Agriculture & Rural Development

Union Minister of Textiles Piyush Goyal will inaugurate the Weavers Service Centre (WSC) at Raigarh on Kotra Road bypass virtually on August 7. Darshna Vikram Jardosh, the Union Minister of States for Textiles, will also be present. The event is being held as part of the National Handloom Day. August 7 was chosen as the...

A new youth movement to tackle the global pandemic is gathering steam in India. Called the #YoungWarrior movement and backed by UNICEF and the Ministry, it has already gained 60 lakh millennial volunteers from rural and urban quarters. Close to 5,800 girls aged 18-30 years recently registered as Young Warriors and pledged their support to...

Majority of India's population reside in rural areas. In order to make it to the list of developed nations, it is very important for the country to focus on the development of these rural areas. Ambuja Cement Foundation, the CSR arm of Ambuja Cement, has been focusing on holistic rural development through various initiatives. In...

In keeping with its commitment to support local communities during COVID-19, AkzoNobel India today announced its latest ‘People. Planet. Paint.’ sustainability initiatives. The CSR project follows a two-pronged approach that addresses the health and well-being needs of community members across five states while also meeting the online learning needs of more than 300 children...

Rotary and Tata Trusts have announced a five-year collaboration to advance socio-economic indicators through multi-thematic interventions across India. The collaboration will scale efforts in multiple areas like Healthcare, Cancer Care, Covid Care, Nutrition, Rural Uplift, Livelihoods, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene and Education, among others. The announcement follows a Memorandum of Understanding signed by Mehrab Irani, Group...

HDFC Bank spent Rs. 634.91 crore towards #Parivartan, the umbrella programme for all Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, in FY 2020-21. Out of Rs. 634.9 crore, over Rs. 110 crore was allocated and utilised towards initiatives focused on Covid-19 relief. Further, the bank’s #Parivartan has cumulatively impacted over 8.5 crore lives across India. #Parivartan focuses on...

The Vedanta Group, India’s leading natural resources producer, announced Rs. 5,000 crore social impact programme focussed on nutrition, women & child development, healthcare, animal welfare and grassroots level sports, including major investments in a Corona-free village project across several States to combat the pandemic. This social impact programme will be run under the aegis of...

Maharashtra faces an increasing risk from climate change which is likely to impact the production of four major crops - Soybean, Cotton, Wheat and Gram, grown in the State, according to a study by the Institute for Sustainable Communities. The report titled “Climate Change Impacts on Maharashtra Agriculture” examines the week-wise 30-year averages of historical...

Rural tech startups Frontier Markets, HESA and 1Bridge have announced the formation of a coalition to address the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic in the rural sector. The Rural Access coalition aims to raise $8 million to ensure employment, awareness and accessibility to 1 million rural households in 6,000 villages across 4 states in...

Corporate Social Responsibility has emerged as a strong mechanism for businesses to affect community-based water projects. Between 2014 and 2019, CSR has funded over Rs. 5,018 crores in environmental sustainability, Rs. 2,087 crores in sanitation and Rs. 824 crores in safe drinking water in India according to a report by the United Nations Development...

Artificial intelligence in agriculture is attracting the attention of technology bigwigs like IBM. At a time when the whole world is disrupted by COVID-19 and social distancing is the norm, electronic mandis, for example, could offer an excellent way for transactions between farmers and customers in the post-COVID world. Manoj Balachandran who heads CSR at...

IDFC FIRST Bank announced the launch of Ghar Ghar Ration Program, an employee-funded program for its low-income customers whose livelihoods are affected by COVID-19. The Bank also announced a comprehensive program for the families of employees who unfortunately lost their lives due to COVID-19, and a number of other CSR initiatives aimed at controlling...