-The Business Standard   Achieves total financial inclusion in Andhra Pradesh. State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to use the rural banking correspondent (BC) network for farm loan recoveries in addition to the services prescribed under the financial inclusion plan by the Reserve Bank of India. The SBI’s Hyderabad circle with operational jurisdiction extending to the entire state of Andhra Pradesh is one of the first to achieve total financial inclusion. It has...

The Union government has tabled two bills in the Lok Sabha in the last week of the winter session. Since one of them is the lok pal bill, it has hijacked virtually all the public attention. This is a pity for two reasons. First, there is considerable doubt whether the lok pal bill — in any form — can really be the magic solution that Team Anna would like us...

While some may view the food security Bill as the instrument of combating poverty, this distinction belongs to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the flagship anti-poverty programme of the United Progressive Alliance government. The proponents of the food security Bill at the National Advisory Council have promoted it as the instrument of fighting widespread and rising hunger, instead. But what is the empirical basis of the claims of widespread and...

-PTI The agriculture sector performed exceedingly well in 2011, with record grain production of over 240 million tonnes giving enough leeway for the government to lift a ban on exports of wheat and non-basmati rice and introduce the food security bill in Parliament. Farmers’ long-standing demand for crop loans at a 4% rate of interest was met during the year, although with a rider that the facility would be available to...

In Chhattisgarh, people swear by the PDS, which has witnessed a revival since 2004 when the government revamped it. IN Chhattisgarh, as part of the survey on public distribution system (PDS) versus cash transfers, a team of student volunteers visited 12 villages spread across Mahasamund and Sarguja districts. The State may have been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent times, but the way its PDS worked...