Regulation in India's microfinance sector aims to address feckless borrowing and reckless lending – but will the new restrictions entrench poverty, rather than end it? One of the many crushing burdens for India's poor bear is debt; unable to make ends meet, they turn to traditional moneylenders. They are willing to extend credit, but at unconscionably high rates – sometimes exceeding 80%, and keeping borrowers in lifelong penury. Popular cinema and...

Famously known as the seed crusader' of UP, Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi has developed over 100 species of indigenous seeds of wheat, paddy and other edible items that are compatible to the country's weather. While talking about his mission of conventional seed conservation, at a meeting in Sambalpur on Sunday he said, "Through my 15 years experience I have developed several species of indigenous seeds that are giving high yielding in...

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 “If the state Act is not repealed, we wouldn’t have a choice but to shut shop in Andhra and leave,” founder and chairman Vikram Akula said.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)...

Condition of six serious; they wanted government intervention to help stabilise the price of red gram In a bizarre turn of events, 12 agitating farmers in Karnataka attempted Suicide in a tahsildar's office on Friday by consuming pesticide and reports said that the condition of six of them was serious. The farmers of Jewargi town, belonging to the Gulbarga District Raita Raitha Horata Samiti, had been on agitation for the past...