considers as exempt from disclosure under the provisions of the right to information act, 2005, has been hosted on the reserve bank of india website. we are probably the first public authority to declare upfront as to what information can be disclosed and what is exempt from disclosure. we believe that such clear enunciation would clear all doubts from the minds of information seekers, and help to bring down the number of requests and also minimize the use of the appellate mechanism. apart from placing the information, as required under section 4 ( 1 ) ( b ) of the act on our website, we are also placing information disclosed under the act, if it is of general interest, on our website in a disclosure log. the number of applications received by us has risen progressively year on year, from 796 in 2005 – 06 ( october – june ) to 5, 087 in ( 2010 – 11 ). our disclosure record has been good, with 78 percent of the requests being met in full and 5 percent in part. only 6 percent requests were declined fully and remaining 11 percent were disposed of in other manner. during the six years of implementation of the rti act in rbi, we received over 18, 000 requests. only about 16 % of the requestors went in for first appeal. the rbi top management and the central board of directors monitor the progress made by us in the implementation of the rti act through monthly, quarterly and annual reports submitted by the concerned division. having said this, it would be pertinent to stress that being the country ’ s central bank, rbi is the banker to government and banks, regulator and supervisor of the financial system, manager of currency operations, custodian of forex reserves etc., and is, therefore, privy to vital and sensitive information, which cannot be placed in the public domain due to its sensitivity and impact on