The government has begun discussions with Dalit entrepreneurs on what can be done to promote business ventures set up by members of their community. As a part of its discussions with various groups before it finalizes the 12th Plan for 2012-17, the Planning Commission has sought suggestions from the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Dicci), a business group, on what can be done to spur Dalit capitalism, how these...

Amidst protests in Jaitapur over the proposed nuclear plant, the Prime Minister on Friday inaugurated a nuclear reprocessing unit at the Tarapur nuclear plant in Maharashtra. The inauguration of a reprocessing plant at Tarapur may be a milestone for India's nuclear power technology, but just seven kilometers away, Pophran village has become home for the people displaced by the plant. Gulab Patil is one among the many who have not been allotted...

With the Assam elections approaching, Congress and BJP have begun sparring over the issue of illegal migration from across the Bangladesh border into the state and made it clear that the issue will snowball into a major issue. As the BJP petitioned the Election Commission on Monday seeking deletion of names of the Bangladeshi infiltrators, Congress accused its rival of 'communalizing' the issue of migration. A BJP delegation submitted a memorandum to...

The problem of plastic waste in the city is getting acute by the day. Bangalore generates roughly 5,000 tonne of solid waste daily, of which nearly 50 tonne is plastic. But there is a ray of hope as an M Tech student has taken it upon himself to find ways of countering the menace. A N Ashwin, a student of R V Engineering College, is conducting a study, titled 'Effects of...

Confusion continues to reign in the debate on microfinance that has unfolded following the promulgation of the Andhra ordinance, soon to be replaced by Andhra Pradesh Micro Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Act, 2010. A key confusion has been that microfinance is a major instrument of poverty alleviation. Going by the available scientific evidence and agreement among scholars, to-date, there exists no compelling study linking the expansion of microfinance to...