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Big Trouble for Microfinance
OVER the past month, we’ve covered the ongoing crisis in the microfinance industry in Andhra Pradesh, the state in India where microfinance-especially, but not only its for-profit variant exemplified by recent stock-market debutant SKS-has grown most rapidly and has the largest number of borrowerss. The situation on the ground seems to have remained largely unchanged since we covered the story ...
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- South Asia
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Kids Test Solar-Powered Computer Tablet for Schools in India
The One Laptop Per Child project might need to step up, now that tablet devices are on the scene. Rice University has partnered up with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Villages for Development and Learning Foundation in India to develop a solar powered tablet computer that can be used in schools that lack electricity. Dubbed the "I-Slate," it is already being tested out in classrooms. ...
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- South Asia
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What?s Policy Got to Do With Social Enterprise?
By Lindsay Clinton Many social entrepreneurs and social investors tend to avoid inviting the government to their table because it often means a slow, fat-fingered solution, rather than a targeted, nimble infusion of resources. However, government policy can also serve as a growth catalyst and a broad-based enabler, and, as such, cannot be overlooked as an important partner in the development of social enterprise as a sector. What does a marriage between social enterprise and...
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- South Asia
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India Microfinance Body: Sector Facing Survival Threat
MUMBAI -(Dow Jones)- India’s microfinance sector could be all but wiped out if immediate steps aren’t taken to rescue it, after authorities in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh initiated steps to tighten its grip over their lending activities, the president of a local representative body said Friday. "By Dec. 31, if this situation continues, there will be no microfinance sector in 2011," Vijay Mahajan of Microfinance Institution Network, or MFIN, told reporters on the sidelin...
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- South Asia
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Union Bank to Enter Microfinance Arena in AP
State-owned Union Bank of India (UBI) made its maiden foray into the micro-credit arena Monday (Nov. 22) with the launch of a new scheme covering 20 mandals in Andhra Pradesh, a state where microfinance activities were hitherto the preserve of private companies. "We have decided to lend 20 mandals about Rs 50 lakh each and we would extend this to about 100 mandals in this fiscal, which will be about Rs 50 crore by way of cash credit facility. T...
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- South Asia
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India’s Microfinance Crisis Not a Threat to Banks
A steep drop in microloan repayment in India does not threaten the health of the nation’s banking system, analysts and regulators say. Many small borrowers in Andhra Pradesh state, which accounts for about a third of India’s microlending, stopped repaying their loans after a government crackdown on unscrupulous lending practices that allegedly contributed to dozens of suicides. Now the crackdown on microlending - small loans typic...
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- South Asia
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Aajeevika Founders Win Schwab Award
New Delhi: Rajiv Khandelwal and Krishnavtar Sharma, founders of the Aajeevika Bureau, a non-profit that works with the migrant workers of south Rajasthan, have won the Social Entrepreneur Award, 2010. The annual award is given by Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in partnership with Jubilant Bhartia Foundation. The bureau is headquartered in Udaipur and has offices in Ahmedabad, Jaipur and seven blocks of south Rajast...
- Region
- South Asia
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Friedman: Do Believe the Hype
The Hindustan Times carried a small news item the other day that, depending on your perspective, is good news or a sign of the apocalypse. It reported that a Nepali telecommunications firm had just started providing third-generation mobile network service, or 3G, at the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, to "allow thousands of climbers and trekkers who throng the region every year access to high-speed Internet and video calls using t...
- Region
- South Asia
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