MICROFINANCE is an example of something that is sadly all too rare: an anti-poverty tool that usually at least breaks even. If you make small, uncollateralised business loans to groups of poor women, they almost always repay them on time. It has grown rapidly in many countries, not least Bangladesh and India. With nearly 30m clients each, these are now the world’s biggest markets for microfinance. Yet the industry has...

After 16 days of intensive Statewide campaigning and 47 days of dharna, thousands of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in Rajasthan scored a significant victory. Led by the Suchana Evum Rozgar Ka Abhiyan, they entered into an agreement with the State government under which they would be entitled to the prevailing minimum wage for their day's work. Describing this outcome as “historic,” social activist...

India’s rapidly growing private microcredit industry faces imminent collapse as almost all borrowers in one of India’s largest states have stopped repaying their loans, egged on by politicians who accuse the industry of earning outsize profits on the backs of the poor. The crisis has been building for weeks, but has now reached a critical stage. Indian banks, which put up about 80 percent of the money that the companies...

The rural poor in Andhra Pradesh, a State showcased as a model for SHG-bank linkage, are caught in the vortex of microfinance. WITHIN a decade of their coming into operation, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have dealt a serious blow to the economy and the well-being of thousands of families in rural Andhra Pradesh. Harassment by their collection agents has allegedly driven at least 60 borrowers to death, and the number is...

After 47 days of their sit-in, government agrees to pay prevailing minimum wage From a black Diwali to a colourful Id! For hundreds of labourers who sat on dharna from October 2 near the Statue Circle here to press their demand for minimum wages under the MNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), it was celebration time on Wednesday. After 47 days of sit-in protest, which was preceded by a...