Impact Stories

The local quack pulled up Fulchand’s right eye-lid and stared at it for a few seconds. There wasn’t any sign of life. The quack swung his head in negation and silently left the hut. Siyabati’s vision got blurred. That a day would come in her life when the hands she depended upon blindly will no longer be there for her, was something that Siyabati had never imagined.

It was an early morning call from Nazma Khatun. Her voice was trembling on the other side of the call. She is an SHG member from a small village called Deogawan in Deosar block of Madhya Pradesh. When the nationwide lockdown was first announced in March, our phones got flooded with similar calls from the hamlets.

About 500 people, mostly belonging to the Madiya Gond tribe, inhabit the Katakanda village in Darbha block of Bastar district in Chhattisgarh. Being marginal farmers with an average annual income of Rs. 30,000 and literacy level as poor as 26 per cent, the Katakanda villagers lacked the confidence to address issues that had kept bothering them since ages. Even, raising their voices for the malpractices in the local Ration shop was something they avoided.

March, April, May are months with special relevance for families in Nayatola, Bikhjhariya, and several other villages of Sarai tehsil in Madhya Pradesh. Most of them, being marginal or small-holder farmers, depend on their neighboring forests to collect Mahua and Tendu leaves, along with a variety of other non-timber forest products.

The Government of India introduced the Public Distribution System for the distribution of food grains at affordable prices and management of food-scarce situations. Over the past few years, the term PDS has become interchangeable with the term “food security” and also an integral part of the government’s policy for the management of the food economy in the country.

Iqra Khan’s parents wanted her to pursue Science after her Boards. After all becoming an Engineer and bagging a corporate job was the easiest option in front of a high school student to taste success and affluence in life! But literature struck a different chord in the teenager’s heart.

The nippy November breeze of Aunradih village, in a remote nook of Petarbar district of Jharkhand, had started filling up with sounds of crackers and smell of gun-powder. It was Diwali time. Diwali was never one of the main festivals for people in Aunradih