The laboratory of development

Agriculture Don't fix is the government's fix

When markets do work

The road ahead

Jute, coir and waste material are set to make rural roads economic and eco-friendly

Powering people

Proliferating grassroots level activity in Orissa is empowering villagers, taking them closer to a fairytale end to unending tales of poverty and …

Green salute

Scientists at Maida's polytechnic college are r6versing the trend of rural upliftment through urban-basgd planning

Bank on people

What a new minimum livelihood programme must do, at the least

Federalism or local self-rule?

It's a great shame for India's democracy that we have to choose between the two

Another ornamental scheme

The proposed National Rural Employment Guarantee Act threatens to become just that

When participation holds sway

Gouditikra in Orissa provides a model of how community participation can transform a village

Will women in panchayats change Bengal?

West Bengal is making what could be another step towards village self-rule, where villagers, including women, will decide what is best for them, …

Taken for granted

It's called outreach

Indian science is in Space, but not its villages

Gandhian scheme provides rural health care

A seWhelp programme provides the poorest villagers in the area surrounding Mahoin Gandhi's Sevagrom ashrom with access to quality medical care.

The answers within

Swadhyay, which literally means study of the self, is a movement that has introduced realistic social change in India's rural communities

Large promises

Prime Minister Vajpayee is terribly interested in rural development these days. On his birthday he inaugurated Swajaldhara, a nation-wide water …

Should NABARD regulate micro-finance?

Tissue culture in a pressure cooker

A new tissue culture technique that is claimed to be cheap and easy to understand is fast gaining popularity.

Villegers blueprint their own development

MYRADA moves a step forward in rural appraisal programmes, emphasising the necessity of involving villagers in their own development.

Breaking the rural barrier

The Centre for Application of Science and Technology to Rural Areas, set up in 1974, was a bold effort at bringing appropriate technology to the …

Going the bio way

The Biovillage project provides rural folk the finance and technical knowhow to cultivate for the market while conserving water and soil

Divisive move

Attempted panchayati raj reforms in Madhya Pradesh

It holds no water

Shoddy planning and poor execution mar many watershed revival projects

The ground for grassroots technology

A Delhi-based agency has improved the standard of living of a Himachal Pradesh village by providing it simple devices at subsidised rates

Devolution is bankrupt

Now even the World Bank says money should flow to local bodies directly