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
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Kerala village breaks new ground in sustainable living
What began as a community initiative to revive organic farming in the small village of Vengeri near Kozhikode has today expanded into a sustainable lifestyle that showcases how rural living can indeed be idyllic
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Musahars denied healthcare because they are considered untouchables
The despicable practice of untouchability in Varanasi district is keeping the musahar community from accessing state healthcare facilities, and the situation is changing too slowly despite grassroots activism
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Will rural women rise up against digital patriarchy?
It remains to be seen whether the digital world of today will become more hostile to women in villages than their physical reality, which is currently dominated by men who lord it over them
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Inspired local governance transforms villages in Odanthurai
The Odanthurai village council in southern Tamil Nadu has shown how a Panchayati Raj institution can achieve holistic rural development with the help of wise leadership and community participation
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Musahars overcome fear, but face a long road ahead
Tired of being denied basic human rights and held to be untouchables, Musahars in some villages of Varanasi district are speaking up with help from community activists, but a decent livelihood is still far away
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Organic farming gathers steam in the Sundarbans
Faced with longer and hotter summers, many farmers in the Sundarbans have embraced organic farming with local crop varieties that are better adapted to a changing climate and fetch adequate returns as well
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People with disabilities languish across rural India
Although there are 27 million people in India with disabilities, of which more than 70% live in villages, they are a neglected segment of the population despite pious intentions mouthed by the central and state governments
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Women bear brunt of poor healthcare in rural Kashmir
Healthcare infrastructure is poor in rural areas of Kashmir, and it particularly affects the women, who have to rush to Srinagar to get proper medical attention, as there is a dire shortage of gynecologists in the districts
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How villagers in Poi breathed life back into a forest
In an extraordinary tale of community managed ecological restoration, the residents of Poi village near Kalyan in Maharashtra adopted a degraded forest and turned it into a lush haven of biodiversity