A generally beleaguered microfinance industry was eagerly waiting for Yezdi Malegam for deliverance. Any conversation about the microfinance business would end with the expectation that the Malegam committee would deliver a healthy dose of oxygen to the choking microfinance industry. The report was expected to be the panacea for all that ails microfinance in India. The report, which came out on Monday, disappoints not only in its inability to meet these...

Describing black Money stashed away abroad by Indians as “pure and simple theft of national Money”, the Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Centre's approach to tackling this menace and retrieving the huge amount kept in foreign banks. “Mind-boggling crime” When Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam furnished in a sealed cover a list of 26 names who had accounts with Liechtenstein Bank, a Bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar was...

One of the significant changes in the Cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday was the shifting of Vilasrao Deshmukh from Heavy Industries to Rural Development and Panchyati Raj. The move is being seen as ironic by many as it comes just a month after he was pulled up by the Supreme Court for stopping police action on a complaint by farmers against a Money lender, who is the father of a Congress legislator,...

Pachiammal's family has been fighting in court for what has been their land for two generations. They received the two-acre plot from the government, back in 1885, under the Panchami Scheme.   The scheme was brought in by the British during their rule over the Madras Presidency to empower Schedule Caste landless farmers.   Some years ago, it was forcibly taken over by a rich landlord who claims their dead parents owed him Money. "We...

Union Rural Development Minister C P Joshi on Saturday said the Gujarat government has not been able to implement the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Grantee Act schemes up to the mark. Joshi, who is also the president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, was in Vadodara to watch the Ranji Trophy tie between Rajasthan and Vadodara. “There have been complaints from Gujarat about the implementation of the NREGA schemes and during the...