In a report titled “Making Room for a Planet of Cities”, Shlomo Angel et al examine how the prevailing planning paradigm of containment, which is predicated on the containment of sprawl in cities, is unsuitable for rapidly urbanizing countries like India.

On a recent visit to MFIs working in eastern Uttar Pradesh, we chanced upon some great innovations and field practices, which are clearly taking customer focus to the next level. In this post, I elaborate on the innovation we saw at Utkarsh Microfinance in Varanasi.

Five years ago on this day, we took a definitive step towards executing against our vision of delivering financial well-being for rural India with the first branch of Pudhuaaru KGFS going live in Karambayam village of Thanjavur district.

In line with Budget announcement by Finance Minister in February, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced to issue INR 12,000 crore to INR 15,000 crore of inflation indexed bonds (IIB) on 4th of June of the current year (2013).

India’s regulatory architecture has been driven by the creation of product-specific regulators. We have multiple regulators: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that regulates savings and credit,

The Technical Group on Financial Inclusion and Financial Literacy proposes to carry out a nationwide survey to assess the ‘state of financial inclusion and financial literacy’ in India. Prior to commissioning this large-scale effort, it would be important to look into the design aspects of such a survey, including: (I)Coordinating with existing large-sample surveys on financial inclusion

The FSLRC report identifies three problems that occur when regulators pursue the objectives of financial inclusion and market development like subsidizing credit for agriculture or increasing the flow of credit into certain states,

For every loan of Rs, 10,000 made through a Public Sector Bank rural branch, it costs them about Rs. 4150. The same number for a Private Sector Bank rural branch is about Rs. 3210. Little wonder then that rural branch expansion meets with so much resistance.

Continuing on our series on Unemployment Support In India, this post provides an overview of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (2005).

One of the standard instruments used to hedge against risk in a corporate debt market is the credit default swap or CDS instrument. A CDS is a credit derivative contract between two counterparties.