Positive Stories
The Road Ahead: Khurshipar Khurd village in Chhattisgarh celebrates its seven-kilometre journey to freedom
The inhabitants of Khurshipar Khurd village in Chhattisgarh have got their first road since Independence. The seven-kilometre stretch constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojana has transformed their lives.
Jinendra Parakh
Doll story: Ranchi resident Shobha Kumari creates indigenous dolls steeped in Jharkhand’s culture and helps tribal women earn a living
Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vocal For Local initiative, Kumari of Srijan Handicrafts has so far trained more than a thousand women to make dolls of clay and sawdust. Ten of them have gone on to set up their own enterprises and earn up to Rs 25,000 a month. She also employs about 35 women who make up to Rs 12,000 a month.
Neetu Singh
Youth power: Swami Vivekananda’s vision is kept alive by Agrini in Madhya Pradesh, which inspires positive change
The Seoni-based group, which has people from diverse backgrounds, works in the fields of education, agriculture, health and polity to encourage educated decision-making, instil values in students using innovative methods and create awareness about one’s rights.
Sunil Kumar Gupta
Dots and Dashes: Pongal and the fine art of community kolams in Tamil Nadu
Have you ever stopped to stare at the designs that grace the threshold and frontyard of almost every home on the street? I have, and I also keep an eye on how many people pause by my doorway and admire my kolam.
Subha J Rao
Tigers and a Tale: How smokeless chulhas and saris-turned-mahua-nets are helping reduce human-tiger conflict in Melghat Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra
Smokeless chulhas, handicraft-making and innovations in collecting mahua flowers have ensured villagers around the Melghat Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra don’t spend too much time deep inside the forest. But their rehabilitation process has come under some fire.
Deepanwita Gita Niyogi
Farewell To Alms: How 200 beggars in Lucknow have become self reliant by setting up micro-businesses
According to the 2011 Census, Uttar Pradesh has 65,835 beggars and a large number of them live in its capital city Lucknow. Their numbers have risen since then, but one man’s initiative is trying to rehabilitate them and provide them with dignity and a livelihood.
Neetu Singh
Fishing For Profits: Women who have taken up aquaculture as a means of livelihood in Odisha take the help of technology to improve their yield
The farmer-scientist interface initiated by the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture has yielded significant results as nearly 10,000 women in rural Odisha, are practising aquaculture as a sustainable source of income.
Gurvinder Singh
Mahua and millet cookies: Marginalised rural women in Chhattisgarh bake and sell cookies made of traditional grains
The Jay Maa Kali self-help group in Kudalgaon village of Bastar district, which comprises 11 women, bakes cookies with little millet, kodo, finger millet and other traditional grains, scented with mahua blossoms. The group has earned about Rs 20,000 in two months.
Deepanwita Gita Niyogi
Hatching Ideas: As men lose jobs in the COVID-19 pandemic, rural women in West Bengal rear ducks to supplement family incomes
With a dip in family income with their men losing jobs in the pandemic, nearly 2,000 women in rural Cooch Behar take up duck rearing for a livelihood.
Gurvinder Singh
In a first, anganwadi kids, and pregnant and lactating women in Odisha to receive fish as part of their diet
The Odisha government launches a pilot project to introduce fish and fish-based products to anganwadi kids and pregnant and lactating women in Mayurbhanj, a predominantly tribal district, where 43.5% of children under-5 years are stunted (low height-for-age) and 45.6% of pregnant women are anaemic.