-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...

-The Hindu There is a compelling case for spending Rs. 3.6 lakh crore on the poor, but it must be done carefully The idea of a minimum income guarantee (MIG) has caught up with political parties. A MIG requires the government to pay the targeted set of citizens a fixed amount of money on a regular basis. With the promise of the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) by the Congress party, it is...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: As apprehended, the already distressed Vidarbha farmers are facing a severe cash crunch because of government apathy on three fronts. First, payments for tur and chana procured at MSP have been delayed. Then roll-out of loan waiver has been total mess and could not be completed a year after its announcement. Now, nationalized banks are reluctant to provide crop loans. With rains having arrived, farmers are running...

-The Hindu Business Line Most suicides among landless and marginal farmers Hyderabad: Tenant farmers and cotton growers in Telangana are under severe distress according to a survey of farm families whose bread winner committed suicide. About 75 per cent of the suicide were by tenant farmers and 81 per cent of them were cotton growers. The survey by the Rythu Swarajya Vedika and a group of students from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS)...

-The Hindu We need to revisit the credit policy with a focus on the outreach of banks and financial inclusion Since Independence, one of the primary objectives of India’s agricultural policy has been to improve farmers’ access to institutional credit and reduce their dependence on informal credit. As informal sources of credit are mostly usurious, the government has improved the flow of adequate credit through the nationalisation of commercial banks, and the...