Exclusive Growth

From The Hindu: The banking woes of an “excluded” community.  

Banks have designated red zones where the vast majority of Muslim clusters fall. This fact is confirmed by the rash of banking-related complaints received by the National Commission for Minorities.

A little over a year ago, Ali Arshad, a resident of Okhla in Delhi, went to a well-known private sector bank to open a bank account. He thought his case would be fast-tracked because he had a banking background, he worked with a well-known investment and brokerage company and he had the necessary documents: A passport, a pan card and a house rent agreement notorised on stamp paper.

He still has not heard from the bank...

...The sense of “exclusion” among Mr. Shuja and others has only heightened with recent reports that in Andhra Pradesh alone as many as 90,000 Muslims students were unable to open bank accounts to deposit their scholarship cheques.

Well done banks.  

Relatedly, this piece from B S Raghavan in Business Line.  I'm not sure why he brings it up at all and why he thinks the trends he notes bear watching.  If he was trying to shoot down the Kerala CM's claim that in 20 years, India and Kerala would become Muslim dominated region, then he could have just noted that the facts don't support the CM's claim and left it at that.