India is setting up a Rs.5,000 crore credit guarantee fund to facilitate easy education loans to needy students by providing protection against defaults to banks. The move was endorsed at a meeting of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), the highest education advisory body to the government that comprises academicians, industry experts and state education ministers, human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal told reporters Wednesday. “CABE members endorsed the initiative to...

Desired outcomes can be reached through a series of ‘imperfect’ small initiatives What is to be done? How can we untie the Gordian knot that has so entangled the political economy of petroleum product prices? This is the question that now exercises our most experienced politicians and our ablest economists. Most well informed people know that a country that imports 80 per cent of its oil requirements cannot de-link itself from the...

-IANS Facing a slow-down in the economy, the government has launched an austerity drive to reduce expenditure, banned new posts and meetings in five-star hotels besides restricting foreign travel. The finance ministry, which issued the office memorandum on "Expenditure Management - Economy Measures and Rationalisation of Expenditure" Thursday also asked all ministries to reduce non-Plan expenditure by 10 percent in 2012-13. "There will be a total ban on holding of meetings and conferences...

-The Economic Times The finance ministry on Thursday announced a 10% cut in non-plan expenditure in the current fiscal as part of austerity measures aimed at containing its ballooning Fiscal Deficit. The Centre is aiming to bring down its Fiscal Deficit to 5.1% of GDP in 2012-13, from 5.76% in the previous fiscal. It also hopes to cut its subsidy bill to below 2% of GDP this year. The ministry has argued that...

-Reuters SUPALI: Two years ago, Vilas Yelmar took out a 200,000 rupee ($3,610) bank loan to develop a small grape orchard in a dusty hamlet southeast of Mumbai. The bank has repeatedly asked for the loan to be repaid, but Yelmar, whose annual income has risen to 2 million rupees, has spent the money on a new sport utility vehicle and a lavish family wedding. He is one of an increasing number...