In most countries, unemployment is a clean-cut, easily understandable — and identifiable — problem. In India, it’s not that simple. The complexity of our economy, the barbed-wire fence of restrictions that surround our “organised” sector, the tendency towards seasonal work, and the networks of caste, clan and kinship that still govern employment in many parts make answering the simple question “How many of India’s workers are unemployed?” very difficult indeed. The labour ministry...

The microfinance bubble has burst. The AP government ordinance, the AP oppositionfs campaign asking borrowers not to repay and the sheer public hostility towards MFIs . all these have put the brakes on MFI activities for now. We need to rethink the role of MFIs in the rural economy . In order to do so, we must first grasp some of the myths on which the MFI sector has rested...

The poster boy of microfinance is now seeking some anonymity. In Andhra Pradesh, the epicentre of the worst crisis faced by microfinance in India, SKS Microfinance is playing down its identity and going into preservation mode. At its modest office in a residential colony in Warangal district, India’s largest microfinance company has taken down its board. At its head office in upmarket Begumpet in Hyderabad, it hung a cloth mesh...

Among the several resolutions passed on Thursday by the 9th conference of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) in Kanpur, one of the most important ones was on the need to regulate microfinance institutions (MFIs), which are exercising an iron grip on poor women debtors in several States of the country. The resolution drew attention to the “spate of suicides as a result of the harassment and strong-arm tactics employed...

Sample some data on the microfinance performance in India: According to the data provided by www.mixmarket.org, microfinance in India reached close to 270 lakh active borrowers in 2009, with the average loan size close to Rs 8,000. This translates into total borrowing to over Rs 20,000 crore. Though this number seems large, it represents only 0.3% of our GDP. Thus, large swathes of poor, both in our villages and urban...