Faced with longer and hotter summers, many farmers in the Sundarbans have embraced organic farming with local crop varieties that are better adapted to a changing climate and fetch adequate returns as well
Although there are 27 million people in India with disabilities, of which more than 70% live in villages, they are a neglected segment of the population despite pious intentions mouthed by the central and state governments
Healthcare infrastructure is poor in rural areas of Kashmir, and it particularly affects the women, who have to rush to Srinagar to get proper medical attention, as there is a dire shortage of gynecologists in the districts
In an extraordinary tale of community managed ecological restoration, the residents of Poi village near Kalyan in Maharashtra adopted a degraded forest and turned it into a lush haven of biodiversity
In travelling to the less fortunate parts of the countryside, it is difficult to come to terms with the stark poverty, squalid living conditions and bleak prospects of the young living in the neglected parts of our country
Through the community village clinics they have established, women collectives in parts of rural Uttar Pradesh have started campaigning successfully against fungal infections that affect the quality of their lives
The country’s particularly vulnerable tribal groups, who live mostly in dwindling forests, have not been well served by the government’s administrative machinery, but have slowly been reduced to virtual serfdom
In a landscape dominated by cash crops, many farmers in Kerala have started growing paddy on land lying fallow for decades after being encouraged by the state government to cultivate on barren fields
Even as India provides electricity to all villages, it is important to reflect on how electrification affects men and women in different ways, and the opportunities that decentralized energy access creates for sustainable gender-balanced development
It is not always easy to measure the success in any rural development intervention because it often depends on the differing frames of reference of the village community and that of the grassroots worker
