Rural India

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Action needed to stop tribal land alienation in Kerala 

Measures need to be put into place to prevent land alienation in Kerala’s largest tribal settlement, which has been losing its land to outsiders for decades.

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Get a taste of Meerut’s sweetest gur

A little beyond the Uttar Pradesh city of Meerut is a village called Dabathwa where you will find acres of sugarcane and many women entrepreneurs who make and sell pure ghee and gur using traditional recipes. In this video, we cover the story of one such woman entrepreneur - a feisty Jogindra Devi who single-handedly runs her deceased husband’s gur business in a patrilineal Uttar Pradesh.

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Radio triumphs over technological shifts

The death knell of radio keeps being sounded - first was television and now the wave of digital offerings - but radio continues to find new ways to be relevant to people's everyday lives.

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Four hurdles to social change in rural India

Rural India has a long, arduous journey towards socio-economic development. However, there are four major challenges which if addressed could make the journey easier.

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India’s rural youth show high interest in entrepreneurship, finds survey

While nine out of 10 rural businesses in India are first-generation enterprises, an increasing number of young men and women in rural India want to own businesses, finds a survey.

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Downtime in Rural India – photo competition winners announced!

See how rural India relaxes and plays - the winning photographers are announced from this year's Village Vibe photo competition, Downtime in Rural India. If you're in Delhi head to Sundar Nursery to see these photos exhibited in the park through December.

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Do “reel villages” in cinema show real rural India?

In the past villages in films were either idyllic or hopeless. But the present day productions are more realistic, bridging the gap between urban and rural perspectives.

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Swara Bhasker says to leave comfort zone to make a better India

Speaking at the inaugural Bharat Youth Dialogues, the critically acclaimed actor Swara Bhasker implored India’s youth to get out of their comfort zone and explore rural India, as she once did, to be more effective change-makers.

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Committed efforts will create progressive villages

By working together with zeal, development organizations and governments can overcome inherent challenges in rural India and bring about a positive change

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How rural India showed resilience, synergy during lockdown

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Republic Day is an ideal occasion to celebrate rural India’s positive progress. VillageSquare recollects how communities used the lockdown productively, despite difficulties and loss of livelihoods.

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अविकसित क्षेत्रों के विकास की बाधा – कुशल पेशेवरों का अभाव!

भारत के बेहद अविकसित मध्य और पूर्वी पहाड़ी आदिवासी क्षेत्रों में सेवाएँ प्रदान करने वाले अध्यापक और स्वास्थ्य-कर्मियों जैसे जमीनी-स्तर के कुशल पेशेवर बहुत कम हैं। यह एक ऐसी समस्या है, जिसका कोई आसान समाधान भी नहीं है।

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Farmer producer companies: let a thousand balloons float

While farmer producer companies mushroom across the country because of government’s financial incentives, problems in input delivery and sale of produce persist, making their long-term sustenance difficult

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India needs poverty fighters to boost rural incomes

Ending endemic economic poverty in the central and eastern parts of rural India needs more numbers of trained foot soldiers to deal with the complex realities on the ground

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Can a pointed pickaxe pierce a pearl?

There are formidable challenges in delivering welfare services to scattered and disenfranchised groups of people in rural India, and the government machinery is ill-equipped to deal with it

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Can handlooms provide a viable rural livelihood?

There are reasons not to give up entirely on the rural handloom sector, and we can learn from northeast India on how artisanal weaving can still be an attractive livelihood option

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Lack of skilled professionals hamstring underdeveloped regions

The severely underdeveloped central and eastern hilly tribal belt in India is poorly served by skilled grassroots professionals such as teachers and paramedics, a problem that has no easy solutions

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Only neglected India lives in the villages

On Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, a look at rural India shows that we have fallen much behind his ideal of self-reliant village republics, in part because of changed aspirations of modern times

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Make lives better for rural people

The new government should act swiftly to take a few measures that would improve the quality of life in rural India significantly without being a big drain on the exchequer

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The grey and grim hues of rural India

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

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Women of Lalganj mobilize community to bring doctors to their doorsteps

Increased healthcare expenses and lack of access to hospitals prompt a women’s collective in eastern Uttar Pradesh to run a biweekly village clinic on family subscriptions