Empowering the frailty: dissecting the role of microcredit

The present paper seeks to dissect the significance of micro-credit in empowering women. It starts with a brief discussion on the role of micro-credit in poverty alleviation in general, widely acclaimed in contrast to the top-down policies. The concept of empowerment is defined from different perspectives of power, feminism and personal autonomy in family framework before taking up the agency of micro-credit for analysis. Here we identify three contrasting ‘paradigms’ with different underlying aims and understandings and different policy prescriptions and priorities in relation to both micro-finance itself and to gender policy such as the feminist empowerment paradigm, the poverty alleviation paradigm and the financial self-sustainability paradigm. Though some evaluations paint a positive picture of the impact of credit programs on women's lives in that access to savings and credit can initiate or strengthen a series of interlinked and mutually reinforcing ‘virtuous spirals’ of empowerment, we take care not to ignore the practical difficulties involved. Also considered in this respect is the role of outside agencies in the empowerment process.women empowerment, micro-credit, power, poverty alleviation, family, autonomy

‘One hen’ or ‘a basket of bangles’: women development and micro-credit in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu in India has a glorious tradition of recognizing the importance of empowering women over several centuries. The State fares reasonably well (above the all-India level) in terms of indicators such as female literacy, girls enrollment, female life expectancy, and women’s access to basic amenities. The maternal mortality rates and total fertility rates are also lower than the national average. In terms of political participation, women are faring reasonably well. While the absolute condition of women in Tamil Nadu is better than that in most States, the position of women vis-à-vis men with respect to literacy, education, work force participation, wages, asset-ownership and political participation has not improved. It is recognized that the main obstacles to empowerment has been the low level of educational attainments as well as poverty among women. Taking into account this fact, the Government of Tamil Nadu has framed various policies, designed specific interventions and implemented many programmes to eradicate poverty and to provide education to the vulnerable sections of the society. These different Government-sponsored schemes are implemented through women’s self-help groups. The present paper discusses the experience of Tamil Nadu in women development and micro-credit.Women empowerment, micro-credit, Tamil Nadu, Mahalir Thittam

Raising the ‘Beatrice’s Goat’: The Indian Experience in Microcredit

Empowerment of the poor entails three basic inter-linked dimensions – generation of employment (and income), reduction of poverty, and erasing inequality. The perspective has now undergone a basic change from the collective care mechanism of a paternalistic state intervention meted out from the top to bottom to a people-centered and participation-oriented bottom up approach. With this new perspective, new practices have emerged through integrated community participation of the poor. Thus the basis of the concept of micro finance is self-mobilization and self-organization of the poor at the community level driven by an ardent desire backed by an unfaltering trust in their own inherent capacity to improve their living conditions by themselves, given an enabling environment. An active realization of such self-mobilization is found in self help groups (SHGs), formed for distributing the microcredit benefits, inspired by the success of the Bangladesh Grameen experiment. This approach has already taken strong roots across the lengths and breadths of India as an effective and viable channel to take the poor to a new domain of economic empowerment and social upliftment. Microcredit, which synergies the thrift and credit habits of the poor in a participatory and informal setting, is now widely acknowledged as a strategic tool in all poverty alleviation programmes. This paper discusses the Indian experience in microcredit.Microcredit; Indian experience; empowerment; financial inclusion

Women in Development – Dissecting the Discourse

The concept of women’s development has now become an integral part of the development discourses and policy initiatives. This development has been informed by a remarkable though gradual shift in the perception about women, from the stature of victims and passive objects to that of independent agents. A significant impetus to raising such an informed platform came with the adoption of development issues within the UN system, in the background of increasing activism of development practitioners. The present paper critically traces the contours and its possible shades of this awakening that rises from the less ‘threatening’ planning for Women in Development (WID) to the more ‘confrontational’ gender planning with its aspiring goal of empowerment and emancipation. These movements have occasioned an increasing space for policy initiatives and interventions in favour of poor women in the Third World. There has been a gradual shift in orientation of these policy approaches towards women from ‘welfare’, to equity’ to anti-poverty’ to ‘efficiency’ and finally to ‘empowerment’. The policy reorientation reflects the changes in the basic economic approaches of the time, from modernization policies of accelerated growth, to basic needs strategies of growth with redistribution, to the recent so-called ‘compensatory measures’ for the neo-liberal illfare. The paper argues, inter alia, that the compensatory measures imply a substitution of the agency of civil society for that of the state in development process, the original agenda of the neo-liberalism.Women; Gender; Development; Equity; Empowerment

Prospects of development of marine fisheries resources in Lakshadweep

A good data base has already been developed by CMFRI on various marine resources of Lakshadweep islands and related conservation problems. In the present paper, the potentialities and the areas where future research and developmental activities need to be directed are briefly discussed

Tuna fisheries and fishery in the Indian EEZ- An update

The scenario of tuna fishery in the Indian EEZ in recent years show that it is still limited to the small scale fishery sector with little inputs from the industrial sector. The results obtained till date from the surveys carried out by the Government of India vessels (FSl and CIFNET) in the EEZ beyond the traditional fishing grounds, the industrial longline operations of foreign fleets in the Indian EEZ and contiguous high seas, the rapid increasing rate of skipjack and yellowfin tuna production in the traditional sectors of the neighbouring insular states such as Maldives and Sri Lanka and the fast pace of growth, expansion and production in the tuna purse seine fishery of foreign fleets of France, Spain, Panama and Ivory Coast in the tropical Western Indian Ocean area - all these have indicated tuna resource availability and rich tuna fishing grounds in our EEZ and contiguous high seas

Strategies for tuna fisheries Development and Management in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone

in recent years, one of the significant changes In the International tuna industry has been both the reduction and redeployment of the major tuna fishing fleets of the world. These developments coupled with the declaration of the 200 miles EEZ, have altered the pattern of tuna resources exploitation and motivated a number of developing countries to extend their operations and participate In the International tuna fishery. In the present communication, a retrospect of National tuna fishery Is presented, the strategies and perspectives for the development and management of tuna fisheries, chiefly through augmentation and melioration In the (I) traditional small scale sector, (ii) medium commercial fishery sector, and (ill) large scale commercial fishery sector are presented with substantiating data and information. The need of tapping the skipjack tuna resources from the oceanic sector of the EEZ of India and strategies Involved in the augmentation of skipjack production by planned development of the small scale fishery sector around our oceanic islands are discussed. The prospects of acquisition and utilisation of the vessel capacity, equipments and expertise of the developed nations in the operational sector of large scale commercial tuna fishery for yellowfin and big eye from the EEZ, and other policy options for tuna fishery development in the oceanic waters are reviewed

Small-scale pole and line tuna fishery in Lakshadweep - present trend, constraints and strategies for future developments

The mainstay of the tuna fishery of the Lakshadweep Islands is the small - scale pole and line fishery. Scientific estimates of potential resources of tunas in the Lakshadweep Sea, based mainly on the primary production and catch statistics indicate that they vary between 50,000 tonnes and 1,00,000 tonnes, and resource availability is not a constraint in the development of tuna fishery in this area. Present trends show that the pole and line fishery is concentrated mainly at Agatti, Bangaram, Perumal Par Reef, Minicoy, Suheli Par and Bitra islands of Lakshadweep. Some of the main constraints and strategies for further management and development are also discussed

Fishable concentrations of fishes and crustaceans in the offshore and deep sea areas of the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone based on observations made onboard FORV Sagar Sampada

Bottom trawling data of FORV Sagar Sampada pertaining to a total of 350 fishing hauls with a duration of 330 effective trawling hours for depths beyond 40 m was utilized in the present study. Abundance of selected fishery resources such as threadfin bream, bull's eye, drift fish, lizard fish, ribbon fish, cat fish, barracudas, mackerel, deep sea prawns and deep sea lobster in the offshore and deep sea waters of the Indian EEZ in space and time is indicated

An instance of total drying up of Pillaimadam lagoon during 1986-'87 in South-East coast of India

Pillaimadam Lagoon is located in Ramanathapuram District, has been playing a role in the economy of the fishermen living in its neighbourhood, any marked change in its ecology and fisheries is bound to influence the fishermen there, in one way or the other. In view of this, an instance of total drying up of the lagoon observed during 1987 is documented and recorded. The ecology of the lagoon is influenced by two principal climatic condition.. When the rains cease, summer prevails and the barmouth closes, thus cutting off freshwater, salinity reaches as high as 73 to 93 %0. Run off water from the land accumulates in the lagoon, the bar gets opened, the lagoon water becomes brackish and salinity values became low (25-33 %0). Due to the existing single bar mouth and under the climatic conditions prevailing, capture fisheries as well as culture projects can be undertaken in the lagoon only from about October till the following March