A tale of two villages beguiled by JRY

The panchayats of Sonrai in Uttar Pradesh and Palana in Rajasthan share a Jawahar Rozgar Yojana experience. Both ignored the water needs of the …

Poverty alleviation: investment or mere sop?

After successive reductions, can increased allocations for rural development, agriculture, education and health be effective?

Homegrown experts offered for "sale" abroad

Chakriya Vikas Pranali, a rural organisation, has a unique approach to ecological regeneration based on informed agricultural practices. This …

Modi’s burden of civilising rural India

Our prime minister’s recognition of ‘uncivilised’ state of rural India means he should be spending more on ‘civilising&…

Divide and rule

The failure of India's rural planning policies is due to the lack of understanding of human-land relationship

Managing malaria

The case of malaria is an example of how excessive reliance on insecticides has damaged the environment and harmed public health

A consumer movement is born

Villages plug into the grid, manage their own supply  

NREGA needs a paradigm shift

North-East

Assam-type solution

Kangra safe corners

The Himalaya is the youngest range of mountains in the world are immensely prone to earthquakes. The entire range falls in seismic zone 5 and 4 - …

Rice intensification for increasing productivity

System of Rice Intensification is new mantra for reducing water usage and increasing productivity

Banks expand arms, but not through branches

Smart cards, biometric ATMs, mobile phones the new tools

Shock treatment

Nightmarish laws and an insensitive government keeps thousands in the dark

Global grid

Whether it is Asia or Europe, countries find a new mantra: decentralise and electrify

Micropowerful

A microhydel project a day. Communities snatch the initiative from the government to electrify rural Nepal

Panchayat Raj Half a cheer for democracy

There is a great push to make panchayats the fulcrum of rural development in India. But 16 years after the third tier of government was created, …

UTTARKASHI

Houses that hold on

She walks in oblivion

Society itself doesn't care to know about headloading

Big engagement with small power

Generating electricity to raise economic profile

Drought is in the mind

GOOD NEWS: There is more evidence to show that water harvesting can go a long way in dealing with drought and solving the water crisis, and even …

Political harvest

Report card: A scheme that can help solve the water crisis has become a tool to promote political interests of the ruling party Success level: Poor

Learning the mantra

Report card: The government realised its failures and learned from the civil society. Despite cases of corruption and some errors in planning, …

Now what?

Rolling on

Now what?