With nearly 60% of the country’s population unbanked and the government pledging to bring banking to the lowest stratum of society, the Indian Institute of Management, Indore (IIMI), has decided to do its bit on financial inclusion. For its annual management summit Ahvan, the institute has decided to unveil a programme called Samanvay, where IIMI students will help underprivileged people in and around the campus open bank accounts and get...

When former Karnataka Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde recently said that vested interests were controlling the mining industry, he was not exaggerating, considering that India registered over 182,000 cases of illegal mining across 17 states in the last five years alone. The Union government data show that Andhra Pradesh — the single largest contributor to the country’s mineral production of roughly Rs 1,28,000 crore — alone registered a 110 per cent increase...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has responded to Supreme Court's recommendations of distributing grains to the poor for free instead of letting them rot. "It's not possible to implement the Supreme Court's order," the minister said.   On August 13, the apex court had asked the Centre to consider free distribution of foodgrain to the hungry poor of the country instead of allowing it to rot in Food Corporation of India...

Tribal-dominated Raygada district in Orissa on Wednesday became the first district in the country to have biometric rations cards and bar-coded ration cards for its million plus population. Designed jointly by the state government and the World Food Programme (WFP), the hi-tech biometric registration system aims to ensure that subsidised food goes only to those entitled to it. The district has been chosen as a pilot district by the World Food...

Suffering from extreme poverty and male oppression, the women of Darkali village in Madhya Pradesh, India, are now able to feed their families through employment under the MGNREGS. The wages obtained under the Scheme help them augment the family resource base. Jashmabai is working under the punishing sun on an earthen dam in her village of Darkali, in Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, being built under the government-funded Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...