It will provide credit risk guarantee to banks on the loans Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday announced that the Centre was considering setting up a credit risk guarantee fund with a corpus of Rs. 1,000 crore, to start with, to encourage banks to lend to the poor for housing. Emphasising that developing housing for the poor was critical for sustainable urban development, he said: “To encourage banks to lend in significant...

-The Telegraph   The Sonia-Gandhi headed National Advisory Council will prod the government to bring a law to protect unorganised retail sector workers as it brings foreign direct investment into multi-brand retail. Sonia, the council chairperson and the Congress chief, showed the green flag to the government on FDI in retail. The NAC in 2005 had drafted the unorganised sector workers’ social security bill that proposed a national authority to oversee the implementation of...

-The Times of India   The debate about Planning Commission's controversial poverty line could finally be buried. The UPA is now mulling doing away with the BPL-APL divide and providingsubsidized grains to all except those who get automatically excluded in the ongoing socio-economic caste census. But on the flipside, it also wants to reduce the entitlement from the proposed 35 kg to 25 kg instead for the poor.  Along with the move to...

-The Hindu Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India, argues that the media has a very important role to play in helping the country make the transition from an old feudal society to a modern industrial one quickly, and without much pain. The Role the Media should be playing in India by Justice Markandey Katju, (former Judge, Supreme Court of India), Chairman, Press Council of India To understand the role which...

The Human Development Index (HDI) in the country rose by 21 per cent, says a report while cautioning that health, nutrition and sanitation remained key challenges for India. India Human Development Report, 2011, prepared by the government's Institute of Applied Manpower Research, placed Kerala on top of the index for achieving highest literacy rate, quality health services and consumption expenditure of people. Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Goa were placed at second, third...