-The Financial Express In Madhya Pradesh’s tribal districts of Dewas and Khargone, the NGO, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, discourages cash transactions for agricultural inputs. The interest rates are usurious and vary according to commodities. For fertiliser, it is dheda—loan for the stuff has to be repaid 1.5 times over by the end of the harvest season. For pesticides it is sawa, or 1.25 times. Even barter can be extortionate. One quintal of...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Participating as a volunteer in the Centre's financial literacy campaign for a cashless economy will yield academic credits to students of higher educational institutions, including the IITs. The Union HRD ministry has launched a scheme called the Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (Visaka) under which heads of institutions have been advised to give students credits for taking forward the Prime Minister's agenda. "Directors of all institutions should ensure that the necessary...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-Economic and Political Weekly An increase in indebtedness in agriculture between 2003 and 2013 does not necessarily mean a growth in debt that has debilitated the cultivator. Higher indebtedness may also reflect a more enabling process--the increased availability of institutional credit. An analysis of NSSO data. Sher Singh Sangwan (drsangwan8@gmail.com) is at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report, Situation Assessment of Agricultural...

-The Indian Express For several decades now, the Indian government and a variety of donor agencies have promoted and implemented "livelihoods projects". These projects depend upon women's self-help groups, or SHGs, to raise living standards - particularly of the 25 crore rural poor. In 2011, the Indian government launched the Rs 38,000 crore National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), also known as Ajeevika (reportedly now being merged with the Mahatma Gandhi National...