In 2-3 years after implementation, money generation was seen Melaneelithanallur village in Tirunelveli district is bone dry most of the year. Lack of water for crops over the years turned the soil into dry wastelands, considered unfit for use. “Until a few years ago, almost all the farmers in the region wallowed in debt and poverty. Many households lacked even proper metal utensils for cooking as the inhabitants used to pawn...

SKS Microfinance Ltd on Thursday said it may downsize operations and even “shut shop” in Andhra Pradesh, which accounts for a quarter of its business, if the southern state retains its recent Act governing microcredit operations. “If the state Act is not repealed, we wouldn’t have a choice but to shut shop in Andhra and leave,” founder and chairman Vikram Akula said. India’s largest and only listed microfinance institution (MFI) would not,...

These days, Jhum cultivation also known as ‘slash and burn method of cultivation’, ‘shifting cultivation’ etc has been under continuous scanner for its productivity and ecological viability. This form of cultivation is followed widely in almost all the North Eastern States including the hill areas of Manipur. There are those who consider jhum cultivation as unproductive and ecologically disastrous so that people (understood as tribal people of the hill areas)...

It is almost two years since the German Government had passed on the names and bank account details of eighteen Indians who had stashed their alleged ill-gotten wealth in the LGT bank of Liechtenstein, a well-known tax haven nation, 190 km from Munich, Germany. Germany had officially handed over the list to the Indian Government on 18 March 2009. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee have since...

Sanjay Dixit is a member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, a statutory body set up under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). He was initially chosen by Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi to head an NREGA cell in Uttar Pradesh where he has become an official whistleblower of sorts, unearthing several instances of fund diversion in many districts. He talks about the malaise in the five-year-old law that...