-CNN-IBN   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released the first-ever citizens' report on child malnutrition in the national capital on Tuesday. "The problem of malnutrition is a national shame," the Prime Minister said. The statistics in the HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) report say that every third malnourished child on the planet is an Indian. The report, on the survey conducted by Naandi Foundation, has been made at the insistence of the Citizens' Alliance against...

Neglected by conventional banks, low-income women in Satara have set one up themselves. Not long after Chetna Gala Sinha came to the drought-stricken region of Mhaswad in western Maharashtra to marry a farmer and prominent local social activist, she began putting her university degree in finance into action. Local women, she observed, were wearing themselves out in subsistence livelihood such as growing grapes or selling vegetables. In 1992, Chetna, who grew up...

Lack of adequate credit - the lifeblood for any company is threatening to derail fledgling attempts by hundreds of dalit entrepreneurs to overcome deep socio-economic barriers and break into mainstream business.  Without credit, such entrepreneurs would also struggle to cash-in on the Rs 7,000-crore business opportunity opened up by the central government's new dalit-friendly sourcing plan, unveiled last month.  Credit disbursements to dalit entrepreneurs through 20-odd schemes run by the Ministry of...

Mismatch between potential and experience confounds many a job-seeker, say managers   Mun Ching Yap had gone as a journalist to an airline company to interview its executive official, but her excitement, passion and ability to learn earned her a job as the head of the company's strategic planning department. Ms. Mun, now a columnist and entrepreneur from Malaysia, was 28 years old then. “In Malaysia, the median age of the population is 27,...

Any new system for the socio-economic progress of Dalits and other vulnerable sections must not lose sight of Special Component Plan goals. THE Planning Commission's “Approach to the 12th Five Year Plan” deals with the Scheduled Castes (S.C.s) briefly in a portion of Chapter 11 titled “Social and Regional Equity”. It, however, significantly mentions the need to devise a new system that can overcome the difficulties experienced with regard to the...