Rural India is home of the original gig-economy worker. Enterprising villagers hop from tilling fields to tending shops, to door-to-door selling each day. Read the latest trends in micro-enterprises, rural start-ups and the shifting livelihoods of India’s villagers.
Livelihoods
Can farmers farm for prosperity?
Those who intervene for farmers’ welfare seem to prefer maintaining the poor-farmer image than ensuring financial success. The first of a four-part series explores this aspect
Farmer runs people’s academy to share knowledge
A Pawara tribe farmer, who transformed his unproductive land and started conservation of landraces, serves as a resource person at field trainings despite lacking formal education
Alcohol addiction gives way to organic farming
Appalled by the lakhs they spent on alcohol, residents of a village vow to never touch liquor again. They turn their village into a successful organic model
Community restores grasslands, makes village drought-resilient
Grasslands conservation, initiated to ensure water availability has increased the water table, resulting in reverse migration and cultivation of crops, and prevention of soil erosion
Tribal women reap benefits of collective farming
Switching to modern agricultural practices and coming together as producer groups have helped women farmers have the bargaining power about their produce and earn more
Bihar farmers grow makhana to tackle weather uncertainties
Climate-induced extreme weather events damaging their traditionally grown maize and paddy crops, farmers have switched to growing resilient foxtrot, known for its nutritional value
Farmers go green by growing organic cotton
Switching to organic farming practices has resulted in improved soil health. It has reduced cost of cultivation for farmers, despite organic cotton fetching the same market price
Lockdown program helps villagers access welfare schemes
An initiative launched to offer relief during lockdown has helped returned migrants and those who lost their livelihood access government’s social welfare schemes
Bengal’s traditional shellac dolls face lacklustre future
Lack of demand coupled with rising cost of raw material has sounded death knell for shellac dolls in West Bengal with just a single artisan practicing it