SKS Microfinance, India's largest microfinance player, arrived with a bang with its hugely successful IPO in August. However, the recent sacking of its MD and CEO Suresh Gurumani  has opened up a pandora's box that is now threatening to expose the ugly underbelly of the sector which, many allege, is teeming with players who are no better than moneylenders but have so far been able to operate under the pious...

The Commonwealth Games were no showcase, but a mirror of India 2010. If they presented anything, it was this — Indian crony, casino capitalism at its most vigorous. The Commonwealth Games over, we can now return to those of everyday Indian life. For all the protests, though, there was nothing in the corruption that marked the Games that does not permeate every town and city, all the time. Just that, in...

The Andhra Pradesh Microfinance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Ordinance, 2010, suggests there’s more politics than understanding of economics that went into it. The setting up of district registering authority under the ordinance, with elaborate powers to even cancel licences, will increase risks of operations posing serious hazard to business plans and will jeopardise the whole MFI network. Especially stifling is the requirement that MFIs have to submit a monthly...

Delhi is an anxious city this monsoon season, struggling to meet an onerous deadline. Preparations continue at a feverish pace for the 19th Commonwealth Games (CWG), which will bear down on the Indian metropolis October 3-14, along with some 8,500 athletes from the 71 states and territories that were once part of the British Empire. Around-the-clock construction and spells of heavy monsoon rain have turned Delhi into a swirl of mud...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a protest to demand the tabling of the Land Acquisition Amendment Act 2007 in the forthcoming winter session of the Parliament. This was part of the nationwide protests by the party. The kisan morcha of the party under the leadership of national president Om Prakash Dhankar held the protest at Khuda Alisher. The party has demanded that certain amendments be made in the Bill before...