Muhammad Yunus, the economist who founded Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, visited Mumbai recently where he spoke to India Ink about his vision of “social businesses,” his forced departure from Grameen and the recent controversies that have dogged micro-finance in India and elsewhere. An edited, condensed version of the interview follows: Q. The microfinance industry has gone through an existential crisis in the last few years. Why did the industry fall from grace? A. See,...
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Seeds Of Change by Lola Nayar
Maharashtra sounds clarion call on hybrid crop liability Competition is tough in the seed market, which may explain why marketing gimmicks are often used to woo farmers. It’s tougher still for the farmers to get compensation when the claims fail and they are saddled with a bad or damaged crop. Sometimes the state government steps in to offer compensation or the farmers turn to the consumer court for relief. Typically, of...
More »Mayawati sucks happiness of sugar mills to give one sweet deal to 3.5 million sugarcane farmers in UP by Man Mohan Rai
Passing by dense sugarcane and mustard fields, and potholed tracks on the outskirts of rural Lakhimpur Kheri, one reaches the large residential enclave of Mithun Kumar on the Uttar Pradesh-Nepal border. Introductions done, the 52-year-old proudly informs he has just booked a 2,000 sq ft plot in the upcoming Omaxe City township in Lucknow. "It will also have a club house and a mini golf-course once fully developed," he adds. As farmers...
More »Nitish flays Seeds Bill as anti-farmer
-The Times of India Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today flayed the proposed Seeds Bill, 2011, saying that its provisions were tilted heavily in favour of the multi-national companies and against the interests of the farmers. "There is no guarantee in the proposed Seeds Bill, 2011, that the seeds produced and marketed by the MNCs will be beneficial to the farmers," Kumar said at a function organized to celebrate the 123rd birth...
More »Dr Abhijit Sen, Member-Planning Commission of India, interviewed by Ajay Vir Jakhar and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Dr Abhijit Sen is Member, Planning Commission of India. He is a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge (currently on leave as Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University) and has also taught at the Universities of Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. Besides serving various think tanks in the states and at the centre, Dr Sen has been a consultant with UNDP, ILO, FAO and various other multilateral...
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