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Insight: The poison pill in India’s search for cheap food
Nearly a decade ago, the Indian government ruled out a ban on the production and use of monocrotophos, the highly toxic pesticide that killed 23 children this month in a village school providing free lunches under a government-sponsored program
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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IIM Calcutta setting up incubator for BoP startups
Startup incubators and accelerators have been cropping up across the country in the recent times (which is good news for the domestic startup ecosystem). Now Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta is planning to set up an incubation centre which will focus on social enterprises addressing the problems of people living at the bottom of the pyramid.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Dirty Business
Singaporean Jack Sim wants nobody to be embarrassed by toilets as he seeks to clean up sanitation throughout the developing world.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Indonesia’s Microfinance Industry Faces Overwhelming Demand
A tattooed man briefly interrupted Wastiri as he ducked into her roadside stall, taking a seat alongside the slow-moving traffic that crawled down the narrow Tanjung Priok street. She flashed him a smile as he greeted her, beaming wide and toothless from her perch atop a worn wooden bench.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- microfinance
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Microfinance sector being gender biased?
Women represent 59 percent of the total microfinance borrowers in Pakistan, says a World Bank report titled "Are Pakistani women being served by the Microfinance Sector". This share is seemingly an impressive proportion for a male dominated society like Pakistan. Now take a step back and look beyond the numbers. Around 50-70 percent of the micro-loans drawn by women are passed on to male members of their family.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- microfinance
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Pakistan Battles Polio, and Its People’s Mistrust
Usman, who limps on a leg bowed by the polio he caught as a child, made sure that his first three children were protected from the disease, but he turned away vaccinators when his youngest was born. He was furious that the Central Intelligence Agency, in its hunt for Osama bin Laden, had staged a fake vaccination campaign, and infuriated by American drone strikes, one of which, he said, had struck the son of a man he knew, blowing off his head.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Is there a role for foreign development assistance in middle income Asia?
Across Asia countries are rapidly transitioning from low to middle income status. This transition is enormously positive, pulling millions of Asians out of poverty, massively increasing levels of education, and creating new opportunities for employment and wealth accumulation. But the ‘miracle’ of Asian growth is deeply unequal, with many in middle-income Asia continuing to experience extreme poverty, and exclusion from the benefits of the thriving regional economy.
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- governance
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‘Lifestyle diseases more common among poor than rich in India’
The poor in India don’t suffer from fewer “lifestyle diseases” than the rich — they just don’t know it. A new study shows that the actual prevalence of common non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is far higher among the poor than they report, and is as high if not higher among the poor than among the rich.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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