Rural tourism isn’t a fad, but a rapidly expanding market. A new website that lists over 500 home stays across India — half in Maharashtra alone — offers domestic and international travellers a chance to explore the country on a shoe-string budget, without compromising on quality

You’ve seen the backwaters of Kerala, the grandeur of the Taj Mahal, the bathing ghats of Varanasi and the royal palaces of Rajasthan. Think you have experienced all of “Incredible India?” Then think again.

Capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) are considering linking all securities transactions with the UID (unique identification) or Aadhaar number and will soon launch a pilot project to explore how this can be done.

Around 38% of banks have branches in rural India while a mere 40% of the country’s population has bank accounts. The number of bank braches has risen from 8,700, at the time of bank nationalization in 1969, to around 85,300 presently. However, only 32,000 of these are in rural areas. The average population per bank branch is 13,900.

Up in Agrakhal in the Tehri district of Uttarakhand, change is sweeping into the mud brick houses of its 350 families. Till last year, the 1,200 residents of this bustling village, famous for its peas and ginger, had to trek 10 km to the neighbouring Narendra Nagar to reach a bank. A visit in December 2008 by Anil Kumar, the head of a local financial institution that operates in the villages of Orissa and Tamil Nadu, changed that.

Banks have the products, but are absent in villages. MFIs are present, but lack the products. An IFMR pilot is looking to reconfigure how financial services are delivered to rural India.

In a bid to make cattle insurance a standalone cover and more relevant to the rural households, than bundling it (compulsorily) with the loan, IFMR Trust Holdings, together with HDFC Ergo GIC has introduced an innovative livestock insurance with distinct advantages like lower premium and providing health services using RFID technology.

Press release on a micro-loan securitisation, completed by IFMR Capital and Equitas Micro Finance that enabled the first ever mutual fund investment into the Indian microfinance sector.

The biggest challenge is to provide financial services to a very large portion of the population, says Dr Nachiket Mor, in an interview to Mint.