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 …
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 …
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 …
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
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 …
the World Bank has cleared us $108.2 million credit for Andhra Pradesh's community forest management programme. The move has created an uproar in the state with non-governmental organisations (ngos) alleging that negotiations for the loan have not been transparent. In fact they have slammed the state government's move to rename …
In Madhya Pradesh, Mangal and Surshingh of Sarai village, go to the district administration at Dhar, several kilometres away, to lodge complaints against local services. Sometimes, it is about a non-functioning tube well, a crumbling primary school building, housing 60 students, or the veterinary doctor who had no place to …
The tenet group has set up n-Logue, specifically to provide telecom and Internet services to the small towns and villages. Do you think this makes business sense? Oh yes, it does! Our company
death is a seasonal visitor to Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh's largest district and wasteland. It comes just before sowing and after the harvest of groundnut, a cash crop that occupies 91 per cent of land in the district. More than 100 groundnut farmers have committed suicide since the last two years …
Rabindra Nath Mishra, an additional block development officer, is a bit worried. He thought calculating Phulbani's poor, as directed by the Supreme Court, would be easy. The expenditure limit of Rs 250 per month (as the decisive line between poverty and prosperity) seemed a ridiculous amount. But when the final …
when Bhuna Bhil of Pathara village in Dungarpur ran away from the communal carnage in Gujarat, he faced a dilemma: what would he do back in his village? It had already exhausted all his sources of livelihood. Known as the 20th century desert, Dungarpur's 68 per cent population has been …
Poverty in Sarguja district has taken epic proportions. Unlike in the Mahabharat, the descendants of Pandavas and Kauravas have come together to fight a common enemy in Sarguja: poverty. And their fight is as heroic as the Mahabharat. Pandos, the local tribals and descendants of the Pandavas, are fighting for …
Irrigation is a luxury that only a few can afford in Mandla, a water-rich district in Madhya Pradesh. The district receives an annual rainfall of 1,300 mm, which can easily sustain three crops a year. But Mandla residents can barely manage one. The district is surrounded by the mighty Narmada …
While the Union government is bothered about the high cost of storing surplus foodgrain, groundnut farmers in Anantapur commit suicide. Clearly, measures of poverty need changing. Policymakers must now take into account the time spent by women to collect firewood or water. This distance needs to be shortened as this …
Heads of panchayati raj institutions have aggressively set the government a deadline to amend the Indian constitution and implement changes that would forcibly impact and empower Village India. It would give villages control over natural resources like water, minor forest produce and minerals, which at present lies with the state …
