India’s rapidly growing private microcredit industry faces imminent collapse as almost all borrowers in one of India’s largest states have stopped repaying their loans, egged on by politicians who accuse the industry of earning outsize profits on the backs of the poor, the International Herald Tribune reported. The crisis has been building for weeks, but has now reached a critical stage.

Kingfisher Airlines Ltd., India’s second-biggest domestic carrier, said it got preliminary approval from lenders for a debt restructuring plan to cut interest costs and benefit from rising demand for air travel, Bloomberg reported. “The bank consortium has agreed generally to the package,” Ravi Nedungadi, chief financial officer at the carrier’s parent UB Group, said today by phone.

India’s microfinance companies are offering their 6.7m borrowers in Andhra Pradesh the option of restructuring outstanding loans that amount to up to $2.7bn, in an effort to defuse a political backlash against a business once touted as alleviating poverty, the Financial Times reported. The offer, which will be made to borrowers over the coming week, is a tacit concession by the microfinance institutions that many of their small, poor clients are facing serious difficulties in keeping up with weekly debt repayments.

Sahara India Pariwar, an Indian conglomerate with real estate and media holdings, says it has made a $2 billion bid to buy the debt of struggling Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., the Associated Press reported. It was unclear how MGM's committee of creditors views the offer. The new offer, announced late Thursday, comes a day after MGM said it had gotten another extension on an agreement to put off interest payments on about $4 billion in debt until Oct. 29. The studio has rights to the James Bond franchise and owns half of the upcoming movies based on J.R.R.

Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s foremost producer of sports utility vehicles (SUV), took the first step to acquire Ssangyong Motor, Korea’s smallest automaker, after the two signed a memorandum of understanding Monday, The Korea Times reported. Early this month, Mahindra was picked as the preferred bidder of the flagging Korean carmaker. After completing due diligence, both sides are set to finalize a definite agreement later this year, possibly in November.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., India’s biggest maker of sport-utility vehicles, is the preferred bidder for a controlling stake in Ssangyong Motor Co., the South Korean automaker said today, Bloomberg reported. Ssangyong, operating under bankruptcy protection, plans to sign a preliminary agreement with Mahindra by the end of August and aims to sign a contract for the sale in November, it said in a statement to the Korea Exchange. The company will begin talks with Indian rolling stock maker Raghav Industries Ltd.

The civil aviation ministry is awaiting guidelines from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on a debt restructuring package for the aviation sector, as it will help the ailing airlines bridge mounting losses, DNA India reported. "The RBI has to come up with guidelines for the restructuring of debt of the aviation sector. As far as my ministry is concerned, we support it... I believe that the RBI is actively looking into the issue," civil aviation minister Praful Patel told reporters in New Delhi.

India plans to start conducting twice-yearly stress tests on its banks, following in the footsteps of financial regulators in the US and Europe, the Financial Times reported. The Reserve Bank of India said on Tuesday that it had conducted rudimentary stress tests during the global financial crisis to check credit and interest rate risk. The bank said it would undertake more sophisticated tests in the future to build confidence in the country’s banking system.

Air India's latest turnaround plan, presented to the board and unions Sunday, includes no staff cuts - the very thing critics say is required to turn around India's troubled national carrier, the Hindustan Times reported. "There is no need to cut manpower size by reducing jobs and sending people home," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Sunday. He also pledged further help to Air India as it struggles to restructure its pricey debt and to pacify restive unions, which have staged two debilitating strikes since September.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. said Monday it will start due diligence on Ssangyong Motor Co. in the next few days so it can decide on submitting a final bid for South Korea's fourth-largest car maker by sales, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Mahindra, India's biggest sport-utility vehicle maker by sales, is among six companies worldwide who qualified earlier this month to conduct due diligence on cash-strapped Ssangyong before submitting their binding bids.