February 23, 2023

South-South Community Learning: Rajasthan to Mali

Taking the successful models and lessons of women’s empowerment and rural economic development from the SHGs in India and applying these in Mali, a region facing similar environmental and socio-economic challenges, is an encouraging example of global collaboration and kinship
February 23, 2023

Agricultural reform? Small farmers will be more vulnerable, corporates to ‘fix’ price

Agriculture employs 42% of the total work force whereas it contributes only 16% to the country’s GDP. The average annual growth rate in agriculture has remained static to 2.9% since the last six years. This means that the post-green revolution conventional agriculture has reached its peak. Responsiveness of soil fertility to fertiliser application, an indicator of stagnancy in agriculture, shows declining trend since 1970. The worst sufferer has been the small and marginal farmers who constitute 86% of total farmers.
February 23, 2023

How interactive audio helped migrants during lockdown

An existing interactive voice response system was refashioned, enabling migrant workers in destination cities get messages regarding their circumstances across, subsequently facilitating their return.
February 23, 2023

How Bihar’s Lahanti Club is Preserving Santhali Culture

Twelve-year-old Premlal and his friends spend hours every day in the paddy fields of their village Bhinjain in Chakai block of south Bihar. It is monsoon and the children use an age-old technique of blocking water in paddy fields by putting up barriers. The water is then drained out, leaving behind large puddles. Since fishes reach fields with rain water during monsoon, children can easily catch them. Premlal is a Santhal, member of the scheduled tribe largely concentrated in Jharkhand, Bihar, Tripura, Odisha and West Bengal.
February 23, 2023

Swadesh in Bastar, India: How Lift Irrigation Changed Lives in Kelaur Village

Recognizing the importance of having a perennial source of water when planning any agricultural activity and change, the women of Kelaur, India installed solar energy-powered water pumps, allowing them to cultivate vegetables and fruit in their homesteads, which brought about a sea-change in their economic status and self-sufficiency.
February 23, 2023

Gond children learn to conserve forests

A walk through the forest organized by elders of Jharna Ghughari kindled in children, an interest about forest biodiversity and the need for forest conservation.
February 23, 2023

Tackling Covid: Overcoming pandemic despair

Amidst the challenges posed by Covid, a tribal forest village in Madhya Pradesh seems to have reinforced the realisation that farms, forests, village commons and collective knowhow together buffer tribals against vulnerability
February 23, 2023

Adivasis on course to revive traditional farm practices

Deskilling of Central Indian Plateau Adivasis has led to loss of traditional knowledge and indigenous seeds. Efforts are on to reskill them by reviving traditional practices
February 23, 2023

In the pursuit of ‘Khushaal Zindagi’- Journey of villagers from being beneficiary to researcher

Sukanti Oraon of Jana, a village in Gumla district of Jharkhand, clearly remembers the day her Self Help Group (SHG) was formed. It was the 25th of November 1995, Saturday. Women of this Adivasi village came together to form SHGs with guidance from PRADAN, a national level Non-profit.
February 23, 2023

Agriculture Interventions with Tribals in Bastar: Priorities in the wake of the Pandemic

T he surge in COVID-19 cases in India has become the chief reason to worry about. Not just for the imminent risks of losing lives, but equally or perhaps more for losing livelihoods at a massive scale. Some experts are arguing that the likely toll claimed by the latter would surpass the former especially under the probability that the virus could linger on for quite some time in the fore- seeable future.
February 23, 2023

7 Ways to Reboot the Indian Rural Economy Post COVID-19

As India is primarily an agrarian economy supporting 60% of the population, reviving agriculture and allied sectors would be critical post COVID.
February 23, 2023

Going against the tide: The Changing mindset in Jana, Jharkhand

It was a sunny summer morning in 2017. Self Help Group (SHG) members of Jana[1] congregated beneath the tamarind tree, their usual meeting place. Some men also were sitting there and the SHG members were taking loan to purchase inorganic fertilizers and hybrid seeds. They were discussing whether they would go for the indigenous variety of crops that they had been growing in previous years.
February 23, 2023

With DSLRs in their hands, the new generation of an ancient Indian tribe begins to break its bow-and-arrow stereotype

As India enters into the 4th phase of lockdown, we are caught between the dilemma of savings lives or protecting livelihoods by keeping the economy open and running. The most marginalised, daily wage earners, unorganised labour class and those at the fringes of our society have been disproportionately affected. With the migrant labourers returning home with no cash or savings, village communities are stressed due to the loss of remittance income, and the added mouths to feed.
February 23, 2023

With DSLRs in their hands, the new generation of an ancient Indian tribe begins to break its bow-and-arrow stereotype

In the heart of eastern India, teenagers of the Santhal tribe begin to chronicle stories of their ancient cultural heritage using modern tools – DSLR cameras and the Internet.