-The Indian Express Drought for 2nd straight year leaves tribals of Attapaddy at lenders’ mercy, hits pregnant women’s health Attappady: At the sun-baked village of Nallasinka in Attappady, a frail woman is desperately scanning a pipeline that takes water to a private estate, looking for a leak that was once there. “It is five days since water reached our colony. Last week, we survived by collecting water that leaked out of this...
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Towards less-cash agriculture: Well before demonetisation, low credit-driven model came up in Dewas -Vivian Fernandes
-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...
More »Pronab Sen, Country director of the International Growth Centre, interviewed by Ajaz Ashraf
-Scroll.in India’s first chief statistician, Pronab Sen, is now country director of the International Growth Centre, which seeks to build effective growth facilities through engagement between policymakers and researchers. In this interview to Scroll.in, he speaks on the 50 days of demonetisation, its failings, its severe impact on the poor, the loss of credibility of the Reserve Bank of India, the push to make India a cashless or less-cash economy, and...
More »Usurers cash in as bank loans to farmers dry up -Bhavika Jain
-The Times of India MUMBAI: Demonetisation seems to have helped Private moneylenders in Maharashtra. Of the Rs 13,558 crore of loans required for the rabi season, banks could disburse only about Rs 2,400 crore (18%), due to shortage of cash. Besides, there are restrictions on district cooperative banks (DCCBs). Officials said the crisis gave moneylenders an opportunity to get rid of defunct notes as loans were disbursed in old notes and they...
More »Rural distress -TK Rajalakshmi
-Frontline.in To rural India, which is already reeling under multiple crises, demonetisation has come as yet another blow. WHEN the Prime Minister made the decision to withdraw Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes, he did not quite factor in the impact it would have on agriculture. Despite the rhetoric the concept of digital wallets has not yet entered rural India unlike in much of the country’s urban areas, and much of rural and...
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