As part of its financial outreach programme in tune with national priority, city-based private sector Karnataka Bank Limited is all set to launch KBL-Empower Biometric smart card  at Babbur in Hiriyur taluk of Chitradurga district on Wednesday. P Jayarama Bhat, managing director of the Bank, will launch the card in the presence of Range Gowda, CEO, Chitradurga ZP who will distribute the card to the beneficiaries. With this, the bank is...

A Prolonged conflict between the Centre and state governments to identify “eligible” Below Poverty Line (BPL) families has made food distribution largely ineffective, leading to tons of food grains rotting at government storage houses, the Centre has admitted in the Supreme Court. Additional Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran, appearing for the Union Food Ministry, said both the Centre and the states agreed on the principle to supply food grains to BPL families...

Public uproar over 20 suicides in two months has forced the Andhra Pradesh government to act to regulate micro-finance institutions. On October 14, the state government brought an ordinance making it compulsory for MFIs to register themselves, declare the effective rate of interest they charge, ensure that no security is sought for loans and no coercion is used for recovery. Non-compliance will be punished with a three-year prison term and a...

The report of the Javid Chowdhury Committee facilitated the resumption, in February 2010, of vaccine production in the three public sector units, one in Himachal Pradesh and the other two in Tamil Nadu. Javid Chowdhury, a former Health Secretary of the Government of India, recommended that the suspension of their licenses for manufacturing vaccines in 2008 should be revoked in the public interest and on the strength of the compliance...

Take a lesson from Commonwealth Games mascot Shera and “leap ahead” instead of whimpering like a “timorous puppy”, a food rights campaigner has said in a sharp attack on Sharad Pawar. The criticism in a Delhi newspaper has come from Belgium-born Jean Dreze, a prominent member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council. He is ostensibly riled by reports that Pawar’s food ministry has rejected two of the council’s key proposals...