Insurance regulator IRDA has imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh each on two life insurers, state-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and HDFC Life Insurance, for failing to meet rural and social sector obligation in 2008-09, Parliament was informed. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has imposed a fine on LIC and HDFC Standard Life Insurance for non-compliance under the rural sector target during 2008-09, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee...
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“Muslim students in Bihar unable to open bank accounts” by Vidya Subrahmaniam
Complaints have reached the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MMA) that as in Andhra Pradesh, in Bihar too, Banks have refused to allow tens of thousands of Muslim students to open scholarship accounts. On July 28, the MMA wrote to all State Chief Secretaries directing them to facilitate the opening of “no frills, nil balance” accounts by minority students. This followed feedback that in Andhra Pradesh Banks had turned away as many...
More »How ‘rural' is India's agricultural credit? by Pallavi Chavan
One of the most intriguing features of India's agrarian economy in recent years is the persistence of agrarian distress in many regions, even while agricultural credit flow has risen sharply. Rising flow of credit to agriculture is normally associated with buoyancy in the farm sector. A closer look at the data on agricultural credit reveals that what is termed agricultural credit may have very little to do with agriculture, the...
More »‘Knowledge-sharing a key to global food security' by Shyam Ranganathan
Interdependence and knowledge-sharing are keys to global food security, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is the only legally binding treaty that promotes this, according to Xuan Li, Treaty Support Officer. Speaking to TheHindu on Monday, Ms. Xuan Li said 125 countries were signatories to the treaty that allowed access to the developments to individuals and corporations. The treaty provided access and benefit-sharing to 64 important...
More »Monsanto seeds - For good or evil?
Technology… the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it — Max Frisch, Swiss novelist and playwright Why do MNCs excite extreme emotions in India ? If you take any one of them from Banks to pharma and chemicals to defence and aerospace, they are all clubbed together with the “usual suspects” who do more harm than good despite all the good intentions they might have had....
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