With Loans, Poor South Asian Women Turn Entrepreneurial.

Focuses on the entrepreneurial efforts of South Asian women. Strategy employed by Hindustan Lever Ltd., Unilever PLC's Indian subsidiary, to reach the market of low-income rural consumers it couldn't reach before; Statistics indicating the value of the rural Indian market to Unilever; Comments from Sharat Dhall, Hindustan Lever's director of new ventures and marketing services, regarding the growth potential from the rural market; Discussion of microcredit in South Asia, a program that offered loans to poor women to help alleviate poverty; Ways in which the women invested the money; Examples of development agencies, such as CARE International, to hook up business enterprises with microcredit clients in an attempt to reach consumers the companies couldn't reach before; Percentage of India's population living in hard-to-reach rural villages.