What is good governance? How well can a person or a community access help or push for a needed change? How often are they heard? Village Square shines a light on the people and schemes making the biggest impact or providing the most unique solutions.
Governance
Rural BPO centers in Bihar open new doors for girls
Business process outsourcing companies in rural Bihar are providing local job opportunities for educated, computer-literate girls in their village, empowering them socially and financially
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
Kashmiri farmers struggle to sell bumper fruit harvest
Despite a good harvest of apples and pears, farmers in Kashmir are finding it difficult to sell their produce due to restrictions imposed by the authorities on transportation and communication facilities
Odiya tribes shed tradition to space out childbirths
Odisha’s tribal women, suffering the adverse health effects of childbirths in quick succession combined with strenuous agricultural and household work, are breaking community norms to use contraceptives
Native Amrit Mahal cattle need better conservation
There is an urgent need for better conservation of Amrit Mahal, a draughty, native breed of Karnataka that can toil and endure for long hours at a stretch, but have been dwindling in numbers
Better awareness improves maternal and child health
Awareness meetings that equip women with knowledge on health and nutrition during pregnancy and after childbirth is helping to tackle malnutrition in rural Singhbhum in Jharkhand
Digital tech in curriculum enriches participatory learning
By enabling teachers design applications and help students create artifacts, best practices in use of technological tools can facilitate contextualized learning and its application
Bhunjia women need better care after childbirth
Women of Odisha’s forest-dwelling tribes face a greater health risk because of their preference for childbirth at home. Counseling by health workers is now slowly helping new mothers get better postnatal care
Missing foot soldiers in the war on poverty
Unless the government improves the anemic delivery structure of rural health and education, the neglected and overworked frontline workers will not be able to fight underdevelopment adequately