Governance

What is good governance? How well can a person or a community access help or push for a needed change? How often are they heard? Village Square shines a light on the people and schemes making the biggest impact or providing the most unique solutions.

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Karnataka dairy farmers face heat of drought

Dairy farmers in Karnataka have been seriously impacted by the severe drought in most parts of the state as milk yields have fallen and fodder has become more expensive

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Tribal women in Rajasthan assert citizen rights

Solidarity groups of tribal women in southern Rajasthan have started taking collective action to claim government entitlements such as food and rural employment

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Income support is healthy tonic for smallholder farmers

Instead of farm loan waivers and minimum support price for crops that distort resource allocation and markets, basic income support to small and marginal farmers is a far better state mechanism

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Heavy snow hurts Kashmir’s apple farmers

Extreme weather events such as untimely snowfall and heavy floods have harmed the apple crop in Kashmir; one way to reduce losses is to properly implement a crop insurance scheme

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Participation key to empowering Juang tribes

Treating Juang tribes of Odisha as participants in the development process rather than as recipients of development largesse will help bringing them into the national mainstream

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Can data-driven social enterprises boost farmer incomes?

A collaboration between technological and value chain enterprises working directly with farmers could help make the farm to fork value chain more organized and efficient, thus increasing returns to cultivators

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Mayurbhanj villagers forced to ford river to reach schools, hospitals

Inadequate and inconvenient road connectivity due to poor planning compels many villagers in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha to risk a dangerous crossing of Burhabalang River everyday to reach the nearest town

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The unending saga of farm distress in India

Farmers in India will continue to suffer unless there is a fundamental change in the pro-urban policy bias of propping up unsustainably low food prices

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Temple carvers unite against scourge of silicosis

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Three out of every 10 stone-carving workers in Rajasthan, who build temples, are facing death due to silicosis. They are now unionizing to demand freedom from disease and for dignity in god’s work