Microfinance was supposed to lift India's poor out of poverty by lending small amounts, mostly to women starting small businesses, without the collateral traditional banks demand. This edition of 101 East arrives after headlines about borrowers driven to suicide by debt, and it asks whether the model has curdled into something predatory. The southern state of Andhra Pradesh, India's biggest microfinance market, has frozen microlending after a crackdown, and the central bank has stepped in to keep lending institutions themselves from collapsing. Critics interviewed argue the industry grew too fast, with weak regulation letting some borrowers stack multiple loans they could never repay and letting unscrupulous lenders exploit that gap. Supporters counter with the other ledger: women who used the credit to start businesses, raise household income, and get children into school. The program puts both camps on camera rather than settling the argument, and closes on the same question it opens with: does microcredit build people up, or just lock them into new debt.