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60,000 of India?s Rural Women Entrepreneurs Get a Boost
A partnership between International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and Utkarsh Microfinance, a start-up based in Uttar Pradesh, India has helped 60, 000 women in rural parts of northern India have access to finance and increased credit. IFC’s $550 000 investment has helped Utkarsh expand access to financial services for women entrepreneurs in rural parts of India. With IFC’s help, Utkarsh is instituting practices that avoid over-indebtedness, encour...
- Region
- South Asia
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Opportunity for Socially Relevant MSMEs to Access Funding and Capacity Building
Sankalp Forum opens applications for Sankalp Awards 2012 (India and South East Asia), finalist MSMEs to get access to funding and capacity building. Sankalp Forum, a global platform for social enterprises, announced that it is now accepting applications for the Sankalp 2012 Awards. The awards will recognize emerging enterprises across 6 categories, including the newly laun...
- Region
- South Asia
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PharmaSecure gets $3.9M from ex-Google CEO
PharmaSecure announced this week a $3.9 million investment round led by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. Other investors included Gray Ghost Ventures, Healthtech Capital and the TEEC Angel Fund. Healthtech Capital lead a $200,000 investment round for PharmaSecure in September. ...
- Region
- South Asia
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Siemens Sees Growth in Low-cost Products
German multinational Siemens has seen hundred per cent growth in the order book of its low-cost high innovation engineering solutions in 2010-11. The company is making a big push to consolidate its presence in India by setting up six factories to manufacture the innovative products this year. For the past two years, Siemens has been driving the strategy of innovating with low-cost products to compete effectively with local manufacturers. This has also helped it to increase sales. Althou...
- Region
- South Asia
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Merging Self-help and Microfinance, Indian Activist Empowers Poor Farmers and Women
Mohandas Gandhi famously articulated the idea of the "self-sufficient village," in which poor villagers run their own lives and help each other reach a higher, more dignified standard of living. Through unconventional means, activist Nileema Mishra is trying to make this vision a reality in rural India. Early in her career, Nileema veered away from the established activist model of competing for...
- Region
- South Asia
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Citi India Partners 12 NGOs for Economic Empowerment Projects
Citi India has partnered with 12 NGO’s in 2011 and committed nearly Rs 100 million in grants across these NGO’s for promoting economic empowerment in India. Since 1999, Citi has supported projects with over 22 NGOs across the country. During this period, Citi-funded programs have benefited more than 1.65 million economically disadvantaged families by way of enterprise development, youth education and livelihoods, financial capability and asset building, and microfinance. C...
- Region
- South Asia
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Aakash May Not Help Bridge the Digital Divide
Developments in the information technology world have been catching the headlines in the last few days. We lost "magician" Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Inc., none of whose innovations I see being used by poor people. The Indian government launched the $35 (Rs. 1,700) tablet called Aakash, which Union minister Kapil Sibal called a "tablet for the poor." Also, the government released a telecom policy that, perhaps belatedly, proposes to give infrastructure sector status to th...
- Region
- South Asia
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Focus on Social Objective, MFIs Told
Indian micro lenders, who were gripped by a crisis that began in October last year, are now under pressure from investors not to ramp up growth but to make sure they are sticking to their basic precept of serving the poor. Microfinance-focused private investors are increasingly making social performance assessment a must for the lenders. Microfinance institutions, or MFIs, provide small loans to poor borrowers. They lend at 24-36% on account of high operational costs, sourcing money fro...
- Region
- South Asia
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