-Outlook India Sandeep Chachra is Executive Director, ActionAid Association and Co-chair of the World Urban Campaign, UN-Habitat. He discusses and expresses views of the ground reality of the success behind Punjab's Agriculture Industry. "Microfinance companies are breaking our backs.  Many women in our block have taken loans that they can't repay.  During COVID, these loans have swelled up, and the company agents threaten us, take away our belongings, our gas cylinders.  I...

-Business Standard Borrower cannot be charged any amount not been explicitly mentioned in a factsheet, says regulator. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday released its final guidelines for Microfinance loans, lifting an interest cap and allowing companies to have a board-approved policy to price for such lending. The RBI will continue checking that Microfinance institutions do not charge usurious rates. The regulator said each entity has to disclose pricing related information...

-Frontline.thehindu.com The RBI’s proposal to loosen regulations for private lenders in the Microfinance space will have disastrous consequences for the poor, especially women in rural areas. Microfinance, a category of financial services aimed at serving people from low-income households who lack access to conventional banking credit and services, was originally designed by international finance capital institutions such as the World Bank as an alternative to providing direct concessional credit to the poor—which...

-SabrangIndia.in The group of leading womens’ organisations write open letter to PM Modi; will soon hold nationwide protests against the “ruthlessness exhibited by the Union government” National women’s organisations have written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that the government stop repressing the farmers’ legitimate and peaceful protests immediately. They have asked that all cases imposed on the struggling farmers and leaders of the farmers’ organisations be withdrawn and...

-The Indian Express Nitish’s 15 years have seen high growth, especially in welfare indices, spending; industries slower to catch up. New Delhi: As Bihar heads into an election that promises to be a battle of proxies fought between former and present allies, on the state’s economic conditions alone, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems to have a clear edge. The state has improved in the last five years in terms of growth of...