-The Economic Times The April 28, 2012, issue of The Economist has a story on India's solar power and mentions Charanka village in Patan district, Gujarat. Solar energy can be converted into electricity, using photovoltaics, or can be converted into heat. (There are other technologies too, but those aren't important yet.) So far, solar thermal, or heating, in India has essentially meant solar cookers and water heaters, though it needn't stay that...

The finance ministry has asked public sector banks to devise products for Indian farmers to ensure they get adequate funding in emergencies. The government, the majority owner of such banks, wants them to roll out products such as emergency loans to farmers that will be linked to savings accounts, a weather index-based insurance product, and set up a credit guarantee fund that will aid farmers in the event of crop losses...

It would be great if the enthusiasm on the financial inclusion agenda gets a pause from the frantic do-gooders . Too many people appear to be enthusiastic about serving the poor - and the kindness is killing. Back in 1956, we discovered that cooperatives were a great instrument to reach out to the poor. These were peoples' institutions, local and would be responsive to the problems of their members. A set of...

-The Indian Express   Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today announced Rs 1,00,000 crore increase in the agriculture credit target to Rs 5,75,000 for the next fiscal and raised the outlay for farm sector by about Rs 3,000 crore. "Agriculture continues to be a priority to the government. The total plan outlay for agriculture and cooperation has been increased by 18 per cent from Rs 17,123 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 20,208 crore in...

-The Economic Times Small and marginal farmers who constitute more than 80% of total farmer households in the country face exclusion from formal financial channels," says the Nair Committee on priority sector lending. The same report says "commercial banks have been prescribed targets since late 1960s for priority sector lending".  The banking system failed the farmers and the needy despite nationalisation, but is there a viable model that could help the millions...