In the previous post of this series, we discussed the status of rural housing and motivations that determine the pattern of construction/upgradation of houses in rural areas.

Even in an environment of great expectations, new RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s opening statement was remarkable for its ambition and clarity of purpose

Home ownership is an important aspiration for all of us. A house is more than just a roof over one’s head.

This note assesses the state of the Indian banking system including its small overall size and high concentration risk, poor indicators of financial inclusion and depth, opaque balance sheets, weak profitability, and highly covariant strategies followed by government-owned banks.

The Reserve Bank of India has published on its website, a discussion paper on Banking Structure in India – The Way Forward which covers the following aspects:

Gary Hustwit’s documentary film, Urbanized (2011), presents an optimistic overture about the future of cities, but is not unchecked with caution.

The fast emerging small business loan (SBL) segment caters to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and entrepreneurs which typically find it difficult to access funds through traditional sources.

For the first time in the history of the world, more than half of the world’s population live in urban areas. In the next 13 years, a billion people are expected to migrate to cities, twice as fast as the rate just 30 years ago.

Rosenberg et al. recently published a report on Microcredit Interest Rates and Their Determinants covering the period 2004 to 2011

A friend pointed me to an interesting new book recently, “Inside China’s Shadow Banking: the Next Subprime Crisis”. This is written by an investment banker turned shadow banker, Joe Zhang.