Amid the heat and dust over high inteRest rates charged by microfinance institutions and reports of coercive recovery methods by some lenders in Andhra Pradesh, MFIs in eastern India are trying to strike a more cordial note with borrowers by lowering inteRest rates. At least three MFIs based out of Kolkata are on the verge of slashing lending rates by nearly 500 basis points to 19.1% per annum, on reducing balance...

More public private partnerships are needed to create opportunities for the rural population India might have created its mark in the services sector — especially in information technology — on the global map, but the development of the rural sector still has a lot of ground to cover. Discussing how to innovate rural entrepreneurship towards employment at the India Economic Summit, various speakers called for increased public private partnerships to create...

A week after the Union Cabinet gave its nod to a gender empowering legislation that will protect women from sexual harassment at the workplace, another landmark scheme — to provide financial aid to rape victims — could soon be a reality. Decks have been cleared to provide rape victims or their legal heirs with financial aid to ensure "Restorative justice" in the form of legal and medical assistance, shelter, counselling...

The city is teeming with guests. They are migrant workers from neighbouring states who are in the city for work, for better income, for better living conditions and for everything else that makes the city attractive. They are mostly employed in the unorganised sector, as vendors, contract workers at construction sites, rickshaw-pullers or domestic workers. The city does not seem to care for them. They stumble around learning the ways of...

The NAC proposals for the food security bill are narrow and lack in vision. What is needed is a comprehensive bill with universalisation of PDS and a focus on child malnutrition.   There was much excitement when food security became one of the issues in the manifestos of most major political parties in the run up to the 2009 General Elections. With burgeoning food stocks, double-digit food inflation, stagnant malnutrition rates, declining...