'We improve life through natural resources'

On your inspiration I studied engineering, but was convinced I was not meant for it. During my stint with Ford Foundation, I worked with a doctor couple from Johns Hopkins University, USA. They were training rural women in Maharashtra as community health workers. I realized that is exactly what I wanted to do. On PRADAN I conceived of the organization, but Vijay Mahajan, the co-founder of PRADAN, was instrumental in giving it shape. PRADAN works in seven states,

Demand unsupplied

Government says enough grain stock, farmers go hungry Budhi Rikisyan sat in her house making leaf plates for the last rites of her granddaughter, Mantawa. Unable to suppress hunger pangs, the 12-year-old girl plucked surbari leaves from the field and ate them in early August. After five days she was suffering from acute dysentery. She convulsed a few times and then died. Surbari, a weed, is not poisonous but was infested with worms.

Centre approves evacuation in fire zones

Not enough beds

Even in private hospitals; central India is worse off

Inspired by Marx

Kameshwar Baitha, MP, will now fight to end Naxalism from jail There was a price on his head just a few years ago; Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh had together declared a reward of Rs 5 lakh for anyone helping in his arrest. Today, the head is held high--albeit in Bihar's Sasaram jail, where he has been lodged for the past four years.

Rs 1 crore due to NREGS workers in UP

Governor expedites payments in Jharkhand villagers in six districts of Uttar Pradesh staged a protest in the first week of June. Their protest was against non-payment of wages for works under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (nregs). Under the Act, workers should be paid within two weeks of a work's completion. In some cases payments were seven months overdue and the amount over Rs

How UCIL got people's nod to its lease

Tribals celebrate Sendra

Give forest guards the slip to hunt deer on festival day

Corporate social irresponsibility

Jharkhand killings show the common face of industrialization in India THE corporate world knows its communications priorities. When profit hangs in balance, you have phrases like 'just do it' and 'always the real thing'. The message is kept simple, its appeal universal. But when advertising gurus take the backseat and the copy is written by public relations spin doctors, they hunt for abstract ideas, complex language.

Private militias