Villegers blueprint their own development

WHEN VISITING a village in Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri or Karnataka's Mysore districts, you may come across a group of about 25 adults busily laying out an intricate design on the ground, using powdered rice, coloured chalk, twigs and pebbles.

Indian science must stop merely aping West

What has gone wrong with Indian science? Does it lack a personality of its own or does it lack confidence in its personality? You ask what is wrong with Indian science. May I ask what is wrong with Indian society, our management, our priorities and what have you? Why just science? Interviewee:  Yash Pal

Gandhian scheme provides rural health care

A RURAL health programme operating arolmd Sevagram in Maharashtra has given new expression to Mahatma Gandhi's dream of rural development. The scheme, based on self-help and risk-sharing through insurance, is proof that quality health care can be provided in rural areas at an affordable cost. The moving force behind the proJect, which covers 23 villages with a combined population of about

Not much for greenery

There is mixed official opinion on the budgetary allocation for environment, which shows an increase of Rs 40 crore over the previous year's amount of Rs 329.81 crore. But, says Vinay Shankar, additional secretary, MEF, "The real increase this year is by about Rs 66 crore. We should take into account the Rs 26 crore the MEF transferred to the ministry of rural development last year." Nonetheless, the finance minister has not been very generous to the MEF.

Poverty alleviation: investment or mere sop?

The provisions in agriculture are equally growth-oriented, says JNU vice chancellor Y K Alagh, who is an agricultural economist. "The most dangerous thing in the rural sector was the drying up of credit flow. This budget has reversed that," he says.

National parks are luxury in Third World

You have questioned the appropriateness of the system of national parks in developing countries. What are your objections? Interviewee:  Krishna B Ghimire

A Gandhian economist ahead of his time

MAHATMA Gandhi's Sevagram ashram in Maharashtra was the appropriate site for a recent conference marking the birth centenary of J C Kumarappaan economist who became one of Gandhiji's closest associates and the most ardent advocate of his ideas on rural development. Through prolific writing in books and magazines over a period of 20 yearsstarting in 1929Kumarappa outlined an economic doctrine that is remarkable for its far-sighted emphasis on conserving the environment.

Labourers become quarry managers

THAT LITERACY is liberation may be rhetoric in many parts of the country, but not in Tamil Nadu's Pudukkottai district. Total literacy was reported in this granite quarry region in August 1992, and it brought with it, for the scores of women workers, freedom from bondage and penury.

Only participatory technology is appropriate

THE GRAND Mughal Akbar, whose 450th birth anniversary was marked this year, once remarked he would venerate the person who could grow two blades of grass where one grew previously. Was he not talking of Appropriate Technology, a term that has come into vogue more than four centuries later? It is not known whether Akbar found the person he was looking for, but he would have heartily approved scientists at the Indian Institute of Science setting up ASTRA (Application of Science and Technology to Rural Areas) in 1974 to fight rural poverty.

Breaking the rural barrier

INDIA is probably the most industrialised developing country in the world today, with more than a million trained scientists. But this has only resulted in creating a deeply divided society. The last three decades have witnessed a proliferation of institutions set up to promote rural development through science and technology. Their social impact, however, has remained extremely limited.