Raghuram Rajan, the outspoken governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has called for a radical rethink of how to provide services to the poor, urging the government to simply "give [them] cash" – something that will become more feasible as the ‘unbanked' population shrinks, thanks to RBI efforts to promote financial inclusion.

"We need to go back to the drawing board," Rajan said yesterday at a lecture in Mumbai, adding that "direct benefit transfers can be a way of liberating the poor from