-The Indian Express For the Bharatiya Mahila Bank, the country's first pan-India national women's bank, it is a humble rural cooperative women's venture in Maharashtra that has provided the critical input to succeed: How to lend to women who do not have collateral to back their loans. Chetna V Sinha, founder and chairperson of Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank, explained that this is the prime weakness in giving loans to women. The...

-The Times of India WARSAW: Though the ongoing climate talks has failed to bring cheer to developing countries as rich nations have, so far, not made any commitment to set aside a corpus to battle global warming, hope springs eternal for the negotiators. They are expecting that the high-level ministerial round may throw up a pleasant surprise, where developed countries would finally pledge a sum -$20-$30 billion annually - for assisting poor...

-The Hindu The Bali ministerial conference in December presents a crucial opportunity to bring about changes in WTO rules Ending hunger and poverty requires major national policy initiatives in developing countries. The United Nations Secretary-General has articulated a broad zero hunger vision, endorsed and embraced as a priority by national leaders in many developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Production of food by small cultivators in developing countries has a...

-The Indian Express For several decades now, the Indian government and a variety of donor agencies have promoted and implemented "livelihoods projects". These projects depend upon women's self-help groups, or SHGs, to raise living standards - particularly of the 25 crore rural poor. In 2011, the Indian government launched the Rs 38,000 crore National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), also known as Ajeevika (reportedly now being merged with the Mahatma Gandhi National...

-The Hindu India needs an early agreement, and also adequate atmospheric "space" in terms of allowed carbon emissions to pursue its development goals. It needs to take a proactive stance on this By all accounts, no dramatic developments are to be expected from the 19th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that started in Warsaw last week. But it is generally...