Until three years ago, Aruna Gaikwad used to earn a meagre 20 rupees (44 cents) a day as a farm worker. Today, the 34-year-old has set up a successful vegetable vending business and makes 400 rupees ($9) daily.
She is one of the thousands of women in the drought-prone Mann Desh region of Satara district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra whose lives have been transformed by the 10-year-old Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank (MDMSB), a unique cooperative bank run by and for women.
"Our mission is to empower women in poverty-stricken areas so that they achieve financial independence and self-sufficiency," says founder-president Chetna Gala Sinha.
Mrs Sinha herself hails from a well-to-do business family in Mumbai (Bombay). A post-graduate in economics, she left city life and settled down in Mhaswad, a village in Satara district, after marrying Vijay Sinha, an activist and a farmer.
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