Time magazine picked him as one of 100 people shaping our world. Today, he’s held responsible for bringing an exciting, inspirational business into disrepute. Oh, and his wife says he beat her and snatched their son. There could not be a more controversial torchbearer than Vikram Akula for an industry as quintessentially Indian as microfinance, the business of providing the poor with loans, as small as R5,000, secured not with...

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...

Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday said Rs 102 crore has been spent under the flagship rural job guarantee programme MGNREGA leading to generation of 69 lakh mandays and providing employment to over two lakh households in the state. "An amount of Rs 102 crore has been spent under MGNREGA till date resulting in the generation of 69 lakh mandays and employment to 2,05,361 households by taking up 2,022 development works,"...

An amount of Rs 102 crore has been spent under MG NREGA till date resulting in the generation of 69 lakh Man-days and providing employment to 2,05,361 households by taking up 2,022 development works. The information was given out at a high level meeting of the Rural development Department convened under the chairmanship of Minister for Rural Development, Panchayat, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ali Mohammad Sagar. While asking the officers to...

The Jammu and Kashmir government is going to enhance allocation of funds under NREGA up to 500 crore against the availability of Rs 208 crore for the current fiscal year. This was stated by the minister for Rural Development, Ali Mohammad Sagar in Assembly while replying to supplementaries to a question of Subash Chander Gupta in Legislative Council today. He said the scheme primarily envisages providing employment but also works to create...