A documentary by Danish journalist Tom Heinemann has cast aspersions on Bangladesh’s much feted Grameen Bank. Telecast on Norwegian television on November 30, Caught in Micro-debt showed that Mohammed Yunus, Grameen Bank’s founder diverted developmental aid money from foreign countries meant for Grameen Bank to another company he owned, in …
THE Centre has approved Rs 3,300 crore grants for infrastructural development in 60 Naxalite-affected districts of the country. The scheme Integrated Action Plan for Selected Tribal and Backward Districts was passed on November 26. The scheme will be implemented over the next two years. A government press release said a …
Ega Mounika was born into debt, lived in debt and died with debts. The college-going 20-year-old of Warangal’s Karimabad village immolated herself on September 25; three days later, she died. “My daughter wanted to release us from debt,” said her father Laxmi Narayan who sustained burn injuries trying to rescue …
The total demand for micro-credit in the country has been estimated at Rs 50,000 crore. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) estimates that in 256 of India’s 626 districts the credit gap is at least 95 per cent or more. Most mfis are concentrated in these districts, including two of …
This was the fourth panchayat poll when Shila Devi of Nayamatpur village cast her vote. The polls usually were a staid affair, with two or three candidates campaigning on bullock carts or on foot. But this year, the 50-something was struck by the dust raised by cavalcades of SUVs, all …
Panchayats and municipal bodies will now have three times more money to spend—at their own will. The 13th Finance Commission has pushed for greater autonomy for local governments by vesting spending power in their hands instead of the state, while increasing their non-plan expenditure from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs …
While the global financial crisis appears to have had little impact on the flow of funds to South Asia’s power sector, the sector still needs up to $150 billion in additional investments to meet its growing electricity demand by 2015 says this report by World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance …
FIVE years since it was conceived, efforts to create a dedicated Panchayat Service Cadre for better implementation of rural development policies in the country have failed. Reason: states are reluctant to spend on their salaries. The proposal of the Ministry of Rural Development for an exclusive service cadre provides for …
The implementation of decentralisation reform as embodied in the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution has suffered from complete negligence. The two recent articles by Oommen and Sivaramakrishnan have highlighted the inexplicable attitudes of the finance commissions and the judiciary towards decentralisation.
MUMBAI's Metro rail project has hit a roadblock. The regional planning authority, executing the project, is facing shortage of funds. In July, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) approached the World Bank and Japan Bank for International Cooperation for a Rs 20,000 crore loan. MMRDA plans to use the …
RELIANCE Power’s 4,000 megawatt ultra mega power project in Sidhi district in Madhya Pradesh came close to becoming the first coal-fired power plant in India to be denied financing by a developed country on the pretext of reducing carbon emissions. On June 24, the board of Export-Import Bank of the …
The State Finance Commission, although a technical and quasijudicial constitutional entity like the Union Finance Commission, has to help local governments plan for economic development and deliver social justice and public services at the local level. This article evaluates the history of the performance of SFCs in general and shows …
While management of natural resources is crucial, micro finance is a catalyst for achieving sustainable agriculture. The experience of HIH shows how micro finance has played a supportive role in the ecological journey of a large number of farmers in Tamil Nadu.
International banks that funded French company Lafarge’s cement factory in Bangladesh are putting pressure on the Indian government to allow the company to continue mining limestone in Meghalaya. The limestone was being quarried from East Khasi Hills and transported via a conveyor belt to the Lafarge Surma Cement Plant in …
An analysis of the Union Budget 2010-11 must take account of the fact that while expenditure on infrastructure is geared primarily towards meeting the long-term development needs of the business community, social welfare expenditure merely serves the purpose of immediate political gains of the parties in power.
Why does a developing nation have such an ambitious space programme? Subhadra Menon traces its foundations back to the work of one visionary physicist 60 years ago.
Q. We need to create true fiscal and monetary federalism in this country. Do you have any ideas in this direction? Chidambaram: There are one thousand schemes and programmes which are funded by the Centre. It has come as a big revelation. We are now putting in place a Central …
Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, in his famous speech at Avadi near Chennai in 1955, spelt out the conditions for inclusive growth. He asked and I ask the same question
WHILE announcing the Rs.60,000-crore debt relief for farmers, it was clear that Finance Minister P. Chidambaram overlooked a crucial aspect of the debt phenomenon, the debt peasants owed to private moneylenders. Talking to mediapersons in the days that followed, he reiterated this oversight. His argument was that it was impossible …
The judgment one reaches on what the current year's Budget will do for farmers will vary depending on whether its provisions are seen as a sui generis exercise or are viewed within a longer term perspective that encompasses an awareness of the continuing and relentless drive to implement neoliberal policies …
