-PTI Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has sought to blame the Centre for the chit fund scam, has claimed that the central government reduced the rate of interest in small savings to drive depositors towards ponzi schemes. "It is because the Centre has reduced the interest rates in small savings in the post office, poor people and those who have retired keep their money in these chit funds with...

-The Indian Express     FOR Suranjan and Tumpa Choudhury, a couple from Madhyamgram in North 24-Parganas district, darkness has descended for the second time in their lives. In 2007, Suranja lost his job after the factory, where he worked shut down abruptly. He was then 36. A friend of him advised him to invest in Saradha Group and become an agent of the company. He had no other option than to accept...

-The Business Standard A trail of unfulfilled promises follow her in rural and urban Bengal The furious letter-writing since 2010 about the chit fund industry in West Bengal suggests that everyone knew the industry was going to implode. Bengal has one of the highest rates in small savings, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Somen Mitra wrote to the prime minister in 2011. The state buys the highest number of new life insurance policies, and...

-The Hindu Business Line From maker of versions of drugs, India's pharmaceutical industry has turned a top innovator Twenty years ago, Ranbaxy was a home-spun drug-maker. The Indian Patents Act allowed companies to make chemically-similar versions of innovative drugs. Visionaries in the pharmaceutical sector, like Parvinder Singh (Ranbaxy's key architect and member of its promoter family) and Anji Reddy (founder of Dr Reddy's Laboratories), were alive. And the pharmaceutical industry did not have...

-NDTV April 15, Gandhi Nagar, Delhi: A five-year-old girl is raped by two sexual predators, both young adults The shocking gang-rape has raised many questions. Where are the perpetrators of rape coming from? What makes them commit rape? To prevent sexual abuse and sexual violence against children, understanding the minds of the sex offenders is of utmost importance. Experts in the field of mental health and child abuse say perpetrators are like any of...