DEALS WITH MULTINATIONALS AND OTHER BIG AGRIBUSINESS COMPANIES A wide range of farmers’ organisations, Gandhian organisations, people’s movements and NGOs have united to oppose a series of disturbing agreements which the Rajasthan Government reached with various multinational and other agribusiness companies including Monsanto. These agreements, which greatly increase the control and influence of these companies over the agriculture sector in India’s biggest State (in terms of area), have proved so controversial...

A week after The Hindu first published allegations that security forces burnt close to 300 homes, sexually assaulted three women and killed at least three men (two are still missing) in three villages in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, the State government finally broke its silence and blamed the atrocities on Maoist guerillas. Speaking in the Vidhan Sabha, Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar admitted that 327 troopers of the Chhattisgarh Police and the Central...

After the sanctioning of education loans, the public and private sector commercial bankers have shown almost no interest in sanctioning farm loans this year. The farmers in Madhya Pradesh continue to face financial strain and have stayed away from bankers. But the bankers consider last year’s debt waiver scheme being responsible for the low agri credit flow. While state-owned cooperative bankers moved ahead in sanctioning and disbursing priority sector advances, private...

The earlier draft covered only non-NBFC MFIs incorporated as trusts and non-governmental organizations that constitute a very small part of the total industry The proposed microfinance Bill for governing India’s Rs. 22,000 crore microlending industry is set to give more teeth to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to regulate larger microfinance institutions (MFIs). This will be done by removing such entities from the purview of laws enacted by state governments...

The issue regarding the seemingly poor response to the national rural employment guarantee scheme ( NREGS) of the Central Government dominated the proceedings of the gram sabha of the Chandor village panchayat held on Sunday. It was pointed out that several cardholders under the UPA government's flagship project had later failed to undertake the work allotted to them, thus crippling the progress of the scheme in the village. The program officer...