Moving beyond toys, artisans in a Karnataka village make curios, and use new toy making and marketing methods to overcome challenges posed by cheap Chinese imports and restore the glory of Channapatna’s non-toxic wooden toys
Flood and drought often drive the rural poor to cities. Those who are landless often stay on. Risking lives under the open sky, they hope a city’s many work opportunities will help them survive somehow
The promotion of micro-enterprises in villages to meet the large demand for livelihoods would benefit from out-of-the-box ideas that move beyond hackneyed activities like making papads and pickles
Women in rural Nalanda are popularizing the use of a traditional grinding stone to pound flour out of roasted gram, providing a healthier alternative to machine-ground sattu and earning a livelihood for themselves
Many farmers in Jharkhand have started taking progressive steps as rural entrepreneurs, offering a host of services to help local smallholders move beyond subsistence agriculture and towards increased incomes
Self-help groups in villages bring financial and social empowerment to women, changing entrenched perceptions on their competence in managing their affairs
Linking technology and Aadhaar unique identity numbers, the direct benefit transfer of fertilizer subsidy in Andhra Pradesh has helped in curbing malpractices and has benefited farmers by preventing leakages
Leather workers and people who deal with cattle carcasses remain an oppressed minority in villages across India, languishing at the bottom rung of rural society and ignored by governments at all levels
After men migrate for work, women of Mousuni Island in the Sundarbans in West Bengal have to struggle for survival, losing land to floods and erosion, and livelihoods to salinity ingress
Many farmers in India, the world’s top coconut producing country, have successfully introduced coconut farming in arid regions to meet growing demand and to boost earnings
