-
Banks to Ensure Funds for Microlenders
MUMBAI -The chief executive of the Indian Banks Association indicated Wednesday that banks will ensure microlenders remain fully funded in the short term to help them overcome temporary hiccups in repayments and maintain business as usual. Microlenders typically fund their loans to their consumers though short-term loans from banks, leaving them vulnerable to temporary fluctuations in repayment patterns. Bad loans in the Indian microfinance space have typically been as low as 0.1%...
- Region
- South Asia
-
GE Health-Embrace to Distribute Infant Warmer in Early 2011
MUMBAI: GE Healthcare, in partnership with NGO ’Embrace’ will distribute a low-cost ’infant warmer’ that looks like a small sleeping bag to rural Indian children early next year. Costing less than one per cent of the traditional incubators, th...
- Region
- South Asia
-
NGO Wants to Put City?s Cycle Rickshaws on a Fast Track
GURGAON: His business concept has changed the lives of 5,00,000 rickshaw pullers in north India. He wants US president Barack Obama to ride a rickshaw. Irfan Alam, the 35-year-old IIM-Ahmedabad graduate from Bihar who has kicked off a rickshaw revolution across eight states, wants Gurgaon to love his rickshaws. Alam’s ’smart’ rickshaws are sleek, have shelves that can stock mineral water, soft drinks, newspapers and other ’small items of necessity and is, the bit which most Gu...
- Region
- South Asia
-
Still No Access to Product and Services at BOP: Tata
AHMEDABAD: Seeking to address the issue of challenges to inclusive growth in emerging economies, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata today said that at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) people are still not having access to product and services, as they are still slightly beyond their reach. "India is a country normally referred to the consuming markets of 253 million people. And when we analyse that market we see with the prosperity that India is enjoying today there is an upward m...
- Region
- South Asia
-
ADB?s $250 Million Risk Programme to Expand Microfinance to Poor
By Sajid Chaudhry ISLAMABAD: The Board of directors of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) has approved a Microfinance Risk Participation Programme, marking ADB’s first large scale private sector microfinance initiative. An ADB statement issued here on Monday said the programme will allow ADB to partner with financial institutions that actively lend to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in ADB’s developing member countries, and to share the defaul...
- Region
- South Asia
-
Microfinance Pioneer Yunus Criticises Indian Lenders
DHAKA - Bangladeshi microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus on Sunday attacked companies for "misusing and abusing" his original concept of helping poor people via small loans, after a backlash against profit-making lenders. Yunus admitted the reputation of micro-credit had been tarnished due to Indian commercial companies that charge high interest rates and use allegedly heavy-handed tactics to collect repayments. India’s biggest lender to the poor, SKS Microfinance, has been in ...
- Region
- South Asia
-
The Technology to Unlock the Future of Villages
In 20 years of working as a physician in Karnataka’s Hassan district, Kumaraswamy N E often found himself irked by the blurred readings on the electrocardiography (ECG) machine. Often enough, it just broke down, which meant that the high cost of measuring heart activity had to be passed on to the patient...
- Region
- South Asia
-
A Silver Lining in Pakistan’s Floods
With the devastating floods that began in July, Mother Nature has left an indelible imprint on Pakistan-its geography, its people, its national psyche. But it has also created an opportunity to change the destiny of millions of flood victims who traumatically lost their loved ones, homes, and livelihoods in mere days. This natural disaster may have given the country an opportunity to tackle a recurring point of contention in Pakistan-feudalism. Academics, journalists, and analysts have ...
- Region
- South Asia
Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter, "NextBillion Notes"
Published each Wednesday, our e-newsletter features NextBillion's latest original articles, along with a selection of news, jobs, bizdev opportunities and events from our recent coverage — and regular conference ticket giveaways.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.