Agriculture & Rural Development

The trees of the Jhinkargadi forest have been nurtured for three generations by the villagers of Balarampur in Odisha. For more than four decades, since 1972 the villagers, especially women have been involved in taking care of the forest. Everyone from the village is part of the traditional rotational forest patrolling routine, under which...

The Aspirational District Programme (ADP) aims to address governance issues by using a combination of approaches: lifting levels of aspirations through a vision and district plan, adequate institutional arrangements, convergence in all stakeholders’ efforts and above all, ranking based public competition among the districts by setting up a real-time monitoring mechanism. Setting off a virtuous...

The Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) was launched on January 5, 2018 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under phase-1 of ADP, 115 districts were identified based on the level of human development, physical infrastructure, threat of left-wing extremism (LWE) and the views of state governments. Over 15% of India’s population lives in these districts. Despite economic...

N/Core, the Bangalore based incubator for non-profit start-ups, celebrated the graduation of ten non-profits solving problems of poverty through innovative solutions in education and housing. The open cohort received over 1150 applications from architects, educators, and artists, which was jointly supported by Mphasis F1 Foundation (Mphasis’s CSR arm), Omidyar Network and D.E. Shaw India CSR....

Stubble burning is a norm among farmers in northern India. The practice includes intentional burning of the straw stubble remains of the crop after it is harvested. However, this activity was causing extreme pollution in the environment. In fact, in October 2018, stubble burning in Punjab was responsible for 32% of the pollution in Delhi,...

HDFC Bank Ltd. has announced the successful completion of its Holistic Rural Development Programme (HRDP) in 5 villages in the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh. Through this initiative, 824 households will now have access to potable water for drinking and farming as well as training in new and improved agriculture practices. HRDP is a flagship...

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has warned the Maharashtra government of resorting to violence if no concrete steps are taken till February 1 to tackle drought in the state. At a Press conference, Anil Shidore, the MNS spokesperson, said, “The government has a recalcitrant attitude towards the drought-affected areas. If concrete measures to tackle...

India is going digital in every sector at a remarkable speed. The launch of ‘Digital India’ by the government has ensured that the process is accelerated. Considering the fact that the livelihoods of 58% of rural households still rely on agriculture, it was only a matter of time before agriculture too became digital. In 2015,...

In August 2017, Coal India Limited – the world’s largest coal miner – published a ‘sustainability report’ for 2016-17, as part of its compliance with reporting guidelines set up by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), an independent international organization. GRI’s stated aim is to help businesses understand and communicate their impact on issues including...

India has the largest number of smartphone users in the world. With the launch of Reliance Jio, every citizen in the country is able to afford a cellphone and data. This has made many services to go digital. The steep growth in digitalization has encouraged the app developers of the country to leverage the...

According to a report published by Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research in 2012, one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. With increasing population, the demand for food production is rising. In such circumstances, the farmers will need to switch to more clean energy technology for agriculture and food production. Solar energy is...

The National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. (NSE) today signed a Statement of Interest (SoI) with NITI Aayog to improve quality of life of citizens by providing safe drinking water supply and sanitation, education and elder care sectors in mutually agreed three Aspirational Districts of Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu, Karauli in Rajasthan and Nandurbar...