One of the key factors to inclusive growth is financial inclusion for all. Financial inclusion refers to universal access to a wide range of banking solutions and financial services in a fair, predictable and transparent manner at affordable costs. The poor tend to be ignored because the transaction costs in serving them are high. Initiatives that reduce these costs will allow service providers to begin thinking of financial services for...

-WFS   Pamela Philipose meets three tribal women who changed the course of their lives through sheer grit and determination, despite their circumstances Kaushal Markam’s experiences are not unusual. When she managed to get a job card entitling her to work on one of the government-run worksites under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), she was delighted.  Money was always in short supply, and this 35-year-old Baiga tribal woman of Dongaria...

-Express News Service   The newly elected Samajwadi Party MLA from Bah, Aridaman Singh, and nine supporters were today booked for the murder of the husband of a Dalit village pradhan. Munna Lal — who virtually ran the show in the name of his wife Guddi Devi, the actual pradhan of Parvati Purva village — was beaten to death in Agra on Thursday reportedly for refusing to vote for the Samajwadi Party candidate...

115 women will be attending seminar in Paris   Usha Chomar and Guddi Athwal would not have even dreamed of a foreign sojourn let alone speaking at an international forum in Paris on the issue of health problems that manual scavengers have had to face. Both Usha and Guddi have put their past behind them and are among the 115 manual scavengers of the Alwar District of Rajasthan who have since been rehabilitated....

Women farmers suffer gross bias a global meet will look to change this Nearly half of the agricultural work is handled by women in developing countries and India is no exception. Yet, strategies for the development of agriculture are directed primarily at men. Barely five per cent of the extension efforts and resources are targeted at farm women. This failing, predictably, costs a good amount owing to loss of a part...