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 …
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 …
Atal Behari Vajpayee, India's Prime Minister (pm), is terribly interested in rural development. On his birthday he inaugurated Swajaldhara, a nation-wide water conservation programme, and promised a drought-stricken rural populace that every village would have water by 2004. In December 2002 he addressed and heard out a rare gathering of …
Recurrent droughts and floods coupled with mass poverty, chronic unemployment and pervasive malnutrition are the major challenges before India. The Union government usually responds by complaining about truant rains and doles out funds in an arbitrary manner. As an alternative, I propose a nationwide watershed development programme through the statutory …
Kalahandi: A Planet of Herbs o Director: Amarendra Kishore o 28 minutes o English/Hindi Kalahandi district in Orissa often hits the news, but for all the wrong reasons; hunger, poverty and mass migration to other states chief among them. To rescue the villagers from penury and provide them a dignified …
celebrations should ideally have marked the tenth anniversary of Panchayati Raj institutions (pris), which are often described as world's largest experiment in decentralised governance. Even Prime Minister (pm) Atal Bihari Vajpayee had wanted the occasion to be commemorated in the winter session of parliament. Instead, the house did not list …
It is five o'clock in the morning. I am inside Jharkhand's Khellari forest, on assignment. In the first light of morning, the forest looks lush and dark green. Suddenly, a frail frame
What if Phulmai did not exist. You can meet her in the forest; follow her for a day; listen to what she says and so complete half an assignment. The other half lies in accounting for her, and all those like her who spend their lives headloading. Step out of …
www.mp.nic.in/gramsampark E-governance in rural administration, says the title of this website launched by the Madhya Pradesh government. The aim is to bring about connectivity among the 55,000 villages in the state. Because the site is in Hindi, it is sure to be beneficial for the villagers. It is based on …
