The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (upa) took the reins after handing out a shock defeat to the National Democratic Alliance in the recent general elections, Planning Commission officials went into a tizzy. Senior advisers were busy ferreting out information pertaining to the agenda set by the United Front (uf) …
www.thinkcycle.org Many intellectual exercises are slanted copy left. So why not design? Well, now there is a non-profit initiative engaged in supporting distributed collaboration towards design challenges among underserved communities: www.thinkcycle.org. The site seeks to create a culture of open-source design innovations. Through it, The Open Source Research Community at …
The Government of India has finally promulgated a rehabilitation policy for project displaced persons (dp). This policy has been in the making since 1985. That year it was found that tribals, who are around 8 per cent of the country's, population constituted 40 per cent of those displaced by development …
In February, 100-odd people got together at the quaint little town of Baramati. All had a common goal: to exchange ideas on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for development. Tucked away in the heart of south Maharashtra's sugar belt, Baramati has, for four years now, played host …
On the evening of January 24, social activists Sarita and Maheshkant attended a meeting at Shabdo village in Bihar's Gaya district. Soon after the villagers saw them off, they heard gunshots. They ran down to the main road in the neighbouring Rajabigha village and found Sarita lying in a pool …
The government of India has for long considered watersheds as catalysts for development activities in rain-fed areas. In 1994, it developed guidelines for implementation of watershed programmes. These were subsequently revised, in 2001, by the department of land resources of the ministry of rural development and circulated as guidelines for …
Back in the 20th century, when India had villages, there were several popular films that showed villages in a contemporary light. Well, somewhat. While Indian cinema was urban from its very beginning, there were several films of immense popularity that were, in many ways, a statement of the presence of …
Why are the largest-circulated newspapers and magazines and the most widely-viewed television channels so focused on what is happening first in the metros and then in the larger cities, to the almost near-exclusion of developments that impact rural areas? There has to be a major natural calamity (flood, famine or …
Confidence has many faces. In Ambedkar Colony in Kanyakumari district, women have secured a pukka road, electricity, water and a cremation ground. Pushpa, the panchayat president, says her task has just begun. "I want to build an overhead tank, a library, get bus facility to my village,' she says determinedly. …
april 30, 2003: 158 gram panchayat (gp) presidents of Karur district in Tamil Nadu are up in arms over a district collector's order. It has taken away their right to administer the food for work scheme in the district. Worse still, it has conferred this right to the panchayat union …
Bangladesh's governance structure has undergone a change with the Gram Sarkar Act, promulgated in February 2003, coming into effect. This legislation empowers villages to participate and implement their development programmes. Villages will form executive committees to take over local governance. Apart from development planning at the village level, these local …
smokescreen: Two persons were charred to death and 25 injured in a major fire at pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy's factory in Mohali, Punjab, on June 11. The blaze was preceded by blasts at the production centre. Though the plant uses highly inflammable chemicals, Punjab chief minister (CM) Amarinder Singh curiously exonerated …
india's decentralisation process received yet another blow during the past fortnight. The Union ministry of finance (mof) refused to release funds directly to panchayati raj institutions (pris) and district rural development agencies (drdas) for poverty alleviation programmes in the states. The ministry has reverted to the earlier system of routing …
The M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (mssrf) is promoting rural entrepreneurship as a solution to alleviating poverty. The organisation's J R D Tata Ecotechnology Centre located in the village of Kannivadi, in Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu, conceives and implements many innovative projects in the region. The centre's coordinator, S Bose, …
http://www.tarahaat.com If you are a Net-savvy villager in north India, Tarahaat.com could easily become your favourite haunt on the Web. For starters, the website offers email services in 11 Indian languages. The utility of the website goes beyond traditional Net services. The Livelihood channel offers comprehensive information on how to …
The Union government's newly launched Rs 1000-crore Hariyali (greenery) programme is one of the biggest rainwater harvesting projects ever to be conceived in India. "The scheme has the dual objective of tackling water scarcity problems as well as augmenting the resources of panchayats in an attempt to strengthen them,' says …
