Interest rates on loans from microfinance institutions (MFIs) are likely to be capped at around 24 per cent. Currently, MFIs are charging 26-40 per cent on small loans extended to their rural customers — many of whom are yet to get even a bank account — while urban customers get personal loans at 12 per cent from commercial banks. Though neither the RBI nor the government has fixed any ceiling on...

Last month, leaders from 185 countries met in New York to take stock of progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — which include, among other things, eradicating poverty and hunger, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health — that were set in 2000 by the United Nations. The aim was to achieve these goals by 2015. But 10 years down the line, the world is way behind targets in achieving...

Uttar Pradesh is not a state readily associated with dynamic economic reform. But the state has taken giant strides in reforming one of the least reformed industries in India: the sugar industry. The country’s second largest sugar producing state after Maharashtra is undertaking an aggressive privatisation of its state-owned sugar mills. It has, just recently, successfully sold off 10 of the 11 operating units of the state’s Sugar Corporation to...

The amount of rural reportage in the Indian media remains far too low, with even important stories such as those on farmer suicides tending to be ignored. One of the outspoken critics of this trend has been P Sainath, rural-affairs editor of The Hindu  and 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts. He was also the journalist who originally broke the story on...

An inter-ministerial panel will decide on the contentious issue of opening organised retail to foreign investment after examining stakeholder feedback to the discussion paper put out by the government. “A panel of six ministries was constituted on September 27, which will be chaired by Kewal Ram, senior economic advisor in the consumer affairs ministry,” a government official told ET. The committee will have representation from the department of industrial policy and promotion,...